Today's Tip for Families |
[En español] |
2026-04-13
Help Your Child Learn to Concentrate While Studying
Your child is actually sitting down ready to learn. But every sound is a new distraction. Sound familiar?
Three tips can help children learn to concentrate. Help your child:
- Prepare to learn. When adults start the working day, most have little rituals that say, “It’s time to get to work.” Help your child establish these rituals, too. Your student might turn on a study light, lay out pencils or put books on the table. One child even put on a hat—he called it his “thinking cap.” Wearing it reinforced that it was time to study.
- Set goals. Help your child set some study goals for each session. You might put a dry-erase board on the wall of your child's study area where your student can post them.
- Take short breaks. Brain researchers know that children learn more in two 20-minute study sessions than they do in one 40-minute session. For some children, even 20 minutes may be too long at first. In that case, set a timer for 10 minutes and help your child set a goal for what to accomplish in that time. At the end of the ten minutes, check to see whether your student has met the goal. Together, set another goal and set the timer for another 10 minutes. Even this short break will help your child stay focused while learning.
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West Point Consolidated School District© 2026 The Parent Institute, a Division of PaperClip Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.