How To Teach Problem Solving to Children

Why Do Kids Need To Learn How To Problem Solve?

School can be a very challenging time: academically, emotionally and physically, and many children struggle to cope due to a lack of ability to manage their problems and take appropriate actions to resolve them. Children who don’t possess problem-solving skills may shy away from a problem when it arises or make an irrational decision due to not having thought about the consequences. This can lead to escalating these issues further, such as falling behind in their studies or struggling to form and maintain strong friendships. Developing problem-solving skills can result in a child being healthier, happier, more confident and more independent. Problems help to build character, resilience and persistence, and so it is important to introduce these skills from an early age.

Evaluate The Problem

When your child is feeling stressed or overwhelmed, everything can seem hopeless, with no end in sight. But using these steps will help them to recognise that these situations are only temporary and that they have the means to resolve them and start again. 

The steps involved in problem-solving for children are: 

1. Identify the problem and what is causing it. Stating a problem out loud can help children who are stuck to determine what is upsetting them. 
2. Mind map potential solutions to solve the issue, no matter how big, small or far-fetched. This will get your child thinking of all the possible ways to face the situation head-on. 
3. Write down all the advantages and disadvantages of each solution and the potential consequences of these.
4. Once these have been evaluated, encourage them to choose the most appropriate solution for the problem at hand.
5. Encourage them to get testing their solution. If the first one doesn’t work, try number two or three!

Practice

If a problem arises, encourage your child to try and solve their problems on their own. Avoid showing your child the ‘right way’ to deal with an issue and don’t offer your help too quickly. Intervening the first chance you get may discourage your child from thinking for themselves, and may even subtly suggest that you are not confident in their ability. If you find that they come to you for help, walk them through the steps above to discover the perfect solution, because ultimately it is their issue to resolve. Practice makes perfect!

Ask Open-Ended Questions

Asking open-ended questions provides your child with the opportunity to think creatively and critically. These types of questions can’t be answered with a simple yes or no, but encourage longer answers and conversation. The questions below are perfect examples of encouraging your child to think for themselves and problem solve: 

• How would we solve this problem together?
• How did you work it out?
• What do you think is going to happen next?
• What do you think would happen if…?
• What would you do differently if it happened again?
• What was difficult? What was easy?
• What did you learn from it?

Problem Solving With Creative Play

Play is one of the best ways to introduce problem-solving for children and can elicit more meaningful reactions and thinking if it is tied in with your child’s interests. Free play provides plenty of problem-solving opportunities. Puzzles, dress up and interactive games are just a few examples of this. Where does that puzzle piece fit? I want to dress up as Tinkerbell but what should I wear? Where did I put my wings? Where could Sally be hiding in this game of Hide and Seek?

Problem Solving With Stories

Reading age-appropriate stories with your child that feature characters overcoming a struggle or going on a quest to find a solution to their problem is a great way to engage them. Use these instances to draw on your own experiences or those of your child. When a problem arises, ask your child how they would deal with the issue, if they were in the character’s shoes. ‘What would you do in this position?’ This form of reading and interacting with the text actively helps to develop comprehension and propels the development of literacy skills. Why not try your hand at role-playing and the discovery of solutions to reinforce these skills?

Natural Occurrences And Their Consequences

Instances that encourage your child to think about their actions or reactions happen all the time and allowing them to face the natural consequences by themselves are when the lessons are truly learnt. Reflecting on their actions can help them to make better and more informed decisions next time, rather than jumping in head first. These are teachable moments that can help you and your child to cultivate problem-solving strategies together.

How Can Achieving Success Help You?

At Achieving Success, we believe that high-quality online tuition should be accessible to children of all ages. To ensure that our students get the most out of their tuition, we use a number of tools and techniques to keep them active and engaged during their studies. For more information on how we incorporate problem-solving for children into our bespoke curriculums at Achieving Success please get in touch with a member of our friendly team today.  Alternatively, you can email us at info@achieving-success.co.uk or give us a call on 0121 769 2795.

How to Improve Your Child’s Reading Comprehension

Reading is a skill that is taught from a very young age and many of us take this ability for granted. The act of reading, and understanding what the text is trying to convey and how the author wants you to feel is a complex process. In order for you to understand the meaning behind, and context of the text, it requires several parts of your brain to work together harmoniously. Due to this process being complicated, many people find themselves only understanding the basic interpretation, and not actually comprehending the core takeaway of the piece. 

By actively changing the way that you read and engage with a text, you can make it much easier to understand and enjoy reading, something that many children actually claim they don’t enjoy. In this guide, the team at Achieving Success will provide various strategies that you can implement with your child whilst you’re reading at home, to improve their overall reading comprehension.

What Is Reading Comprehension?

Reading comprehension is the ability to understand the meaning of a text and what the author is trying to convey through their use and structure of words and sentences, on both a textual and subtextual level. This is an intentional and active part of reading. 

When reading a literary piece, or any text, your brain processes not only the words on the page, but also their relationship with the other words around them. The use of language, vocabulary and punctuation also helps to convey meaning, context and emotion which can be altered drastically with a few subtle changes.

Why Is Reading Comprehension Important?

Reading comprehension is a skill that will be used throughout your child’s academic career and in later life, helping them to correctly interpret everything from homework and exams to correspondence in the workplace. Here are a number of things reading comprehension can help with:

• Reading, interpreting, and analysing literature in English classes

• Understanding the core topics within other subjects, such as History, Maths, or Science

• Performing well throughout every section of the SATs
• Interpreting the meaning behind questions in various other examinations and coursework
• Understanding and engaging with current events, such as news reports and legislation later in life

• Properly understanding the meaning of, and responding to, workplace correspondence in an appropriate manner, such as internal and client emails, and analysing and summarising reports 
• Reading for pleasure 

How to Improve Reading Comprehension

Extend Vocabulary

Reading comprehension is largely affected by the ability to understand the vocabulary used on the page. If this is something that your child struggles with, the meaning of a word can often be determined by the use of the words and context cues around it. Make a note of the words that your child doesn’t recognise and create definition cards to help with their understanding. Another fun way to incorporate this extended vocabulary into their everyday lives is to challenge them to use these words correctly in sentences on a regular basis. 

Read For Pleasure

The best way for your child to improve their comprehension is to practice their reading and doing so on a regular basis. This will make it less of a chore and more of a fun and engaging activity that can be a shared experience between you and your child. This will motivate your child to embrace this activity as part of their daily routine and further encourage them to engage with the text, with your help and support as a parent.

Read Aloud

When reading a piece of text, often a complicated sentence can cause confusion and put a halt to your child’s progress. Taking another approach to this and reading aloud can often help them to visualise what the text is trying to convey. Reading aloud also forces your child to focus on the text at hand and often slows down their reading, allowing their brain to process the information more effectively. Hearing the sentence out loud and engaging with the text in another way can also help to clarify the meaning.

Re-Read The Text

If your child is struggling to understand a passage, this may be due to them having forgotten the information they read previously. It is often helpful to refresh their memory and better understand the text by re-reading the passages beforehand, as this provides contextual cues that help with their overall interpretation.

Summarise

If your child is confused or has lost their focus, just take a quick breather. Now, without re-reading the passage, ask them to summarise what they have understood from the text so far. Then, compare their summary with the text on the page for likeness. The more your child is able to summarise and contextualise information in their own words, the better their understanding of the text and the more likely they are to retain the information they have learned. Asking your child questions about what they have read is also a great way for them to further their understanding, by formulating their thoughts and opinions on what they believe has happened. 

Make Notes

Encourage your child to make notes whilst you are reading together, whether that’s noting down anything they don’t understand, words they don’t recognise or aspects of the text that they like. Once you’ve finished reading the passage in its entirety, re-visiting those passages and words will help to strengthen their vocabulary and their understanding of the text. This will also teach them to face challenges head-on rather than avoiding them.

How Can Achieving Success Help You?

At Achieving Success, we believe that high-quality online tuition should be accessible to children of all ages. To ensure that our pupils get the most out of their learning, we use a number of immersive tools and techniques to keep them active and engaged.

For more information on how we implement reading comprehension into our bespoke curriculums, please get in touch with a member of our friendly team today.  Alternatively, you can email us at info@achieving-success.co.uk or give us a call on 0121 769 2795.

Essential Creative Writing Tips For Children

What Is Creative Writing For Children?

Creative writing is a style of writing that is used to express and provoke thoughts, feelings and emotions rather than simply providing information. It’s an opportunity for children to explore their imagination, often through telling a story, and practicing their literacy skills and sentence structures.

What Are The Benefits Of Creative Writing For Children?

Creative writing can benefit your child and their learning in a number of ways, including:

• Through regular practice and checking for mistakes, it can vastly improve your child’s ability to spell correctly. 
• Writing on a regular basis can also help their understanding of grammar and the types of words used to create exciting sentences that flow well, including verbs, adjectives and connective words.   
• Writing is largely associated with your child’s reading ability and their enthusiasm for it, helping to broaden their vocabulary and improving their skills in a more rounded way. 
• It’s a brilliant way for your child to express themselves and feel more confident in their own opinions on topics, whilst helping to clarify their thoughts and emotions. 
• The skills learnt from creative writing, such as developing your imagination and thinking outside of the box can be applied to real-life situations, allowing your child to discover alternative solutions to potential problems or obstacles. 
• Creative writing for children can also be beneficial in developing their ability to empathise with others who are different from them. Each character will have their own situation, thoughts and feelings, allowing your child to explore different points of view and gain a better understanding of alternative experiences and walks of life.  
• If they find particular aspects of writing difficult, overcoming these through regular practice will result in a sense of achievement and boost their confidence in their ability. 
• Writing can incorporate other activities that your child likes to do, including illustration.
• Expressing themselves through creative writing can also help to alleviate any stress they may be carrying.

How To Start Creative Writing For Children

Reading

Reading on a regular basis, either by themselves or with a parent can help develop a child’s vocabulary, stimulate their imagination and also improve their communication skills if reading aloud. Reading a variety of genres will allow your child to explore different styles of writing, eliciting a range of ideas and helping to build the foundations of creativity, grammar and techniques needed to tell a good story.

Write About What They Love

It can often be difficult to simply start a story, with no forward planning or creative ideas. The best way to start is by focusing on a topic, person or belonging, such as a toy, that they love. This will make it easier for your child to engage and think creatively because they already have developed positive emotions and thoughts towards this topic. 

You and your child could create a bank of creative ideas to form the basis and topics they want to include within their story. To make the experience more immersive, you could ‘hunt for ideas’ by visiting local places or engage in hobbies that interest them. 

To further this, encourage your child to draw from their own experiences to flesh out the setting, background and characters of their story. This will make it a more meaningful piece, creating a story from what they know and are comfortable with.

How To Write Creatively

The Plot

Structuring how their story is going to unfold and thinking about the sections involved in a piece of creative writing will help your child to organise their thoughts logically, and plan how and when they are going to address what they intend to include. 

Let’s start with the introduction. Where is the story going to take place and in what time frame? The present, past or future? This will act as the base of their setting and should be the most compelling part, gripping the reader and encouraging them to read further. This is the first opportunity for your child to be creative, allowing them to set the scene in any way they want, whether that be in a different country or an entirely new planet altogether! 

The body of the piece is where the real action happens and the story develops further. Your child should think about how the story unfolds, what happens and how to keep the reader engaged. Is there an obstacle to overcome or a challenge that must be faced? The ending is the perfect opportunity to tie everything together in a neat little bow, leaving the reader wanting more with a thrilling cliffhanger or a hint of mystery with a question unanswered. What is their intention with their story?

Characterisation

The characters and the way they interact with each other throughout usually forms the main bulk of a story and so they should be planned out carefully. A great way for your child to incorporate characters of all shapes, sizes and personalities is to create a table that defines their characteristics. This will help encourage your child to think about inclusivity and how to make things a little more interesting for the reader. 

• Who are they? What is their name?
• What do they look like?
• How do they act? What is their behaviour and personality like?
• What is their relationship to the other characters in the story?
• How do they want the readers to feel about each character?

Language

The language used helps to shape the mood and the tone of the piece, presenting a brilliant opportunity for your child to practice their sentence structure and incorporate a range of vocabulary. It is also a great way to ease them into more advanced writing techniques that they are likely to learn in the future, such as pathetic fallacy, where the weather reflects or forebodes the mood or events to come. 

If your child is particularly excited to use larger and more difficult words within their piece, create a list of these and when the opportunity presents itself, insert them to make the writing more sophisticated. This will also help your child to better understand the meaning of these words. Emphasise how different types of words convey actions, descriptions, and meanings and how these enhance the story in a more impactful and exciting way. The use of synonyms allows your child to swap out words that are used regularly with other variants, to express their meaning in an alternative way.

The use of dialogue adds to the tone of voice of the piece and encourages the reader to form a connection with the characters. What are they thinking and feeling? This also enables your child to act out a character and put themselves in another’s shoes. How would they deal with or react to a given situation?

How Can Achieving Success Help You?

For more information on creative writing for children please contact a member of our friendly today. Alternatively, you can email us at info@achieving-success.co.uk or give us a call on 0121 769 2795. We also provide a creative writing programme for children in Year 6 who are practicing for their SATS exams. Enhance your child’s creative writing ability with Achieving Success.

Everything You Need To Know About Online Tuition

At Achieving Success, we are passionate about providing our pupils with expert online tuition that will shape their futures and pave their way to success, contributing to future development in later years. Ensuring that our pupils feel supported and confident in their ability is our number one priority.

To make sure that you, as a parent, have all the information needed on online tuition and how it can benefit your child, our team have pulled together the ultimate guide to help in your decision.

What Is Online Tuition?

Online tuition is a form of teaching that allows the student to receive dedicated tuition online from a qualified expert. The tuition will take place via an online platform such as Zoom or Skype.

How Does Online Tutoring Work?

The delivery of online tuition is relatively similar to that of a classroom environment. Your child will receive teaching in a small class size over a video call, with the option of screen sharing. The use of a digital whiteboard enables teachers to illustrate the question or sum and allows the pupils to really engage with the content in real-time. They also have the opportunity to voice any concerns or troubles they may be experiencing. With this in mind, the online tutor has ample time to react and provide support, guidance, and feedback where necessary. This also enables the tutor to determine whether a child’s concentration or understanding may be lacking. Working online provides the tutor with the capability to share resources and materials referenced either before or during a lesson, mimicking that of a face-to-face lesson.

What Are The Benefits Of Online Tuition?

Accessible On The Go

No matter where you are in the world or how often your schedule changes, online tuition is very flexible and can be accessed on the go, providing your internet connection permits this. This also means that parents with busy schedules that change week to week, do not have to commit time to drive their child to and from their tuition.

Sessions Are Fun And Engaging

Instead of reading straight from a textbook and hoping the information will sink in, online tutors can make their sessions really engaging and fun for pupils to take part in. With the introduction of healthy competition, the provision of extra support and guidance, and the use of digital whiteboards for real-time immersive learning, your child will not have to be persuaded to take part.

A Comfortable Environment For Learning

Being introduced to a complete stranger in a new environment can be a very daunting and intimidating experience, especially for a child of a young age. Learning in a space where your child feels comfortable and more relaxed will take the pressure off and allow them to fully engage with the material, therefore building their confidence and ability. 

Improved Technology Skills

Living in a digital age where almost everything is online, receiving online tutoring sessions gives your child the opportunity to practice their digital skills. This will make it that much easier for them to get to grips with technology as they grow older. This is an important skill that is sure to be used throughout their career and adult lives.

How Can I Ensure That The Tutor I Receive Is Right For My Child?

All of our online tutors at Achieving Success are fully qualified teachers to ensure that the tutoring our pupils receive is of expert quality and subject-specific. Once your child has completed their online assessment, they will be allocated a tutor that is not only suited to their age level, but also to their academic ability. This ensures that our pupils are given the dedicated support they need to succeed.

Is Online Tuition Effective?

Online tuition is effective if your child has been allocated a tutor that is appropriate for their age and ability. Ultimately, your child will get the most out of their learning experience if they are able to receive dedicated support for their specific, individual needs and build a trusting relationship with their online tutor. We have a number of online programmes available that are age-group specific to maximise your child’s success.

Is Online Tutoring Safe?

Online tutoring is safe, providing that you take the necessary precautions and checks before enrolling your child. At Achieving Success, all of our online tutors are highly-trained, qualified teachers that have been DBS checked and have undergone a series of vetting processes to ensure your child’s safety. Our online tuition is delivered via Zoom which is end-to-end 256-bit encrypted, the level of safety encryption used to securely transfer government data.

If you have any concerns regarding your child’s safety, you are more than welcome to be present when your child is learning and even get in touch with a member of our friendly team for more information.

How Can Achieving Success Help You?

If you are looking to enroll your child in online tutoring sessions that are bespoke to their needs and ability, we would love to hear from you. For more information, please get in touch today to arrange a call-back with one of our team members. Alternatively, you can contact us at info@achieving-success.co.uk or give us a call on 0121 769 2795.