10 Tips on Raising “Smart” Kids
As I have polled my audience, I see many parents are looking for material for pre-readers. So, if you have a little one in diapers or still learning how to ride a bike or at home with you during the day, this blog post is for YOU!
Like anyone, I like to brag on my children. I think they’re smart. HOWEVER, if I were to enroll my children in a school tomorrow, would they make “straight A’s?” Likely not. The way a school measures a student’s performance does not exactly line up with their intelligence.
So what do I mean by “smart kids?” I’m referring to children who:
—can speak with an adult and hold a conversation
—have a developed vocabulary
—are able to ponder “what if'“ and “why” questions about the world around them
—are good readers who retain what they’ve read
—skilled at math, both in the concepts and fact fluency
In the general population, these traits are some of the things that earn a child a reputation for being a “smart kid.”
Now that that’s defined, let’s dig in!
Talk to your baby, toddler, or young child—even if your child cannot talk yet.
You can’t start too early. One of the main differences between children entering school in kindergarten who are very low performers and those in the higher percentile is that higher performers generally come from home lives where they heard lots of words spoken from the time they were a baby.
You can talk aloud about your thoughts or the tasks you are doing around the house. Your child is listening and watching, so it’s an excellent opportunity to talk—even if your child is too young to hold a conversation.
Point to objects and name them. Talk about them. Try to get your child to talk about them as well.
Read to your child.
You knew this was coming. That’s right! Read. Many parents make this part of the bedtime routine to be sure it happens each day. If you haven’t done it daily, don’t worry. You can do a little more reading on the weekends to help offset your busy days.
Reading will build the child’s vocabulary, expose him to different kinds of sentences, and allow him time to think about decisions and actions a particular character carries out.
Give plenty of time for creative play and the arts.
I’m thinking of device and screens here. WATCH THE TIME! If your child is always looking at a screen, it will hurt them developmentally. Give time for your child to play and discover and be “bored.”
Leave some items out (crayons, paper, scissors, glue) under supervision and show your child how to use them. Sometimes a child is more interested when you make something and interact too!
Allow and show your child how to play pretend. This can be with cars or dolls or trains or even paper bags dressed up like the old Fandango mascots.
Don’t forget about music! Whether your child listens to nursery songs at night, in the car, or in the kitchen while dancing, expose your child to music. Try a keyboard to experiment with sounds of different pitches. Eventually, look into having your child try lessons. There are so many benefits to having musical training!
Be involved in a community.
This could be a church, a volunteer community, or some other place where your child meets people of varying ages (other than his/her own family).
Your child will get practice looking people directly in the eye, shaking hands, and using basic manners.
These skills will help your child become confident and expose your child to different personalities and ages of people.
Ask questions. Then ask more!
If you’re reading, you can get ideas for questions. You can check out my Read Aloud Handy Helper, which can help you get a start. Ask:
— “What do you think that word means?”
—”Why do you think?
—”Can you tell me a reason why you think that?”
Give your child time to think.
If you’re getting nowhere at first, you can encourage your child to share his/her thoughts by first sharing your thought. You can even purposefully say something incorrect just to see if your child will notice and want to jump in and say something.
Ask all the time—at home, in the car, and while you’re “out and about.”
Allow your child to experience math concepts in the real world.
Although I’ve already mentioned talking and asking questions, I want to point out that basic math concepts are language based. Words like: bigger, greater, less than, fewer, more than, longer, heavier, lighter, and so on are fundamental to your child “getting it” when it comes to math.
Other than math language, I highly recommend allowing your child to help you in the kitchen. There is math and measuring in the kitchen that you can do to build math concepts.
Helping with tools and putting things together gives real world experience.
Find simple ways to count during your everyday activities. I used to. count aloud as we walked from the car to the entry of the grocery store and anytime we walked a flight of stairs. You can also hand your child objects to count as they sort.
Playing with puzzles and sorting.
When my children were little, they enjoyed the dollar store puzzles. Looking for patterns and grouping items based on particular traits will help not only math skills but will one day help with reading skills when sounding out words based on the spelling pattern.
Sorting can happen by size, color, shape, weight, and more! Sort, count, and then sort again.
Give outdoor discovery time.
As I mentioned before, keep screen time in check. Have limits. Allow your child time to make backyard discoveries. Some of the things my children have liked to do is:
-birdwatch and identify the birds
-squirrel watch (and leave out food as an experiment)
-find interesting bugs and look up their identification
-plant random seeds and watch them grow
-rock collect and leaf collect
-hike
Teach your child a set of beliefs or standards for decision making.
I’m convinced many children today are confused and experience emotional turmoil simply by not having ONE THING they can always count on or trust. For our family, it is The Bible. What is right and what is wrong does not change based on who is in power or how popular something is. Just think on how certain things are viewed now than how they were viewed 20 or 30 years ago! Has the general public’s judgment improved? I don’t think so. Having a go-to standard for decision making will increase wisdom as your child grows and help him make smart choices.
Keep screen time minimal and keep screen time as a learning resource.
We learned months of the year, counting to 100, and other memorized facts by watching. helpful learning videos on Youtube. I kept my child away from shows that had nothing to offer: no lesson, no moral or no skills to improve his thinking. Usually you can find a few shows you can trust to cover learning material, and your child will still enjoy them. For a young child it might be a Youtube channel like KIDSTV123 or a series of LEAPFROG videos. For an older child it might be various documentaries or an animated series like Liberty’s Kids.
Did you count how many of these tips you currently practice?
If you gave yourself a score, what would it be?
What did I leave out? Leave a comment below!
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YOU are your child’s most influential teacher!