How to Improve a Child's Learning Environment

Homework can be more difficult if the environment is not conducive to learning. Since most children have homework or other school related activities, such as science projects, to do at home, children need a place to meet those needs. Some children learn better visually and some are better kinetic learners, while other children are verbal and auditory learners. Your child can probably tell you how they learn best. Some children can learn around a lot of noise just fine, while other children may be more easily distracted. Therefore you should try to find a room, corner, or area in your home to create a place that best suits your child's learning needs. Ask questions of your child to begin to plan that place that they can learn in comfortably.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A quiet or relatively isolated area or room in your home
• School supplies
• Good lighting

1. Ask your child how they learn best. Decide if they like a lot of light or muted lighting, bright colors or warmer tones and noise or quiet. Begin from there.

2. Pick an area or room in your house that does not see a lot of traffic. The living room or kitchen is not usually the best place to set up a place for your child to do homework in.

3. Purchase a student desk that fits your child's height depending on whether they are in elementary, middle or high school. If your child likes a brighter or more colorful environment, you could purchase an old desk at a garage sale or auction and then paint it in one or two colors and apply appliques. You can let them help.

4. Put spiral notebooks, a binder, plenty of loose leaf paper, pencils, pens, colored pencils and crayons in the desk drawers so your child always have what they need for schoolwork or school related projects. For older children you may want to add a protractor, angle and a ruler with both metrics and standard measurements.

5. If your child likes plants or flowers, let them select a small plant to hang in a window sit on a stool or plant stand for their learning center. They may want to add a piece of their own artwork or some other personal item to the area.

6. Make sure the lighting in the room or area is bright enough that your child can see properly for reading and writing. The lighting can be overhead lights or a desk lamp.

7. Purchase a small bookshelf to store school books, library books, a thesaurus and dictionary, along with other resources so they are handy for your child to access when they need to.

8. Tell your child that this will be the place they go to do schoolwork, school projects, Scout or club projects and badges and that you hope they will feel comfortable here. You can add a desktop cover of some kind. It could depict a local or state sports team, school colors, and be made from paper or cloth.

9. In addition to creating a learning center for your child, make sure your home includes other things throughout that will add to the educational climate. For instance, your child will probably learn to read better if there are newspapers, magazines, and books out and available in your home and if they see you read. You might discuss things your read with each other and try to read one thing that is the same for everyone.

10. Pull up a chair when your child is doing schoolwork and show an interest in what they are learning. Ask to participate in projects.

Tips & Warnings

• If your child has a cell phone, have them turn it off during the time they are doing school work.
• Too much noise and clutter in a room or area is not conducive to learning. Clutter and noise can distract a child's visual and hearing focus, can make it difficult for memory retention.
• Too much brightness and colors, as well as too much noise and clutter can overstimulate some children. Once overstimulated the child can lose sensory control and they may not be able to sit still and finish an assignment.