Playtimes HK Magazine Winter Issue 2018/2019 | Page 53

education
shower, or anything else which helps
re-energise them after a long day at
school. Then they’re ready to sit down
and plan exactly how they’re going to
tackle their workload. Try out one of
these preparation tools, or mix and
match to find what works for you:
• Time-tabling
Kids are familiar with timetables from
school, and giving them a visual
representation of how their time at
home is spent will help them follow
a plan. Being able to see a clear
and colourful plan for the evening is
especially good for kids with attention
issues, who can otherwise feel lost in a
sea of worksheets.
• Wheel of homework
Create a re-usable spinner with
segments on which you write every
piece of homework for the evening.
Writing out the tasks is great
preparation work. Spin the wheel
to bring some fun to the activity,
and as you wipe off each task that’s
completed, your kid will feel like they’re
making great progress.
• Time-boxing
You might also know this as the
Pomodoro Technique. It’s a way of
setting up focused time blocks with
designated breaks in between. You can
even use this with very little ones, who
can typically focus for about the same
number of minutes as their age (i.e. a
five year old can focus for five minutes).
Break tasks into small chunks which fit
into the time boxes you’ve set up and
you should be able to get the to-do list
ticked off efficiently!
Getting down to work
Again, this is a chance to show your
child that homework is worth giving
their best efforts to. Set up a specific
environment in which they complete
their work each day, such as a cleared
kitchen table. Minimise distractions
from the task by making sure that
your child prepares everything they
need before starting, such as a sharp
pencil, a glass of water, or a study
music playlist. Then choose from
the following techniques to keep the
homework progressing smoothly:
• Set up a study group
Invite a few friends to join your kid
while they do their homework. A
hard-working peer can be a far better
modifier of behaviour than a nagging
parent ever can!
• Create a fun-time bank
Set up a fun-time bank that your child
can allocate to something they enjoy,
such as playing video games or riding
their bike. Then, if they finish their
homework earlier than planned, they
get the free time to enjoy that evening
plus the same amount of time added
to their fun-time bank. Bundling up all
that time and forming a big block at
the weekend creates a much clearer
memory than little fragments of time
during the week. If homework is
dragging on a Wednesday night, a
reminder of how much fun-time you
had in the park last Saturday provides
great incentive to knuckle down and
get the same this week.
• Stickers
Hard work is its own reward, but
stickers look a lot cooler on a wall
chart! Agree on the rules for earning
stickers with your kid – maybe the
work has to be done without any
distraction, or within a set time-goal, or
perhaps one is earned for every night
that it all gets done without argument.
Prizes for stickers can be school-
related, so your kid earns new copies
of Geronimo Stilton or a coveted
Smiggle pencil-case, or they could be
a way to earn computer game time –
whatever works best for your child.
Show, Don’t Tell
If you’ve ever taken a writing class,
you’ll be familiar with the instruction:
show, don’t tell. The final tip for parents
to help their kids become better at
homework is to do just that. Show
them, don’t tell them, that homework is
something worth doing well.
Kids don’t know the realities of
grown-up work, so when they see you
sending emails and making calls in
the evening, it doesn’t really look like
work to them. If you can save some
homework-like tasks to do in front of
your kids – sales reports or legal briefs
will do the trick – you’ll be able to set
a great example when they see you
getting this done.
You might even choose to learn
something completely new! The
biggest inspiration on my work habits
growing up was my dad. While I was
in primary school, he studied for a
master’s degree. In high school, my
worst subject was German, and my
dad studied the subject at night school
to show me that hard work was all it
took. After that, he also did a GCSE
in ceramics and a course in Tai Chi.
Seeing him take his studies seriously
had far more impact on me than any
ideas I had of what he did at work.
Showing your kids what good study
habits look like is a fantastic gift to give
them, and even better, you get to learn
something for yourself too!
Willow Hewitt is the Head of English at
the Tsim Sha Tsui branch of i-Learner
Education Centre She has been
teaching in Hong Kong for several
years, and has a highly experienced
international teaching team who love to
share their knowledge and resources
with parents whenever they can.
www.i-learner.edu.hk.
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