It was harder to decide 'when to review' than what to memorize

Educational Dad's Learning Notes #004 [First Year of Junior High, Early May]

For math and English, we have established a rhythm of making a little progress every day.

However, science and social studies are a bit different.

In class, they learn many things at once, such as new terms, experiments, and maps.

Even if they remember it on the day, they gradually forget it after a few days.

This is the same for adults, isn't it?

In our home, we study by reading the textbook to understand the content and then checking it with workbooks.

In science, we are conscious of being able to explain not just the experimental procedures, but also 'what the experiment is meant to verify' and 'what was learned'.

For social studies, too, we are proceeding by checking back in the textbook to understand 'why things happen' rather than just memorizing the answers.

There were no major problems with the way we were studying itself.

What I struggled with was what came after that.

Recently, there have been more small quizzes in addition to regular tests.

Sometimes, 'reviewing everything together before the test' is not enough.

Even so, there is no time to review every subject every day.

If we prioritize math and English, the time available for science and social studies is inevitably limited.

'When is the best time to review?'

I couldn't easily find the answer to this.

So, I came up with the idea of writing a short comment in the notebook after the study session is over.

'You studied up to here today.'

'Let's review this part again.'

It is just a short note like that.

At first, it was for my own records.

But as I was writing, I realized something.

This might not be management, but rather something like an exchange diary between parent and child.

My son can look back on it later and remember, 'I stumbled here before.'

I can look back and think, 'We studied this together last time.'

It is not a perfect record.

There is no guarantee that this will improve grades.

Even so, just being able to see a little of 'what we studied' made it easier to think about when to review next.

In home study, we tend to focus on 'how to teach.'

But perhaps what is truly difficult is 'when to create opportunities to recall.'

Even now, I do not know if this method is the right answer.

Still, I hope to find a rhythm that suits my child while we try things out together as parent and child.

Next time, I would like to write about what I thought regarding a child's independence and a parent's involvement, through the incident of 'not handing in a worksheet.'