Keeping Students Focused with Homeschooling
Carly Dougherty, founder of Prep Academy Tutors shares helpful tips on how to support your children’s homeschooling with Everyday Heroes Kids.
Online learning and homeschooling are our new normal, which is why it’s essential to ensure that students have all the tools and resources they need to thrive in a remote learning environment.
It’s a common misconception that homeschooling or online learning is ineffective due to home distractions. The reality is that all students learn differently, and many can thrive learning in a more flexible, remote environment.
Common Distractions
While there are distractions everywhere, the home does pose some unique distractions for students. The good news is that, with the help of parents, teachers, and tutors, students can learn to focus and stay on task despite these environmental factors.
Some of the common distraction’s students experience learning from home include:
Electronics: Students have more access to technology when learning at home. It’s important to monitor access to technology and set boundaries.
People: Having everyone at home — parents, grandparents, and siblings alike — can distract students who want to spend time with their family or find it hard to focus when others are around.
Procrastination: When students procrastinate, even leaving a room to get a glass of water can be a distraction. When procrastinating, students will use everything as a reason not to tackle the task at hand
Noise: While some students may learn well with background noise, others can get distracted by noise from the television, room chatter, or general bustling. Consider the ways you can accommodate for the noise level that your student requires to be productive.
Limiting Your Student’s Distractions
The good news is that long time homeschooled students, and remote workers alike, have learned how to best combat the common distractions experienced at home to maximize their productivity.
With the right tools, students can thrive by learning at home. A CCHE STUDY revealed that homeschooled students score 15 to 30 percentile points higher than public school students on standardized academic achievement tests.
Technology Limitations:
Technology is becoming essential to students’ everyday learning due to the new normal of online education. That said, being on the computer can cause a student’s attention to waver.
The good news is that there are a few ways you can limit this distraction. Depending on how your student learns best, you can either block certain websites for specific periods or allot break times so that your child can look forward to 10 to 15 minutes of free time on the internet at certain hours.
It is up to you how you limit your child’s internet usage. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, so work with your child to identify the most effective solution for them.
Setting Break Times:
According to EDUTOPIA, breaks can help to improve your child’s focus. A 2016 STUDY revealed that while young students struggled to stay on task, shorter lessons kept their attention high. Ultimately, students can focus better during shorter pieces of time offset by breaks.
Establish Set Working Hours:
A lack of structure can be distracting and make it hard for students to focus on a task. Allotting specific hours to work can help students better focus, as they will know to dedicate the time to schoolwork.
Setting this schedule can also help other family members to better plan their routines.
Establish a Workplace Set-Up:
One of the best ways to PREPARE YOUR STUDENT FOR ONLINE LEARNING and uninterrupted homeschooling is to ensure they have everything they need at their desk.
Consistently leaving a work area to find resources like textbooks, calculators, or water, can be distracting and hard for students to sit and dive into their work. Establish a workstation away from common areas with all the resources your student needs to work and be productive.
The Prep Academy story
In 2000, Carly Dougherty was busy using her free time outside of university to offer students private tutoring. She found herself almost always fully booked, with demand far greater than she could ever cope with on her own. Her passion for tutoring and helping children grew further after she obtained her Master’s Degree in Child Psychology. The increasing demand for effective tutoring services and Carly’s passion led her to found Prep Academy Tutors with the mission to help children improve their school experience and achieve their academic goals.
After noticing the proven effectiveness of her approach, Carly and her husband Adrian assembled a dream team of like-minded individuals and opened Prep Academy Tutors across North America.
