Play with your kids. Sounds simple, but it is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to boost your child’s chances for success in school and life. It may also help prevent learning disabilities. Find out how you can have fun and build brainpower just by playing these games for developmental learning.
Developmental Learning– Brain Games Help
Here are some great activities for preschoolers that parents can use play to help their children build skills like memory, comprehension, logic, and reasoning—even before they start school. Thesefamily home activities increase kids’ chances of later success in school and life. The skills learned in even simple, fun rhyming games help kids make useful associations that are critical when they begin to learn to read.
According to Dr. Ken Gibson (author of Unlock the Einstein Inside: Applying New Brain Science to Wake up the Smart in your Child) developing these skills early – even before kindergarten – can even help prevent learning disabilities.
"New research in the field of brain plasticity shows that we can help the performance of children with unique learning styles and special needs. These children and the children who are labeled ‘underachievers’ may just need a little ‘brain boot camp,’” says Sabra Gelfond-Ingall, co-director of the National Speech/Language Therapy Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
Brain Games: So Much Fun They Won’t even Know They’re Learning
As a parent, your job is to find the brain games that are appropriate for your child’s age and are games you both enjoy playing. Here are a few favorites:
Paperless Tic-Tac-Toe:Take the classic game of tick-tac-toe and assign each box a number. Have your child visualize this grid in her mind and call off the box number in which she wants to place her mark. Also, try playing tic-tac-toe by drawing the grid in the air and pointing to the box you want to place your mark in.
What it helps: Memory, visualization, planning, focus, problem solving
20 Questions: Think of a person or object and give your child 20 chances to narrow down what you’re thinking of by asking yes or no questions. To help them improve their logic and reasoning, teach them to strategize by using questions that will significantly narrow down the categories, such as “Are they alive?” or “Do we have one in our house?”
What it helps: Logic, reasoning, memory
Poetry: Have your child choose four words that rhyme and then ask them to create a poem.
What it helps: Auditory analysis, verbal rhythm, memory
The Twinkle Twinkle song: Have your child replace the words to “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” with state capitals. Want a twist for older kids? Have them include a rhyme at the end of each sentence. “Montpelier is the capital of Vermont state, and I think Phoenix, Arizona is great…”
What it helps: Mnemonics, memory, strategy, rhyming
The Picture-less Book: Read a passage from a book aloud but don’t show your child the pictures. Have him describe the scene of what he heard using all his senses. “I hear the ocean hitting the sand, I smell the fish, I can see the white clouds and the blue sky…”
What it helps: Attention to detail, visual discrimination, comprehension, executive thinking
Abstract Storytelling: Have your child demonstrate a story, such as “Humpty Dumpty,” by using objects from around the house, such as paper clips, cups, pillows, etc. to represent items and thoughts from the story. For older kids, make this more difficult by having your child demonstrate more abstract thoughts, such as representing math word problems through illustrations.
What it helps: Executive thinking, comprehension, visual processing
The Visual Spelling Test: When studying with your child for an upcoming spelling test, ask her to visualize each word instead of writing it down and to write each letter in the air with her finger. Have her point to the location where each letter is visualized. Try spelling each word forward and backward.
What it helps: Visualization, sound analysis, segmenting and blending
Needle in a Haystack: Take a page from a newspaper and time your child as she circles all occurrences of a specific letter. Identify which sound symbols are more easily found than others and focus on increasing both accuracy and speed.
What it helps: Visual processing speed
With a little help, and a little imagination, you can make learning so much fun, your child won’t even know it’s good for him.
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