Motivating Learning in Children

I believe that, to grow up to be a well-rounded adult, one must have a well-rounded childhood. This means spending equal amounts of time immersed in books, playing outside, and using technology. Equal time working hard, and hardly working.

Let me give you a little example. My first internship was in a 4th grade classroom in a school with 97% free or reduced lunch- i.e., extremely low socioeconomic class students. The teacher I was working with had been teaching for 40+ years, and made a comment to a student as to the effect of "You need to learn to work hard now, or you will never make it to college".

Instead of inspiring the hard work she hoped it would, the students responded with a defiant "I'm not going to college, it's too hard". My reply? "College is soooo much fun, you want to go!". The student, and others listening around, were very surprised. No one had ever told them they should and would want to go to college, only that they needed to.

We all need to remember what it feels like to be a child- we only want to do things that interest us. It isn't until later in life that we realize we needed our education to become the people we are today. Have you ever thought, that if you had enjoyed 1st grade a little more, that maybe you have succeeded more than you have thus far in life? Now, I'm not saying that doing better with the multiplication tables means becoming a CEO by the age of 30, but what I mean is that, if one likes learning and wants to learn when they are younger, that is going to have an effect on the rest of their educational life.

So how do we motivate children to learn? Every child is different, and ways of motivation should vary from student to student, just as from subject to subject. Remember, what works with one may or may not work with another.

Here are six tips for motivating children I have learned in my teaching experience. They are all basic, but using them can provide big returns.

1. Show your interest

The more you are interested in what you are teaching, the more the children will be interested. Children think of teachers as surrogate parents. We have a huge influence on the way they act and think- use that to your advantage! If you want them to do some work, do it with them. Write essays with them, read stories with them.

2. Provide extra opportunities

If the students seem to really enjoy learning about something, go with it! Offer them more information about the subject, more exercises to do. Remember, there are subjects that you learned in your school days that had minimal effect on your current career. Yes, students need to learn the basics of all subjects, but having their education skewed slightly in the direction of something that really interests them is not a terrible thing.

3. More than the books

As a teacher, I know how easy it easy to just stick with the provided materials you have. That isn't a bad thing, just can be a boring thing for the students. Take a chance, try to use your own things. Worse comes to worse, you always have the book to fall back on. I promise you, if you Google "....lesson plan" you will find some amazing lessons and classroom ideas!

4. Do what they want

I taught a 3rd grade classrooms which had weekly spelling test. Towards the end of the year, we had no more spelling tests provided for us. So, I had the students make their own. Some students made easy lists with types of foods, and types of animals, sure. But I also had students making lists of military words ("Teacher, how do you spell 'bombardier'?") and the periodic table of elements- and they learned them! Children, by their nature, want to learn. Maybe not what the government wants them to learn, but they do want it. Give them the power to decide what they are learning, and you will be amazed at the results.

5. Add a little fun

I taught English in China, which was an very interesting experience. See, Chinese children go to school for upwards of 10 hours a day, and have their entire future balancing on how they do in school. Needless to say, they hate school. We had to make the classes as interesting as possible, so that they would want to learn. Learning does not only happen while sitting at desks, writing and reading. Make a lesson into a game.  Working on sight words? Stick the words around the room, and call out the words. Have the students run to the correct word. Trust me, they will learn the words, and love you.

6. Add a little technology

Technology is everywhere today. Don't try and fight it, because you won't win. Embrace it, and use it in your class. Are the students writing their own stories? When they are finished, scan them, and let the students use a *class email account* to email them to their parents. The parents will love the idea, and the students will love the attention their stories get.


How else have you motivated your students to learn? Comment below!