I find that the top 2 reasons for children failing at school are too much work to do and/or a lack of understanding causing falling behind.


I would suggest that the too much work part could be helped with good organisation strategies (see below for tips) and the lack of understanding part could be helped with some training in good learning skills. One crucial area our children get very little instruction in at school and there is very little tuition available in is learning how to learn - learning the skills, techniques and strategies of the world’s best learners?

Simple training in good learning skills can make a huge difference to a childs information processing, understanding, retention and coping with the rigours of school.

Start with Organisation:- The Top 8 Organisational Strategies for School Students

1)\tGet a wall chart of the whole year, pin it in a very visible place
2)\tPut on it all the dates for your year – term/semester dates, all holidays, major sports/cultural/social events, tests, exams
3)\tMake another, smaller timetable of your week with all lessons and regular events noted, pin it near your wall calendar
4)\tAs soon as you get notice of a new assignment, put the date in your phone calendar and transfer it to your wall calendar as soon as you are home
5)\tWork out what the main stages are for completing the assignment (eg. researching, reading, planning, writing, checking) and your estimate of how many days each stage will take
6)\tBreak down the assignment into a series of deadlines ( eg. for finishing the researching, the reading etc.) mark the deadlines on your wall calendar
7)\tEvery evening make a ‘to do’ list, including the tasks from your wall calendar and give yourself a deadline for each one
8)\tAlways get started on the easiest one and when finished move to the most challenging one and then back again
The solution to procrastination is organisation

You don't need tuition to learn how to learn well. There are a simple set of skills to learn and strategies to practice. Its not rocket science, anyone can learn how to learn more effectively.


I am in fact, against all tuition which focuses on subject matter - on teaching specific content. If a child is having difficulty managing schoolwork then just more school won't fix it. More Maths, more Chemistry, more English won't produce the results parents, and their children, want.

The only tuition I am in favour of is process tuition. Helping children to learn how to learn more effectively, more efficiently, faster, with greater understanding. This sort of tuition focuses on the strategies and methods a child is using when they are processing schoolwork and seeks to help them find ways to learn that work most effectively for them.

This kind of tuition is fast, effective and yields results immediately with most students.

It is really fascinating to see the rise of girls achievement against boys in most countries in the last 20 years. Some people put this down to a perceived "feminising" of the curriculum but I think it is much more to do with, as Dad-again-2 says, cultural changes leading to more educational opportunities for girls and women these days than in the past, in most countries anyway. And interestingly enough maybe because such opportunities are historically quite recent even in western countries, the average girl tends to value her opportunity to become better educated more than the average boy and in my experience teenage girls simply work harder than teenage boys.

Hi Dad again2,


Delayed gratification just means putting off your pleasures until the work is done. Every adult knows how to do this but often children have to be taught how. They need to be encouraged to have all their favourite pleasures but to learn the self-discipline to have their pleasures only when the work is done.
The classic research study in this area which came to be known as the ‘marshmellow test’, directly linked academic, social, emotional and financial success to the ability to practice delayed gratification:

At Stanford University in the 1960’s a psychologist named Walter Mischel created an experiment that he ran with four year old children from the local crèche. He set up interviews between these children, one at a time, and an adult researcher. The researcher would ask each child a few questions that they could easily answer and when they were finished he would take a marshmallow out of his pocket and put it on the table in front of the child as a reward for them. He would then tell them that they could eat it straight away if they wanted to, but he was going to go out of the room for a few minutes and when he came back if they hadn’t eaten it then they would get another marshmallow as well. If the marshmallow had been eaten then the child would get no more.
Then the researcher went away leaving the four year old in the room by his or her self. Just one child and one marshmallow and the thing was, the researcher didn’t stay away for just a minute or two he stayed away for a long time (up to 20 minutes). Also the children did not realise it but they were being observed through all this time by psychologists behind mirrored glass.
Now of course some of the kids ate the marshmallow straight away but some of them didn’t. Some of them went to great lengths to keep from eating the marshmallow - talking strictly to themselves, covering their eyes with their hands, hiding under the table or in the corner of the room. Doing whatever they could to keep themselves from eating the first marshmallow. Finally the researcher did come back and if the marshmallow was gone the child was allowed to leave, if the marshmallow was still there, untouched, the child got another marshmallow and then was allowed to leave.
So they ended up with two groups, those that grabbed and those that held out.
These two groups were then followed up for many years afterwards and they were tested every way possible and the results were compared between the two groups.
Now the results that they got were very significant because every way it was possible for them to test these kids as they grew up - the group that had held out did better.
They were more academically competent - 30% higher test results, better able to concentrate and learn, better at setting goals and achieving them and more socially competent - they handled challenges better, they were more self reliant, confident, trustworthy and dependable, they took the initiative and were less likely to stress, regress or give up in the face of difficulties.
Later in life these two groups were measured again and the hold out group were found to have been much more successful in life in general and were much happier and had an income on average, double that of the other group.

Now the point of the story is not what you think you might have done as a four year old in that situation. The point is simply that one of the best measures of our ability to create success for ourselves is whether we have learned how to put off pleasure in order to get the work done. Not to deny pleasure, but to delay it in order to get the work done. This is called delayed gratification.
The secret to handling distractions, if they are thoughts of some of the pleasurable things in your life, is to say to yourself, yes I will have that for me, I will watch TV or YouTube or spend time texting my friends or on Facebook , but I will have it after I get my work done. As a reward for my efforts.
The trick is to always pay yourself back for hard work by using the pleasurable things in your life as rewards for getting the work done. You still need to have your pleasures during your study weeks but have them after you have got your study done, not before.

The key thing about the best students is that they use the best strategies - they have learned how to learn - something that many students never get right.

Here are some of my tips (from my 17 years teaching in this area):

TOP STRATEGIES OF THE BEST HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

1)\tget time tabled – calendars, diaries, year planner
-\twhole year with exam dates
-\tsemesters/terms with test dates
-\tweekly classes
-\tteacher availability outside class time
-\tall assignment due dates
For you to be organised requires your school and your teachers to be organised and to be able to provide you with all this information at the beginning of the year. Keep asking until you get it

2)\tget to classes - all classes - no excuses, you must keep up.

3)\ttake good notes in class:
a)\tdivide each page up vertically into two columns 1/3, 2/3, write all class notes only in the 2/3 column, leave the 1/3 column blank
b)\tlisten for ideas and write each new idea in a different colour

4)\tevery night - review (read over) all the notes taken that day and pull out the key points and write them in the 1/3 column, draw diagrams, pictures, flow charts to summarise the main ideas

5)\tif you do miss any classes, make sure you photocopy someone else’s notes for that class as soon as possible and review them to make sure you understand

6)\tif you have any questions, any things you don’t understand, think carefully about what exactly it is you don’t understand, formulate good questions, track down your teachers outside of class time and ask them

7)\tif you still don’t understand something, go to the net, there are a huge number of websites for every school subject and often they will present the same information to you as you are doing in class but in a way that suits you better. Check out my page on this site called “Study Tips for Students” that has a big list of useful websites for students

8)\talways notice your own self-motivation strategies – how do you get yourself to do things that you know are going to be hard or difficult? What is your strategy for courage? Practice using those same strategies to get you to keep concentrating and keep focused in the classes you find difficult or boring. Remember success means doing things that other people find hard.

9)\torganise your study area at home – desk, chair, light, instrumental music, water, fruit, take oxygenation breaks every 45 minutes when you are studying

10)\tlearn some memory techniques - for all the stuff that you just have to memorise, use the best memory techniques available – search them out in libraries, on the net

11)\tdoing assignments
a)\tas soon as you get an assignment mark the due date in your diary (on your phone) and later transfer that date to your wall calendar
b)\tin the lesson when you get told about the assignment, find out what is the word length, aim, objectives, deadline, marking criteria, and most importantly - can you submit a draft?

What are the stages of completing an assignment?
i)\tFinding the information – research \t\t\t(25% of the time?)
ii)\tProcessing the information – reading\t\t\t(25%?)
iii)\tPlanning the piece of work – sequencing ideas\t(5%?)
iv)\tDoing the writing\t\t\t\t\t\t(40%?)
v)\tProof reading, making corrections and handing it in\t(5%?)

c)\ttimeline every assignment - when will you need to have it 25% done by? 50% done? 75% done? Mark the dates on your calendar/year planner, aim always to finish all assignments with one day to spare

The solution to procrastination is organisation

d)\tdecide what mark are you aiming for A++  C, Achieve  Excellence
e)\tidentify topic, question to be answered and decide on your point of view - this is what teachers (and examiners) are looking for - a thoughtful point of view
f)\tresearch - get familiar with the library – where are the books, journals, reference section, videos, audio tapes for your subjects?
g)\tfind the best web sites for all your subjects

Remember - information is king - the first to find the best sources of information wins!

h)\treading – learn to skim read through textbooks, web pages just looking for key points, ideas that support your point of view
i)\tmake summaries of key points using mindmaps, THOrTmaps
j)\tplan out a sequence of points to make which lead to your conclusion and find one quote to back up each point
k)\tprepare a draft and (if possible) take it to your teacher for appraisal
l)\twrite the final copy
m)\tproof read, make corrections, hand in.

12)\tEach week make summaries of all the key points covered in each subject

13)\tOnce a month put all your weekly summaries together into a one month summary

14)\tWhen you have a test or exam then just work through all your summaries and do some old exam questions on the topics

15)\tIf you get de-motivated or stressed out by schoolwork, focus back on your purpose – what is school for? Why is it useful to do well at school? What can you get out of it? Make both short and long term goals to support your achievement

16)\tUse relaxation techniques to overcome exam nerves

Just taking one of your questions - about motivating your children - consider the following:



Top 10 top strategies for Parents to Motivate their Children to Study

First, 3 principles of motivation:
•\tYou have to realise that you can’t do it. No-one can motivate anyone else, the only real motivation is self-motivation, but what you can do is to arrange the conditions so that self-motivation will occur

•\tSecondly, regular rewards don’t work, they always become expectations and lose any motivational power. Random, spontaneous, unexpected rewards sometimes work well though.

•\tThirdly, physical punishment may work in the short term but will always create long term resentment and teaches the child that violence is a solution to problems in the home, avoid it always

10 Strategies:

1)\tBe immaculately organised and teach your children how to manage their own time. Make sure there is a year planner prominently displayed with all your children’s key test, exam, assignment dates on it.

2)\tTalk about purpose with your children – why is it important for them to do well at school - provide role models, examples, stories from your own life

3)\tEncourage them to dream of their best possible future occupation and then plan out all the stages they will need to go through to get there from here

4)\tFocus on intrinsic motivators for study – satisfaction, completion, pride, overcoming challenges, discovering capabilities, gaining knowledge and skills, creating more choices/options in their lives

5)\tTalk about courage, the courage it takes to do something you know is going to be hard, like studying, use biographies, stories of great courage

6)\tHelp them to develop the habit of delayed gratification, having their pleasures but only when all the work is finished

7)\tIn order to improve your child’s learning they must focus on the two things they have control of – effort and strategy use. Focus all your praise on the effort they put in and their clever use of different strategies, avoid praising their talent, intelligence or ability.

8)\tIf they have any difficulty learning anything new, get them to focus on their process, how they are learning, and try new and different strategies, resources, resource people

9)\tIf they have difficulties keeping up, help them with their planning, break down each assignment into component parts and build deadlines for each part – put them on the wall chart

10)\tTeach them that patience, persistence, determination, focus and concentration are the virtues of education, they are the skills good education teaches us

Having read the whole book now I find I disagree with many of the Tiger Mother principles.


Through helping to bring up my own four children and my own work with many thousands of students, parents and teachers world-wide, I have discovered that there are a set of key skills that every student needs, whether at school or university, to achieve academic success. The problem with the Tiger Mother philosophy is that it is the parent who is practicing the key learning skills, not the child. Many children these days grow up learning how to achieve by working to someone else’s regime of study rather than their own and in spite of gaining academic success are not learning how to learn for themselves. Through over-supporting our children to achieve goals we may well be making them more helpless and when they need to be able to learn for themselves, when they are in the workforce, striving for financial success, maybe they won’t know how to.

The last thing we need to do for our children, in my opinion, is to motivate them, the most important lesson they need to learn is how to motivate themselves. The same goes for time management, goal setting, planning their study, organising their resources, researching… etc. These are the skills of the life-long learner that all our children need to have to be able to succeed in the world of today and in the world of tomorrow.

It is not the Tiger Mothers who are to blame of course, they simply occur as a response to an exam based schooling system that assesses content knowledge as a measure of a student’s ability to learn. When the emphasis of schooling changes from content to process and when students are assessed as to their competence in learning, rather than their retained knowledge, then we will have a revolution in education.

In January 2011, Amy Chua, a Professor of Law at Yale University, published The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, where she espoused a philosophy of unrelenting pressure, drive, motivation, organization and planning from parents as the best way to help children achieve lofty goals. According to Prof. Chua this rigorous ‘Chinese’ parenting model effectively moulds children into tenacious achievers through a focus on academic results whereas more ‘Western’ parenting, through a focus on process and praise is much more likely to produce unmotivated, low achieving, complacent children.


Unfortunately there is a fatal flaw in this argument and it is simply that the more you do for your children the less they learn to do for themselves.

Through helping to bring up my own four children and my own work with many thousands of students, parents and teachers world-wide, I have discovered that there are a set of key skills that every student needs, whether at school or university, to achieve academic success. The problem with the Tiger Mother philosophy is that it is the parent who is practicing the key learning skills, not the child. Many children these days grow up learning how to achieve by working to someone else’s regime of study rather than their own and in spite of gaining academic success are not learning how to learn for themselves. Through over-supporting our children to achieve goals we may well be making them more helpless and when they need to be able to learn for themselves, when they are in the workforce, striving for financial success, maybe they won’t know how to.

Continues at http://edutravel.wordpress.com/

I don’t think a lack of drive in students can be blamed on the government. All that is doing is once again externalising the reason and not having students take responsibility themselves. And I don’t think it is a parent’s job or a teacher’s job to motivate students, simply because they cannot do it. All any external person can ever do is influence the environmental variables like approval and reinforcement to create conditions where a students own internal motivation is likely to arise.

Rather than trying to motivate students we need to teach them how to motivate themselves. Self-motivation is a skill that anyone can learn but it needs to be taught and then reinforced by parents and teachers not doing it for students but demonstrating them how to do it for themselves.

Hi Lady Saber,

Yes I think the whole "phonetics" vs "whole language" debate over learning to read ultimately showed that every child learns best when they are exposed to a variety of learning methods preferably using all their senses rather than any one ‘sensory specific’ method. The research I was pointing to in my article was with boys who showed consistent difficulty learning to read right up to secondary schooling and for whom the usual ‘sounding out letters’ approach did not work.
All children will learn to read in the way that suits them it just seems that for those with the greatest difficulty, with boys visual methods oftem pay good dividends and more auditory methods with girls.
Interestingly enough I have also seen research showing that children who learn Chinese before they learn English, because of the more visual nature of written Chinese language are activating more visual parts of their brains when learning Chinese and then trying to do the same when learning English with less successful results.
Effective learning is usually multisensory