One of the most important things you can teach your children is how to learn. You would be surprised at how many children enter elementary school without a single study skill under their belt. These children inevitably get off to a slow start, and must be carefully tutored to bring them up to speed with the rest of the class. This is not a matter of pushing your children to learn to read and write before they should. You simply need to teach them to play games that reinforce a study skill, before they need to use it.

Using something and learning it at the same time is difficult, and it’s always good to have your children equipped with a study skill before the enter elementary school. You will be surprised at what kind of game teaches this kind of study skill. You would assume math games, word games and the like – but often it is games that seem to have little to do with academics.

Battleship, for example, was a great hit at our kindergarten, and we noticed that the kids quickly started getting better at problem solving. Battleship appears to be a game of luck, but it requires that you be able to outthink another person, anticipate the future and work according to a plan. This valuable study skill is something that has to be learnt – and learning a study skill through playing a game like Battleship is far better than trying to pick it up as and when you need it in the classroom.

Battleship is only one example of a game that teaches a study skill, and there are plenty others. Any game using memory is always a good idea, as this encourages children to look at information, take it in, and train themselves to recall it later when asked.

Although schools are moving away from ‘parrot learning’, being able to instantly recall information is a vital study skill. Apart from games that teach a direct study skill, games that teach about math, words, money and public speaking should all be encouraged.

Each and every study skill will stand your children in good stead by the time they get to elementary school and beyond. When children are young their brains make billions of tiny connections that are harder to make when we’re older, so teaching a good study skill at this age will go very far indeed.