There are two main questions that parents are interested in regarding the child’s teaching the names of the days of the week.
The first is how easy it is to learn the days of the week with a child, and this question is relevant for young children who do not yet know the units of the time intervals, even in their native language. The second is how to teach a child the same names in English, and this question is fundamentally different from the first. The difference between the two tasks is as follows: in one case, the child masters a fundamentally new skill, and in the other, he develops an additional strategy to achieve an already known goal.
This article offers some tips on both of these issues.
Different Learning Approaches
When we are born, we do not know about the existence of such concepts as “minute” or “month”, we have no idea about the cyclical nature of the seasons and the repeatability of the names of the days of the week. Of course, one day there comes a time when it becomes necessary to understand this. Awareness of how time “moves” does not come instantly, and you need to be prepared for the fact that the result will not be achieved immediately.
Studying the names of the days of the week in English is a much simpler task, because the child already understands the name of what phenomenon he needs to remember.
Consider how to help your child learn the days of the week in both cases.
First acquaintance with the concept
Days in the mind of a child are separated from each other by the onset of darkness. In addition, he cannot but notice that in some periods of time his parents are with him from morning to evening, and in others they are absent for a long time, and this happens quite regularly. Based on these patterns, it is easy to explain to the child the difference between weekends and weekdays.
How to learn the days of the week with a child if he has never come across these concepts? For example, explain how Monday differs from Tuesday. Such words are too abstract to be presented in the form of a picture, but here there are proven ways to achieve the goal.
Many children go to sections and circles: on one day they have drawing, on the other - dancing, music, an early development school and so on. By drawing the child’s attention to the regularity of attending these classes, you can teach him to distinguish one
weekday from another in a fairly short time.
Use of color
It is known that the use of colored pens, pencils and felt-tip pens accelerates the process of assimilation of the material, regardless of the subject being studied. No wonder the school children are taught in different colors to highlight headings, emphasize words, highlight morphemes. The application of this advice will help to learn the days of the week with a child, and to master the area of knowledge of interest on their own.
Indeed, remember that objects are different, easier on one or several distinguishing features? Is it easier to distinguish a circle from an oval or a filled blue circle from a green and unpainted oval? In the first case, a person is forced to be guided solely by a geometric feature, and in the second - by her, and by color, and by the method of painting - of course, the second option is simpler for the brain.
The days of the week can be remembered in the same way: Monday, for example, will be red, Tuesday will be yellow, Wednesday will be green.
Game approach
Every child loves to play. Conversely, children do not like when any action turns into a duty. In this case, they begin to be capricious, refuse to fulfill what is required, and sometimes even cry.
The value of the game, among other things, is that it has spontaneity. Speaking about how to quickly learn the days of the week with a child, one cannot help but turn to such a powerful tool. The effectiveness of using the game model in training is truly enormous: the parent knows that he is carrying out an educational event, and the child, in turn, is sure that he is simply having fun. At the same time, no matter how he positioned the event, the process of brain training will still be carried out, and this is our goal.
You can play by building a train from cards with the names of the days of the week, inventing poems, drawing pictures and so on. The main thing is that the child is interested, and then he will be willing to learn new words when he learns the names of the days of the week.
Visual associations
In most cultures, time is represented as a straight line, on which minutes, hours, days, months, years follow . When displayed on paper, it is usually oriented from left to right. Thus, the child can remember the names of the days of the week, arranging them in order - for this purpose, you can use multi-colored cards with the corresponding Russian or English words written on them.
You can use another version of the visual representation - in the form of a school diary. Many adults say that at the age of thirty and forty they imagine the days of the week arranged in space, as on the pages of the diary: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday - on the left U-turn, Thursday, Friday and Saturday - on the right. Sunday in this case is kept in mind and is perceived separately.
Visually presenting the week as pages of an open school diary, you can both learn the days of the week with a child and develop your own memory by making mental notes on these imaginary pages instead of using the notepad or the reminder function on your mobile phone.
Given that every child will go to school one day, this option of presentation can be useful in studying the days of the week.
Poems and counters
There are many poems in which the names of the days of the week are played out. As you know, rhymes are remembered much better than text in prose. As a result, the child learns all the necessary words without any difficulties, and it remains to understand the content.
Another useful pastime will be the simultaneous exercise of physical activity and reading poetry out loud. The benefits of combining these actions go far beyond the question of how to learn the days of the week with a child, as it contributes to the development of various connections in the brain in the long run. It is easy to note that simultaneous combined movements in parallel with speech activity are not given to an adult right the first time. Such regular exercises bring children significant benefits.
Finding Russian or English poems in which the names of the days of the week appear is easy. Read them to your child aloud - if he likes one of the proposed options, then most likely he will want to learn it himself. In the future, you can use this method, for example, when studying the names of months or animals in English or countries and cities in Russian.
Days of the week in English
Learning a foreign language is always associated with some difficulties: you need to learn a large number of words, the conditions for their use, grammar rules. Children under 10-11 years of age learn the language easier than adults, and remember everything learned for many years.
However, their logical thinking is less developed, and the initial stage, when the lexical units should be “surrounded” by associations, can cause disappointment up to the reluctance to continue learning.
In this regard, the names of the days of the week are almost ideal for the initial period of language learning: they are easy to remember, cyclically repeated, and often on certain days of the week children go to sections and circles, which will also help the speedy development of new lexical units. Here are some tips to explain to your child how to learn the days of the week in English.
Repeating fragments and etymology of words
Any adult understands that in the name of the days of the week in English you can highlight a repeating fragment, namely: the word day, meaning "day". Thus, when explaining how a child can learn the days of the week and month, you can teach him a few new words along the way.
Each day of the week historically received a name in honor of a particular deity. Sunday is “sun day,” and the child can easily remember two new words: sun - sun, day - day. Monday is the day of the moon. The word moon ("moon") has two letters "o" in its composition, however, in the word monday it is still recognizable.
The remaining days of the week are named after local deities, whose names the child is probably unknown. However, for general educational purposes, you can tell him about northern mythology, for example, about the Scandinavian god of rain and thunder Thor, on whose behalf Thursday was named thursday.
Finally
If the child does not manage to quickly learn the names of the days of the week, you should not worry, much less scolding him. The human brain is adapted to assimilate information at the right time, which means that understanding will come one fine moment.
In fact, there is no big difference in the strategies of how to teach an adult and how to teach a child. Learning the days of the week for the first time is not an easy task, but as we grow up, we forget about this and expect quick results from our children.
Using the tips given in this article, namely visual associations, color highlighting, a game approach, focusing on everyday patterns, you will not only help your child remember the days of the week, but also help him learn effective learning strategies for later life.