The ShillerLearning philosophy holds that every mistake is a learning opportunity — one that encourages discussion and deepens understanding of concepts and processes. The language home educators use when identifying and correcting mistakes has a huge impact on how well children learn from them, whether they avoid repeating them, and whether they develop a growth mindset.
“In a growth mindset, challenges are exciting rather than threatening. So rather than thinking, ‘oh, I’m going to reveal my weaknesses,’ you say, ‘wow, here’s a chance to grow.’”— Carol S. Dweck
Are you getting excited about your child’s next mistake? Mistakes will occur early and often. Parents whose children reach their full potential have a clear strategy for dealing with them. Education expert Larry Shiller and the homeschool team at ShillerLearning suggest the following six approaches.
Mistakes Are Opportunities to Identify Holes in Knowledge
ShillerLearning recommends employing the Socratic Method of questioning to help the child discover his or her own error. Once the hole is known, it is usually easy to fill. Be sure the reasons for the mistake are well understood before moving on.
If your child does not answer your question correctly, you have spotted an opportunity to better understand their thought process and why the mistake is being made.
Focus on the Process, Not the Person
When they make mistakes, children — like adults — do not like to hear that they are a lesser person for it. Blaming a child for a mistake can discourage them from wanting to try anything other than what they already excel at. Instead, focus on the process.
“Does that seem right?”
“I might have come up with a different answer — walk me through your steps.”
“I would have got that wrong too! Let’s see how we can get to the correct answer.”
“Maybe there is a different approach — let’s start from the beginning.”
Children often spot and self-correct mistakes while explaining their process. If not, you will be able to identify the learning opportunity in their reasoning.
Go Back to Basics
Revisit the Montessori Three Period Lesson of “This is, Show me, What is” — explained in the ShillerLearning Educator Guide at the beginning of your lesson books. Do not be tempted to skip the Educator Guide. Those few pages include best practices to help you and your child get the most out of your homeschool experience.
Use the Other Learning Styles
New knowledge is best learned when it is concrete and explored through all learning styles — visual, tactile, auditory, and kinesthetic — before a child is asked to work with it abstractly. It is almost always a big hit to put the audio CD or mp3s on and sing and dance along. The manipulative index can be used to find an activity that uses a favorite manipulative.
If an activity does not match your child’s dominant learning style, do not worry — that style will be incorporated in another lesson. You may find that your child likes to repeat activities that use their dominant learning style over and over. That is fine. Resist the urge to interrupt a focused and concentrated child.
By using all four learning styles to teach every concept in the strategic manner of a Montessori-based approach, your child will understand a concept before being asked to work with it abstractly — helping to prevent mistakes in the first place and providing a no-pressure way to self-correct when they do happen.
Be Creative
Feel free to extend the activity or game in the lesson — or make up games as you go along. Give your child free time to explore materials after a scripted lesson. Kids can come up with amazing off-label uses for materials and discover new concepts through imagination, creativity, and curiosity.
The ShillerLearning blog, customer downloads, and social media accounts open a whole new world of support and ideas to make learning multisensory and fun:
Keep a Sense of Humor
When a child associates learning with laughter and warm feelings, it is bound to be a good and lasting relationship. Laugh together. Laugh at your own mistakes and verbalize your own learning opportunities. Acknowledge limitations with a wink and a smile. Keep a positive attitude while you cultivate your own growth mindset — and your child will likely model your behavior.
All this discussion of mistakes — what about when the child does something correctly? Acknowledge. We will explore specific, concrete acknowledgment more in another post. In the meantime, do not miss the opportunity that every mistake presents. Keep in mind that these strategies work for all areas of home learning and life as well as math and language arts.
Let us know how they work for you!
See Inside ShillerLearning Montessori-Based Kits
Ready to build a growth mindset in your homeschool? Explore our Montessori-based curriculum.
Browse All Curriculum →— Antoinette LaGrossa, ShillerLearning
