Just practicing the core intelligence skills is not enough to unlock your child’s real learning
potential. Your child must also learn to monitor, evaluate and expand his or her own thinking skills.
This is called metacognition. In each of the lessons, it is the LEARNING HOW WE THINK section.
Just as you consciously helped your child learn to talk, you can consciously direct and improve
your child’s development of an inner thinking language. With The Art of Learning®, you have the
opportunity to become aware of and guide your child’s inner thinking voice.
The metacognitive skills you teach your child now will lay the foundation for your child to develop,
plan and expand his/her strategies as your child grows older. Thus, you can give your child the
tools to help navigate the way to becoming a lifelong
learner and feel comfortable in new learning
Teach your child to make connections between past learning experiences and current learning.
Adults, especially parents, can help a child make connections between a familiar situation and a
new one. When you build on a child’s existing understanding to teach your child something new,
it is far more likely that your child will acquire a more thorough understanding of the new skills.
Because little learners often have difficulty verbalizing their thoughts, you should encourage your
child to continue to express his/her thoughts. At first, your child may reply, “I don’t know… I just
did it.” Take time to teach your child to wonder why he/she is doing what he/she is doing and how
he/she could do it differently or better next time. Try to understand what is going on in your child's
mind and to ask a question or indicate a step that could have occurred to your child.
If your child is having difficultly verbalizing or remembering in the LEARNING HOW WE THINK section, then ask your child to think aloud in the PRACTICE section. Guide your child to express
everything he/she is thinking, stepbystep,
during in the PRACTICE section. Encourage your
child with such questions as: “tell me what you are thinking?"…"what is your next step…?” Over
time, you will want your child to be able to focus on the exercises in the PRACTICE section and
then discuss it with you in the LEARNING HOW WE THINK section.
Be patient, positive, and encouraging! Allow your child time to process and learn new information.
This is the age at which your child is developing his/her thinking habits. When possible, make
sure your child understands problems before jumping immediately to solution strategies. Help
your child refine and improve his/her problemsolving
strategies, even when those strategies are
not quite right, and... build on prior success. Help your child develop a sense of how, when and
what has been learned that can be used in a new or different situation. Give your child feedback
about the degree to which they know when, where and how to use the knowledge they are
learning. Teach your child how to selfcorrect
his/her mistakes, develop new strategies, and be
open to other people’s strategies.
The LEARNING HOW WE THINK section of each lesson is a first step in teaching your child
metacognition strategies. As your child develops, metacognition strategies should include
predicting outcomes, planning ahead, and explaining problems and solutions in order to improve
understanding and future problem solution. Look for opportunities to incorporate these strategies in
everyday life; suggestions are provided in the HAVE FUN SHARPENING THE BRAIN section of