How Can I Help My Child Perform
Better on Standardized Tests?
Just because your child is smart doesn’t necessarily mean they aced
the CRCTs. There are many factors that contribute to performance
on standardized tests. If you want to help your child perform better
on future test, here are four of the most common and crucial testing
setbacks, along with tips on how you can help.
Poor Nutrition
To keep cognitive function at its peak, the brain needs “good” fuel.
Add the wrong kind of fuel (like processed sugars) or not enough
fuel and its not going to perform very well. “People
don’t realize a child’s brain is burning through energy
very, very rapidly and needs consistent fuel,” says
registered dietician Martha Rosenau of Colorado
Springs. She says kids need to eat meals balanced
with a portion of healthy carbohydrates, protein, and
fat. “Kids would be short-changing themselves in
terms of production, concentration and productivity if they try to
do brain work on an empty stomach.”
How to Help: Look for ways to incorporate healthy “brain foods”
into your family’s diet on a regular basis. Beans, olive oil, walnuts,
blueberries and Omega-3-rich fish like wild salmon, mackerel and
tuna.
Anxiety
Whether genetic or situational, extreme worry can cause physical
responses in the body that hinder a child from
performing well on a test.
How to Help: Teach your child relaxation
techniques like meditation, deep breaking, or
visualization (in which they picture themselves
doing well on a test). You can also go over
material with a child the night before a test to help them feel
prepared. In severe cases, consider seeking professional help from
someone trained to work with child/teen anxiety.
Lack of Sleep
Sleep deprivation is known to decrease everything from
attentiveness and response time to short-term
memory and performance. Unfortunately, lack
of sleep is a common issue for school-aged
children and teens but not always for the same
reasons. For those who are heavily active in
extra-curricular activities, it could mean being
too alert to fall asleep after a late-night
basketball practice or staying up late to finish homework due to a
busy evening of band practice, piano lessons, and attending a
sibling’s soccer game. The Nemours Foundation recommends 10
hours of sleep for kids ages 6-9.9 years; 9 hours for 10– to 12-yearolds; and 8-9.5 hours for teens.
How to Help: Work to create relaxing routines (warm bath, time to
unwind, reading) and try to stick to a schedule. Encourage your
child or teen to go to bed at the same time each night and avoid
foods that contain sugar, food dyes or caffeine.
Weak Cognitive Skills
While the CRCTs (and other standardized tests) do assess a
student’s knowledge, a child’s ability to process, retain, and
demonstrate their knowledge on a test can be
hindered by cognitive skill weaknesses.
Cognitive skills (such as memory, attention,
logic/reasoning, and processing speed) work
together like gears to help the student
successfully complete a test or assignment, so
a weakness in just one or two skills can
diminish the student’s ability to use their strengths.
“While knowledge is the information you acquire and
memorize—such as math formulas—cognitive skills are the tools
you need to learn, understand and apply to those math formulas,”
explain Tanya Mitchell, Vice President of Research and
Development for LearningRx, the premiere one-on-one brain
training company in the United States. “When taking timed tests,
one of the most important cognitive skills is processing speed. After
all, just because two children can (eventually) solve the same math
problems doesn’t mean they’ll do equally well on a timed test.”
How to Help: While there is no short-term way to improve
cognitive skills, enrolling your
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Taking a timed test can make even the most well-adjusted child
anxious. You can’t take the test for them, but you can help prepare
them with a nutritious breakfast, plenty of sleep, relaxation
techniques, and strong cognitive skills.
To learn more about how starting a brain training program now can help your child
start next year with a stronger, faster brain and a better chance for success, go to
www.learningrx.com or call LearningRx Alpharetta-Johns Creek at 770-475-3276.