How to increase iq of a child
How To Improve Your Child’s IQ
In part one of our S.A.M series, we highlighted the importance of early math exposure for children, and debunked the myth that IQ is fixed at birth and cannot be improved in part two. In part three, we search for ways on how you can improve your child’s IQ.
What makes children smart may surprise you.
Contrary to popular thinking, developing a child’s IQ is not about getting them to do tons of IQ questions or assessment books. Neither is it about improving their memory.
It is the everyday activities of what parents do and you say that matters.
Here are 5 things you can do to improve your child’s intelligence.
1. Read to improve verbal and linguistic intelligence
Linguistic intelligence is the ability to process information using words and language.
Compared to processing images or speech, reading is more challenging as parts of our brain are making connections. When we read, we are also required to construct and imagine.
Reading not only helps to improve language, which is necessary for communication and to get on with tasks of everyday life, it also keeps our mind sharp. Starting to read early may not only help in the growth of your child’s literacy, but it may also benefit a wider range of cognitive abilities that are crucial later in their life.
Early start in reading is important in predicting a lifetime of literacy experience. In a study done by Professors Cunningham and Stanovich, they found that students who had a quick start in reading were more likely to read more over the years. The results also revealed that reading volume had a significant contribution to vocabulary, general knowledge, verbal fluency and spelling. In a nutshell, reading does make you smarter!
If you have young children just starting to speak and read, read with them daily to expand their vocabulary. When you read with them, explicitly bring attention to certain words.
For older children, introduce concept stories to expand their vocabulary and encourage imagination. This helps them to have better grasp of more abstract concepts.
2. Play with blocks to improve spatial intelligence
Puzzles, blocks, memory games, crafts, toys figurines – these are tools every child should grow up with. Give your children ample time and space to play with these tools when they are in preschool. Block and construction play is particularly important and beneficial as it gives your child multiple learning opportunities.
When building structures or engaging in block play, children discover spatial awareness and develop their spatial intelligence. Spatial intelligence is the ability to imagine pictures in your mind. When deciding how to stack blocks, under, above or perpendicular – children are engaged in using their spatial intelligence.
Studies have shown that developing spatial skills support later learning in science, technology, engineer and math.
Young children who are better at visualising spatial relationships have also been found to develop stronger arithmetic abilities in primary school.
3. Do math and physical exercise to improve fluid intelligence
To think abstractly, reason and identify patterns, solve problems and discern relationships without using your prior knowledge – this is known as fluid intelligence. Generally, we use our fluid intelligence when we encounter a new situation.
Can fluid intelligence be taught? For young children, you can start by using concrete examples to show the relationship between objects.
If you are teaching your child the difference between a square and a rectangle, show them real square and rectangular objects around the house. Get them to see and touch the objects to feel the difference.
Instead of simply writing or showing the number ‘2’ to a child, show them real objects by using blocks or toys. To demonstrate the concept of ‘3 more than 4’, place 4 bears on the table in a line, then add 3 more bears slowly.
Besides early exposure to Math, research also suggests that physical activity can also improve fluid intelligence. It was found that certain hormones were released during physical activity, and these hormones are beneficial to the hippocampus, a region of the brain linked to learning and memory. So take your children out to run, play and tumble around!
4. Believe in them
Whether your child is truly smart or smarter than average, does not matter or make a difference if you do not express it.
A study was done where elementary school teachers told a group of randomly selected students they were smart. There was no special test done to single out these children as ‘smart’, and nothing was added or changed in the classroom.
Yet by the end of the school year, the children who were told they were ‘smart’ by the teachers gained a higher average IQ score than the rest of their classmates.
It is your words and your believe in them that will impact them for life.
5. Praise their efforts to develop a growth-mindset
Praise is most effective when it is focused on the process and commitment, not the end result. Your child’s learning process and effort should be the main emphasis of your praise.
Carol Dweck, a Professor at Stanford University, came up with two views of intelligence learners might have. One view is the “fixed-mind set” that has the belief that intelligence is a fixed trait. The other view is the “growth-mind set”, where process is focused rather than talent or intelligence.
In a study she conducted, it was found that praise focused on intelligence encouraged a fixed mind-set compared to students who were praised for their process. When she and her researchers asked a group of fifth graders questions from a nonverbal IQ test, they found that students who were praised for their intelligence shied away from a challenging assignment far more than the students who were praised for their process.
How can you communicate a praise that encourages a “growth-mind set”?
Instead of praising them for their results, “Wow, you scored full marks, you’re so smart!” say this instead, “I saw that you really put in the time and effort to do your homework. I like the way you tried a lot of different methods on that math question until you finally got it. I’m really proud that you stuck through it and didn’t give up!” It pays to be specific in your praise as well.
Children need a good dose of encouragement to spur their learning.
Real learning is active. Real learning is emotional.
As a parent, you have a huge influence over your child’s learning.
How To Make Your Kids Smarter: 10 Steps Backed By Science
I’ve explored the science behind what makes kids happier, what type of parenting works best and what makes for joyful families.
But what makes children — from babies up through the teen years — smarter?
Here are 10 things science says can help:
1) Music Lessons
Plain and simple: research show music lessons make kids smarter:
Compared with children in the control groups, children in the music groups exhibited greater increases in full-scale IQ. The effect was relatively small, but it generalized across IQ subtests, index scores, and a standardized measure of academic achievement.
In fact musical training helps everyone, young and old:
A growing body of research finds musical training gives students learning advantages in the classroom. Now a Northwestern University study finds musical training can benefit Grandma, too, by offsetting some of the deleterious effects of aging.
(More on what the music you love says about you here.)
2) The Dumb Jock Is A Myth
Dumb jocks are dumb because they spend more time on the field than in the library. But what if you make sure your child devotes time to both?
Being in good shape increases your ability to learn. After exercise people pick up new vocabulary words 20% faster.
Via Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain:
Indeed, in a 2007 study of humans, German researchers found that people learn vocabulary words 20 percent faster following exercise than they did before exercise, and that the rate of learning correlated directly with levels of BDNF.
A 3 month exercise regimen increased bloodflow to the part of the brain focused on memory and learning by 30%.
Via Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain:
In his study, Small put a group of volunteers on a three-month exercise regimen and then took pictures of their brains… What he saw was that the capillary volume in the memory area of the hippocampus increased by 30 percent, a truly remarkable change.
(More on how exercise can make you and your kids smarter and happier here.)
3) Don’t Read To Your Kids, Read With Them
Got a little one who is learning to read? Don’t let them just stare at the pictures in a book while you do all the reading.
Call attention to the words. Read with them, not to them. Research shows it helps build their reading skills:
…when shared book reading is enriched with explicit attention to the development of children’s reading skills and strategies, then shared book reading is an effective vehicle for promoting the early literacy ability even of disadvantaged children.
(More on things most parents do wrong here.)
4) Sleep Deprivation Makes Kids Stupid
Missing an hour of sleep turns a sixth grader’s brain into that of a fourth grader.
Via NurtureShock:
“A loss of one hour of sleep is equivalent to [the loss of] two years of cognitive maturation and development,” Sadeh explained.
There is a correlation between grades and average amount of sleep.
Via NurtureShock:
Teens who received A’s averaged about fifteen more minutes sleep than the B students, who in turn averaged fifteen more minutes than the C’s, and so on. Wahlstrom’s data was an almost perfect replication of results from an earlier study of over 3,000 Rhode Island high schoolers by Brown’s Carskadon. Certainly, these are averages, but the consistency of the two studies stands out. Every fifteen minutes counts.
(More on how to sleep better here.)
5) IQ Isn’t Worth Much Without Self-Discipline
Self-discipline beats IQ at predicting who will be successful in life.
From Charles Duhigg’s excellent book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business:
Dozens of studies show that willpower is the single most important keystone habit for individual success… Students who exerted high levels of willpower were more likely to earn higher grades in their classes and gain admission into more selective schools. They had fewer absences and spent less time watching television and more hours on homework. “Highly self-disciplined adolescents outperformed their more impulsive peers on every academic-performance variable,” the researchers wrote. “Self-discipline predicted academic performance more robustly than did IQ. Self-discipline also predicted which students would improve their grades over the course of the school year, whereas IQ did not.… Self-discipline has a bigger effect on academic performance than does intellectual talent.”
Grades have more to do with conscientiousness than raw smarts.
Via How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character:
…conscientiousness was the trait that best predicted workplace success. What intrigues Roberts about conscientiousness is that it predicts so many outcomes that go far beyond the workplace. People high in conscientiousness get better grades in school and college; they commit fewer crimes; and they stay married longer. They live longer – and not just because they smoke and drink less. They have fewer strokes, lower blood pressure, and a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease.
Who does best in life? Kids with grit.
Via Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.
The best predictor of success, the researchers found, was the prospective cadets’ ratings on a noncognitive, nonphysical trait known as “grit”—defined as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.
”
(More on how to improve self-discipline here.)
6) Learning Is An Active Process
Baby Einstein and braintraining games don’t work.
In fact, there’s reason to believe they make kids dumber.
Via Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five:
The products didn’t work at all. They had no positive effect on the vocabularies of the target audience, infants 17-24 months. Some did actual harm. For every hour per day the children spent watching certain baby DVD’s and videos, the infants understood an average of six to eight fewer words than infants who did not watch them.
Real learning isn’t passive, it’s active.
What does Dan Coyle, author of The Talent Code recommend? Stop merely reading and test yourself:
Our brains evolved to learn by doing things, not by hearing about them.
This is one of the reasons that, for a lot of skills, it’s much better to spend about two thirds of your time testing yourself on it rather than absorbing it. There’s a rule of two thirds. If you want to, say, memorize a passage, it’s better to spend 30 percent of your time reading it, and the other 70 percent of your time testing yourself on that knowledge.
(More on how to teach your child to be a hard worker in school here.)
7) Treats Can Be A Good Thing — At The Right Time
Overall, it would be better if kids ate healthy all the time. Research shows eating makes a difference in children’s grades:
Everybody knows you should eat breakfast the day of a big test. High-carb, high-fiber, slow-digesting foods like oatmeal are best, research shows. But what you eat a week in advance matters, too. When 16 college students were tested on attention and thinking speed, then fed a five-day high-fat, low-carb diet heavy on meat, eggs, cheese and cream and tested again, their performance declined.
There are always exceptions. No kid eats healthy all the time. But the irony is that kids often get “bad” foods at the wrong time.
Research shows caffeine and sugar can be brain boosters:
Caffeine and glucose can have beneficial effects on cognitive performance… Since these areas have been related to the sustained attention and working memory processes, results would suggest that combined caffeine and glucose could increase the efficiency of the attentional system.
They’re also potent rewards kids love.
So if kids are going to occasionally eat candy and soda maybe it’s better to give it to them while they study then when they’re relaxing.
(More on the best way for kids to study here.)
8) Happy Kids = Successful Kids
Happier kids are more likely to turn into successful, accomplished adults.
Via Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents:
…happiness is a tremendous advantage in a world that emphasizes performance. On average, happy people are more successful than unhappy people at both work and love. They get better performance reviews, have more prestigious jobs, and earn higher salaries. They are more likely to get married, and once married, they are more satisfied with their marriage.
And what’s the first step in creating happier kids? Being a happy parent.
(More on how to raise happy kids here.)
9) Peer Group Matters
Your genetics and the genetics of your partner have a huge effect on your kids. But the way you raise your kids?
Not nearly as much.
Via Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference:
On things like measures of intellectual ability and certain aspects of personality, the biological children are fairly similar to their parents.
For the adopted kids, however, the results are downright strange. Their scores have nothing whatsoever in common with their adoptive parents: these children are no more similar in their personality or intellectual skills to the people who raised them, fed them, clothed them, read to them, taught them, and loved them for sixteen years than they are to any two adults taken at random off the street.
So what does have an enormous affect on your children’s behavior? Their peer group.
We usually only talk about peer pressure when it’s a negative but more often than not, it’s a positive.
Living in a nice neighborhood, going to solid schools and making sure your children hang out with good kids can make a huge difference.
What’s the easiest way for a college student to improve their GPA? Pick a smart roommate.
Via The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work:
One study of Dartmouth College students by economist Bruce Sacerdote illustrates how powerful this influence is.
He found that when students with low grade-point averages simply began rooming with higher-scoring students, their grade-point averages increased. These students, according to the researchers, “appeared to infect each other with good and bad study habits—such that a roommate with a high grade-point average would drag upward the G.P.A. of his lower-scoring roommate.”
(More on the how others affect your behavior without you realizing it here.)
10) Believe In Them
Believing your kid is smarter than average makes a difference.
When teachers were told certain kids were sharper, those kids did better — even though the kids were selected at random.
Via The Heart of Social Psychology: A Backstage View of a Passionate Science:
…Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson (1968) did the same study in a classroom, telling elementary school teachers that they had certain students in their class who were “academic spurters.
” In fact, these students were selected at random. Absolutely nothing else was done by the researchers to single out these children. Yet by the end of the school year, 30 percent of the the children arbitrarily named as spurters had gained an average of 22 IQ points, and almost all had gained at least 10 IQ points.
Sum Up
- Music Lessons
- The Dumb Jock Is A Myth
- Don’t Read To Your Kids, Read With Them
- Sleep Deprivation Makes Kids Stupid
- IQ Isn’t Worth Much Without Self-Discipline
- Learning Is An Active Process
- Treats Can Be a Good Thing — At The Right Time
- Happy Kids = Successful Kids
- Peer Group Matters
- Believe In Them
One final note: Intelligence isn’t everything.
Without ethics and empathy really smart people can be scary.
As P.J. O’Rourke once said:
Smart people don’t start many bar fights. But stupid people don’t build many hydrogen bombs.
So if you want to learn how to raise a happier kid go here and a more well-behaved kid go here.
I hope this helps your child be brilliant.
Related posts:
Good Parenting Skills: 7 Research-Backed Ways to Raise Kids Right
How To Have A Happy Family – 7 Tips Backed By Research
How To Raise Happy Kids – 10 Steps Backed By Science
This piece originally appeared on Barking Up the Wrong Tree. Join 45K+ readers. Get a free weekly update via email here.
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10 Ways to Enhance Your Child's Intelligence Without Strain and Violence
It's never too late to fight for higher intelligence in your child. Here's what the science says about how you can help toddlers and teens get even smarter.
1. Music lessons
It's very simple: scientific studies conducted back in the early 2000s show that compared to children from control groups, children from groups learning to play musical instruments showed higher performance across the IQ scale. In fact, music education helps everyone, young and old: not only pupils and students improve their academic performance through music lessons, but also the grandparents who participated in the study demonstrate a slowdown in the aging process. nine0005
2. The myth of dumb athletes
Of course, there are dumb athletes. But only because they spend much more time in the stadium than in the library. Will you make sure that your child pays equal attention to sports and studies? Good physical shape enhances learning abilities.
After exercise, people learn new words 20% faster. In 2007, a group of German scientists found that undergraduate students learned new terms 20% faster after exercise than before. For 3 months of the training regimen, blood circulation in the part of the brain that is responsible for memory and learning increased by 30%. nine0005
3. Don't read to children - read with them!
Is your child learning to read? Don't just let him stare at the pictures while you read: pay attention to the words. Canadian psychologists have found that this improves reading skills in children: if you read a book together, paying attention to the development of reading skills in a child, then such reading becomes a tool for the emergence of early literacy, even in children with developmental difficulties.
4. Lack of sleep is evil! nine0007
Poe Bronson and Ashley Merriman, authors of the bestselling book Shocking Parenting, argue that sixth graders not getting enough sleep for one hour on a regular basis would reduce their intelligence to the level of fourth graders.
The authors derived the dependence of the average score on the average amount of sleep time. The study was conducted on 3,000 students in Rhode Island. The teens who averaged A's got fifteen minutes more sleep than the A's, who in turn slept an average of fifteen minutes more than the A's, and so on. Every quarter hour of sleep makes a huge difference! nine0005
5. IQ means very little without self-discipline
The level of self-discipline is more accurate in indicating success in life than IQ, argues Charles Duhigg in his brilliant book “The Power of Habit: What and Why We Do in Our Life and Business” . Dozens of scientific studies have established that willpower is the only determining factor for success. Students with greater will power performed better and were able to choose from the best educational institutions for professional knowledge. They missed less classes, watched less TV, and spent more time on homework. “Disciplined teens outperform their more impulsive peers in all subjects.
Discipline determines success more than just a high IQ score, ”the scientists say. So, diligence and perseverance - that's what grades depend on. In his bestselling book How Kids Succeed, Paul Tuf writes that hard work is the best indicator of successful employment. In addition, as his observations show, diligent people study better, commit fewer crimes, stay married longer. They live longer, and not only because they smoke and drink less, they also have a lower risk of stroke, hypertension and the development of Alzheimer's disease. Which child is the most successful? Stubborn child. At the same time, the researcher defines perseverance as perseverance and inspiration. nine0005
6. Learning as an active process
Scientists have found that the vast majority of so-called "educational" cartoons and programs not only have no effect, but in some cases even harm the child. So says the study, which was conducted by the author of the book "Brain Rules" John Medina: due to each hour spent watching "developing" cartoons, children aged 17 to 24 months lag behind "undeveloped" peers in understanding 6-8 words.
True learning cannot be a passive process. In addition, our brain is designed to learn in the process of activity, and not passive perception of information. The visibility of the "two-thirds rule": to learn a verse, it is better to read it for 30% of the allotted time, and repeat it for two-thirds in order to remember it. nine0005
7. Pleasures can be beneficial if they are received at the right time
Of course, it would be better if children always and everywhere ate only healthy food. The Wall Street Journal published the results of a study on the relationship between student nutrition and academic performance. Everyone knows that on the day of the test or exam, you need to have a good breakfast with slow-digesting foods rich in carbohydrates and fiber, such as oatmeal. But the fact that the child eats all week before the control also matters. 16 college students took part in an experiment to measure the level of attention and speed of thought. The guys ate fatty, low-carb foods for five days: meat, eggs, cheeses and cream, but after such a diet, all their indicators dropped significantly.
At the same time, there are exceptions. Children do not always eat only healthy food, and this is not as scary as it seems, because sweets speed up brain activity. The only problem is that sweets are usually eaten at the wrong time (games, evening before bedtime), so if you already allow your child to eat chocolate or drink cola, let it be during class, not during rest. nine0005
8 Successful children are happy children happily. How to raise a happy child? Try to be a happy parent first!
9. Friendship with a good group of peers
The genes of the parents have a great influence on the child. What about your parenting methods? Much less. Malcolm Gladwell, in The Tipping Point, says that while conducting an experiment, he came to the conclusion that 16-year-old biological children with their parents show a sufficient similarity in mental abilities and inclinations. In the case of adopted children, the results look strange: the mental abilities and inclinations of adopted children are not at all similar to these traits of their adoptive parents, and these are the people who raised them, fed them, read to them, dressed them, taught and loved them for 16 years.
contract! What is the strongest influence on the formation of behavior in children? Their reference peer group. Usually we think about the dangers of "bad company", but it's worth thinking about the benefits of "good company". Living in a good neighborhood, going to a good school, and being friends with good boys and girls can determine your child's success in life. nine0005
10. Faith in your children
Arthur Aron, a well-known social psychologist, gives the following results of the experiment: before new teachers came to work in certain classes, the experimenter informed them that, for example, Vasya K., Sveta Ch. and Tanya G. are very talented children. In fact, the names were chosen by the experimenter at random. But, a strange thing: by the end of the year, Vasya K., Sveta Ch. and Tanya G. really improved their academic performance a lot, because the teachers treated them as talented, promising students! All children named "talented" at the beginning of the experiment at the end of the year increased their IQ by 10 points, and a third of them - by 22 points or more.
nine0005
In conclusion, I would like to remind you that intelligence is not everything. Without conscience and empathy, even very smart people can become monsters. As the famous satirist Patrick O'Rourke once said: “It is rare for an intellectual to start a fight in a bar. But hydrogen bombs are certainly not made by stupid people.
Based on materials: time.com
- See also: "Check what type of intelligence your child has out of seven possible"
9 main factors for the development of intelligence in children
To begin to reveal the topic of the development of intelligence in children, one should understand the essence of the definition itself. Intelligence means sensations, perception, understanding, the qualities of the psyche and the ability to adapt to emerging life situations, as well as the ability to use one's knowledge to control the environment.
Factor one. It should be remembered that a person's intellect develops especially intensively between the ages of two and twelve.
And this means that this period is most favorable for learning and expanding the level of knowledge in any areas. nine0005
Factor two. In a child who grows up in an emotionally positive environment, the level of intelligence continuously increases. Therefore, if you surround the child with a favorable atmosphere and provide him with the opportunity for all-round development, the intellect will develop with him.
The third factor. The brain is in many ways like a muscle: the harder you train it, the greater its capabilities become. If a child learns something new every day, the level of thinking will certainly increase. nine0005
The fourth factor. The best way to develop the intellect is to engage in unfamiliar activities. Therefore, along with the repetition of what the child already knows, it is necessary to constantly learn something new.
The fifth factor. Studies have shown that the composition of Mozart's musical compositions activates the cognitive functions of the brain.
This means that just listening to Mozart for ten minutes a day, you can significantly increase the intelligence of not only the child, but also the parents. Give music lessons daily attention. nine0005
Factor six. The higher the level of education a child receives, the lower the percentage of the probability of developing brain diseases. Medicine claims that intellectual development affects the development of brain tissue in such a way that new cells replace dying ones.
Factor seven. The IQ (intelligence quotient) of an average person ranges from 100 to 120 points, while an intellectually developed individual has a score of 130, but only one in 50 can boast such a high score. Highly intelligent people get an IQ of 145, their number is about one in a thousand. People with an IQ of 160 and above are only one in a million. And the level of 175 and more can reach one person in three million. nine0005
Factor eight. The lifestyle that parents provide for their child also greatly affects the development of intelligence.
