Increase Your Child's Intelligence in Just Five Minutes a Day

A solid vocabulary is an important part of improving communication skills. If you want to help your child learn more, retain what they are exposed to and excel in their educational ventures then ask yourself this, "Are they worth five minutes a day?" If you want to help them get a few steps ahead this summer or are just looking for a way to jumpstart their vocabulary base, give this interesting concept a try. This method of "quick learning" isn't new and it can be adapted and utilized for almost any type of subject matter and for any aged child.

What You Need: All you need to do this are some index cards, a permanent marker, tape and a base plan of what you want to cover. Spend some time gathering terms, words, definitions and abbreviations and make a one month plan for your child. This can be done for any age group, reading level or school grade and it is never too early to start.

For younger kids you can start with common sight words like 'cat', 'fox', 'car', 'ball' and 'box'. You can also add basic math equations like '2 + 2 = 4' or '10 - 5 = 5'. For older kids you can add historical dates, famous people, landmarks and world events. The best way to start this process is to see exactly what your child knows; going by what they have in their workbooks or school papers isn't always the best way to go. Sit down and ask them things that you think they may know, chances are you will be surprised as to what they have locked up in their little brains.

Making a solid plan for the month is the best way to go. You can work on themes like animals, colors, numbers, shapes or sight words for younger kids and for the older ones states, capitals, metric conversions, weights, geography and an introduction to chemistry.

Start by going over your list and getting organized; you aren't going to want to start off with the toughest of things so remember to keep things simple at first. Working in groupings of three to five items, make up your cards for the week (you can do them for the month but that involves a lot of time). For a five year old you could do sight words, basic math, advanced shapes, phonics and a wildcard subject like money, dinosaurs or an introduction to a foreign language.