4 Ways Kids Use Self-Monitoring to Learn

Self-monitoring is a fancy name for a skill you use all the time to keep track what you’re doing. It’s a series of assessments you make along the way: How is the activity going? What’s working and what’s not? Should I make adjustments? When you make breakfast, you check to see if the butter has melted in the pan before adding the eggs. If the eggs were runny last time, you might think, What do I need to do differently this time? That same skill applies to learning, too. Here are four ways kids use self-monitoring to help with learning. Self-Monitoring and Basic LearningKids use self-monitoring to help them learn skills like math and reading, but they also use it for more basic things, like understanding directions, keeping track of due dates and checking work. If your child has weak self-monitoring skills, she may not recognize mistakes when proofreading a writing assignment or checking math for errors. She may also have a hard time determining whether she’s following directions correctly, making it difficult to know when she needs to ask for help. Self-Monitoring and MathWhen it comes to math, kids use self-monitoring to figure out the best way to tackle a problem and determine whether their answer seems reasonable. Younger kids use it to decide which operation (or operations) to use for a word problem. If your child struggles with this skill, you might notice she has a hard time understanding clue words (such as in addition to or how much less than) or knowing whether to use the + or – sign when she writes the problem. Self-monitoring helps older kids check answers by using the reverse operation, such as using multiplication to check a division problem. Self-monitoring is also the skill kids use to make sure they’ve gone through all the steps of a problem and that each piece was done correctly. If your child struggles with self-monitoring, she might get one or all of the steps wrong and not be able to see it. She may not realize the answer doesn’t make sense. Self-Monitoring and Learning to ReadA beginning reader uses self-monitoring to determine whether the sounds she’s using for the letters make sense together to create a word she recognizes—a skill known as decoding. Self-checking is what helps kids go back and rethink the word when it doesn’t sound right. If your child struggles with self-monitoring and decodes the word boat as bow-AT, she may not realize it doesn’t make sense. As she moves on and begins to read sentences, she may have a similar problem recognizing that a word in that context doesn’t make sense and figuring out which one would. Self-Monitoring and Reading Comprehension “If your child has trouble with self-monitoring, it doesn’t mean she won’t be able to learn. But she might need some extra support.” Kids use self-monitoring to become better, more effective readers. When kids first start to read for meaning, parents and teachers help them get information from what they’re reading and understand what it means. As they become better readers, kids replace those outside monitors with self-monitoring. They can ask themselves questions like: Why am I reading this and what will I learn from it? Do I understand the way information is presented? (Such as a list, an alphabet book or a chapter book.) Can I connect this to anything I already know? Do I understand the ideas and words or do I need to stop to look them up or ask for help? The Good News: There Are Ways to HelpIf your child has trouble with self-monitoring, it doesn’t mean she won’t be able to learn. But she might need some extra support. There are accommodations your child’s teacher can make to help her in the classroom, as well as strategies and technology you can use at home to make things easier. Key Takeaways Kids use self-monitoring as a way to check in with themselves as they learn. Self-monitoring helps kids know if their answers make sense. There are strategies that can be used at school and at home to help kids learn to self-monitor more effectively.