7 Easy Ways to Boost Your Child’s IQ

IQ tests cover the seven abilities every child needs to thrive in the classroom: language, information, memory, math, spatial, thinking and fine-motor skills.

1. Talk to your child about anything and everything all the time. This will build her language skills. Children raised in high-language households have IQs scores that are 38-points higher than kids brought up in low language homes.
2. Read concept books such as Richard Scarry’s Best First Book Ever or DK Publishing’s My First Word Book to your child.  Children tested for kindergarten are expected to know colors, shapes, seasons, fruit, farm animals — all the basic information kids are exposed to through picture books, preschool, and life itself.  If your child knows everything covered in these books, she’ll be ready.
   
3. Challenge your child’s memory. After you read your child a book, ask him to tell you the story back in his own words. Make patterns using Fruit Loops or colored beads, cover them up, and see if he can recreate them. These activities will build your child’s verbal and visual memory.
4. Build math concepts into your conversations. “Dinner will be ready in five minutes.”  “Do you want a whole cookie or a half a cookie?”  “Look how cute your toes are.  Let’s count them.” “You have three M&Ms. I’ll give you two more.  Now you’ll have five.” You can even bring up math when reading picture books.  “Look at that funny octopus.  How many legs does he have?”
   
5. Give your child blocks, puzzles, Lincoln Logs, Legos or Duplos to play with.  These will strengthen his spatial skills.  You can also look for spatial challenges in Highlights Magazine, which always features hidden pictures inside other pictures, or read a Where’s Waldo book and let your child find Waldo.
6. Let your child solve problems. When the ball rolls behind the console, ask him to come up with ways to retrieve it.  When he can’t get dressed in time for school, let him think of ideas to get ready faster. Give him a voice in making simple choices so he’ll become a decision-maker.  Children who are allowed to think for themselves at home develop strong cognitive skills.
7. Keep craft supplies handy and let your child create on rainy days. Colored paper, crayons, scissors, glue, glitter, paint, markets, brushes, q-tips, Play-Doh — working with these materials strengthens fine-motor skills, which are simply your child’s ability to control her hands and fingers.
   

Bonus!  Make play a priority.  Play is like a super food.  It supports development across all 7-abilities. As long as your child is engaged and having fun, that’s all that matters.