Free courses / AI for Parents / Lesson 3
Practice in their own words
Questions that make a child explain, not just recall.
Ask for questions that begin with “explain why” or “what would happen if” rather than “what is”. Explaining forces understanding; recall can be faked by a good memory or a quick search.
Let the child answer out loud or on paper before anyone looks at the model's answer. Then compare. Where they differ, the discussion is the learning.
Praise the explanation, not the match. A wrong answer explained well is closer to understanding than a right answer copied.
- “Explain why” beats “what is”.
- Child answers first, model second.
- Praise the explanation.
PIXEL / THE COACH
The question that makes a child explain is worth ten that make them recall. "Why does that work?" beats "what is the answer?" every time.
Try it
Get three “explain why” questions on a topic and try them at the kitchen table. Note where the child’s answer was better than the machine’s. It happens more than you would think.
Write three questions about [topic] that start with why or how, suitable for a nine-year-old, where the answer cannot be looked up in one line.
Then paste it into whichever assistant you use — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Copilot. Not sure which? Meet them all.
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