Study Skills

Strengthen Your Child's Study Skills

Students need to develop good study habits as early in their schooling experience as possible. In fact, parents at home can begin instilling these habits before their children attend school. Students who master these skills acquire valuable life coping skills that serve as a powerful foundation not only in their school career but in a variety of situations and experiences they will encounter in later life.

The Three Major Keys for the development of strong study habits are learning:

1. How to create and organize an environment* that is conducive to concentrated study
2. How to organize study time* so it can be used advantageously
3. How to organize materials and work

As a parent, you can begin to teach these important organizational skills even before your child starts school and build on them during their school years.

It's no coincidence that the word ORGANIZE appears as a crucial part of each major key in the equation. It's hard to study and succeed in school when you can't organize your work, space, time, information or supplies. Weak organizational skills can cause failure among bright children and fuel emotional distress in emotionally healthy children.

ORGANIZATION > BEING IN CONTROL = CONFIDENCE = SUCCESS

The ability to get organized is frequently taken for granted. Unfortunately, when children are disorganized, their resulting failure is often blamed on laziness , lack of motivation, irresponsibility, procrastination or avoidance. The opposite however, is typically the case. Rather than being the result of a motivational problem, disorganization is often the cause of it.

STRATEGIES AND TIPS TO TEACH ORGANIZATION

Start early - parents can start with their toddlers. Model, demonstrate and practice with your child what being organized means. Organize your child's room with your child- is there a place for everything. Is there a toy chest? Shelves for storage? Is there any organization in their clothes closet- by item, color... Is your child expected to keep his /her room organized daily- that is put away toys in chests or cabint...Does he or she hang up the clothes? Is there a hamper for dirty clothes? Develop a bedtime routine that you do with your child and eventually he/she does it herself. Are there chore(s) that your child is expected to do daily, weekly....?

Begin by coaching him or her- you are your child's teacher at this point. Show him/her and do it with them until they can be independently responsible. Praise them when they do it. Also remember- children imitate their parents. Are you a model of organization?

USING 60 MINUTE TIMERS to have a "race against time" for mundane tasks such as getting ready for school or cleaning up a room helps to make fun out of the job, and makes it even more positive if linked to a privilege or reward for meeting the deadline.

PLOTTING the steps of a long term PROJECT onto a monthly calendar With even smaller steps broken out for daily assignments helps finish the job with less "last minute" panic.

HAVE A SET OF CRITERIA to GUIDE ACTION. This helps children make DECISIONS (ie. With clear rules as to what to keep and what to trash, unnecessary clutter is more easily weeded from binders and desks).

USING HARD-SIDED CONTAINERS of all sorts-crates, bins, cans, file folders and labeling them with words and pix as well helps getting things in their rightful places.

ENCOURAGE DECISION MAKING AT AN EARLY AGE- disorganized children are often in decisive. They have messy desks and notebooks often because they can't decide on what to throw away (they need criteria).They do not do their work because they cannot decide where to start and what to do next. Organizing involves taking control over time, material and procedures. Taking control requires making decisions.

GIVE CHOICES appropriate to their age ( all of which you can feel safe in making since you as the adult provides the alternatives from which to choose). ie, food for lunch, Saturday outings. Over-structuring children by eliminating choices undercuts their ability to make decisions for themselves.

GENTLY COACH by your questions rather than tell the answers to questions. Use it as an opportunity to teach problem solving. Decisions are easy to make when you are an effective problem solver.

RAISE AWARENESS of making decisions by your comments ["Good Decision." "That decision means you will be able too..."]

DRAW DECISION TREES to illustrate choices AND their outcomes {If I do this, then X will occur- if I do that then Y will occur}.

MODEL OUTLOUD how you are deciding on an issue so they can hear the inner language script you use.

Show them how to develop LISTS OF PROS AND CONS to help their decisions become more obvious. Help them narrow their choices by eliminating the least desirable choices first and working backwards.

ENCOURAGE YOUR CHILD TO THINK FOR THEMSELVES. Draw attention to and raise their consciousness of their active thinking. Disorganized children are often accustomed to having things DONE for them b/c adults can't wait for them to get the job done. However, when they learn not to think and do for themselves, they become less mindful of what they have left behind or forgotten, misplaced or failed to do. Approach them in a positive way to reinforce thinking behaviors. ³You remembered (to put your homework in your backpack) "You realized (your library book was due today)" "Good Plan" "You thought about it"- are ways to affirm thinking for themselves.

HOMEWORK is vital to a child's success in school. It is a wonderful opportunity for parents to teach students these all important study skills. Read Homework and School Achievement; The ABC'S Of Homework and Homework Tips (all below in the Site Index) to discover the importance of homework and what you can do to help your child gain the most from doing homework.