AcademicDevelopment

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Study & Homework Skills

Effective skills for studying and completing homework are an essential part of being successful as life long learners. Preparing for tests and homework can be challenging, but believe it or not there are ways to make it easier! Smart strategies for studying and getting your homework done include:

1.) Organize your materials
2.) Write down assignment due dates and test dates in a planner
3.) Find a quiet place where you can concentrate without any distractions
4.) Prepare in advance so you have time to ask remaining questions in class 
5.) Plan ahead so you don't run out of time to get all of your tasks completed
6.) Determine what learning styles work best for you and apply that to your studying
7.) Don't try to cram all your studying and homework in the night before
8.) Take breaks, and give yourself time in between assignments and studying to destress

Visit the links below for additional tips and suggestions on how to successfully study and complete homework.


https://www.studytips.org/

http://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/study-skills-for-middle-school-and-beyond/





Test Taking Tips

The day of a test can cause stress, anxiousness, worry, and many other unenjoyable feelings. The pressure to do well often takes over, and all of the hard work and studying slips right out of your mind. It can be very difficult to stay calm once that test is in front of you, but there are plenty of strategies to combat your nerves and ace that exam!

1.) Get a good nights sleep the night before
2.) Eat a healthy and filling breakfast in the morning
3.) Read the directions carefully
4.) Manage your time, keep an eye on the clock 
5.) Skip the questions you don't know and go back to them at the end
6.) Use process of elimination on multiple choice tests 
7.) If you have extra time at the end, go back and review your answers
8.) Have a positive attitude and do your best

Please visit the links below for some of our favorite test taking strategies.

https://www.teachervision.com/study-skills/teaching-methods/6390.html

http://www.nea.org/tools/lessons/Test-Prep-Review-Strategies-Grades-6-8.htm

Organization

https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/study-skills-for-middle-school-and-beyond/

Some tips to help your child get organized:

Provide a place to study.

It doesn’t have to be a desk, says Winburn. “A kitchen counter is a great place, especially if a parent is in the kitchen cooking.”

The desk or table surface should be big enough so that your student can spread out papers and books. Make sure essential supplies such as pens, paper and calculator are close by. Have good lighting and a sturdy chair that’s the right height available.

Help your child develop a system to keep track of important papers.

If your child tends to forget to turn in homework or can’t quite keep track of how he’s doing in a class, it might help to get him a binder with a folder in the front for completed work ready to be turned in and a folder in the back for papers returned by the teacher.

“For me, staying organized meant creating a system — any system — and sticking to it,” says Gabriela Kipnis, now a student at the University of Pennsylvania. “I had fun color-coding, organizing and using dividers, but the truth is, all that mattered was that there was a method that I stuck with.”

Make sure your child has — and uses — a planner to keep track of assignments.

Help your child get in the habit of writing down each daily assignment in each subject and checking it off when it’s complete. Some schools provide these to students, and if not, you might want to work with your PTA or parent organization to provide planners at your school.

Encourage your child to estimate how long each assignment will take.

He can then plan a realistic schedule, building in study breaks after subjects that are most challenging, and allowing for soccer games and band practice. Helping your child keep track of time spent studying — rather than staring at a blank page — will help him think about how he’s using his time. If he’s spending too much time on a subject that might be a signal that he needs extra help or tutoring.

Help your child break big projects into smaller ones.

A big research project will seem less overwhelming and will be less likely to be left until the last minute if it’s done in manageable chunks, each with its own deadline.

Communicate with your child’s teachers.

If your child is struggling with organizational skills, talk to the school counselor or teachers about what might be causing the problems and brainstorm approaches to solve them.

“Did you do your homework?”

Parents need to ask more questions than this one, teachers advise. How much should you help with homework? Monitor homework but remember it’s your child’s homework, not yours. You can help by asking questions that help guide your child to his own solutions. Some examples:

  • What information do you need to do this assignment?
  • Where are you going to look for it?
  • Where do you think you should begin?
  • What do you need to do next?
  • Can you describe how you’re going to solve this problem?
  • How did you solve this problem?
  • What did you try that didn’t work?
  • Why does this answer seem right to you?
  • Tell me more about this part?

Studying for tests

Studying for tests is a skill. For struggling students, it’s a mystery.

“Unsuccessful test takers don’t know where the questions come from,” says Jim Burke, a California high school English teacher and the author of a number of books about teaching and learning. “The kids who don’t succeed tend to think the others are lucky.”

Parents can help their children manage their time and attention — which means turning of the cell phone, the TV and the iPod, says Burke.

Some tips to remember in helping your child:

Rereading isn’t the same as learning.

“Reviewing alone is not enough, says Kipnis, the UPenn student, reflecting on what she has learned along the way. “Thinking of potential essay questions and outlining them or working out the challenging math problems helps me learn how to apply the material so that I do not blank when I see the questions on the test.”

“For math and sciences, a big problem that I had was that I would spend a lot of time reviewing the concepts, but I wouldn’t learn them because I was not practicing applying the concepts,” she says. “I was the most productive when I created sheets with tons of practice problems and just practiced applying the concept in many different ways.”

There are other ways your student can practice this kind of active learning – highlighting his notes, using Post-its to mark key textbook passages, making study cards, and mapping and diagramming concepts.

People are productive at different times of day.

Some people focus better in the morning, others at night. Help your child find the times that his efforts will be most effective.

Sometimes we just have to memorize.

You may have used a mnemonic like Roy G. Biv to remember the colors of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) or My Very Educated Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas to remember the correct order of the planets, back when Pluto was still considered the ninth one. Inventing your own silly mnemonic together works just as well and can lighten up a study session.

Help your child make the most of his time.

If she carries a review sheet or book along with her, sitting in the doctor’s waiting room or waiting out a traffic jam can be productive study time. That leaves more time for a basketball game after school.

Make sure your child knows the basics.

Find out the skills students at your child’s grade level are expected to have. Middle school students are generally expected to have learned basic multiplication and division facts, for example. If your child can’t quickly recall them, it is likely to hurt her scores on math tests.

Look for other sources of support.

Find out the best way to reach your child’s teachers and keep that contact information handy all year. Is there a college student in your neighborhood who can help with math, a relative who can tutor him in Spanish? Talk to your child about finding a “study buddy” or group. Study groups can be effective because students can fill in the gaps in each other’s knowledge and test their understanding of the material by explaining it to others.

Reflect on what works.

Some questions you can ask your child: How do you know when you’ve studied enough? How did you keep yourself focused? How much time did you plan to spend and how much did you actually spend? How would you do this differently next time?

Help your child destress.

Good study skills can help reduce anxiety, and so can relaxation exercises and regular physical activity. If your child seems unusually anxious about tests, talk to him about it. If the work seems too difficult for your child or the workload too great, contact the school.

“Have a conversation with the teacher,” says Winburn, the South Carolina teacher. “Maybe the child doesn’t need to be doing 100 problems to practice a concept. Maybe 10 is just fine.”