Help Your Kids Get Good Grades by Developing Good Study Habits

As most educators will tell you, it isn't always the students with the highest IQs who make the best grades. Getting good grades doesn't mean that students have to become nerds or dweebs [insert current vernacular here], and they can still be good at sports, music, or their selected extra-curricular activities. It doesn't even mean spending hours cracking the books. Getting good grades is a matter of learning to use study time wisely. Each student learns a little differently and studies a little differently. It is important that parents help each child find the most effective study methods.

Students with good study habits approach their homework time as if it were a job. Actually it is a work-at-home job, where the student is the one who is responsible for arranging priorities and making the best use of time. Good students usually ignore TV and phone calls during homework time. They know the importance of separating work and play.

Good students are usually consistent about their study time. When and where to study are different for everyone, but studying consistently is a common thread among those who make good grades. The mind becomes conditioned to expect the mental calisthenics just as the body is conditioned to expect exercise. Whether homework is done on the kitchen table after dinner dishes are cleared away, or bright and early in the morning when the house is still quiet, having a set time for homework will train the mind and body to be ready then.

Part of being consistent is being organized. It helps if students can keep study papers, class notes, and graded assignments filed together so they can easily find them when it's time to study for a test. It's nice for children to have a desk in their room, but for many families that is not possible. Perhaps your children can use color coded folders in their lockers or backpacks to stay organized. This also keeps everything they need close at hand when they are at school.

Another kind of organization is time organization. This goes beyond setting aside a period of time for daily homework. As students advance through the grades, they will have assignments for papers and projects that will be due days or weeks in advance. Help your child plan ahead and allow plenty of time to complete a big project. Help them break it into short-term goals, small pieces which will combine to complete the project by the deadline. One of the best things our local high school did when my children were there was to give each student an assignment book/calendar as part of each year's registration process. Besides basic school information inside, each student had a specific number of hall passes bound into the book, which had to be budgeted wisely each grading period. The assignment pages had plenty of room for each class. Teachers helped the students learn to use these organizers, and it made quite a difference in many students' abilities to cope with their busy schedules. These organizational abilities transfer to college and to employment, and have become incredibly valuable.

Some skills go without saying, such as "Take good notes," and yet many students never master this skill. If your child has problems taking notes, help by practicing at home. Read aloud while they take notes. Have them take notes from a TV program. Any way you can help them transfer a spoken word or expressed thought onto paper will help them with note-taking in class. When it is practice, there is no right or wrong, just improvement. This is good practice for young children just learning to write, too. Having them write words or phrases as you speak helps them make the connection between abstract spoken and concrete written words.

Older students should learn to jot down notes as they read an assignment. This will help them retain main points, and it gives them a summary to review quickly before class begins the next day. Have your older child tell you a little about what they just studied for the next lesson. If they don't understand everything, help them formulate questions to ask during class. Student curiosity makes classroom discussions more interesting for everyone. The best students want to have a working knowledge of the subject, and not just to be repositories of facts.

Source:
Personal interest and experience