Does Your Child Know how to Study?

Livia McCoy has spent twenty-six years teaching science to students with language learning disabilities. In addition to teaching students daily, she trains teachers and runs workshops for teachers and parents who want to know more about how to help their struggling students.

Livia’s book, When Learning is Painful: How to Help Struggling Students -- A Resource for Parents and Teachers was published in 2009.

Almost every time a student is asked how they studied for a test, they will answer, "I read over my notes."  What they do not know is -- reading notes is not studying.   It seems obvious that this works for many students, since they make it all the way through high school thinking this is the way to prepare for tests. Often it is not until college that they find out this is not enough.

In order to prepare for a test -- to really study -- students must do an activity that requires them to remember the material without looking at it.  Reading, highlighting, and organizing notes is step one.  From there she must decide what is likely to be on the test.  It helps to ask, "What was covered in class?  What did the teacher say was important?  What key terms were emphasized in the text?"  These activities are in the preparatory phase of studying. The next step is to take some action to learn.

Parents or friends can call out questions to find out if the student has learned the material. Or the student can prepare note cards with a question on one side and its answer on the other.  With these cards (or a similar folded chart that hides the answers), the student can quiz himself.  Once a card or concept is clearly learned, the student can remove that card from the stack and only study the ones not yet mastered.

The next time your son or daughter is asked, "How did you study?"  The answer will be more definitive. "First I organized my materials, then I made a study chart.  After that, I quizzed myself to make sure I knew everything."

Now they know that to really study they must both prepare to learn and also take an action.