Lots of children struggle to study, and teachers rarely give explicit instructions about how students can prepare for tests and quizzes. Most students will cite “going over my notes” as their go-to study strategy, even though that strategy is largely ineffective for the vast majority. Science dictates a straightforward and engaging approach to preparing for exams. Help your child implement the below and watch both their confidence and their outcomes improve!
Overall Approach
- Make a plan: As test day approaches, have your child identify four (or more!) specific days and times that they can schedule a study session.
- Be specific: Many students find it difficult to start studying because success and time are both undefined. To make studying more accessible, students should identify a specific strategy they will use during each study session as well as an estimate of how long it will take to complete.
- Write it down: They should record those times and their specific goals for each session in their calendars.
- Mix it up: Remember – the more variety they incorporate into their study session, the better it is for retention. Scroll down for creative study strategies!
Synthesize
- Study Guide in Phases: Ask your teacher for multiple copies of the study guide. Complete it once with your notes, and then test yourself to see how much you can fill-in without your notes.
- Reorganize Notes: Often times class notes lack clear organization because we don’t know what’s coming next. Re-write them based on what kind of organization best represents the content (chronologically, by topic, by type of information, etc).
- Cheat Sheets: Imagine you have to catch a friend up on the most important information for this test. Make them a one page cheat sheet to help them out.
- Write a Test: Deciding what questions you’d include if you were writing the test helps you clarify what’s most important. Writing the “wrong” choice for multiple choice questions also helps solidify details.
Make Connections
- Poem/Song/Mnemonic Device: These are classics and have the added benefit of mapping new information onto melodies or other structures that can support recall.
- Concept Maps: Mind maps create visual representations of the connections between ideas. The more you incorporate shapes, colors, and drawings, the more you’re giving your brain to hold onto in relation to the content. After you make your mind map, compare it to your notes to be sure you didn’t leave anything out.
- Venn Diagram: Pick a related topic and really compare and contrast. This might work well for consolidating your understanding of an historical empire or a new scientific process.
Visual Strategies
- Color Code: Too much color coding can be distracting, but if you’re strategic it can be very helpful. A great first step to preparing for a test is to go through your notes and mark ideas green if you know them well, yellow if you’re shaky, and red if you to ask for help. That way, you can spend the rest of your time on the concepts you most need to review.
- Symbols: Annotating notes or text with symbols both ensures that you won’t mark up too much information for it to be helpful and gives your brian something visual to process. Favorite symbols include ? for ideas that are confusing or ! for content that surprises you. Try to identify about 4-5 symbols for a single study session.
- Post-Its: For a twist on flashcards, put information on post-its and organize them on a well. You might arrange key dates in order, match definitions to key words, or sort ideas into “don’t’ know,” “learning”, and “know”.
- Drawing: Creating images that represent ideas is powerful. One great way to do this is to draw portraits of historical figures and include at 3 accessories that represent their life and impact.
Speaking & Listening
- Voice Memos: Record voice memos of key information and you can listen to the memo on your way to the bus or in downtime between activities.
- Voice to Text: Turn the voice to text feature on in a Google doc and talk through everything you know about an idea. Check what you said against your notes to see what you missed.
- Paired Studying: Studying with a friend leads to questions that you might not have thought of and includes both verbal and audio processing of ideas.
As your child decides how to study, encourage them to pick strategies that most appeal to them and reinforce the idea that setting up multiple, shorter study sessions will allow them to study more efficiently. After each test, invite them to reflect on what worked well and what didn’t with the goal of knowing themselves as a learner. In time, you can support your child in having a clear approach to learning for each subject area.
If you’d like personalized support for your child to develop an ongoing study routine, our executive functioning coaches can help! Contact us or reach out to your director to set up a strategy session.
This post, written by Private Prep Director of Executive Functioning Jenna Prada, was originally published on SmartKids, a hub dedicated to supporting the parents of children with learning disabilities.
