Build Those Study Skills!

A friend asked yesterday how to help her fourth grade son pass his social studies class. Apparently, he got an F on his latest report card, and she's concerned. Need some tips about helping kids with content area study? Here we go!

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-->Make sure the student is completing AND TURNING IN homework. Sometimes they get the notion that "I'm going to fail anyway" and though you see them do the homework, it never makes it to the teacher. I've shown kids (by actually writing the math down with them) the difference in a grade when the average includes lots of zeroes and when it includes a few 40's and 50's. They can usually see that turning in work, even if it is less than stellar, keeps that average easier to raise.

-->Have the student show you where in the book the answers are for the homework exercises. Particularly at the elementary level, teachers (and answer keys) are looking for regurgitation on most questions. They want the student to find the answer, reword it just a smidge, and write it down. You'll find the questions are just in the order that the answers appear in the book, too.

-->Pay special attention to those words and phrases in boldface print. These are vocabulary words and important concepts that your child will need to master before the test. Make some flashcards, play some memory games, try playing Hangman, and so forth. Practice those vocabulary words!

-->Make sure your middle elementary student can read the textbook. Third and fourth grade is often when reading problems show up, and one very common symptom is falling grades in the content areas. Have your student read aloud to you from the textbook. He or she should stumble or hesitate over no more than five or six words on the page. Any more would be cause to check reading skills carefully. It's hard to pass these classes if you can't read the textbook!!

-->Have your student spend some time outlining each chapter. It's not usually required, but it will make a huge difference in the child's performance. Outlines of elementary textbooks are generally very easy to make: the chapter title is the outline title, the sections form the points at the Roman numerals, each paragraph's main idea is an alphabet point, and the details in the paragraph are the points to put under each alphabet point.

There you have it: study tips that will make a huge difference in most students' grades. Yes, I know they involve some extra work for the parent and extra time for the student, but mastery of these types of study skills will keep your student afloat academically clear through college. Don't let bad study habits take hold in elementary school! They will limit your child's success as a young adult. Instead, be proactive and insist that sound study habits be developed.

Have a super-duper day!

Wednesday-Hump Day!

We're over the hump, I guess. It's all downhill to the weekend now, folks. I've absolutely GOT to get a few of these time-sensitive items off of my to-do list today. I need to register a kid for an AP test, call the college and get some tech help to set up the eldest dd's account, and arrange the annual maintenance on the A/C. Good thing I'm only seeing one student today!

Here's what you can do today with your young ones:

Grab your calendar and have them either tell you or write down a description of this month's picture. Descriptive writing is very important because it builds vocabulary. Here's how to make it work: After your child has responded to this exercise, go over it together. Give your youngster new words. For example, if he wrote that the flowers were pretty, you can suggest gorgeous. If she said that the horse was running, you can suggest galloping or gamboling. See if you can come up with more descriptive words and phrases together, and then rewrite or retell the piece. Your child will be impressed with the results!

Good Morning!

It's going to be a busy day around here, so I thought I'd post early today. Gotta take youngest dd dto the orthodontist, then scoot up to Cassopolis to evaluate a new student, tutor a few and run home in time to take middle dd to her soccer game, tutor a bit more and go to a staff meeting for the camp I'm helping with in June. Huff-puff! You can see why I won't be likely to post anything later today.

The new reading program at the mental health clinic is going well-I'm adding my third student today. These clients are developmentally disabled adults, which is one of the things I'm actually trained to do. I'm having a ball, and looking forward to my first pay check from these folks at the end of the month. Being paid monthly is a bit of a pain, but on the other hand, the check will seem really, really big to me, since most of my income appears in $20 chunks.

And here's something fun to do with your kids:

Get them excited about reading comprehension exercises by turning the tables. Have them make up a quiz over a book for YOU! Of course, they also have to make an answer key....By making up the questions and answering them themselves, they will hardly know they are doing a comprehension exercise. It works like a charm!

Monday Monday

Ah yes, Monday. Back to work after spring break Monday. And my beautiful sunshine has disappeared behind gray clouds, but at least it was pretty most of the time last week. I'll be busy today-seeing six students plus catching up on housework and writing. That MAY keep me out of trouble, but who knows.

So what can you do with your kids today to build skills? How about making a map? Find some graph paper if you can. It makes drawing to scale a lot easier for older kids. Now choose an area to map, like a room or your yard. Pick an appropriate scale and start measuring. See if the youngster can accurately mark the locations of the important stuff in the area.

Map skills are very important to adults. It's what we use to find our way, especially when we're going somewhere new or in an unfamiliar area. We need to be so good at using maps that we can read them in the dark and with those quick little glances that you use when you're supposed to be driving. Help your kids build this valuable skill!

Tell a Few Jokes!

That's right, I said tell jokes. Tell them to your kids. Teach the kids how to tell them to you. Jokes build a host of academic skills and your child will be a better student if you introduce jokes and use them a lot.

Jokes rely on auditory processing skills. These are also foundational for reading and writing, as well as listening to the teacher. Kids must be able to understand what they are hearing in order to learn from it. Jokes point out differences in words, juxtapositions, and absurdities. Your child will be learning listening skills while you both laugh together.

This is where it gets tricky. Young children will want to tell you the same joke again and again, and gosh that gets old quickly! But do your child a huge favor and laugh at it over and over again. The repetition is serving many purposes, and the kids will outgrow it sometime!!

Check the library for children's joke books, and keep your eyes open for new groaners. Kids not only benefit academically from telling jokes, but this can be a great social skill to develop as well.

Let's try this again LOL! Since I'm writing for several other blogs now, it seems appropriate to resurrect this one while I'm at it. Not much has changed since the last post-I'm still working as a private tutor, both online and off. I'm doing more writing for real money and a few less workshops, though I still like that side of my business. I suspect that some of the grant money sources that paid for my workshop efforts have dried up. The reason I suspect this is because I've added grant writing to my list of business services and have first hand experience here with gathering up funding for projects like that. Actually doing fairly well at it, too! I think I've got about a fifty percent success rate at getting projects funded, which they tell me is pretty good.

Now here's an educational-sort of tip for today:

Help your youngster memorize those troublesome math facts! In spite of what the school may be telling you, it *IS* important to memorize the silly things. Pick one fact that is particularly troublesome and make it your baby for a week. Tell your student they only have to learn this one fact right now. Ask him or her to respond to it (What is 2x2?) whenever you get in the car together, or whenever he or she reaches into the fridge, or whatever other activity that you do a lot. Before you know it, the fact will be memorized and you can move on to try the same technique with another one. Your child will thank you when he or she starts to work with fractions, algebra, and calculus down the road.