Category: Study Tips

Too Much Homework and Not Enough Time

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Homework comes and goes as a hot topic in the news. Sometimes the focus is on what percent of students stay up late doing homework. Other times it’s on the idea that too much homework can be harmful, that kids aren’t playing outside or spending time with their families. Sometimes it’s about how students are suffering, other times it’s about the burden on parents. I don’t think the data are conclusive on whether homework is, on balance, a good or a bad thing for students. What I do worry about more, though, is the impact of too much homework and not enough time on students who are struggling. 

Child keeps forgetting homework
Boy bent over papers on a table in a dark room

Why too much homework is bad for struggling students

I asked my son’s first grade teacher how long homework should take. Her answer? “Not too long.” It’s usually a math worksheet that’s totally within his capabilities. If I look at it with my teacher eyes, I’d say it’s a 10-minute task for any kid who understood and remembers that day’s math lesson. But there are so many other things that can interfere with that quick 10-minute task. At my house, my child keeps forgetting his homework – like literally forgets it exists between the time he puts it down (on the couch? in the bathroom? by the fridge?) and the time he wanders into the next room. By the time we defeat the many distractions and get him seated, with a pencil, in the general vicinity of a parent, we might already have 30 minutes on the clock! And that was 30 minutes of nagging, negotiating, prompting, reminding, and sometimes whining (although I try not to whine at the children…).

My point is that the teacher is planning homework with the best-case scenario in mind. She’s imagining routines like in her classroom: Everyone takes out their pencil from their desk while she passes out papers. She reads the instructions out loud. Everyone begins quietly scratching away with their pencils.*

* It is painfully clear to me that classrooms rarely actually run this way, but we teachers are often optimistic about what we can get done on that perfect unicorn of a school day!

In real life, struggling students might not remember how to do this work because they didn’t master it in class. They might not be able to read the directions. They might not be able to articulate to their parents what exactly they are supposed to do with an ambiguous worksheet. They might be just plain exhausted from working on the things that are hardest for them all day long. 

How to talk to the school about homework problems

When I assigned homework to my special education students, I always made it clear to the students and their parents at the beginning of the year that I was happy to assign homework if they wanted it, but it was always, always, up to parent discretion. If it was taking an unreasonable amount of time, or if the directions didn’t make sense, we would always defer to the experts in home learning: parents. For my students being assigned homework along with their grade-level peers, I encouraged parents to write a note on the homework or send an email to the teacher with feedback about challenging assignments. Teachers don’t know that homework took hours. They have no idea that buckets of tears were shed over an assignment if it comes in looking perfect (or doesn’t come in at all!).

Child keeps forgetting homework

Here are some things about homework that the teacher needs to know to help your child:

  • “It’s taking X amount of time.” If you are working with and supervising your child, and homework is taking hours, something is wrong. There is some kind of mismatch between the child and the assignment. 
  • “He doesn’t know what the word __ means.” If the directions don’t make sense, or if he doesn’t remember how to do the assigned work, he may need a quick review or more extended support.
  • “She cries every time she has to read.” Maybe she’s tired or sad to be missing out on time with friends, but if the problem is specific to one acdemic area (reading, writing, math), there may be weaker skills in that area. 
  • “I had to type/write it myself to get it done.” Some teachers don’t care who is holding the pencil when those vocabulary sentences get written. Sometimes the focus of homework is the thinking and idea generation. Other times (and the older students get, the more true this is) teachers expect full independence in the area of homework, and may be grading the results. If it’s not possible for your child to do the homework on their own, find out if there’s a way to shorten the writing, or an option for them to type if that would make it go more smoothly. 

Remember, you and the teacher have the same goal: for your child to learn the content and skills for this year’s classes. If your child is struggling with homework more than their peers, you need to ask more questions than the other parents and try to figure out the best path through the challenges.

If your child is having trouble keeping track of homework all together, check out my 7-part free email series, “Academic Planners for Success” for strategies for using a planner to identify and prioritize homework.


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My child won’t do his homework

If the child isn’t even attempting the homework, there can be a few things going on. It could be a pure “behavior” situation. But I wholeheartedly agree with Dr. Ross Greene that “Children do well if they can.” If your child is refusing to do homework, think about what that behavior is telling you about them and what they need.

If the child refuses to attempt the homework, consider:

  • The timing: Fatigue and hunger make it hard to work.
  • Amount: If they don’t see any light at the end of the homework tunnel, why begin?
  • Directions: Where and how should they start? What does that even look like?
  • And content: Did they understand it in class?

My child keeps forgetting homework

Forgetting homework goes along with the “won’t do his homework” problem in many cases. Leaving everything at school can be an attempt to avoid the unpleasant situation of facing homework at the end of a long day of school. In other cases, though, children forget their homework at school because they are overwhelmed or rushed through routines. 

Here are some troubleshooting steps:

  • Set up a simple homework folder. Label the two sides “Keep at home” and “Return to school.” Homework goes in the “Return to school” side and comes home.
  • Find a planner system that works for your child. It might be paper or digital. 
  • Use the school’s online resources. For older children, many schools use Canvas, Google Classroom, or another website to post assignments. Find out from your child’s teachers how they notify students of assignments, and create a home routine of checking it with your child.
  • Make a locker or backpack checklist for your child. Laminate it and put it in the homework folder or backpack, or hang it on the inside of their locker. 
  • Have them find a buddy. Brainstorm a reliable friend (or a few) who always have their homework done. This will be the person to ask if they’re not sure what page the homework was on, or if they forget a due date.
  • Make homework part of the daily routine. Ask about it when you see them at the end of the day, and establish a time and a place for getting it done.

Whose homework is it, anyway?

Homework is a sensitive subject for me. It tends to be a one-size-fits-no-one solution to the problem of trying to cram too much teaching into a school day full of obstacles and challenges. “Good” homework can be a helpful way to reinforce skills taught in class. “Bad” homework steals a student’s personal time and causes stress.

Homework is a sensitive subject for me. It tends to be a one-size-fits-no-one solution to the problem of trying to cram too much teaching into a school day full of obstacles and challenges. Click To Tweet

At the end of the day, homework is part of the academic relationship between students and teachers. If you find that your child’s homework is causing you stress and taking as much of your time as it is your child’s, it’s time to talk to the teacher and work on a plan to make homework more effective.

For more about homework, check out these other blog posts:

Too much homework and not enough time
Is homework helping your child or harming them? What to do if the burden of homework is ruining your family’s evenings.

How to use your textbook to study

So you’re studying for finals. What exactly are you supposed to study? Is there a study guide? What DID you learn this year? Once you have a big-picture plan for tackling all your finals, it’s time to dust off that textbook – yes, the one made from dead trees – and use it to study.

Textbooks can be some of the driest and most challenging reading that we encounter in school. Did you know that many textbooks are written at a reading level higher than the students they’re written for? You may have a 7th grade history book that is written at a high school level. Does that make sense to you? It doesn’t to me!

But even if reading the textbook is not your favorite way to learn, the textbook can be a great resource when you’re getting ready for exams.I’m going to talk about a few different ways you can use your textbook to study for final exams.

Table of contents

First, use the table of contents. If your class this year has pretty much followed the textbook, then the chapter headings and subheadings are your first stop for a to-do list for what to study. Your teacher may give you a study guide that has more specific information but the table of contents is a great place to start. Make a list of important topics from the table of contents to cross off topics as you cover them.

One way to figure out how much you know about the topic is to ask yourself for each chapter title and heading, “What is the most important thing I need to know about ___?” You could list each heading on a section of notebook paper and under it list each fact that you think is important to remember. This will give you a baseline for what you know. When you open the book you will likely find out there’s more to it than you remembered but you will want to measure what you actually know and that will help you plan how much to study.

End of chapter questions

Textbooks often have questions that are written at the end of each section or each chapter. Some teachers use these questions as homework assignments or assessments for students. Especially if your teacher has not used these questions and you haven’t answered them before, getting ready for your final is a great time to try to answer them. Like you did with the chapter headings, answer as many of them as you can from memory but especially take note of the ones you aren’t able to answer without looking back in the book. Those facts are where you’re going to need to spend some time studying.

Bold vocabulary words

Your textbook likely has some key vocabulary words that are in bold throughout the chapter. They may also be listed at the beginning or end of the chapter and they will almost certainly be defined in a glossary at the end of the book. Make sure that you know these terms and that you can use each one in a sentence that talks about the content of the class.

Maps, tables, and charts

Sometimes these visuals in your textbook are a supplement to the content in the paragraphs, meaning they don’t give you any new or key information that you need to remember. Sometimes they’re there to illustrate an example or a point. Other times, they are there to highlight the importance of a certain piece of information. Use maps to help you answer questions about – obviously – countries, borders, cities, and other geographical features. Also use maps to help you develop answers to why questions:

  • Why did Germany invade Poland?
  • Why were the ancient Greeks sailors?
  • Why does the US export corn?

Looking at the geography of a place can help you better understand the people who lived there. Charts and tables are visual ways of presenting data. For some people, these are better ways of understanding the information and remembering it than reading sentences that say the same thing. If your textbook has charts and graphs, try to figure out what you can learn from them.

Supplemental textbook resources

Newer textbooks often have related websites or digital study tools that can be great resources as you study for your final exam. Look for website links in the introduction to the textbook or in the end of the chapter review materials. Also, check your teacher’s website for links to online textbook tools.

Read it

Sometimes you will actually have to read a chapter in your textbook. This is especially true if you haven’t kept up with the reading lately or if you haven’t done well on some of the quizzes. But don’t try to sit down and read straight through one or more chapter. Use the tips above to organize your reading and read each section and subsection with a question in mind. If your reading doesn’t answer the question, you might need to read again. And take notes or explain to someone what you learned right after you read it, so it doesn’t disappear! You can even make a video or audio recording on your phone of you summarizing what you read that you can play back later.

Weightlifting

In some classes, the teacher seems to actively avoid teaching from the textbook. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how schools work: sometimes teachers are required to use a certain textbook because the school or state picked it or because the teacher who taught before them chose it. So you have to think about whether the textbook has actually been a tool for learning in this class. If your teacher often use other resources, like articles videos and class discussions, then the textbook may not give you a great foundation for studying for this exam. In that case, feel free to use your textbook during study breaks for some bicep curls or some overhead presses. Getting some physical activity in the middle of long study sessions will help your brain work better and help your body feel better after sitting in your study seat for a few hours.

To find out more, check out my video, coming soon to YouTube: How to use your textbook to study

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use your textbook to study
How to use your textbook to study

How Do I Study for Finals?

Maybe this is the first time you’ve studied for cumulative final exams or maybe your studying hasn’t worked out so well in the past. But this year is different! You’ve got this! Starting now, you are going to make a detailed plan for how to study for final exams, including what to study, what you already know, learning what you need to rock your exams, all while getting enough sleep and taking some breaks.

Come back for more posts on how to use different materials, like Quizlet and your textbook, to study for different kinds of material.

Soon, the school year will be over and you will be able to breathe a sigh of relief because you did it! But first you have to make it through finals!

Get Ready!

To get started, make a list of all the classes you’re taking and what kind of final test, paper, project, or other assignment you will need to complete by the end of the year. List the due dates as soon as you have them. Great places to look for this information are

  • Your teacher’s website
  • The syllabus
  • The board in your classroom  
  • Your notes from the beginning of the year or semester

If you can’t find the information written anywhere, it’s not too soon to ask the teacher about it. They should be announcing the details soon, but if they haven’t, it’s fine for you to ask. A lot of times when people say they don’t know how to study for final exams, the real problem is they have no idea what they will be tested on!

Once you know what the test will be, you can start preparing for it. We’re going to focus on in-class exams in this blog post. Hopefully, the teacher will give out some sort of study guide. That may be a list of topics to be covered in the exam or it may be a more specific list that includes vocabulary terms and key concepts to review. If you have a study guide, start there.

If you don’t have a study guide, you need to make your own. Start by going through your textbook and your class notes.

  • Make a list of all the chapter titles and main headings from the textbook that you covered during this semester.
  • Make a list of all the major topics you have class notes on.
  • In a science class, list the topics of any labs you completed.

This can look really overwhelming, at first, but soon you will be crossing things off this list, so don’t worry.

If you have your quizzes and tests from earlier in the semester, pull those out too, along with any other worksheets or graded work the teacher has handed back. (If these things are hard to find, come back after finals to read more about how to organize your binders and stay organized all year long.)

Get Set!

Now that you know what’s going to be on the exam, you have to figure out how ready you are now. There are a couple ways to do this. One is to take any quizzes or tests you took during the semester and use those grades as a guide. For example, if you got a 75 on the geometry quiz on triangles last week, you can assume you know about 75% of what you need to know about triangles on the exam. Remember that if the grade you’re looking at is from early in the semester, you may have forgotten some things and you might not score as well today on the same test as you did when you had just learned it.

If you don’t have a quiz grade on the material, take a quick look at the topics on your list. How many of them could you confidently explain? How many of them are familiar but you don’t know everything about them? How many have you forgotten all together? Use that information to estimate the percentage for each of the topics on your list. Do you know 50% of what you need? 25%? 99%? These numbers won’t be exact but they will help you decide how much study time each topic needs.

Now, repeat this process for each of the classes with an exam. You might want to do this over a few days, because looking at every grade and every piece of paper in every binder in your bag can be really overwhelming. But don’t wait too long. We tend to avoid things that are hardest for us. It’s tempting to start reviewing for biology if that’s a class you feel comfortable in and leave the geometry for last if it’s not your favorite. But you’ll be more stressed later if you don’t give yourself enough time to study for the exam that will be hardest for you. Be brave! Make your list now of what you need to know.

Decide when you will study

Put your exams on the calendar. Figure out what your schedule looks like between now and the exams. Take a colored pen (or schedule it on your Google Calendar) and draw boxes around the time you have available for studying each day of the week. For example, if you get home from school at 4:00 and homework usually takes an hour, and dinner takes an hour, then maybe you have a one or two-hour stretch in the evening that you can use for studying. If you have a few weeks until your exams, you don’t have to take up every minute of the day with studying. If you work after school on Thursday, you might not squeeze in any study time between homework, dinner, and getting enough sleep. It’s okay that you aren’t studying every waking minute, as long as you have a plan for getting it all done. Studying for shorter stretches of time is better for your brain and results in longer-term learning.

Once you’ve figured out how much time you have to study, start writing in, generally, what you’re going to study at those times. For example, if you’re most worried about your history exam, put some history study time in each of your study blocks, starting this week. If you have an hour to study, you might choose to spend half of it studying history and the other half studying Spanish. That way you don’t get overwhelmed with one topic and your brain has some time to process that information before you study it again. Researchers have found that spacing out your studying like this helps concepts stick in your brain better than when you cram for an exam and try to get it all in the night before the test.

Study!

Now you just have to stick to that schedule. If you have a few weeks until exams, you might want to start studying for the hardest exam the first week, add in the next hardest the second week while you continue studying for the first, and continue to add exams as you get closer to the test. That way, you get the most study time in your hardest subject and continuously review it until the final, while also giving time to your other classes.

What’s Next?

Now that you know what to study and when to study, you may be wondering how to study it? There are lots of different ways to review and study material. You can use tools like Quizlet, your own flashcards, and your class notes to review what the teacher taught you. You may want to form a study group or get someone to quiz you. We’ll talk more about effective strategies to tell you how to study for final exams in upcoming posts.

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how to study for final exams
Create a simple plan to study for your final exams.

The secret to helping students write better

The problem with a lot of the so-called writing instruction students encounter at school is that it doesn’t actually teach writing. Teachers say things like “Write an outline that shows the beginning, middle, and end of your story. Write one like this story you just read.”

But the problem is poor writers aren’t able to evaluate their own writing the way a good writer, like a teacher, could do. So a poor writer might think she has a topic sentence or a concluding paragraph in her writing. But when the teacher reads it, it’s clear that there isn’t enough information.

So even though teachers might show models of good writing and encourage students to used transition sentences like this author or use dialogue like that author, poor writers don’t have the ability to evaluate what they read or what they’ve written and decide if they’ve met the requirements. Poor writers don’t need more practice with their current skills. Teachers need to teach students to write better!

It just makes sense that what poor writers need is explicit instruction on how to write. A little league coach doesn’t say go out there and hit the ball like Manny Ramirez. A coach says, “Stand with your feet together. Hold the bat over your shoulder. Watch for the pitch. When you see the pitch come over the plate, swing your bat. Make sure you take a big step forward as you swing.” That level of explicit detail is missing from a lot of writing instruction, but it’s just what students need.

Poor writers need clear, predictable structures that they can use to complete writing assignments. It might seem boring to have them follow that formula for paragraph after paragraph but it’s just what a poor writer needs to write a decent essay. For a lot of us, it comes naturally to have a topic sentence that introduces what we’re going to write about in a paragraph. A poor writer may not intuitively include a sentence like that at the beginning of their paragraph. Therefore teaching them that a good paragraph starts with a topic sentence and that a topic sentence goes something like… helps them to organize their writing in a way other people can understand it.

Just like there are steps for solving a math equation, there are steps for putting together a paragraph in many different genres of writing. There are formulas for writing a persuasive paragraph. I like to use the POW+TREE structure. For elementary students learning expository writing, I use POW+TIDE. Most of these structures focus on organizing at the paragraph level, because once a student knows how to write a good paragraph, it’s easier for them to string those paragraphs together to write an essay or even a longer research paper.

Besides paragraph level structure, students also need to learn to write good sentences. For many students, controlling the grammatical structures in a long sentence and making sure the subjects and the verbs agree with each other can be and a very abstract topic. Some schools still give formal grammar instruction that teaches the names of all the parts of speech but even then students may not be able to put them together in a grammatical way in their own writing.

One way I help students learn to write more complex sentences is by teaching them the strategy of sentence combining and sentence decombining. By having students start with simple sentences like “Bob has a red shirt. Jim has a red shirt.” and combining them to make “Bob and Jim have red shirts,” students learn how to combine the building blocks of simple sentences to make more complex ones. On the flip side, I teach them how to take complex sentences and separate them out into their component parts. Like a mechanic taking apart an engine, students understand better how a sentence is assembled once they have taken it apart. 

Editing is another frequently challenging area of writing for students. Although many of them can tell me that a sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a period, they have difficulty seeing these things in the middle of a paragraph and correcting them. It’s the same for run-on sentences. They may understand what a run-on or a fragment is, but when it comes to identifying them in their own writing they have a lot of difficulty. One of the main strategies I recommend for this is not a popular one with students. One of the best ways to catch errors in your writing is to read it out loud.

Another strategy, which I teach to students who make mechanical errors, is COPS. Students learn to read a whole paragraph checking each sentence for capital letters, then read it again checking for overall appearance, which includes neatness and letter formation. The third time they read the paragraph they look for punctuation at the end of every sentence. And finally they read the paragraph from the last word backwards until they get to the first word to see whether all the words are spelled correctly. While it is time-consuming, this focused structure helps them make sure that they have not overlooked any errors.

This process of learning the building blocks of writing can be a time-consuming one and it can be frustrating for students, especially those who have been getting by without this knowledge for years of school. But for many students in middle school and high school they find that they can’t get by with what they knew about writing anymore. The assignments get complex and longer. Teachers are no longer as forgiving about mistakes in spelling grammar and organization. Many classmates have internalized features of good writing and seem to be getting good grades effort effortlessly. Students might feel frustrated or cheated, but really the problem is just that they haven’t learned the rules for this kind of writing yet. An academic writing is a rule-based process that can be taught!

If your child struggles with writing and needs some strategies that work, contact me today for a free 30-minute tutoring consultation.

Students continue to struggle with writing when all they get is practice because they are practicing the wrong things!

The Problem with Spelling Tests

I was doing a little bit of research about spelling instruction to prepare for this post and I found this piece on Psychology Today by Dr. J. Richard Gentry that made me want to scream!  In this short article, he criticizes a school district in Ohio, based only on what he saw in a brief news story, because they abandoned the practice of weekly spelling tests. So what’s wrong with the humble spelling test?

Gentry equates eliminating the weekly spelling test with eliminating spelling instruction. He mentions but dismisses the district’s claim that test scores have risen since they changed their spelling practice.

But why does Gentry oppose this change? Because in the video he saw, the fifth grade students were spelling words like “yes, rest, past, like” which he calls second-grade spelling words. He’s right. I would expect fifth graders to have mastered these words and to be working on spelling patterns like adding prefixes to words or creating different forms of a word, like connecting pretend and pretentious. He has dyslexia and argues that he would not be successful without the spelling instruction he got, and notes that poor spelling can have lifelong negative effects for people.

He’s not wrong about the perils of being a poor speller, but his conclusion that the only way to do it is to give a weekly spelling test is wrong and dangerous. This is a seven-year-old article, so I can’t provide my own analysis of the clip, which appears to no longer be available.

Gentry seems to believe the same thing that many elementary school teachers believe, something I disagree with strongly: Having kids memorize a list of words and testing them at the end of the week will cause them to become better spellers. It’s like memorizing lists of ingredients to become a better cook.

Children learn to become good spellers by working with words. They need to think about the sounds in the words, identify how those sounds are spelled, and practice writing the example words and other words with the same pattern. To give children the practice they need, I prefer a word study approach like the one used in the Words Their Way curriculum. Teachers using Words Their Way begin by assessing students and counting not how many words they get right but which patterns they are spelling correctly and which they still need to learn. For example, a student might be able to spell short vowel sounds but not use the silent e rule to spell long vowels like make and pine. Armed with that information, a teacher chooses which developmentally-appropriate rule to teach and chooses a set of words to practice it. Students cut apart the words, printed on slips of paper and physically manipulate them, sorting them into groups that share the same feature and comparing them to words that do not. Throughout the week, students use the words for reading, writing and spelling, alone and with partners and groups. And at the end of the week? They get a new set of words.

But what about the spelling test? That comes at the end of the unit. After the students have studied the whole group of patterns, like all the short vowel sounds, for example, they take a unit assessment in which they spell words from their lists, or words with the same patterns that were not on their lists. This is important because it assesses whether children just memorized the words or learned the rule or pattern that enables them to spell those words for life.

Unfortunately, I see that system being gutted and used the same way my old second grade spelling book was used. Teachers are using the sorting routines but then just rattling off those words on Friday and grading how many the kids get right. So you know what the kids do? They go home and memorize the words on flashcards and have their parents quiz them, just like we did with the old spelling tests.

When nothing changes, nothing changes. And until teachers really understand and embrace what it means to learn spelling through phonics and analysis, poor spellers will continue to be poor spellers. Unless we tell kids why bread and meat are both spelled with the ea vowel digraph and help them practice when to use which sound, they will be relying on visual memory or just plain guessing when they spell those words.

So while I wholeheartedly agree that spelling instruction is critical to helping children become both good writers and good readers, a weekly spelling test and assignments like “write your words three times” are a colossal waste of powerful learning time for many students who struggle to spell.

If your child needs help with spelling, I can help. Contact me today for a free 30-minute consultation to find out how I can help with reading, writing and spelling.

Spelling tests are a waste of time and do not make kids better spellers.

Write Your Future Self Homework Directions You Can Use

If I had a dollar for every time a student told me their homework was

Do you sit down for homework, only to realize you don’t know what your notes mean?

“study” or “math worksheet,” but then couldn’t figure out what to do, I could probably retire now. Students take out their planner in the last couple minutes of class, the teacher hands out a study guide or writes the numbers of the homework problems, or the name of the chapter, on the board and the student writes exactly that. Six hours later, sitting at her dining room table, she doesn’t know how to use that information. You need to write yourself homework directions that you can use! Here’s how:

 

Get the facts

Teachers may talk all through class, but they have a way of telling you what information is important. For some teachers, the most important things are the ones they write on the board. Others raise their voices or repeat details. They aren’t doing this out of boredom or by accident. The things they emphasize are the things you need to write down. Make sure you have these facts about every assignment.

  • Who (All students? Everyone who hasn’t passed the test? The group presenting Monday?)
  • What (What book? Which chapter? Odd problems or even? Write an outline or a draft? The whole packet or just the first page?)
  • Where (Are the resources on the teacher’s website? Do you have to go to the library? Is it the paper he gave you last week? Which one?)
  • When (When is it due? Will you be checking in about it tomorrow or turning it in all at once next week?)
  • Why? (Is there a quiz coming up? Did you struggle with these problems in class? Will you need this draft for peer editing tomorrow?)
  • How? (Write notes or full sentences? Type it or write it by hand? Submit it online or hand in a paper copy?)

Label it

Before you leave class, try to imagine yourself doing the assignment and write down a few specific details in your

 or on top of the page.

  • Today’s date
  • The due date
  • Which class it is for (use color coding to keep this simple)
  • A verb – I’ll say more about this in a minute
  • Any essential information – do you need your textbook for this? Are you meeting with your group?

Make a plan

Next to the date on your paper (or in your planner if you don’t have room), write down an action plan. This can be simple, like the single verb “study” or “solve” or it can be a multi-step plan if the teacher’s instructions are detailed.

Schedule the work

There’s a difference between the “due date” when you turn in the work and the “do date” when you sit down and make it happen. Record both in your planner. (Hint: For successful students, these are NOT the same date.) You might want to use different colors, like highlighting the due date in yellow and writing your do dates in regular pen. When you write your do date, take into account things like soccer practice and family plans. Are you really going to read that chapter after you get home from the birthday party Saturday night? Or do you need to schedule it for Friday afternoon to make sure it happens?

By thinking ahead when your teacher assigns homework, you can make sure you have everything you need to get the homework done quickly, do it right and get the grade you deserve!

3 Ways to Memorize Information for a Test

Memorizing and recalling information is a basic, concrete, way of using your memory. It’s simpler (but not necessarily easier) than applying facts to problem solving or demonstrating something you have learned. But sometimes teachers just test you on what you remember.

You can use these simple techniques to help you memorize information for a test.

Can imagining Buddha in a Porsche get you an A?

Can reliving your walk to school help you recall Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy?

If you connect images and everyday events to help to the things you are trying to memorize, the answer is ABSOLUTELY!

Visualization

One way to memorize information for a test is to create a silly or outrageous mental picture that helps you recall all the details you have to memorize. In a class I took, the professor went around the room and asked each of us to say a word. He wrote them all on a large piece of paper. Then he gave us 30 seconds to memorize as many words as we could. The next day in class, he asked us to write down as many as we could remember. I was the only one who got all of the 15 or so words. I did it by connecting them and making a silly story that used all the words. The only ones I remember now, ten years later, are door handle, blue and balloon. But hey, remembering 3 out of 15 random words I learned one Saturday for 10 years is something, right?

Here’s how you can use it:

Let’s say you have to memorize the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution. You might picture a man with a speech bubble that has the word “free” in it (First amendment – free speech). His sleeves are rolled up (Second amendment – the right to bear arms (bare arms)). He’s throwing quarters at a soldier standing inside a house (Third amendment – about the quartering of soldiers in private homes). Nearby, a police officer is going through the man’s luggage (Fourth amendment – prohibits unreasonable search and seizure). You get the idea. All the amendments are represented in a single picture, so that when you imagine the picture during your test, you’ll be able to see clues for each one, and each amendment will trigger your memory for another one.

Memory Palace

The memory palace technique, also known as the method of loci, takes this a step further. It is an ancient strategy that relies on your mental image of a familiar location to help you recall new information. It works like this:

As you picture a familiar location, like your bedroom or landmarks on the way to school, you imagine each piece of information on one of the landmarks of your familiar setting. Once you have created your mental image of all the steps or parts you need to memorize at each location, you just have to imagine sitting in your bedroom, looking from your closet to your desk, to the drawers in your bureau, to recall each item on your list. 

Here’s how you can use it:

Start now. “Build” your memory palace ahead of time by constructing a list of 10 or 15 things in your bedroom or noticing the details of your trip to school. That way, when your teacher assigns a poem to memorize, you just assign a line of the poem to each part of your memory palace, which will help you recall the lines and keep them in order.

Mnemonics

A mnemonic is a term for any kind of memory device, but it usually refers to a word or phrase that reminds you of different words that have the same beginning letters. A famous example is ROY G. BIV which reminds us of the colors of the rainbow (Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo and Violet). Another is the sentence, “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos,” which has the same first letter as all the planets of our solar system, in order.

Fun fact: I learned “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas” because in my day, poor Pluto was a planet, not just a dwarf planet.

Here’s how you can use it:

Create a mnemonic if you have to remember a list of information in a particular order. A simple example would be the water cycle: Evaporation, Condensation, Precipitation, and Collection. You might remember the initial letters: E, C, P, C with the sentence “Every Child Prefers Chicken.”

You may have to try one more than one memory strategy to figure out which one works best for you. Some people prefer to visualize pictures like in a Memory Palace or a mental image while others remember things better when they use words, such as with a mnemonic device. It doesn’t really matter which one you choose. 

The important thing is to be strategic when you are memorizing information. Reading and rereading flashcards will probably eventually get you the results you want but interacting with the information and using the creative parts of your brain will help you remember things for longer and memorize the more quickly. On the other hand, don’t get so caught up in making a beautiful picture or a silly mnemonic that you lose sight of the end goal, which is to remember the information.

All of these strategies take time to implement. The night before a test is not the time to create a mnemonic or build your memory palace. By planning ahead and using active strategies, you will find that studying becomes easier and less stressful and you get the grades you want and have fun doing it!

If you need help setting up study strategies for your classes or creating your study schedule, a tutor can help! Contact me for a free, 30-minute consultation to see if online tutoring is right for you.

3 Great Ways to Memorize Information for a Test

Using Google Keep with Students

One of the biggest factors that causes students in middle and high school to struggle in school is lack of organization. No matter how smart and capable a student is, it’s very hard to get good grades if they are disorganized. They lose papers, forget assignments, or turn in projects with missing details.

But how much time have your child’s teachers spent teaching him or her how to organize themselves? Sure, lots of teachers require things like outlines and study guides, or folders in specific colors, but that doesn’t mean the approach they teach will work for your child. I spent years quickly writing my papers, then reverse-engineering the outlines because I just don’t plan my writing well by using an outline, but it was required.

As I got older, I developed a system that worked for me of making lists, using a planner, and scheduling my work. I used paper for a long time, then switched to Evernote, which I liked because it could sync between my computer and my phone. I kept trying other apps, but never found the perfect one.

A couple years ago, I discovered Google Keep. It’s everything I need, and I think it’s perfect for my students, too!

Here are some reasons to give it a try.

One login

If you are logged into your Google account, you are logged in to Google Keep. No additional passwords, and no remembering to check the list because your reminders pop up in your browser or you can get push notifications sent to your phone.

Visual options

I love the visual display, which looks like an array of Post-it notes. You can color code notes for home, school and work or for each of your classes. Add bullets or numbering to your list. Drag and drop notes or pin them to the top of the page to keep them front and center in your attention.

Checkboxes

Checkboxes are the feature I use most in Google Keep. With one tap, it’s easy to change a list of steps into an organized checklist. Drag and drop items into the order you want to work on them. Copy and paste a list from a website or document, then click “add checkboxes” to turn it in to a list.

Sharing

As with Google Drive, you can share a note in Keep with another Google user. This is great for parents who want to share a list of chores or a group working on a project.

Reminders

Set a reminder to study for the test every day at 7 pm. On Sundays at 4, get reminded to pack your backpack. Put in a note to remind you when you are home to find a baby picture for the yearbook.

‎Archiving

Set a reminder to check your grades 2 weeks before the end of the quarter. Then archive the note to get it out of sight until you need it. When you finish a project, archive or delete the note so it doesn’t clutter up your list.

All of these features make Google Keep easy to use and convenient. It’s a great choice for helping students get organized, and it’s freely available as part of a Google account, so why not try it?

Does your child need some extra help getting organized for school? Are they having trouble finishing projects, getting poor test grades? Maybe it’s time for a tutor. Contact me today for a free consultation.

 

How to Use Google Calendar as Your Homework Planner – Part 1

In this post, you will learn how to set up and share a Google calendar for the purpose of keeping track of homework or assignments. See Part 2 of this post to see how to set up the homework entries and reminders.

Kids lose their agenda books. They leave them in their lockers, on buses, in desks. Sometimes they just vanish without a trace. And they take with them any clue the kid had about what to do for homework.

And then there are the kids that a paper planner just doesn’t work for. Their handwriting doesn’t fit in the boxes, or they keep putting things on the wrong page, and then they are gone forever! Or they write a project or due date down, and don’t check the agenda book when it’s time to do the work.

Turning Google Calendar into an assistive technology to help these kids is simple and helps them to build technology skills that will support them for life. I think this starts to be effective around sixth grade, if there are devices available regularly through the day, or if the child carries a smartphone.

First the child needs a Google account. Log in and choose Google Calendar from the menu of Google tools:

You will see a blank Google calendar, if you’ve never used it before.

 

 

 

 

 

I recommend creating a dedicated Google calendar, called “Beth’s Homework” or something similar to keep all the homework in one place. This is a good practice because hopefully the student will use the calendar to keep track of appointments, sports practices, and important dates down the road, and this keeps all that information from becoming smushed together and overwhelming.

Create a new calendar by clicking on the small triangle to the right of the words “My Calendar.”   There are 3 steps to setting up a new calendar.

  1. Name the calendar. Mine is “Beth’s Homework.”
  2. Share it with others. Type an email address, and choose from the dropdown whether others can view only or edit (including adding and deleting) events.
  3. Click “Create Calendar” at the bottom of the screen.

Tune in tomorrow to learn how to set up repeating events and color coding to make it look like a student agenda book. I’ll also show you how to edit the events to record the day’s assignments.