Let’s talk about study strategies. Most people say study skills. In reality, they’re more of strategies than skills. Skills are automatic, where strategies are not.
A lot of learning strategies and study strategies overlap. However, I’ve picked some today that might be better if you’ve already read or heard the information before, and now you are using the strategies to expand knowledge. Note: to read previous blog posts about learning and student strategies, click here: Quick Memorization, Learning Strategies
NOTE TAKING/OUTLINING
Learning to take notes is important for organizing information into themes and summarizing the main points in an outline. In addition to teaching students how to organize information, it’s also important to show them how to write the information on the page. If students are overly messy and things don’t line up in the outline, it will make it hard to read. Being able to quickly find information on a page is one of the key points in an outline. To read a blog about how I like students to organize their outlines, click here.
MAKING A GRAPHIC REPRESENTATION
Graphic organizers are used regularly by teachers. There are many types, and they have different purposes. However, students rarely know when they should use each type of graphic organizer. The point is to teach students to recognize the purpose of each graphic organizer. Then they’ll be able to choose and use it on their own.
Making a poster or anchor chart with the information, similar to in the picture below can help students with this concept. Then, slowly use each type of graphic organizer throughout your units. Show students how the type of text and the purpose of what you want to learn determines what type of graphic organizer to use.
SETTING A PURPOSE FOR LEARNING AND STUDYING
When I used to tell my students to study for a test, they thought that meant read the chapter through again. But when students are not reading for any particular purpose, they don’t internalize much of what they read.
Teach students how to set a purpose for their studying. Then tell them they may read the same information multiple times. Each time they will study a different thing. Here are some purposes for studying:
- learn vocabulary words in the text
- learn people and places in the text
- paraphrase information in each section
- identify places in the text that you need to study more
WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF? SCENARIOS
If the topic students are studying involves some sort of an event, teach students how to create “What would happen if? scenarios?” These involve taking an element of an event and changing it to see how the rest of the event would change. Students have to know the events well enough in order to change them.
A possible scenario would be if the Titanic operator listened to warnings about icebergs. Or if there were more lifeboats aboard the Titanic, etc.
Teach your students not only what each of these study strategies are, but also when to use them. This is the key to helping students learn how to study on their own. Most students can learn all of these strategies as early as fourth grade.
To learn more about learning and study strategies, as well as have access to all of the graphic organizers, nonfiction reading passages, and more, click the picture below.
