STUDY SMART

INNOVATIVE WAYS TO FOSTER INDEPENDENT

LEARNING IN EVERY STUDENT BY JUDY DODGE
Today’s students struggle with more content matter than ever before—even in the early
grades. In the years ahead, kids’ abilities to process information and to prepare for various
forms of assessment will continue to be important elements of school success. Unfortunately,
even the most competent student possess a limited repertoire of study skills.
In this article, you’ll discover ingenious strategies that will empower children to become self-
directed learners. From using notebooks more efficiently to creating visual maps of
information, these ideas will become valuable tools for students, now and over a lifetime.

STUDY STRATEGY #1: BE A CREATIVE LEARNER

Whenever I study, I just reread the textbook. Pretty
soon, I’m bored and lose my concentration.
—Paul, fifth grader

I need my mother and father to help me get ready for

a test. They ask me questions about what I read. If
they’re not around, I can’t study.
—Lauren, fourth grader

Children need to learn that studying involves not just rereading notes and text, but speaking,
writing, drawing, and even touching the material they’re trying to learn. Some of the most
effective active study strategies include:

Reciting
 Describing or explaining aloud any topic—in one’s own words.
 Teaching or explaining the information to someone else.

Writing
 Making a study guide review card (an index card that includes special vocabulary, main
ideas, examples, key events, causes, results, and so forth).
 Making flash cards (math problems and solutions, vocabulary and definitions,
questions and answers).
 Creating lists of related information (causes, results, key events) and reciting them.

Drawing
 Drawing diagrams (sketches and charts) from memory and checking back for accuracy.
 Drawing semantic maps (see “Idea Maps” section) that summarize the unit, including
Venn diagrams; sequence chains, and webs.
Visualizing
 Picturing in your mind any chart, list, diagram, word, semantic map, or key person
you’re trying to remember.

STUDY STRATEGY #2: LEARN FROM EACH OTHER

No matter how hard I study, I don’t do well on
tests. Some kids in my class always do well. I
wish I knew how to study like they do.
—Robert, seventh grader

Chances are, you’ve witnessed firsthand the power of cooperative learning—students have a
great deal to teach one another. Study buddy groups offer a cooperative approach to studying.
Pair students and ask them to plan three study sessions together over the next week in
preparation for an upcoming test. Students should work together to list their best active study
techniques. When they study at home, kids should try out these techniques. As a whole class,
discuss the ideas that pairs generate; after the test, ask children which strategies seemed to
help the most. Encourage students to hypothesize about why certain strategies were
particularly effective. This will help them think about other ways to study in the future. Change
pairs often to increase the likelihood that students will learn new strategies.

STUDY STRATEGIE #3: ORGANIZE STUDY MATERIALS

My students use the “crumple and stuff” method of filing papers,
they don’t seem to be using organizational supplies like folders
and notebooks the way they should!
—Mrs. P., fifth-grade teacher

Students study better if the materials they need are easily accessible. Notebooks and folders
are inexpensive, portable organizational devices that students can learn to use more
effectively. Here’s how:
 Try giving children a checklist once a semester that outlines the specific kinds of
entries they should in their notebooks. Tell them that you’ll be checking notebooks on
a regular basis. You might even decide to include a regular grade for notebook
organization in each content area. Don’t try to check every week; instead, choose only
five or ten to review at one time, this will give you a general idea of the kinds of entries
students are compiling in their notebooks.
 Another technique for encouraging better notebooks organization is the daily entry.
Each day, ask students to solve a review math problem, copy a new vocabulary word
and definition or a stanza of a poem, or record any other information relevant to
topics you’re studying in class. Students should label and date each entry. After two
weeks of this activity, give a surprise notebook “test” that asks students to find, for
instance, the day they copied a word and its definition, or when they solved a specific
math problem. Students find that this “easy A” (or some other reward) motivates
them to continue keeping their notebooks organized. After a while, it becomes a habit.
  Finally, improve students organization by giving open notebook tests on a regular
(though not predictable) basis. Throughout a unit of study, encourage students to
collect as much material on a subject—from notes about videos you’ve shown to
questions they’ve researched independently— in their notebooks or folders. During an
open-notebook test, students will use their written information to answer questions.

STUDY STRATEGIE #4: MEASURE YOUR OWN LEARNING

My teacher is so unfair. Even when I study
hard and feel like I know a lot, he changes Log= record (important events
the questions on the test. That happen each day are….. log)
—Cindy, fourth grader

As in Cindy’s case, children may believe they’ve mastered material when they really haven’t.
Critical to the process of learning how to learn is the ability to assess one’s own progress.
One way to facilitate student self-evaluation is to use a Learning Log. Once a week, ask
students to spend five minutes reflecting on something they’re learning in a particular subject
area, or how they’re studying or becoming more responsible for their schoolwork. Encourage
kids to assess their progress by writing anything that comes to mind or by completing open-
ended statements such as:
One new thing I tried this week was…
I’m satisfied with the results of my test because…
I prepared to show what I know by…
This week, my goal was to…

An alternative to the Learning Log is the Weekly Self-Evaluation, a checklist of desirable study
behaviors with spaces for students to check off what they’ve accomplished. At the bottom of
the page, students set study goals for the following week. The Weekly Self-Evaluation and
Learning Log entries can become part of students’ Study Smart Folders, which can also include
tips they’ve learned about studying, from the strategies listed here to those invented by
classmates to a variety of effective mnemonic devices. You can share these folders with
students and parents during portfolio assessments or conferences to demonstrate mastery of
effective study strategies.

STUDY STRATEGIE #5: PLAN YOUR TIME

My teachers think schoolwork is all I have to do after school. It’s
not. I have chores and sports and clubs, as well as religious
lessons and activities with my family. And what about
friends? There’s never enough time to fit everything in.
—Meg, sixth grader

Time management is a skill students can use throughout their lives. Strat out by writing on
the chalkboard the approximate amount of time an assigned task might take. When children
have completed the task, ask various students how long it actually took them. Point out that
the range of time it can take to complete a given task varies from student to student. Repeat
this activity on several occasions, with a variety of different assignments; students will
understand that the length of completion time also changes depending on the type of task.
Encourage children to keep a month-long record of how much time they need for certain
kinds of tasks—editing a story they’ve written, solving a page of word problems, or reading a
chapter from a novel, for example. Students should refer back to this record in the future
when planning homework and other after-school activities. They’ll automatically begin to
budget time as they become more conscious of how they actually use it.
Finally, whenever you assign a long-term project, require students to use a Project Planner.
The Planner is a seven-day schedule that organizes each day into blocks of time: morning, early
afternoon, late afternoon, and evening. During class time, help students break down a large
assignment into smaller tasks that they can finish within 30 to 60 minutes. Ask children to take
the schedule home and consult with a parent or guardian to realistically plan time for these
tasks, taking into account after-school lessons and activities, as well as family and social
events.
Ask parents to post the schedule on the refrigerator or a bulletin board at home. Now the
student will have a visual reminder of what needs to be accomplished each day.

STUDY STRATEGIE #6: MAKE IDEA MAPS

My students never take notes. Although I know that
most of them are visual learners, a great deal of what
we do in class is auditory. We discuss debate, describe,
and explain. Outlining is too difficult for students this
age and my kids hate taking notes.
—Mr. K., fifth-grade teacher

Most students need to process auditory input in a visual way. Children often don’t
understand how visuals like charts and maps work because they haven’t had enough practice
using them. Semantic maps are the best visual learning devices children can use. These graphic
organizers offer a concrete representations of ideas, organized and designed by students.
There are several types of maps to use: Venn diagrams, webs, sequence chains, cycle
diagrams, and cause-and-effect maps. When they use maps, students apply important
analytical skills as they think about how ideas are interrelated. They also integrate thinking,
reading, and writing processes. You should try to include at least one type of graphic organizer
in every lesson you teach. When using any mapping device, be sure to model its use(s) and
explain to students how it helps organize information. Here are some ways to use different
types of semantic maps:

 Create webs that introduce a new lesson or summarize a completed unit.

 Use Venn diagrams to help students remember the common elements of two or more
related issues or events.
 At the end of a social studies or science lesson, pair students off to design sequence
chains that illustrate, for instance, the events leading up to the American Revolution or
the steps involved in a science experiment.
 After students have read from a textbook or novel, ask them to create flow cards,
cause-effect maps, or webs that illustrate topics, main ideas, and supporting details.
Provide blank diagrams of different kinds of maps that students can use until they become
comfortable creating their own.
INTEGRATING STUDY SKILLS IN YOUR CLASSROOM
Once you’ve decided to add a study skills component to
your curriculum, set some of the following goals for yourself.

 Choose four or five study strategies to focus on throughout the year.

 Plan to integrate those skills into every content area. This approach is much more
effective than teaching study skills in isolation.
 Provide a repertoire of learning strategies for all students. Remember that there’s no
one correct way to study; students individual learning styles influence how they study.
 Use a metacognitive approach. When students think about how they think, they
become better learners. Point out examples of how students are thinking and learning
on a day-to-day basis, for instance, you might say, Kristin found the main idea of the
story by reading the first line of each paragraph.
 Expect to teach and reteach the same skill many times over. Remember, it takes
hundreds, even thousands, of opportunities for practice for children to master some
concepts or skills.