How to Tutor Study Skills for K-12

Study skills are necessary to learn, and become easy and fun with the help and advice of a tutor or mentor. The key factors for teaching children to study are preparation, active participation and commitment. By learning more about a child's learning style and temperament, you can find ways to creatively adapt study strategies so that any student can become better and more successful through good study habits.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

1. Instruct the student to create a study environment. This environment should be free from distractions and contain all of the necessary resources for studying, such as a large desk, reference materials and school supplies. Do tutoring sessions in this study environment as well.

2. Determine the student's learning style. Knowing if a child is an auditory, visual or kinesthetic learner is the most important factor in finding out how to improve the child's learning experience.

3. Get in touch with the child's temperament. Children who are extremely hyperactive may have difficulty sitting in a desk and paying attention for extended periods of time, so adapt study time to be more active. At the same time, children who are very passive and sit calmly for hours may not get as excited about material, so find ways that the child can engage with the subject through art, music or other stimuli.

4. Teach the student to practice good listening and reading habits while in school. Good study habits begin in the classroom, so show the student how to listen attentively and take notes on vital information. Encourage the student to write down only key facts and ideas rather than every word, as well as the use of symbols, bullets and arrows to establish relationships between pieces of information.

5. Begin study sessions by looking over class material. Review the material that was covered in class and have the student make note of any questions he or she has about the material from class with the goal of addressing those questions during study time.

6. Practice active reading of homework assignments and study materials. Have the student approach reading assignments by making note of everything he or she already knows about the subject, writing down any questions or things that he or she hopes to learn in the reading, highlighting key points and summarizing at the end.

7. Think of study strategies that accommodate the student's individual learning style. For auditory learners, have the student read information out loud and recite facts or ideas that need to be mastered. For visual learners, highlight, underline and spatially organize the material. For kinesthetic learners, put information on flashcards and group them throughout the room. Develop a motion or signal for the student to associate with a given concept in order to act it out.

8. Teach management of study time. Have the student keep his or her own calendar to record when assignments are due and make a list of the order in which tasks will be accomplished on a single day. Have the student prioritize assignments, doing shorter assignments first and more open-ended assignments afterwards.

9. Work active rewards into study time. Beware of rewarding students with unhealthy habits like junk food or TV time, but instead think of creative and educational rewards like incorporating games, candy as an illustration tool or getting to have music on quietly in the background.

10. Reduce test anxiety or performance anxiety by providing ample warning on calendars and simulating a test atmosphere in a controlled, comfortable environment ahead of time. Also encourage rest and good eating as a daily habit, but especially on the day of the test.