Learning Tips and Study Habits

The Best Way to Study:

· Set a specific time each day to work on your homework and studying. Treat it like a job, and just go do it.

· Keep good notes -- see the Related Questions if you need help with that. Your notes are the best thing to study.

· Read over the textbook -- just look at the bold headings and see if you can explain to yourself what information each one explains.

· Turn each heading in your notes (or textbook) into a question and see if you can answer it.

· Make a Study Deck -- see the Related Question to see how!

People are curious creatures - there is actually a reaction inside your brain that gives you a feeling of pleasure when you encounter something for the very first time! Solving a problem, succeeding in a task, or making something also give you a feeling of satisfaction.

So you see, you already do enjoy learning - you just don't realize that you do.

What's confusing you is that you're probably not enjoying the process of going to school. It can be boring to sit inside for hours forcing yourself to learn many new things. The trick is to remind yourself that you like to learn. Here are some ways to help you enjoy school a bit more:

• try to find something in each subject that you can connect to your own life. Math can be used to make a budget, or measure a cooking recipe. Science can help you understand the world around you. History can help you understand your own family and how your ancestors lived. If you think a bit, you can come up with ways that every subject can have some sort of personal meaning, and meaning makes things more interesting.
• take things more slowly. Instead of feeling stressed and pressured, try to learn one step at a time - study for 15-20 minutes at a time and take a 5 minute break to walk around and exercise your body instead of trying to "cram," memorize 5 words a day instead of the whole list, or read 2 pages of text instead of the whole chapter. In class, use your watch to divide the period into three or four sections and mark off when each section has gone past - you can stand almost anything for a few minutes, and if you think of each class as being just 4 groups of 15 minutes each, it seems easier than thinking it's a whole hour long.
• reward yourself. Come up with some sort of reward for learning - you can ask your parents to help you think of things if you want. Lots of people use money as a reward - you could put a quarter into a jar each time you learned one vocabulary or maths list, for example, and use the money to buy something you want at the end of the term. You could also reward yourself with free time - if you finish your homework, you can spend a certain amount of time watching a movie or playing sports.
• think positively. Instead of thinking about how boring it is, train yourself to think of something positive about it. Give yourself an imaginary pat on the back each time you learn a new fact. Get some gold stars and stick one on your notebook every time you make a good grade. Draw a smiley face on your assignment papers when you get a good score. Anything that you do to change your negative thinking into positive will help you to enjoy life more!
  

People learn different things through experience. Some people are quick learners, and can learn not only from their own experience, but by watching and listening to others. Some people have to experience everything themselves before they can learn anything. And some people just don't seem to be able to learn, no matter how often they fail.

Here are some things you won't learn in school:

• how to make and keep friends
• how to appreciate things that happen to you
• how to enjoy every day that you live

Here are some things you can learn in school that will help in later life:

• how to budget your time and energy in order to accomplish your goals
• how to find and learn information that you need
• how to analyze a problem and come up with a good solution
• how to relax and de-stress yourself
• how to talk to other people without arguing or fighting

Survey, Question, Read, Recall, and Review

SQ3R reading methodSQ3R is a reading strategy formed from its letters:

Survey! Question! Read! Recite! Review!

SQ3R will help you build a framework to understand your reading assignment. Before you read, Survey the chapter:

• the title, headings, and subheadings
• captions under pictures, charts, graphs or maps
• review questions or teacher-made study guides
• introductory and concluding paragraphs
• summary

• Turn the title, headings, and/or subheadings into questions
• Read questions at the end of the chapters or after each subheading
• Ask yourself,

  "What did my instructor say about this chapter or subject

  when it was assigned?"

• Ask yourself,

  "What do I already know about this subject?"

  Note: If it is helpful to you, write out these questions for consideration.

  This variation is called SQW3R

• Look for answers to the questions you first raised
• Answer questions at the beginning or end of chapters or study guides
• Reread captions under pictures, graphs, etc.
• Note all the underlined, italicized, bold printed words or phrases
• Study graphic aids
• Reduce your speed for difficult passages
• Stop and reread parts which are not clear
• Read only a section at a time and recite after each section

• Orally ask yourself questions about what you have just read, or summarize, in your own words, what you read
• Take notes from the text but write the information in your own words
• Underline or highlight important points you've just read
• Reciting:

  The more senses you use the more likely you are to remember what you read Triple strength learning: Seeing, saying, hearing

  Quadruple strength learning: Seeing , saying , hearing, writing!!!

Day One

• After you have read and recited the entire chapter,

  write questions in the margins for those points

  you have highlighted or underlined.

• If you took notes while reciting,

  write questions for the notes you have taken

  in the left hand margins of your notebook.

• Complete the form for a critical reading review

Day Two

• Page through the text and/or your notebook to re-acquaint yourself

  with the important points.

• Cover the right hand column of your text/note-book

  and orally ask yourself the questions in the left hand margins.

• Orally recite or write the answers from memory.
• Develop mnemonic devices for material which need to be memorized.

  Make flash cards for those questions which give you difficulty.

Days Three, Four and Five

• Alternate between your flash cards and notes and test yourself

  (orally or in writing) on the questions you formulated.

• Make additional flash cards if necessary.

Weekend

• Using the text and notebook, make a Table of Contents - list all the topics and sub-topics you need to know from the chapter.
• From the Table of Contents, make a Study Sheet/ Spatial Map.
• Recite the information orally and in your own words as you put the Study Sheet/Map together.
• As you have consolidated all the information you need for this chapter, periodically review the Sheet/Map so that at test time

  you will not have to cram.

Yes your grades are very important, you need good grades all through your school life to get into college and university but even if you don't plan to go to college or university you will still need 5 GCSE(s) grade C or above for maths science and English and that's just the bare minimum to get into most jobs.

1. Getting good grades means you are not failing your classes. You don't want to fail a class, and then have to take the time to retake it again. Doing so is a waste because it means there will be a class period taken where you can't take something else.
2. In high school, you have to be academically elgible in order to play sports. You don't want to let your team down since your grades are bad and you can't play.
3. Grades are a major part of getting into college. As you have probably heard, colleges are becoming more and more selective as more students apply. Good grades will let you get in easier
4. Grades not only play a part in college acceptance, they also play a big role in college scholarships. College is expensive, and you will probably want to have some help paying for it.

During the first couple of years, there's no distinction between playing and learning. The more children play with the objects in the world, the more children learn about them. Take shapes, for example: children learn that some things roll, and some things don't; some things stack into neat piles, and others don't. And size: children learn that little things fit into big things, but that the opposite isn't true.

When a child plays, they use their body as well as their senses, emotions, language and imagination. This 'rich' mix of experiences helps their learning. Plenty of rich play experiences creates a strong network of pathways in a child's brain. Billions of connections form in your child's brain during the early years a 3-year-old's brain is 80% of its adult size. By repeating rich play experiences, the brain connections become even stronger.

Development and learning are the result of interactive processes. Play is a safe place for children to integrate what's going on in each domain, to help them understand the world, how to interact with others socially, how to express and control their emotions and how to develop their symbolic capabilities.

During play children

• Practice new skills, make mistakes, try new things and try solving problems in their own unique way.
• Express and represent their ideas, thoughts and feeling.
• Learn how to resolve conflicts and gain a sense of competence in a safe place.
• Develop their imaginations and creativity which contributes to their overall cognitive development and competence.

Socio dramatic play provides children the opportunity to expand their language and literacy skills, experiment with different styles of interacting with people, and try out different roles for their interactions with others.