Effective Ways to Improve Your Student's Study Skills

Landing page: Whether your student is a successful student or struggling with one or more subjects, there are certain essential skills that will build a foundation for their success in school and life. Good study skills can increase a student’s confidence, competence and self-esteem.  Here are some of most important skills your student needs:

Executive functioning – Executive functions are neurologically based skills that require self-regulation or mental processing. Put simply, they help students focus, prioritize tasks, set goals and work toward them, and stay attentive when studying. These “building block” skills allow students to learn successfully because they are better able to control, organize and monitor their time. Executive functioning is an umbrella term for a group of skills that children need to learn effectively, including:

• Organization – The ability to keep workspaces tidy and put supplies in places where they can be found easily at any time combined with the ability to stay on top of homework and supplies needed in class and at home.
• Time management – The ability to organize one’s time with the aid of a planner/calendar in order to maximize work time and deter procrastination.
• Planning – The ability to manage short-term and long-term to-dos.
• Retention – The ability to retain information and retrieve it later when completing a task.

Note taking – As students move from middle to high school, assigned reading increases significantly—for multiple subjects. Students need to develop a reliable method of taking notes and make sure their notes record key points covered both in the textbook and in class. When done correctly, note-taking does not take the place of careful listening or reading. Rather, good notes will supplement what students read and hear by summarizing a large amount of information into the essentials and by triggering the brain to recall important facts when needed.

Test taking – A solid study plan is the core of a good test-taking strategy. Students who embrace reliable learning methods and stick to a study schedule are best equipped to perform well on exams, but most need guidance to fine tune their test-taking skills. Huntington’s Advanced Study Skills program emphasizes the development of proven test-taking strategies and methodologies so that students are well-equipped to prove what they know when the time comes.

The expectations of today’s students are high, yet the daily agenda of most classrooms leaves little time to focus on the development of study skills. And while some students are inherently more organized and studious than others, none are born with the fundamentals to make the very most of study and homework time.

Huntington’s Advanced Study Skills program gives students the tools they need to successfully acquire, retrieve, analyze and communicate information. Our program is individualized for students based on their abilities and needs. If your student could use help developing their study skills, call us at 1-800 CAN LEARN. We’ll work together to help your student become a more efficient, effective and confident student.