School Psychology Blog

Being successful with study means that you have to be organised! Completing homework and getting all your assignments done is great, but this isn’t study.

This post will outline reasons for getting organised, some tips for getting organised and  it will define what studying actually is! It will also gives students some study tips.

Reasons for getting organised:

• You can easily find the books you need to study.
• You know what needs to be studied.
• You have a complete set of notes of the work completed in class.
• You can learn more effectively.
• You don’t waste valuable time looking for things!
• You are able to break tasks down into manageable study blocks.
• You are able to achieve better result!

Study Space

1. Clean up your desk area.
2. Have pens and paper within easy access. The equipment you need will include: pens, pencils, highlighters, blank paper (A4 & A3 sizes), lined paper and flash cards. You may even like to include coloured paper.
3. Remove any distractions and replace these with positive affirmations and quotes.
4. If you are using a computer – turn off instant messaging and social network sites (you need to reward yourself with these activities!)

Study V’s Homework

Study is more than just doing the set work. Doing the set work, assignments, essays, and maths questions are all homework tasks. Study if different, it is reviewing and consolidating what you have learnt. Even if you don’t have homework, you always have study to do. Most students don’t understand this concept.

What is Study?

Study is reviewing what was taught during the class, it is also revising the text books and committing to memory the content of the course so it can be easily retrieved during an exam. Study is also predicting the types of questions you might be assessed. Often it is writing summary notes, flash cards, mind maps and summary diagrams. It is also do practice exams and questions to help you understand the core material.

Why study?

We forget what we have learned very quickly unless it is encoded into long term memory.  If we don’t think about the material we were taught or read it again we have lost somewhere between 50 to 80% of what was initially taught. Seven days later we can recall even less and a month later we can recall around 2 – 3 % of what was originally taught! That means if you don’t revise, you won’t remember what you have learnt!

Key points:

• If you don’t use it, you lose it!
• You need to constantly be reviewing what you have been taught.
• You need to revise, revisit and rehearse what you have learned!
• You will remember something much better if you revise it immediately after it was taught.

Study Tip: Spend 5 minutes after every class you have reviewing what you did in that class. Then a week later, review it again. This will reactive your knowledge on the topic.

Ask yourself these three questions:

1. What did I learn today?
2. What else do I need to find out?
3. What do I need to do next?

You might like to review how you study in each subject and create an action plan!

You can download a worksheet: How to study?

Other posts will include:

• Goal setting
• Listening skills
• Reading skills
• Note taking skills
• Time management skills

filed under: Academic Success, Learning Disabilities, Study Skills