Power Up Your Child's Study Habits: A Parent's Guide

Power Up Your Child's Study Habits: A Parent's Guide

Rachel Becker

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Rachel Becker

Discover other titles by Rachel Becker at Smashwords.com

Power Up Your Study Habits: Elementary School

Power Up Your Study Habits: Middle/High School (even College)

Tips for Tutors: Power Up Your Sessions

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal use only. This e-book must not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the author's work.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction and pep talk

Chapter 2: Focusing on the student

Chapter 3: Focusing on you--setting a good example

Chapter 4: Organizing--time, space, stuff, and ideas

Chapter 5: Leaving for school

Chapter 6: Helping your child get the most from class

Chapter 7: Helping your child with tests

Chapter 8: When your child comes home from school

Chapter 9: Helping with homework

Chapter 10: Using the textbook

Chapter 11: Helping your child read for understanding

Chapter 12: Helping your child write

Chapter 13: Group work

Chapter 14: Working with the teachers and schools

Chapter 15: Learning away from school and home

Chapter 16: Learning for life

Chapter 17: Dealing with problems

Chapter 18: Conclusion and second pep talk

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About this book

You got this book because you want to help your child succeed in school. You may want homework time to go a little easier, grades to go up, and teachers to stand and applaud when you walk through the door. Well, at least the first two.

School is the big job that you and your child do together. You should enjoy this time. You should enjoy helping your child with schoolwork. It all begins with study habits. If your child knows how to study effectively, you should both see better results while spending less time on homework.

Studies show that the more the parents are involved with schoolwork, the greater the chance that the child will succeed in school--and later life. But you may need help to know how to be most effectively involved. You could probably benefit from a good tutor. Look at this book as your tutor. It shows you how to help your child at home, where learning begins.

Note: This series also has a book for tutors. If you do hire one, make sure your tutor has that book. (It's available where you got this one.)

Here are a few things to know about getting the most from this book:

1. To make it easier to use and find information, I use a lot of lists (like this one). I want to get right to the information you need in as few words as possible. I know you’re busy.

2. This book assumes you're using at least one of the student books. Your child should have the appropriate companion book (see below). It would be best if you read that one first and then went over it with your child. This book assumes you're doing that. You can then use ideas in this book to reinforce the strategies in the student book.

3. This book often refers to the student book and does not try to repeat it. For example, the chapter on helping your child with tests doesn’t repeat material from the student books. (See below for more information on the other books.)

4. If you read this book from start to finish, you may notice some repetition and see the same idea in different chapters. Each chapter is meant to stand on its own. You can look at one chapter, like the one on how to help with homework, and see all the ideas you need.

5. The ideas and tips here come from decades of experience teaching and writing about study habits. I’ve spent my career learning how to help children learn. I’ve researched a lot of books on the subject, and written some for both schools and other publishers. I’ve tried to put some of the best ideas here. That's a lot of information. You should pick and choose things to do now and things to do later. School goes on for years—you don’t have to do everything in this book at once.

6. Although this book may (and can) be your only reference for helping your child through school, it’s not meant to be exhaustive (or exhausting). You might want to get more information on a particular area. You probably already use the Internet and you can go there for more depth on specific topics. Your school professionals may also have recommendations for more information.

7. This book is written to the parent so the topics that are more important for parents get more coverage. Topics that are more important for the student get more coverage in the student books. For example, this book has longer chapters on working with teachers and schools (and getting the most out of open house night and parent-teacher conferences) and helping with homework.

About the author

Rachel Becker is not my real name. I'm using a pen name because I want to feel totally free to share with you what I've learned. I taught school for many years (elementary to college). I now work in the textbook industry writing materials for teachers, content for students, tests, lab books, etc. I've worked for just about every major textbook publisher in the country, as well as some minor ones. I once developed a how to study curriculum for a major university. It just seemed better to use a name that isn't associated with any school or publisher. (I also wanted to feel free to include problems I've seen from all those years of working on textbooks.)

Note: You’ll see tips and notes throughout this book. Don’t skip them. This one says that I sometimes don't follow grammar rules exactly. (Sometimes I end a sentence with a preposition!) I wanted to use a conversational style that makes it easier for you to read rather than follow every grammar rule. Besides, no one knows who I am.

Other books available

This series has three other books. Two are titled Power Up Your Study Habits. One is for elementary students (especially grades 4 and 5) and the other is for middle school students and above (grade 6 or so up to college). The book for older students is meant to stay with a child throughout the school years. That's why the subtitle says even college.

If your child starts with the one for elementary students, you should get the one for older students when your child starts grade 6 (or earlier, depending on your child). Middle school and high school (and even college) present new challenges and new levels of expectations. That move to middle school is a new ballgame and needs new resources.

They are both e-books and available where you got this one. The book for older students contains everything in the book for elementary students plus more.

Tip: With each book, students at the younger end can especially use help from an adult.

You might also be interested in the book for tutors: Tips for Tutors: Power Up Your Sessions. This book is similar to this one for parents; you don’t need both. But, if you have a tutor for your child, you might want to include this book as part of the directions for the tutor.

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Chapter 1: Introduction and pep talk

You are your child's first teacher and most important teacher. Your child watches you to see your attitude toward learning, school, people in authority, and hard work. Before children even go to school, they learn from you how to communicate and work with others, how to solve problems, and how to deal with success and failure.

A successful parent-child relationship carries over to the classroom. Success in school, as well as in life, begins in the home with the parent-child relationship. Children with involved parents tend to see higher achievement, a more positive attitude, better grades, more effective homework time, and even a brighter future.

One of the secrets to success in school is one word: connections. You can help your child make connections across the school years, between the subjects, and from school to home. Studies show that schools don't often do this. Here is where you can come in. This book will help you guide your child to make those connections.

Did you know that a lot of schools are geared to teach all students the same way? They focus on visual learners. But that is just one learning style. Everyone has a preferred learning style and your child’s might be something other than visual. Chapter 3 in each student book helps your child discover that preferred learning style. (Chapter 2 in this book gives you some ideas.) You're encouraged to talk to your child's teacher about this. Discuss how to help your child use that preferred style to learn more effectively.

This book also helps you know what questions to ask both your child and the teacher to learn more about what's happening in school. Your conversations with both should go up to a whole new level.

Note 1: The word children in this book includes middle school students and high school students. Teenagers may