Like reading, writing, typing, walking, or knitting, studying is a skill that can be taught, learned, and perfected. Traditional public and private schools do not teach study skills; they leave it up to parents and students to sink or swim, if you will. As a home schooling parent, you can teach your home schooled children all important study skills. These skills will help them get better grades, learn to manage time more efficiently, and help them immensely if they decide to attend college or a university. Indeed, in that situation, knowing how to study can make the difference between the dean's list and scholarships, and sinking quickly like many college freshmen do.
To give your home schooled child a leg up, you must teach them how to study and have them practice it with every content area that you teach them. Even if you never formally learned how to study yourself, you can still teach your home schooled child how to study efficiently and effectively. The first step a home schooling parent needs to take is to figure out what kind of learner their child is. This is one of the great things about home schooling, that it can be customized to the needs of your child. There are several different types of learning: visual learning, auditory learning, and hepatic learning. Hepatic learning is when the child needs to pace around or have music playing. These children are easily distracted but you can make the most of it by making learning more active and tactile. Once you have determined what style of learner your home schooled child is, the next step is repetition. It may sound boring, but it works.
Now that your home schooled child has the tools to memorize, it is time to start teaching him how to study. The first step for your home schooled child is to survey the material. Look at the headings and sub headings on a section. Get a feel for where the material is going before you start to read. Next, ask questions about the chapter, like what is this trying to tell you? Ask questions about what you will be learning. Next, the home schooled child will need to read the material. Lastly, it is time for your home schooled child to recite and review the information. With the book closed, your home schooled child should recite the main points about what she just read and then review the information for gaps and to further instill it into her brain.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, author, children's rights advocate, and Founder and C.E.O. of Learning by Grace, Inc. She and her husband of almost 3 decades reside with their 8 children in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. because "our current system of education has broken its promise..." Learning By Grace, Inc. delivers Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children in the United States and throughout the world.
Rothschild has authored a number of books about education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Home Education News Blog contains feature stories on alternatives in education.
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