Effective study strategies are the gateway to school success, graduation, college entry, and job advancement. Poor study habits can bar even bright students from many important opportunities that would otherwise enable them to realize their potential. For many children who have learning and/or attention difficulties, studying is an overwhelming challenge. Consider your child’s current study skills; he may not know what to study or how to approach studying, may have difficultyremembering the information even when he has studied, may have trouble expressing what he knows (especially in essays). If your child struggles with these problems, he is far from unique.
From late elementary school into college, problems with studying and test-taking represent a major hurdle for many children and adolescents, especially those who have learning and attention problems.1 These difficulties are often identified only after discrepancies are discovered between these students’ high grades for class work and their low scores on standardized tests. Their test scores frequently do not reflect their strong conceptual understanding or their level of ability. As a result, study sessions are often highly charged and extremely stressful for these students and their parents.
It is now recognized that many children and adolescents with learning difficulties need explicit, intensive instruction in study strategies.2, 3, 4, 5, 6 This article will describe strategies your child may need to learn, including prioritizing and shifting approaches, and identifying global themes while ignoring irrelevant details.7 Self-monitoring strategies such as checking, planning, and revising are critical, as your child, like many others, may not use these automatically.8, 9 Finally, your child may need to be taught explicitly how to figure out which strategy is appropriate when preparing for a test.10