Study Skills They Don't Teach in School

In middle school, study skills are key. But, often kids don't know the best place to start. Even your child's period of “study hall” or “independent reading” will be usless if she’s never been shown how to utilize that time. Teachers seldom train kids to read with a purpose, organize their thoughts and notes, infer what comes next, or connect what they read to their own lives. These are critical thinking skills we assume students have, but don’t formally teach!

Honing reading and study skills takes practice, and synthesizing facts from a textbook, even a nontraditional one, is never easy. Here are key strategies to get your middle schooler started:

Identify text features: It’s not surprising that blossoming readers fail to recall the title of a book they’ve been reading for weeks. Kids must learn to navigate between the covers and identify text features, particularly elements of a nonfiction textbook.

First, have your child study the book jacket: what information is presented on the front and back flaps? After scanning the table of contents and the index, ask him to predict what the book is about. Next, flip through the first chapter, say, “Birthing a Universe.” What does this title imply? Is the chapter about the Big Bang, or how societies began? Introduce terms like epigraphs, sidebars, and captions. Infer themes from epigraphs, and discuss the difference between the main text and information in margins, columns, and small boxes of text.

Read with a purpose: Your child’s fact-filled chapters may be overwhelming. If she's trying to absorb tough material, it may take several reads. “Most schools don’t let students read over their heads, but good readers do that all the time,” says Joy Hakim, author of the series the Story of Science and the History of US . As we know, even adults need to read material more than once to retain large amounts of information. When reading, Hakim suggests a quick overall read, then follow-up readings with specific goals.