Help Your Child Raise Their Grades

With the school year underway, goals are set for a better year. This includes getting better grades. But how? Of course, setting a routine that works for better attention and focus, as well as taking notes, has great merit, but learning how to study and take tests, also contribute to the student doing their best, and an improvement in grades. Here are some tips to help accomplish the task of raising grades this year.

• Now that notes from the classroom have been kept, it is time to expand them. Go to your textbook and write down all important ideas and information. Clues come from the darkened titles in the chapters. Add this to your notes.

• Make a study guide from the notes. The best way to develop a guide, is with the use of an outline. In roman numerals, or alphabetic order, put down main topics. Under the main topic, number facts relating to the that idea.

• Review the study guide, going over it until comfortable with the material. Read out loud from the study guide. Highlight any information that is still a little uncertain. Continue to review the highlighted material until time for the test. Always review just before going to sleep, but do not stay up too long, as to be fresh the next morning. Ask someone to review the guide with you.

• Make flash cards for spelling and math facts.

• Join study groups or get help from friends, teacher or tutor.

• Remember we learn through sight, sound and touch, thus, reading out loud, we hear what we are to learn, as we see the information on paper. By creating an outline, we are touching what we wish to remember. This is a recipe for success.

Now, we have studied and it is time to take the test. How do we become a better test taker?

• Be fully prepared.

• Stay calm and relaxed. Do self talk “I have the answers in my head, I can do this”.

• Ask, “What is the question, what does the teacher want” and then answer.

• The first answer thought of, is usually the right answer. Do not second guess the answer.

• Use your time wisely. If you are given an hour to complete a 120 question test, that’s 30 seconds per question. 30 seconds can be made into a lot of time. Many of the questions will take far less than 30 seconds, so apply the balance to a tougher question. Don’t think too deeply on the time, and don’t get distracted by the clock.

• Become a better test taker by exercising the brain during the year. Puzzle exercises such as crosswords, Sudoku, and logic will boost your brainpower and you will be able to remember more information at school.