Learning Tips for Students

Long ago, there was a time, when parents told children to read slowly and loudly to understand everything they read.

A lot of things have changed. Today's children have bigger syllabi to learn. Now, learning experts and teachers ask students to read faster and grasp important points.

Here are a few tips for students who have a lot to learn, but very little time.

Make a Timetable

Your timetable should have separate time for eating, playing games, exercise, reading newspaper and study materials. You should not only make a timetable, but also should stick to it.

Give priority to leisure and games in the afternoon, but separate early morning time for studies. Make sure you read all the class notes before you go to bed.

While allotting time to different subjects, allot more time to difficult subjects. You need only less time for the subjects that are easier for you to learn.

Taking Notes

Taking notes is an important part of learning. You need to take lecture notes (classroom notes) and notes from your textbook.

- Go through the lessons on the day before your teacher would teach it in the class. This gives you an idea of what to expect.

- Write down important ideas as bullet points. One word or a phrase is enough to include an idea.

- Give prominence to important ideas by underlining them in your notes.

- Leave lot of space in each face of paper. This will help you add new points later.

- Organize your notes into separate files. Each subject should have a different file. Label the outer page of the file with name of the subject and your teacher. You should also neatly organize each file according to chapters and topics.

- Read the notes (important points) in the night, before going to bed. Read only once. This helps you memorize the lessons clearly.

- While taking notes from a book, label the name of the book and author. Also, note the page number next to your notes. It makes it easy for you to refer to the book three or six months later.

Reading Techniques

You need to read fast and grasp more things. Here are some pointers to fast reading.

- Note the name of the book and its author in the reading log.

- Take a quick look from cover to cover to identify the important chapters.

- Take a quick look over the chapter, identify the important points, and note them down.

- Read the lesson fast. To increase the speed of learning, pass your eyes through the top of the letters and not through the centre. For example, while reading, pass your eyes through the area where the dot above the letter i appears and not through the loop of the letter o.

- Don't take notes while reading.

- Don't go back to read a word or a sentence. If you don't get the idea of the subject, you can come back to the sentence after you finish reading the chapter. Never look up a dictionary while in the middle of reading a chapter. Refer dictionary only if you don't automatically understand the meaning of a word after finishing the paragraph and the chapter.

- Note down the points you remember. Now check if you have taken all the important points, with another fast reading.

How to increase memory

Try to understand completely what you read or hear.

Repeat what you hear or read in your mind.

Make notes of what you learn at school or read from books. A single word can help you remember a whole idea.

Give number to the points.

Don't try to bring to memory all the things you have learned. Learn the technique of bringing to memory one thing at a time.

How to increase concentration

Mental concentration is important to memory and better learning.

Stick to your reading timetable. You should separate a specific place and specific time of the day for reading.

Sit erect. It increases your concentration.

Don't allow disturbances like phone calls, music etc while reading.

Concentrate on the lessons you read. Don't think about the next book you have to read while you are reading a book. A better way is to make an order of the books and lessons to read and arrange them in order before you start reading.

Immediately after reading a paragraph, try to recall the idea from that paragraph. This helps you concentrate more on your reading.

Ideal conditions for reading/learning

A silent location that you don't use for sleeping, eating or leisure purposes is the most ideal condition for reading.

Install a fluorescent tube light in the reading room. This helps mild light to fall evenly all over the room. Don't sit in the darkness while reading. If you use table lamp, arrange it towards your left if you are a right-hander.

Arrange the papers, pencils, boards and books on the table before you start reading.

Never try to read while you are tired or ill.

Eat healthy food rich in carbohydrates, proteins and fibres. Replace fast food, pizza, burger, chocolates, ice creams, etc with fresh fruits, whole grain food items (like chapatti), milk, fruit juices, etc.

Exercise daily. Swimming, cycling and jogging are good for students. Practise yoga. It increases concentration and willpower.

Don't watch TV. Instead, play some games in the outdoors. While TV makes you dumb, the games make you smarter.

Read lot of books. Read classic stories, fables (like Aesop fables, Panchatantra stories, etc), etc. Don't spend too much time on comic cartoons. Learning Tips for Students by Dev Sri

Homeschool Curriculum - Do I Need It?

Homeschool curriculum and books are plentiful. Choosing from the huge selection can be overwhelming. Do you really need to purchase a home school curriculum or can you save some money and home school with books alone? Here are some thoughts that can help you make your decision:

1. You need a core plan - Whether you purchase a home school curriculum or develop your own, you need to know what you want to accomplish. What do you think your child should be doing each day? What do you want them to know and understand by the time the school year is over?

2. Focus on reading, writing and arithmetic - Any good home school program focuses on the basics. Make sure you address the core subjects and know what you want to accomplish there before you add any other subjects to your list.

3. Know how you and your child learn best - Learning style plays a key role in how you and your children will learn. In public school teachers can’t really teach based on learning style because of the volume of students they have to work with. But a home school parent can certainly know their child’s learning style and use resources to support that. If you don’t know yours or your child’s learning style you can take an assessment online and find out. http://www.hjresources.com/hsrecommend Then when you decide to choose curriculum or books you will know what types of resources you need. You might even save yourself a lot of frustration in the long run.

4. Use your resources - In the early days of home schooling there wasn’t much available to parents. That is definitely not the case now. There is almost too much information available now. You have the internet, library and a host of used curriculum sites where you can get books and resources at a fraction of the cost.

5. Do you use a curriculum to learn something yourself? Think about what you do when you want to learn about something. Do you buy a curriculum to learn or do you read books, listen to audio and watch videos? Your children need to see you have a love for learning. You can learn about how to cook, sew, garden, remodel your house, improve your skills at a job, etc.

Even though purchasing a curriculum can give you a feeling of security knowing that everything your child needs to know will be covered, be careful that you don’t take on too much and get burned out. If you focus on the basics and know what you want to accomplish, then you can make an informed decision as to whether you will need to purchase a curriculum or whether you can just use books and resources to accomplish the same goals.Homeschool Curriculum - Do I Need It? by Heidi Johnson

The Organized Student: Teaching Children the Skills for Success in School and Beyond

Hands-on strategies for teaching your disorganized child how to organize for school success!

The overstuffed backpack, the missing homework, the unused planner, the test he didn't know about. Sound familiar? When the disorganized child meets the departmentalized structure of middle school, everything can fall apart. Even the academically successful child will start to falter if she misses deadlines, loses textbooks, or can't get to class on time.

This practical book is full of hands-on strategies for helping parents identify and teach organizational skills. Educational consultant Donna Goldberg has developed these methods by working with hundreds of students and in this book she provides:

• Assessments to gather information about your child's learning style, study habits, and school requirements


• Guidelines for taming that overstuffed binder and keeping it under control


• PACK -- a four-step plan for purging and reassembling a backpack or locker


• Instructions for organizing an at-home work space for the child who studies at a desk or the child who studies all over the house


• Ways to help your child graduate from telling time to managing time


• Special tips for kids with learning disabilities and kids who have two homes...and more

The Organized Student: Teaching Children the Skills for Success in School and Beyond By Donna Goldberg

Home schooling - How to Avoid Burnout

by: Heidi Johnson

As with any project you take on, there is always the chance for burnout. Here are some simple steps you can take to help avoid burning out on home schooling.

1. Don’t try to do more than you or your child are capable of doing. Most students are average. Don’t expect your 3 year old to read novels or your teenager be able to ace the SAT test and get a full ride into college. These things happen, but they are not the norm.

2. Set a routine and skip the strict schedules. Do your children know what is expected of them each day? They need to get up, eat breakfast, do some chores, read, write, do arithmetic and a few other things that you set for them to do. They should not be playing on the computer or playing outside until their normal routine is finished. Some days are easier to accomplish than others. On the low motivation days, you can always throw in some fun or an occasional incentive.

3. Enjoy your children and develop your relationship with them. If you have a habit of relating with your child, with mutual listening, then you can work through any curriculum struggle or lack of motivation. You and your child should enjoy learning together and separately. If you are interested in a certain topic like cooking or gardening then your children should see you pursuing that knowledge. We all learn better when we are motivated to learn something ourselves.

4. When you home school you don’t have to mimic what the schools do. They have to structure their days a certain way because of the volume of students they have and the tests they have to pass. Homeschoolers can learn in many different ways using unusual methods like hopping up and down a step when you answer a flashcard or problem correctly. Use the flexibility of home schooling to avoid burnout by changing the atmosphere a little bit. Play music one day. Light some candles another day. Declare a “game day”.

If you keep your life and day in proper perspective, you can easily avoid burning out on home schooling. Your children probably won’t remember the lesson of the day although they will build on their knowledge and grow in their intelligence, just as they won’t remember the meal they eat, but it will help them grow physically. Your children will mostly remember the atmosphere of your home and how you treated them.