Middle School Study Skills
How can busy kids make time to study?
With regards to middle school study skills, if your kids are busy and say they don't have enough time to study, the best aid that they can use to study are flashcards. Flashcards are portable and they can fit in their pocket and they can use them on the way to events in the car, or use them in between classes or in fact anytime they have downtime. So, I would recommend that you just insist that they take their flashcards wherever they go and they will never have an excuse not to be studying.
My class notes are a mess- how can I improve them?
For middle school studying tips, the best way to improve your notes in class if they are a mess is to think about your notes as an outline. You don't need to write down every word your teacher is saying. If she's saying, "The Civil War took place in ..." all you need to write down that sentence is Civil War and a year. You don't need to write in all the extraneous words because you can fill those in for yourself when you're studying. So, think about what is the topic being talked about (which the main topic is Civil War) and then try and break it down as they're speaking and figure out what are the important things that they're telling you. If you're still having a hard time writing notes, ask your teacher if maybe they can provide you with an outline of the lessons to help you figure out how to structure it, this will help improve your notes.
How should I keep track of my assignments?
The best way to keep track of assignments is to keep one notebook just to write down assignments. Often you have different notebooks for your different classes, like Math, Science, or English. But keep just one notebook that you devote to writing down assignments. You can divide the pages up in your assignment notebook for English, Science, and Math. I recommend you put an open check box, and then write what the assignment is. Then once you complete it, go ahead and check it off so you know that the assignment is done. Any assignment that still needs to be completed, write it in a different colored ink so it stands out to you. So if you need to get a book from the library in order to complete your assignment or research paper, you would write, open box, "Research paper," then you would write in blue ink, "Need to get book from library."
How can a "glossary" help me study?
The glossary in the back of your textbooks is a great tool to help you study for your tests. Any word that you see in bold in your textbook is probably in the glossary in the back. If it seems like it's confusing, the way it's worded when you read your textbook, just check in the glossary in the back. The glossary will probably have a clear, more concise definition, just like a dictionary, that you might understand. Also, any of those words you see in bold, you're probably going to need to make flashcards for, and the glossary is a great tool to help you make those flashcards more quickly and efficiently.
