How to Improve Study Habits

Christine Reidhead

• Publisher: Four Windows Press
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9780999007761
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Study Aids
• Subtopic: Study Guides

For students 13 through college graduation, Christine Reidhead's guide to building study skills is an extremely important book for those who want to secure their future through good grades.Too many students' grades are falling, especially in a time when regular classrooms cannot fully open. Parents everywhere are at a loss regarding what to do with their responsibilities in the face of the increasing downturn in their children's grades. It seems as though, with the advent of social media, the attention of a lot of students has been shifted from their books to their smartphones or computers. Apart from social media, blame has also been put on a decline in the interest of students regarding education in general. Students, at the moment, do not have the motivation or zeal, as it seems, to even study.

Good study habits, or skills, are solutions to the problems experienced by students.This has been true for a long time, but the world is changing rapidly, which also means that the tools employed during study have to be changed in order to keep up.

This is especially true as a result of the covid-19 pandemic that has forced students to study and learn from home rather than in the classroom.E-Learning, or online learning, can be effective, but only if the student has the discipline and drive to succeed using the tools and materials they are provided by teachers.Without strong study skills the student will fall behind in the classroom.Online the failure to develop good study skills can be devastating, leading to an inability to achieve the success in life the student could otherwise achieve.

This excellent guide walks students through skills and habits which a student, or a person, employs while studying in order to make the most out of the experience. The kind of skills employed by a person, whether good or bad, determines how successful they will be in the process of learning, and Reidhead shows how to understand study skills, discover what kind of learner you are, develop great study skills, avoid bad study habits, identify the best places to study, and how to keep up with Online Learning during the current ovid-19 pandemic. It also helps parents and students to identify when certain students are studying excessively, harming the effectiveness of their studying.

This is a must book for students who want good grades. Both a guide and a self-help book, it can help any student of any age, middle school through graduate school, succeed in their classes whether they are held in a classroom or online.

Chapter One:

Understanding Study Skills

Study skills are the practices implemented by a student during study. Simply put, there are skills and habits which a student, or a person, employs while studying in order to make the most out of the experience. The kind of skills employed by a person, whether good or bad, determines how successful they will be in the process of learning.

Mastering good study habits and study skills inevitably leads to success. This is an important lesson to learn. Good grades cannot be achieved without studying. Having good study skills helps one to study well. By this same logic, students who have mastered good study habits will naturally make better grades. As they advance in school, the stakes become higher and the level of tasks they are expected to complete also becomes more difficult. Only the ones that have mastered great study skills can maximize success.

However, the focus should not be on just making sure the student makes great grades. That is part of a successful college experience, but more importantly, the goal is to help the person become a better student so that they will have good study habits in every field.

Eventually, when the student begins to work in a multimillion dollar industry and is required to study and research large volumes of data and interpret them, or write reports or memos based upon what they have learned on the job, they will not have difficulty because the skill to achieve that will come naturally to them.

Having great study skills does wonders for a student’s psyche and confidence. As already pointed out, excellent study skills help to maintain good grades, and good grades have a way of not only enhancing the student’s persona, but also improving their level of confidence. Confidence is important. A student with low self-esteem will find it difficult to interact with fellow classmates and instructors, which may actively impact their academic performance.

Great study habits also means that the student will experience less stress and anxiety related to exams. Often examinations are taken with the threat of failure hanging over a student’s head. This is usually the case when a student is not prepared. The fear of failure often brings with it anxiety. Students who face anxiety caused by the fear of failure may find it difficult to concentrate. This failure may even result in an inability to maintain relationships, which can spiral into depression. Students who suffer anxiety in the face of examinations can end up eventually failing, which further pushes them into depression. Each of these situations can be prevented by the development and implementation of strong study skills.

Sadly, there are no shortcuts to success. If you are experiencing anxiety tied to your academics, the best thing you can do is look for ways to improve your grades. When grades rise, the spirit of the person will also rise, and anxiety will decrease.

Finally, good study skills may allow the student to have more free time to engage in other activities. A great skill a student ought to learn is time management. The process of learning how to manage time effectively will help divide time effectively. Students who do not practice great study skills often find they do not have enough time to engage in all their desired every day activities. When you have great study skills, by extension, you will also have the ability to manage your time, which will free you to engage in other activities while being academically successful.

Study skills are quite different from study techniques. People often make the mistake of thinking they are the same thing. Study skills are the precursor to study techniques. After you have mastered study skills you can move on to learning good study techniques and how to apply them to your everyday study. If you are a student struggling with your academics, the first logical step is to get a firm grasp of study skills. If you begin to learn study techniques without first understanding study skills, implementing those techniques will be difficult because study skills help to prepare you to apply study techniques.

Types of Study Skills

1. Notetaking

Many people fail to take notes because they believe that notetaking is either a waste of their time or that they will remember what they need to know when put to the test. Unfortunately, remembering does not always work out that way.

The main reason we forget is that there is always more information to process than we expect. When you leave the classroom you may immediately encounter fresh information that you then have to store through the same process you used to store the earlier information. If so and so is really made at you, or some other personal gossip or conflict or relationship is going on, that may seem more important than what you were sure you would remember, and then there is the information from other classes or reading or a conversation with an instructor. Therefore, you will most likely forget the earlier information because of the pileup of new information you have received. Sometimes the information can all get confused in your head. Taking notes is the best way to ensure you won’t lose the information you are trying to store.

However, more important than just taking notes is taking notes properly. Effective notetaking strategies need to be employed if you want to make sure your notetaking helps you when you take a test or write a paper.

Several notetaking strategies can be employed, but the most important point is that you need to understand what strategy works best for you. For some people, in order for them to take notes properly, they have to process what they hear and then break it down using their own words. Others prefer the use of diagrams and illustrations. These strategies will be discussed in greater detail a little later in the book. The important thing is to determine what works for you and then to incorporate that into your practice of notetaking.

2. Flashcards

Flashcards are visual cues on paper. They are usually cut-out cards with specific information written on them, which helps a person learn and memorize facts or a concept. There are already-made flashcards on various subjects. For instance, a lot of elementary school students have flashcards for learning vocabulary or the times tables.

However, a person can decide to make flashcards for themselves, taking into consideration how they want them to look or how they want to use them. Flashcards work because of how small they are. A student can simply rearrange the cards to their preference, and, in the instance a fact, idea, or concept is forgotten, a card can be picked out of the pile, and the memorization process can be continued. Flashcards can also be picked at random, thus enabling the student to go over different areas of a particular subject, repeating what they are trying to memorize until it is firmly in their memory. There are also online flashcard study tools such as Quizlet, Flashcard Machine, Stud...

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Chapter One: Understanding Study Skills
• Chapter Two: Types of Learners
• Chapter Three: Developing Great Study Skills
• Chapter Four: Improving Your Study Skills
• Chapter Five: Bad Study Habits: How Do I Know Them?
• Chapter Six: Best Places to Study
• Chapter Seven: Signs That You Have Been Studying Excessively
• Chapter Eight: Effects of Studying Excessively
• Chapter Nine: Keeping Up With Online Learning During The COVID-19 Pandemic
• Conclusion
• About the Author
• Student Lesson Planner