Module 5: Chapter 13 & 14 Response and Activity

Chapter 13 discusses the importance of having good study skills and learning strategies.  I've heard many of the quotes on page 316 like, "I don't need to study." When thinking back to my middle and high school experiences I remember cramming for an exam the night before and only being concerned about getting a good grade on the test, not about retaining the information. Now as a teacher, I understand just how important it is to study parts of the information over a certain amount of time for the it to actually "sink in" and retain the information, as opposed to just studying for the test. It's my job to ensure the students have good study habits, but in my opinion a large part of that involves parent involvement or even an older sibling helping a student study. At the beginning of the school year or open house, we can provide the parents with information on good study habits such as skimming, questioning, summarizing, and reading and writing strategies. Also, parents can use the SQ3R method to help students study nightly. As long as students study continually instead of just cramming the night before the test they can retain the content and do better on exams and open-ended questions.

In chapter 14 we learn about working with parents. I've had the opportunity to observe and work in both a school with little to no parent involvement and a school with a ton of parent support. In my experience I have come to believe that the support each student has at home is a factor in their acheivement at school. As I mentioned from chapter 13, a large part of how well a student performs in the classroom depends on parent involvement at home. One of the examples the text provided was the Family Literacy Project. I've heard great things about it, although I've never tried it, I think it would be beneficial to try in a classroom with little parent involvement. The text also provided another great suggestion for parents to use, captioned television. It's a great way to use television to improve students' reading. Not only are they seeing the words in print, but they are also hearing the fluency and tone from the speaker.

Activity #2 p.335: Some teachers in your school system feel that elementary-grade children are too immature to learn study skill techniques. How would you convince these teachers that this is not so?
Study skills are important to teach to students at a young age. I've seen many students "freak out" over the pressure they have on them to perform well on a standardized test. If we teach them to gradually study the content they are learning they will not have to cram the night before a test. It will greatly benefit the students academically in the future the sooner they learn proper study habits.