Back to School Tip
Back-to-School Study Skills: Building Good Habits With Young Students
Our children will only develop strong study skills to the degree that they have developed other strong habits and routines.
We had a rule of thumb for when “school” began in our home: When a child learned to obey and do the every day things required of him, he was ready to “do school.” This was not some half-baked theory we had. We knew that if a child could not be counted on to brush his teeth in the morning, he could not be counted on to do hard math problems. If a child did not come when he was called, he would certainly not follow through on his reading assignments when Mom or Dad was not there checking up on every move he made.
Fiction Vs. Non-Fiction
Back-to-School Study Skills: AFTER Textbook Previewing
Once school starts and the textbooks have been previewed, you can help your students get into good study habits by doing their assignments with them for a few weeks as needed.
Here are some tips along those lines:
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Back-to-School Study Skills: Textbook Previewing With Your Students
“The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.” Robert M Hutchins
It’s that time of year again, so I want to re-run a three part article about textbook previewing with your kids to help them start out well with this fall’s school success.
Before I do though, I want to remind you to LIKE our Character Ink FB page, and sign up to receive our blog posts in your email and to receive our enewsletter (in the sidebar) which includes links to articles for the week and much more!
Oh, and don’t forget to spread the word! Many of our Raising Kids With Character seminar/blog followers are not aware of our homeschool pages and updates.
W is for Wonderful Wednesday–and Other Special Times With Our Kids!
Piglet sidled up to Pooh. “Pooh!” he whispered.
“Yes, Piglet?”
“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw. I just wanted to be sure of you.”
A.A. Milne
One way that we have tried to have one-on-one conversations with our children, in spite of there being seven of them, is to take a child with us in the vehicle whenever possible. We began this custom when we just had three small children, making it a point to always “take whomever had shoes on” with us when one of us ran an errand.
Through the years, our custom has become a little more sophisticated (especially now that the kids are older and not always available to go run errands). Now we focus not on who has shoes on but rather on who needs Mom or Dad the most at that time. It is not uncommon for us to discuss the week in terms of kids’ needs and for one of us to say, “Why don’t you have ______ ride up with you to see your mom Wednesday night, so the two of you have a chance to talk about that.” Whatever that might be.
Of course, good discussion can also take place in the vehicle with more than one child with you. We had three girls in a row followed by three boys in a row (after our first child, a boy). This made it particularly good for talking in groups, and it wasn’t uncommon for the boys and Dad to have “Daddy talks” while en route places. (And I could never disclose the contents of those talks!)
Sometimes deep discussions did not take place. Sometimes we just talked about what we saw outside (more on that tomorrow!). Other times, it was just like the quote above by AA Milne—and the child just needed to “be sure of us.”
In case you think that taking a child one-at-a-time is still not that important, let me leave you with this thought: We have had children repent of deceit, cry their eyes out over a broken heart, and even accept Christ as their Savior in a vehicle, one-on-one with Mom and/or Dad. We actually had our oldest child reveal to the two of us whom he thought he wanted to marry (and he did several months later) in the drive-through of a fast food restaurant. Never underestimate time spent with Dad and Mom alone doing something as mundane as running errands!
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