great study skills book

Kathye,

Thank you for the info on a Study Skills program. I will be teaching Study Skills to 7th and 8th grade LS students this fall and I am not too happy with the materials that we have been given. Since this is a new course for me to teach, this will be a great help and time saver.

Michigan

I went to the website and it looks like a very interesting book. I especially liked some of the games they show in the sample chapters. Thanks for sharing!

I teach in a HS resource room as well and am a new special ed teacher. The other teachers in the RR mostly help kids with their homework and classroom assignments, but I feel the need to work on study skills with many of the kids. Do you have any suggestions on how to incorporate study skills along with help on projects and homework into a format that works?
Thanks for any input. I will also check out the book you suggested.

Landmark School’s Study Skills book by Joan Sedita. She’s phenominal anyway. Another one of those Harvard kids.

I’ve been thinking this over with another resource teacher at middle school and we’ve temporarily concluded that daily short spurts would work well in doing a unit on…say, SQ3R. Then, back to curriculum tutoring for a week or so to keep them up to speed in the content classes.

It is trial and error. We just try ideas and document how well or poorly they work. Let us know what works for you.

When do you start back?

Hi Donna,
I am the co-author of the book(Study Tools) Patsy mentions in her post. I am thrilled she has found it to be so helpful. I’d like to answer you question about incorporating study skills and assisting with homework, etc. I have found success in using 1/2 the class time to teach study skills and 1/2 to work with students on homework, projects, reading tests aloud, etc. The lessons in the book are designed in a way that works very well with this format. This is the book used at the high schools in our area for all resource classes. Our high schools are also involved in co-teaching. We have found we can help with the transfer of the study skills into the regular classroom using the co-teaching model. For years we taught study skills and felt the students had a grasp on “what to do” in the regular classroom. The reality was the students could use study skills (such as notetaking) in the resource setting, but never understood how it could actually be used in the regular classroom setting. With co-teaching came the ability to show them how to transfer the information. For example, the co-teacher could actually teach a strategy to the entire classroom or quietly prompt a student(s),”now would be a good time to use the notetaking skill of abbreviation.”

I hope this information will be helpful to you. Please feel free to contact me via email if you have any further questions.

Not a book but a group of organizers that are great for comprehension for any kid is the Kansas Learning Strategies. Their unit organizer is awesome!! My county gives us training in these strategies.

It doesn’t get any better than Dr. Deschler & Co. I use his writing strategies and some of the new content stuff, too.

I need to go back and re-examine all the possibilities from that group.

What time block do you use? At the middle-school here, they are on a 50 minute block. Somehow it doesn’t seem like enough time everyday—with transition from study skills to tutoring. What’s your experience?

I start back right after Labor Day. When you say daily short spurts of study skills, do you mean for the entire class period or part of it for that day?

Thank yo so much for your input about how to incorporate the study skills program in resource and regular classes. I am absolutely going to try it in Sept.— any pitfalls or suggestions on getting going? The kids are very used to just using the time for homework and test taking.

Natalie says try part of the class period every day or everyday for a unit. Our blocks are only 50 minutes. With transitions, I’m afraid the curriculum-part will suffer. It seems to take more time than we have now.

However, I do feel that this is more like buying a man a fishing pole than giving him fish…

I have taught on both the 50 and 90 minute blocks. Obviously, the 90 minute works the best time wise, but the 50 is workable. On the 50 block, I normally teach about a 20-25 minute lesson before transitioning to “homework” help time. This varies depending on the work load of the students. There are always some days when we do not do a study skills lesson at all and other days when we could do longer lessons depending on the workload of the students. The first unit of study skills I teach is always on organization. I do teach this unit daily because I feel it sets the stage for the entire year. I actually teach lessons on how to organize a notebook. Each week, we have a “notebook shakedown” in which I grade their regular classroom notebook organization. They receive a notebook grade based on having their pages dated, in order, secure, etc. and they also have to show me evidence of where they have used whatever study skill we are learning in my class. For example, if we have been working on using abbreviations to take notes from a lecture, they must point out where they have applied this skill in one of their mainstream courses. I hope this answers your question. More detailed information and actual lessons plans can be found in our book, Study Tools and/or I’d be glad to answer in more detail if needed.

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How can I order this book?

You can order Study Tools from Twins Publications. The website is www.twinspublications.com. There is an order form on the site you can download. Sample pages can also be seen on the site. Let me know if you have any problems getting the information. We have also published a book titled The Co-Teaching Manual. You can see sample pages from this book as well. Thanks for the interest. I hope you find the book to be helpful.