I find my middle school child studies very little or not at all at home. He goes to the resource room and says he studies there, he has good grades for the most part. I find he needs the resource room because he is not independent yet for study skills (teachers say this too), but yet relies on that time to study. It seems like a double edged sword? Even with setting up time at home he just will not study. Any ideas or thoughts ?
middle school study skills
I think kids need to learn to study(LD and not) and 6th grade is a watershed for this area; my 6th grader will review teacher made study guides, end of chapter reviews(like in math), notes he’s taken in his notebooks(probably copied off the board)…then we orally go over everything, I ask him questions, we make index cards, or write out sample math problems. We sit and reread English stories and go over main idea, etc.; he is a slow careful compulsive studier, but completely iindependent-NO, NO. He is not in special ed. and uses his study halls to do homework, not to study. I expect to continue in this role for a long time, but I do it with my very bright nonLD 10yo too….I quiz him before tests routinely, even if he says he knows it all. In our middle school letter grades are given, kids get dinged for poor grades, and the competitive atmosphere helps kids focus.
study skills/resource room
As you say your son has good grades, I wonder why you worry. He’s fortunate in that his school’s resource room can support him successfully. As a student, I rarely studied at home or in my room but always preferred to go to the library for the quiet that was there. Your son may feel the same. He may feel he gets the most done in the resource room or works more efficiently there.
I have come to believe that my middle school NLD son CAN not study independently. I believe this because he does his homework reliably and independently as long as it is within his capabilities. He will also come to me and ask him to “quiz him” on material before a test.
Like your son, he does a lot of preparing for tests in Academic Support, with his SPED teacher, who is also with him in all his academic classes. He also takes advantage of almost every opportunity for after (or before) school extra help offered by his general ed teachers. But he does not study independently AT ALL. Faced with text books, notes, even teacher-prepared study guides on his own, he seems incapable of doing anything useful on his own.
Karen