How Can My Son Study More Efficently?

Parent Cafe
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<p>Hi Folks-</p>

<p>My son is a sophomore, and my question is, how does he learn to study more efficiently? He is doing well in school, no issues there. He just seems to spend so much time studying, and it seems that it could be done better? differently? quicker? I have tried to give suggestions, but that hasn't gone over very well. I seem to know how to study after so many decades, but I haven't been able to translate what I know into any functional suggestions that a 15-year-old can assimilate. Personally, I think part of it is the level of development of executive functioning skills for this age, and part of it is his personality. Have you had this problem, and what has worked for you and your child?</p>

<p>Thanks ahead of time for any suggestions!</p>

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<p>With 2 kids who have completely different styles that is a very difficult question to answer. From what I have seen studying more efficiently has everything to do with what subject is being studied and the student’s aptitude for that subject. Simple things like turning off the phone, TV and computer (except as needed for information) can improve things but it sounds like you are talking about specific study strategies which vary with the subject being studied. If the student is doing well and isn’t motivated to make a change in my experience they won’t change, at least mine won’t. If I can hand my kid a technique that allows him to complete the task more easily he will go for it. I don’t know if this helps at all. From what you describe it doesn’t sound like there is a real problem unless your son is taking so much time that he is not happy about it.</p>

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<p>You could take this up with the school psychologist. What you describe may be an age appropriate development stage, or it may be the warning sign of a previously undiagnosed LD. Smart kids often develop their own work-arounds for their LDs, and the work-arounds can work just fine until tipped by a new academic demand. I have friends whose LDs weren’t identified until grad school because of this.</p>

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<p>Without being able to observe your son, there may not be anything wrong with this. He may be more careful, more detailed, and all together a much better student than those who gets things done fast.</p>

<p>After all, do you want the speedy mechanic working on your car, or the careful and detailed (but slower) mechanic working on your car? Probably the careful and detailed one even if he is a bit slower.</p>

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<p>^You may want to rethink that idea if the mechanic is charging you “by the hour”.</p>

<p>Does you son tend to redo assignments over and over again until they’ve reached his standard of perfection? Does he repeatedly erase and rewrite assignments? Does he constantly check and recheck his work? Does he exhibit any other behaviors that may suggest OCD?</p>

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<p>No. Even if being charged by the hour, I don’t want a quick and sloppy mechanic doing work on the car. The chance that he might forget to tighten a bolt or not put back all of the parts right is too great to allow sloppy mechanics to work on my car, even if they are cheap.</p>

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<p>Babyontheway, The point is that one can be efficient AND complete assignments with great detail at the same time. It shouldn’t be an either/or scenario.</p>

<p>If this young man shows signs of OCD in his daily life, it may be wise to look into this as being one possible cause for his lack of efficiency in getting his work done.</p>

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<p>No, that’s not true for every student.</p>

<p>As people, we learn at different rates. Some of us understand material very quickly and some take a long time. Some want to understand the material well while others are simply concerned with passing the test and getting a good grade.</p>

<p>There very well may be a concern here, but simply saying “my son completes assignments slower than his classmates” doesn’t mean that there is a problem. It may just mean that his son takes longer to learn material than others. It could mean that there is an issue…but it would take in person observation to understand that.</p>

<p>In my case, I spent more hours doing homework than most of my peers throughout high school. I spend a lot of time doing homework. But then when test time came, my grades were usually the envy of the class…I’m very skilled with academia. But it’s not quick for me to learn.</p>

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<p>So WHAT IS the problem? Does he have no time for after school activities that he wants to participate in?
Also, are you sure he is really studying all the time he says he is? Maybe half of the time he is in his room “busy studying”, he is actually on facebook or texting his friends?</p>

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<p>Thanks for the answers!</p>

<p>babyontheway-I think you hit it right.<br>
He is very careful in his work and somewhat of a perfectionist, but I don’t think he has any issues that would need a psychologist. If you looked at his room, that would answer the OCD question! I was trying to just help him along with his study skills, as they don’t seem as efficient to me as they should be. But I have about 8 years more of education than he does right now, so he may just need to practice these skills more. I was thinking about students taking more and more rigorous classes at a younger and younger age. Many of them have the smarts for it, but not sure if they have the planning and strategies yet in place for this level. Also, he was never challenged in elementary or middle school, and never really studied, so may just now be developing some of those study skills like skimming, prioritizing, taking notes from a textbook, etc. He does keep his phone in another room and can check it every hour because that is a huge distraction.</p>

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<p>Trying not to double message!</p>

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<p>Couple of comments.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>It could indeed be a learning disability. My son is one who takes long time to study a subject. He is a visual-spatial learner and will need to understand the whole before he understands the part (sounds strange, but do a google search on visual-spatial learner to see what I mean). However, once he learns something, it almost permanent.</p></li>
<li><p>As he goes on in school, especially when he gets to college, he will have to learn to be efficient in his studies. Otherwise, the time crunch will kill him. So, the sooner he learns to be efficient with his study time, the better.</p></li>
<li><p>My son was evaluated again in college and found to have a learning disability because of the way he processes data (ie. the visual-spatial thing). He was able to use that report to get the college to allow him some extra time for his in class tests and quizes, if needed.</p></li>
<li><p>Someone commented to turn off the music when he studies. Not everyone studies the same way. I almost need to have some kind of music on when I study. Otherwise my mind wanders and I take MORE time. With the music, I am forced to concentrate a little harder to keep on track and can also take a few mini breaks to listen to a song that I like. I seem to learn better with the music on.</p></li>
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<p>One definitional question: what do you mean by “study?” Are you referring to how long it takes him to perform assigned work (writing papers, doing math problems, etc.) or how much time he spends studying for tests and quizzes? These are very different things, and have different issues.</p>

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<p>First of all, is the amount of time studying a problem for your son? I ask because maybe he LIKES the studying process and sees that as his job/activity after school. Is the amount of time bothering him?</p>

<p>Why do you think it’s too much? Because he doesn’t have time for other things? Because it’s not giving him as much time with the family? Because you don’t see/hear other kids spending that much time studying?</p>

<p>Both my kids who have graduated did very well - one was #1 in class, the other #2. But they WORKED for those grades! They had other activities, but basically their week consisted of school time, activity time, study time (easily 3-4 hours or more a night) and maybe a 1/2 hour of chill time afterwards. They were not OCD, but very thorough and yes, they had standards. Their standards were A’s if at all reachable. Friends of theirs, sometimes weren’t taking as heavy of a load, didn’t have as many activities, or they were satisfied with report cards of a mix of grades. </p>

<p>I don’t see it as a bad thing as long as he still has some social time on the weekends and if he is not stressing out (unneedlessly) over it. 7 or 8 classes, if all college prep classes needing attention, DOES take a good bit of time for even good students.</p>

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<p>My son and I have just discovered he is much more focused when he listens to his ipod while studying/working. Music can fade into the background, but other noises like traffic, voices from the street, dog barking etc…are really distracting for him.</p>

<p>I do want to show him how to take notes though. It isn’t anything that he was taught so right now, his notes are basically him handwriting the textbook material over. I was thinking about trying some type of graphic organoizer like Inspiration.</p>

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<p>My son has benefitted from note-taking techniqes like mind-mapping, where you start righting down all the stuff that you just read in chunks, then making the connections, adding more info as one thought brings up another, etc. He was trying too hard to organize his thoughts and couldn’t always see the big picture. It has helped him a lot with history.
He is currently taking a class to improve his reading speed (it hurt him on the ACT) so that is something to consider. If your kid is not a big reader, there are classes and books that help with retention and speed.</p>

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<p>abasket- thanks, this sounds more like my son. He does study more than his friends, and he does care more, also. I feel that he will learn techniques to get things done more efficiently as he practices more. This is my oldest, so I don’t think that I understood how much things have changed since I was in high school. I don’t necessarily agree with students, even bright motivated students, taking such high level classes, but that is the way it is. He doesn’t necessarily like the studying process, but he is thorough and engaged. </p>

<p>reeinaz-yes, the notetaking is so important. I have used Inspiration, and it works well with students who like to learn visually. I saw some other stuff somewhere on this site about certain ways to take notes. I want to look into that more, as I think this is an area that he isn’t efficient in, and takes a lot of time. </p>

<p>HPuck-you are right with the music. It seems to help many students these days. </p>

<p>I think that he has never really learned study skills, and is learning as he is going. There is a study solutions class 1 semester for Freshman, but they only recommend previously struggling students take it. I suggested to the principal that ALL Freshmen take it, but there isn’t time in a college prep schedule. </p>

<p>Thanks for all the comments, this is such a great site!</p>

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<p>One question I have is, when you say studying, does that include doing homework assignments? Or is that ‘straight’ studying, learning material for exams/quizzes not related to what they have to hand in or otherwise prepare. </p>

<p>Those to me a are two different issues. If it is homework rather then straight studying taking up the time, then it may be nothing to do with your son. Sadly, a lot of school districts these days (along with the more rigorous coursework kids are doing earlier and earlier) seem to have decided is that one way to show how tough and rigorous they are is to pile on the homework. Even schools, public and private, who claim they don’t pile on the homework…often do. My S went to a school where the school claimed in middle school the kids would get no more then an hour or so of homework a night…meanwhile, the algebra teacher said he aimed for 45 minutes of homework a night for the kids…which either means the other teachers gave little homework, or someone wasn’t minding the store. In any event, if that is homework, these days it seems like homework is now routinely several hours alone no matter how proficient the student is.</p>

<p>If he on the other hand is spending the time with ‘straight’ studying, it could be he hasn’t learned how to efficiently study, there are some real tricks and techniques that can make it more efficient and yes, also improve the output. It is like improving productivity in business, the basis should be in doing things with less waste, which generally also leads to better quality. </p>

<p>There is something pretty analogous to this with kids who are high level music students, about how much time to spend practicing, how much is enough. There are some in some quarters on the violin or piano, for example, who literally spend 8 hours or more a day practicing, with this graph implanted in their head that the more time you practice (horizontal axis) and the way you play (vertical axis) is this continually upward diagonal line, where if you practice 8 hours a day versus 2 you will be 4 times better…and it is a bogus assumption, because first of all, there is a point where basically the person is getting nothing out of it other then getting tired and developing tendonitis, so the time is wasted, and b they end up hating it…</p>

<p>With music, what good teachers have written that it is more about using the time effectively, that while even with efficient practicing some kids will need more time then others to achieve a similar result, that practicing 3 hours a day can be more effective then 5 (also depends on what the kid is doing, if a teacher told a voice student to practice their vocal stuff 5 hours a day, they would soon have no students because they would all burn out their vocal chords, likewise woodwinds and brass cannot practice as much as strings or piano), if you use the time efficiently and target what needs to be done. </p>

<p>Might be worthwhile finding a study skills workshop for your kid, schools often offer them, as do outside learning firms like Kumon and so forth, might be worth him seeing if any of that helps. </p>

<p>If he is doing well, that is great, my concern would be that as he starts getting into more and more difficult subject matter, he might find that the study time required to keep up becomes unmanangable…</p>

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<p>Some young people today like to talk with each other via their computers while they study. This makes it take longer, but they don’t seem to mind. </p>

<p>Is your son taking longer to complete his schoolwork than seems reasonable to you because he chooses not to devote 100% of his attention to it?</p>

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<p>I know that was meant in jest, but just as a general FYI, OCD doesn’t require having a clean room or even caring about cleanliness, necessarily. The range of possible manifestations of obsessions and compulsions is nearly infinite and encompasses far more than what would colloquially be associated with OCD. [/slightly tangential nitpick]</p>