<p>How do you go about finding a program or information on improving study skills? My rising junior is not reaching her potential due to mismanagement of time and disorganization issues. She is a B - B+ student and will be taking two AP's next year and I am concerned. She needs outside assistance, as guidance from me is not working. She exhibits inconsistency from semester to semester--she tried to bring up low B's in English and Spanish and managed to get high A's--but went down in Science and Math. GC suggested a study skills course but was unable to direct us. I am so worried about how her inconsistency will be perceived, even though we are not looking at selective schools for her. She's fairly busy, but her schedule leaves plenty of time for schoolwork. Any books or resources you could suggest would be so appreciated.<br>
I imagine lots of kids going off to college in September could use this information as well...</p>
<p>Check your school's guidance counselor's office to see if they have names of tutors in your area...check references!! Also, there are several businesses like the Sylvan Learning Center (a national franchise) that specialize in this sort of thing and have programs on offer that range from a few sessions to intensive guidance. Good luck!</p>
<p>The Teaching Company has a series on DVD or VHS called "How to be a Superstar Student". I got these for my son, and it did make a difference. Their website is <a href="http://www.teach12.com%5B/url%5D">www.teach12.com</a> They also offer some wonderful audio lectures - daughter and I listened to the series on Greek Mythology while we were on our college visit road trip last year.</p>
<p>There are lots of websites:
<a href="http://www.studygs.net/%5B/url%5D">http://www.studygs.net/</a>
<a href="http://www.muskingum.edu/%7Ecal/database/%5B/url%5D">http://www.muskingum.edu/%7Ecal/database/</a>
<a href="http://www.lib.umn.edu/help/calculator/%5B/url%5D">http://www.lib.umn.edu/help/calculator/</a>
<a href="http://www.crlsresearchguide.org/%5B/url%5D">http://www.crlsresearchguide.org/</a></p>
<p>
I may be way off base here, but the way you worded your post seems to indicate that YOU are worried about your daughter's performance, but I don't get a sense that your DAUGHTER is worried. I mean, maybe the reason your guidance doesn't work is that your daughter doesn't want to hear it and tunes you out. </p>
<p>If that's the case, then your daughter may not really benefit from a study skills course -- it really has to be something she wants to do, and in a format she will take advantage of. </p>
<p>I apologize if I am really missing the mark here. It's just that your post had a lot about what YOU wanted and what the GC suggested, not so much about whether your daughter is strongly motivated to bring up her grades.</p>
<p>The best book I've ever seen about study skills is called "What Smart Students Know" and was written by a cofounder of the Princeton Review SAT prep course. It really lays out everything you need to do to study any topic effectively, and has advice based on the type of material (science, literature, etc). I saw the book well after college and it has everything it took me blood, sweat, and tears to figure out about how to do well in school plus plenty I never did figure out! I think every student should own a copy of this book.</p>
<p>But, as other posters have pointed out, your DD has to want to improve for anything to work. There was a wonderful little book I read in a psych class way back when called "Analyzing Performance Problems -- or, You Really Oughta Wanna" by Mager & Pipe. In the chapter about consequences they ask 3 questions 1) is desired performance punishing? 2) is poor performance rewarding? 3) does performance matter? You can see how for a student all 3 questions might be answered in such a way that explains why studying is not what they do.</p>
<p>We did a few simple things which are below and which i cut/pasted from a recent thread.</p>
<p>Our son was and is totally unorganized. I would suggest a few things to help him along.</p>
<p>First, we made him set aside a specific time/place each nite for school work. During middle school it was one hour and in hs it was two hours. He decided to block out 7-9pm to work with no TV, IM'ing or telephone calls. Some nites he needed more time but we let him work that out for himself.</p>
<p>Second, his hs gave each student a daily scheduler to write down homework assignments, ec dates, etc. We encouraged him to also include progress reminders for large projects to encourage him to plan ahead.</p>
<p>Along the same line, we expected him to begin research projects, book reports, term papers, etc soon after it was assigned and to finish it up a few days before the due date. This helped him to learn the bennies of planning ahead! While his friends were frantically finishing papers at 3am the nite before the due date, he was chilling out with other friends.</p>
<p>His first year at Rensselaer he used a freeware program called Stickit which is a scheduler he installed on both his laptop and desktop computers and gave him reminders the minute he booted up each day and alarms throughout the day when necessary.</p>
<p>He is still unorganized but disciplined enough to handle the important things effectively. And yes his dorm was a disaster area.</p>
<p>Ah, you can't put a price on self motivation. You are not off the mark and I agree totally. She is becoming very frustrated, hence the post.<br>
She has a hard time studying material not spoon fed to her in class, and I believe this can be taught. This is not a condemnation of teaching styles; she must learn how to digest the material on her own, or she will have even more difficulty down the road. She is not failing, just inconsistent from semester to semester. </p>
<p>She is not the type of student found on these boards, nor am I pushing her in that direction. There are plenty of wonderful colleges that want B students (as I have learned through lurking on CC!). I am hoping to give her the tools she needs to get organized, take better notes, and manage her study time more efficiently. </p>
<p>I thank you for the resources and comments!</p>
<p>Check your local and community colleges. I noticed that a number of them here in my area do offer non credit study skills courses. Another idea is to take a good, tough course this summer, and have a tutor work with her, not so much in content but on how to tackle the course. My girls who are excellent student with terrific study skills and are very organized made money on doing homework patrol for kids, and would have been excellent tutors for something like that. They are not the best for teaching content but for organization and methods, they are the top. IT could end up expensive but very much worth it to get a summer's worth of patterning on how to properly study and organize for a college level course.</p>
<p>Jamimom,
I did not consider Com Coll--it's worth looking into. I checked websites offered by SV2 (the first one you listed was very good) and went to library and got the book recommended by Mikemac--wonderful suggestions! I gave my daughter the book last night and she was still reading it when I went to bed. It's a start...Thanks so much.</p>
<p>"If that's the case, then your daughter may not really benefit from a study skills course -- it really has to be something she wants to do, and in a format she will take advantage of. </p>
<p>"</p>
<p>While that's theoretically true, for all we or the parent knows, the teen may be worried about her grades, but not showing that worry. She also may have erroneously concluded that her grade problem is due to stupidity, not to inadequate study skills.</p>
<p>One advantage that we parents have when our kids are still in h.s. is that we can expose them to information and help that may be of benefit. We lose this advantage after they leave home. </p>
<p>Thus, I think the parent should follow up on the suggestions here so that whatever happens, the parent knows that she did what she could to help her daughter achieve at her potential.</p>
<p>I recommend </p>
<p>"What Smart Students Know" by Adam Robinson.
The book takes each subject through Math/Science/English
and shows the student what to read, what to ignore, how to tackle "boredom" with the subject.</p>
<p>My D read it in 9th grade and the results were extremely positive.
It also introduced Mind Mapping for my kinetic D
The book teaches students to find some aspect of any class on which
to "hook" interest. . .great read for students and parents.</p>
<p>OOps. My CC threads arrive last in/first out.</p>
<p>I see someone posted the Adam Robinson book.
I second that it is the best book written for all students.</p>