Skills for Success in School



What can a parent do to help their children succeed in school? There are five skills that must be learned to be a success in their journey through the educational maze. Your child will be in school for at least 12 years and these five skills are needed from first grade all the way to graduation. The first skills we are going to discuss are Organization and Time Management.

To find out which skills your child already has and which might need development, start a conversation about their interests and goals. Ask about their favorite subjects, which classes are their least favorite, and if they’re satisfied with their grades. Check with your child’s teacher or teachers early in the first grading period. Don’t wait until it is too late to make an improvement. Listen for clues. Use your own observations to check what they are telling you. Is the student turning in assignments late or not at all? This may mean they are having trouble organizing, or poor time management.

1. Organization: Whether it's keeping track of materials or remembering to bring a backpack home, all children in every grade need to be organized to succeed. For many students, academic problems are more a result of poor organization than a lack of ability. Here are some tips to help your child get organized:

• Make sure you have provided all the supplies needed, both at home and at school. This includes the supplies that the teacher requested and extras at home where they do their homework.
• Make a checklist of things your child needs to bring to and from school every day.
• Find out how your child keeps track of his homework and how to organize notebooks, then work together to develop a system. Check to see what system the teacher prefers.
• Try to check each day to see how well the items on the list are remembered.
• Track assignments on a monthly calendar. Work backward from the due date of larger assignments and break them into nightly tasks.

2. Time management: Time management can be a hard concept for young students to understand. Even when they have a week to do a project, many won't start until the night before it's due. It takes some experience for a student to figure out how long an assignment or project will take. Learning to organize time takes a little practice and parental guidance. Here are some tips to help your child manage time:

• Designate a time and place for nightly homework and help your child stick to this schedule. The best way to stay organized is to do their homework in the same place every night – not in front of the TV.
• The more organized you are, the less time it takes to get things done. Having to hunt for supplies takes away from work time and discourages the student.
• The secret of getting done is getting started. The sooner they get started after school, the easier it will be to get their work done. It is harder to get them started on homework if they are already playing or watching TV.
• Help your child record how much time is spent on homework each week, so together you can figure out how to divide this time into manageable chunks.
• If you start this early in elementary school, the student will have an easier time transitioning to junior high or high school. On the secondary level, they will have 6 or 7 teachers every year that might each have different expectations.

The other three skills that we will discuss are Prioritization, Concentration and Motivation. These are skills that do not come naturally to elementary school students. They need help from teachers and parents and practice to develop these skills. These are skills that are necessary throughout all their years of education and are also essential in the world of work.

3. Prioritization: Just what is prioritization? It is a big word, but it just means deciding what you need to do first and then how to get it done. Which assignment is most important? Which assignment will take the longest to finish? Which assignment does the teacher want first? Sometimes students simply don't know where to begin. Here are some tips to help them prioritize:

• Ask your child to make a list of all the things they need to do, including all their school, sports, and outside activities. You could do this with the student, so they can see that it is an important skill for adults too.
• Ask them to number or rank each task from 1 to 3, with the tasks ranked number 1 being the ones the child feels are the most important.
• Discuss each task so you understand your child's priorities. If they rank social activities as 1, then you know where their attention is going.
• Show your child how to better prioritize for success in school, suggest rewriting the list until all the 1's are at the top.
• Check in weekly to see how well the list is working and how your child is prioritizing new tasks.

4. Concentration: Whether your child is practicing 2^nd grade spelling words or studying for a trigonometry test, it's important that homework is done in an area with limited distractions and interruptions. These are tips to help your child concentrate on the task at hand:

• Turn off access to e-mail and games when your child works on the computer.
• Declare the cellphone and TV off-limits during homework time.
• It usually works best for the child to have a space of their own that is the designated homework spot with their supplies and materials at hand. 
• Some large projects like science fair projects or art projects may take a different space and materials.
• Depending on the age of the child, they should work for about 15 to 20 minutes and then take a 5 minute break. We all concentrate better when we break our work into manageable time periods.

5. Motivation: When asked, most children say they want to do well in school, yet many still fail to complete the work necessary to succeed. The reason is often motivation. Motivation might be the hardest skill to acquire. Tapping into their interests is a great way to get them eager to do well in school. These tips might help to motivate your child:

• Try to link what they are learning in school to your child's life. If they are learning percentages, at the grocery store ask them to figure out the price of a discounted item.
• Link your child's interests to academics. If your child a music nut, give them books about musicians and show them how music and math are connected.
• Don’t over manage. Be there to help, but as they get older allow them more control and choices. With guidance, let them determine study hours, organizing system, or school project topics. If you start early, you will have less trouble as they get older.
• Encourage your child to share the school experience with you. Regularly ask about what they are learning in school. Have conversations where you are listening to their opinions and allowing them to disagree with you in a respectful way.
• Show your child how to have pride in the little things, encourage new ideas and questions, and celebrate all efforts and successes.

Remember all children are individuals and the parents have to adjust to individual learning styles - just like teacher do. Often students are hesitant to try because of the fear of failing. You can help break this cycle by celebrating your child's successes, no matter how small, and by giving them opportunities to succeed. And there's no better time to start than now.