Study Skills Tips Speaking Reading Listening and Writing Skills Will be Improved by Doing Tasks

Read: Reading a section to discern the idea.

Encode: Paraphrasing the idea from the author's perspective to the student's own words.

Annotate: Annotating the section with critical understanding and other relevant notes.

Ponder: To ponder about what they read through thinking, discussing with others and reading related materials. Thus it allows the possibility of elaboration and fulfillment of zone of proximal development.

An­no­tat­ing and En­cod­ing helps re­process con­tent into con­cise and co­her­ent knowl­edge which adds to a mean­ing­ful sym­bolic fund of knowl­edge. Pre­cise an­no­ta­tion, Or­ga­niz­ing ques­tion an­no­ta­tion, In­ten­tional an­no­ta­tion, and Probe an­no­ta­tion are some of the an­no­ta­tion meth­ods used.



A student using the PQRST method.
A method used to focus on key in­for­ma­tion when study­ing from books un­crit­i­cally is the PQRST method. This method pri­or­i­tizes the in­for­ma­tion in a way that re­lates di­rectly to how they will be asked to use that in­for­ma­tion in an exam. PQRST is an acronym for Pre­view, Ques­tion, Read, Sum­mary, Test.

1. 
   Preview: The student looks at the topic to be learned by glancing over the major headings or the points in the syllabus.
   
2. 
   Question: The student formulates questions to be answered following a thorough examination of the topic(s).
   
3. 
   Read: The student reads through the related material, focusing on the information that best relates to the questions formulated earlier.
   
4. 
   Summary: The student summarizes the topic, bringing his or her own understanding of the process. This may include written notes, spider diagrams, flow diagrams, labeled diagrams, mnemonics, or even voice recordings.
   
5. 
   Test: The student answers the questions drafted earlier, avoiding adding any questions that might distract or change the subject.
   

There are a va­ri­ety of stud­ies from dif­fer­ent col­leges na­tion­wide that show peer-com­mu­ni­ca­tion can help in­crease bet­ter study habits tremen­dously. One study shows that an av­er­age of 73% score in­crease was recorded by those who were en­rolled in the classes surveyed.
In order to make read­ing or re­view­ing ma­te­r­ial more en­gag­ing and ac­tive, learn­ers can cre­ate cues that will stim­u­late re­call later on. A cue can be a word, short phrase, or song that helps the learner ac­cess a mem­ory that was en­coded in­ten­tion­ally with this prompt in mind. The use of cues to aid mem­ory has been pop­u­lar for many years, how­ever, re­search sug­gests that adopt­ing cues made by oth­ers is not as ef­fec­tive as cues that learn­ers cre­ate themselves.
Self-test­ing is an­other ef­fec­tive prac­tice, when prepar­ing for exams or other stan­dard­ized mem­ory re­call sit­u­a­tions. Many stu­dents pre­pare for exams by sim­ply reread­ing text­book pas­sages or ma­te­ri­als. How­ever, it’s likely that this can cre­ate a false sense of un­der­stand­ing be­cause of the in­creased fa­mil­iar­ity that stu­dents have with pas­sages that they have re­viewed re­cently or fre­quently. In­stead, in 2006, Roedi­ger and Karpicke stud­ied eighth-grade stu­dents’ per­for­mance on his­tory exams. Their re­sults showed that stu­dents who tested them­selves on ma­te­r­ial they had learned, rather than sim­ply re­view­ing or reread­ing sub­jects had both bet­ter and longer last­ing re­ten­tion. The term Test­ing Ef­fect is used to de­scribe this in­crease in mem­ory performance.
Tak­ing notes by using a com­puter can also deter im­pact­ful learn­ing, even when stu­dents are using com­put­ers solely for the pur­pose note-tak­ing and are not at­tempt­ing to mul­ti­task, dur­ing lec­tures or study ses­sions. This is likely due to shal­lower pro­cess­ing from stu­dents using com­put­ers to take notes. Tak­ing notes on a com­puter often ush­ers a ten­dency for stu­dents to record lec­tures ver­ba­tim, in­stead of writ­ing the points of a lec­ture in their own words.
Speed read­ing, while train­able, re­sults in lower ac­cu­racy, com­pre­hen­sion, and understanding.

Struggling to be a successful student? Don't get discouraged, it isn't magic! But it does require desire, dedication and a lot of work. If you want to learn how to become a successful student, then you've come to the right place. Our study skills guides for students will provide you everything you need in order to learn how to learn more effectively.

Active listening, reading comprehension, note taking, stress management, time management, testing taking, and memorization are only a few of the topics addressed in our study skills guides for students. If you'll take the time to learn and apply the study skills concepts and principles taught in our guides, you'll not only improve your performance in school but also your ability to learn in general -- and that will benefit you the rest of your life! Whether you're a freshman in college looking to get ahead, a teacher seeking study skills resources for your pupils, or a high school student just trying to survive, you'll find the study skills guides, tutorials, and resources you need right below.