In my last post, I talked about the need to review previously learned material in order to retain it. I am quite certain many of you thought, “Exactly WHEN am I supposed to do that?” when you read it.  I understand! Student’s schedules are beyond full! They have school 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Many have extra curricular activities such as sports, dance, band, music lessons and/or clubs. They already have assigned homework that can take anywhere from an hour to three hours depending on the course load and the teachers. There is also the little matter of eating, sleeping and maybe, just maybe, having some time for fun! So exactly how are you supposed to add in EXTRA review. 

The most important piece of studying efficiently, both assigned and review, is consistency. As the title of this post points out, Habits are Easy! There are lots of things you do by habit and you don’t even think about. 

Your brain is trained to do certain things...

Exams are stressful! I have experienced them as a student, a teacher, a tutor and a parent and they are just plain stressful! It seems exam reviews are never given out early enough. They are often collected a few days prior to the exam (so what are students supposed to use to review?) and without fail the majority of my students SWEAR up and down that they were never taught a large percentage of the material on the review guide. 

Why is it this true? Exam reviews contain problems from the ENTIRE semester and as if that wasn’t daunting enough, the problems are in no particular order. When you are learning skills in math class you learn them one at a time. Your homework covers the skills taught that day. You may have a quiz that covers 3 or 4 skills and you will almost always have a test that covers the chapter in your book, often 6 or 7 skills. When I receive requests for tutoring one of the most common concerns I hear is “My son/daughter’s homework...