PURPOSE/BACKGROUND

For a behavior to become a habit - either good or bad, it requires thirty days of constant use. Habit can help study. If you get the habit of going to a certain place at a certain time to study, using the SQRRR technique every time you read, employing mnemonic devices every time you have to memorize something, etc. you will find that it becomes easier for you to concentrate. You will lose less time in warming up to your subject because you will unconsciously begin to get into the proper frame of mind to study. When doing this becomes a habit you have made a lot of valuable progress, because it is then easier to make yourself go through your study routine.

Success is habit forming. Success, like anything else, can become a habit and when it does, it will be as difficult as any other habit to break. Knowing what the learning skills are and how to use them is of no avail. You must practice them over and over again until you know what to do instinctively.

"Nothing is stronger than habit."

Ovid (Latin poet)

ACTIVITIES

1. Establish routines for your youngsters - a time to check homework, a time to mark calendars, a time to get equipment ready for the school day, a time to do checklists, a time to do desk checks, a time to do notebook checks, procedures for reading textbooks, etc. Follow these routines on a consistent and regular basis.

2. Reward children appropriately for following these routines.

3. Provide personal help or peer assistance to those youngsters having difficulty establishing study habits.

4. Establish study groups and/or cooperative learning groups to further assist the process of making good study skills routine behavior.

5. Provide time and practice activities to help students to habituate study skills.