Better Tuition

None of us are born knowing how to study: it takes time to develop the skills that make us good students.  The hardest part can be getting started, and the next hardest part is keeping it going. 

How to get started

It’s so easy to self-distract by assembling collections of highlighter pens, post-it notes and novelty pencil sharpeners that it’s possible to miss the window for study altogether.  We recommend that you set your oven timer/ mobile phone alarm for fifteen minutes and decide to focus completely on your study project for that time.

When the fifteen minutes is up, decide whether you are going to set the alarm for another fifteen minutes.  After this second mini-session, the chances are you will be engrossed and will carry on for longer, but if not at least you will have done SOME study, which is better than NO study.

Why is it so hard?

The enormity of the task puts us off studying: if you think you have to read a 400-page textbook in one sitting, you are very likely to put it off as long as possible.  If, on the other hand, you tell yourself you will spend fifteen minutes reading the first ten pages and taking notes, you have given yourself an achievable task, which is very motivating.

How to keep it going

We all know the old chestnuts such as studying where there are no distractions (disable your broadband NOW!), but do you know how to use music to focus your mind and aid concentration?  A much-vaunted study several years ago found that Kylie Minogue’s 60 bpm tracks were an ideal background study, but you may be glad to know that Mozart has the same effect, without the distraction of Kylie’s bagful-of-drowning-kittens voice.  Try Eine Kleine Nachtmusik or Vivaldi’s Quattro Stagioni very quietly in the background and you may be surprised at the difference it makes to your concentration levels.

A final trick of the trade

Savvy teachers know that one solution to high spirits on a Friday afternoon is a drop of frankincense oil on the radiator.  Frankincense has been used for millenia in places of worship  because it calms the mind and puts it in the mood for contemplation.  Science is pretty scathing about the beneficial effects of aromatherapy: one major study in recent years dismissed it as being beneficial only as a placebo.  In other words, it will only work if you think it will work.  Speaking anecdotally, we think frankincense oil does aid concentration and that a placebo effect is nevertheless an effect, so it doesn’t really matter why it works, it just matters that it does.

Finally, study skills don’t come easily to most of us: tackle your study project little and often and you find it comes naturally after a while.

Image: Carlos Porto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A simple coloured overlay can really help overcome difficulty with reading.

Parents often come to our tuition centre and ask us how to deal with reluctant readers and writers.  This issue is a real worry for those parents.  A lack of reading or writing can easily lead to slower learning and a lack of motivation when it comes to school.

The very first thing to do is to rule out any specific reason for their reluctance in reading and writing.  Many reluctant readers and writers are dyslexic and lots have dyslexic tendancies. 

Having ruled this out or in, you still need to motivate your little learner.

First of all, what do they already read?  Many reluctant readers prefer factual books to story books, so bear this in mind.  Reading is reading so if they will only read comics, keep encouraging them with this, and you might like to buy them some manga books  to extend their interest.

We love the Mega Mash series – with titles such as Romans v Dinosaurs on Mars, they may be targeted at boys but we often find that reluctant reader girls take to ‘boy-type’ books far more readily than they do to the ‘sparkly princess’ genre of literature.  There is space in the books to add to the pictures and blank speech bubbles to add dialogue.  The website has lots of activities and is well worth a look.

Spending time writing outside of school can be a tough sell if your child doesn’t generally enjoy it, so why not take the opportunity to work on their spellings, grammar and creative writing skills online? 

The BBC can’t be beaten for spelling activities; there are oodles of them, but two we especially love are the mnemonics activities here and the haunted house activity here.  

An abundance of grammar related links can be found here – you will need to pick out the areas your child needs to focus on, and we also recommend Power Proofreading.  

Homophones are commonly confused, so have a look at this comprehensive guide here  – again this is the BBC, and it includes a fun game to play. 

To spark your child’s creative writing interest, visit story plant.  It’s more of a reading activity than a writing activity, but its engaging visuals will draw your child in.

Next, story starts are a very engaging, easy to use resource for reluctant writers and this myth machine helps you come up with a myth of your own.

Finally, when your child is fully enthused and ready to produce their own written creations from scratch, visit Storybird, which allows your child to write their own (short) book and add beautiful graphics.  You can even have it printed up as a real book for a small fee.

If your child needs more support with reading and writing (or maths, science or entrance exam preparation), why not give Better Tuition a call on 0161 748 3912?  You can book a FREE assessment and find out today why we’re better.

Over one hundred happy students come to the Better Tuition Centre every week and they all start off with a FREE assessment.  Over the years, particular issues with learning come up time and again.

If I had a penny for every parent who tells me they ‘can’t do maths’ I’d be blogging this piece from a sea front penthouse.  I don’t keep an exact statistical record of this, but parents who feel they struggle with maths are more often female. 

Why is this?  It certainly is the case that women are more comfortable at ‘owning up’ when they find something difficult or puzzling.  Men are more likely to battle on regardless.  Exam results nevertheless show a gender gap: it is girls who outperform boys in GCSE maths, yet far more boys go on to study mathematics at university.

If I then had a further penny for every parent who tells me their child ‘won’t read’ or ‘doesn’t read’ I’d be hurrying to finish this blog post so that I could leaf through my investment portfolio on a yacht!  Nobody will be surprised to learn that it is overwhelmingly boys who don’t enjoy reading.

I certainly can’t answer why some boys don’t like to read in one blog post (people write doctoral theses on the matter and the problem hasn’t yet been solved) but it is clear that the issue lies with the lack of interactivity offered by traditional books.  Some boys see reading as passive and therefore can’t be bothered to sit down and read them. 

It is clear that both boys and girls need positive role models.  Parents who struggle with maths should avoid letting their children know this as they really do pick up on anxieties.  As for reading, the best way to engender a love of reading in boys or girls is to read to them and around them. 

Be aware of stereotyping and don’t let your daughter say, ‘I can’t do maths’ or your son say, ‘I don’t like reading.’

Further reading can be found here and here.

Image: AKARAKINGDOMS / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

We have a proposition for Trafford Council that will save them money, reduce congestion on roads across the borough and help young people sitting their entrance examinations for Trafford’s grammar schools. 

Sounds interesting?  Read our letter to the Stretford and Urmston Messenger: