When study skills are taught, did you ever think time management skills need to be included as well?
Besides reminding a child to study for long periods of time, breaks need to also be scheduled in or time management skills.
For example, Timmy comes home from a full day of school and enters the home around 3:30pm, has a snack, and by 4:00pm homework and studying has begun. This continues till dinner time and sometimes even into the better part of the evening.
It is understandable that children today do get a large amount of homework (as this will be some of the future blogs), but reality is how much can one child retain each night after an 8 hour day of school work? Children are sponges and do learn a large amount of material at a young age, but they also need a few breaks in between.
Learning to manage their time is a life skill which will help young studiers throughout their entire life into adulthood. Some suggest every half hour or every hour, depending on the age, to schedule a break. This gives the mind a break, the eyes a break, and just like adults take breaks to walk around the office; children need the same type of break to clear the mind.
An example of a study schedule is:
4:00pm – Begin homework
4:45pm – Take a break (play outside, talk to parent, relax)
5:00pm – Homework / Study
5:30pm – Break for dinner
6:00pm – Homework / Study
7:00pm – 5 minute break
8:00pm – Finish any homework or studying
Now, this is only an example. I am fully aware that most children in today’s world have after school activities or evening sports. My point of illustrating the schedule is to show taking 5-30 minute breaks in between studying.
Again, taking breaks may not work for every child, but if you find your child falling asleep or squirming to get through their homework, try giving a few study breaks.