Helping your child develop independent study skills

Encouraging a child to study or even learn for that matter, is no easy task to complete. However, as a parent, it is important to do your best to support your child through the process of becoming independent with their studies, as it comes with an array of benefits that can be used throughout their life. Independent study skills range from the ability to set achievable goals, manage motivation and monitor academic development. This is vital to students today as with all the distractions society has to offer, for some, studying can become a difficult task to stick to. But don’t fret. Below are some tips on helping your child develop independent study skills. 

Provide them with opportunities to monitor their development

Studying independently is about more than just sitting alone and completing work. As your child studies, they need to be aware of what they are doing, if they are working up to their goals and giving themselves feedback. You can encourage your child to monitor their development by helping them understand the concept of peer and self-assessment, to see whether their strategies have been effective for achieving their set goals. 

Help them organise

Most students struggle to be independent when it comes to their studies, due to the heavy workloads that they are given. One way that you can help them improve on this is by providing them with opportunity to work on their organisational skills. Remind them that organisation begins with the breakdown of big tasks into small manageable ones. 

Practice taking notes

This task is more than writing down information onto paper. Being strategic and clever with note taking can be beneficial to your child in the long run. Practice using a familiar story or piece of text that they enjoyed reading. Ask them questions like ‘What do you think the most important parts were? What do you remember the most from the story?’. This will help them understand how to identify core messages in large pieces of information which is vital for independent studies.