Prepping Your Kid for a Test With No Study Guide

Its the moment you dread: Your child comes home from school on a Tuesday and tells you that there are a test three days from now over chapter seven. But, since she lost the review guide (for the third time this year), the teacher is making her figure out the content to study without it. You dont want to send her off to her room to study blindly from the textbook; Shell fail! But, you also dont want to do all the work for her. Theres a method that will get your child prepped for that chapter test despite the little misplacement habit shes grown fond of, and even better, she may learn more than she did had she actually used the review guide. Ensure She Learns The Chapter Content Before you study with your kid for the test, youll need to know that shes learned the content of the chapter. Sometimes, kids do not pay attention during class because they know the teacher will be passing out a review guide before the test. Teachers, however, want your kid to actually learn something; they typically put the bare bones of the test content on the review sheets offering a glimpse of the facts shell need to know. Not every test question will be on there! So, youll need to make sure your child has actually grasped the ins and outs of the chapter if she wants to ace the test. An effective way to do it is with a reading and study strategy like SQ3R. The SQ3R Strategy Chances are good that youve heard of the SQ3R Strategy. The method was introduced by Francis Pleasant Robinson in his 1961 book, Effective Study, and remains popular because it enhances reading comprehension and study skills. Kids in third or fourth grade through adults in college can use the strategy solo to grasp and retain complex material from a textbook. Kids younger than that can use the strategy with an adult guiding them through the process. SQ3R utilizes pre-, during and post-reading strategies, and since it builds metacognition, your childs ability to monitor her own learning, its a highly effective tool for every subject in every grade shell encounter. If you happen to be unfamiliar with the method, SQ3R is an acronym that stands for these five active steps your child will take while reading a chapter: Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Review. Survey Your child will browse through the chapter, reading titles, bold-faced words, introduction paragraphs, vocabulary words, subheadings, pictures, and graphics to grasp, in general, the content of the chapter. Question Your child will turn each one of the chapter subheadings into a question on a sheet of paper. When she reads, The Arctic Tundra, shell write, What is the Arctic Tundra?, leaving space underneath for an answer. Read Your child will read the chapter to answer the questions shes just created. She should write her answers in her own words in the space provided. Recite Your child will cover her answers and attempt to answer the questions without referring to the text or her notes. Review Your child will reread portions of the chapter about which she isnt clear. Here, she can also read the questions at the end of the chapter in order to test her knowledge of the content. In order for the SQ3R method to be effective, youll need to teach it to your child. So the first time the review guide goes missing, sit down and go through the process, surveying the chapter with her, helping her form questions, etc. Model it before she dives in so she knows what to do. Ensure She Retains The Chapter Content So, after applying the reading strategy, youre fairly confident that she understands what shes read, and can answer the questions youve created together. She has a solid knowledge base, but there are still three days before the test! Wont she forget whats shes learned? Its a great idea to have her learn the answers to the questions prior to the test, but in reality, drilling will force those specific questions, but nothing else, into your kids head. Besides, what if the teacher asks different questions than the ones youve learned together? Your child will learn more in the long run by getting a learning combo meal with knowledge as the main course and some higher-order thinking as a tasty side. Venn Diagrams Venn diagrams are perfect tools for kids in that they allow your child to process information and analyze it quickly and easily. If youre not aware of the term, a Venn diagram is a figure made of two interlocking circles. Comparisons are made in the space where the circles overlap; contrasts are defined in the space where the circles do not. A couple of days prior to the exam, hand your child a Venn Diagram and write one of the topics from the chapter on top of the left circle, and a correlative topic from your childs life on the other. For instance, if the chapter test is about biomes, write Tundra above one of the circles and the biome in which you live above the other. Or, if shes learning about Life on Plymouth Plantation, she could compare and contrast that with Life in the Smith Household. With this diagram, shes attaching new ideas to parts of her life with which shes already familiar, which helps her build meaning. A cold page filled with facts doesnt seem real, but when compared to something she knows, the new data suddenly crystallizes into something tangible. So, when she steps outside into the brilliant sunshine of a warm day, she may consider how cold a person might feel in the Arctic Tundra. Or the next time she uses a microwave to make popcorn, she may think about the difficulty of food acquisition on the Plymouth Plantation. Vocabulary Writing Prompts Another creative way to help your child gain a complete understanding of the textbook chapter for that big test coming up is with synthesis. This higher-order thinking skill can certainly help cement information from the textbook directly into your childs brain better than straight memorization can. An enjoyable, effortless way to have your child synthesize info is with a snazzy writing prompt. Heres how to set it up: As your child surveyed the chapter, she shouldve noticed the bold-faced vocabulary words scattered throughout. Lets say the chapter was about the Plains Native Americans, and she found vocabulary words such as expedition, ceremony, raid, maize, and shaman. Instead of having her memorize a definition shell have trouble remembering, instruct her to use the vocabulary words appropriately in a prompt like one of these: Using at least five of the vocabulary words from the chapter, compose a letter to the shaman from a warrior who is away on a raid.Youre visiting a Plains Native American tribe. Write a 1-2 paragraph description of the things you see, smell and hear using at least five of the vocabulary words from the chapter.You are a Plains Native American child. Using at least five of the vocabulary words from the chapter, convince an outsider that your tribe is the best place to grow up. By giving her a situation that may not have been described in the book, like a childs perspective, youre allowing your child to mesh knowledge she already has in her head with knowledge from the chapter shes just learned. This fusion creates a map for her to get to the new information on test day just by remembering her story. Brilliant! All is not lost when your child comes home sobbing because she mislaid her review guide for the umpteenth time. Sure, she needs to get an organizational system in place to help her keep track of her stuff, but in the meantime, you have a system in place to help her keep track of her test grades. Using the SQ3R Strategy to learn the test content and tools like Venn diagrams and vocabulary stories to reinforce it ensures that your child will ace her chapter test and totally redeem herself on exam day.