Middle school and high school guys aren’t always known for their love of study skills. They love plenty of things — girls, cars, sports, music, the outdoors — but studying rarely makes the cut (our main reason for developing The Dudes’ Guide to Study Skills). Parents, if your dude could use some better study skills, try these three tips to help get him on the right track.
1. Teach your dudes to visualize to memorize
Guys are visual learners. Watch a guy watch TV for five minutes and you’ll see what I mean.
We crave visual info. This doesn’t mean that we want to see a textbook. Textbooks are primarily verbal, which is basically the opposite of visual. But we do thrive when we can take all that verbal info we’re learning at school and make it work with pictures.
If your guy hasn’t drawn a timeline for history class, or a chart for math class, or a diagram for science, have him hit the drawing board again.
2. Let the fidgeting begin (or continue)
Guys are active. There is no real way around this. Growing up, my brothers and I were constantly finding new ways to compete with one another, new things to build, and old things to destroy. There really isn’t a way around this. It’s just what we guys do.
While this constant physical movement may present challenges, you can help your guy see that it’s really an opportunity.
We all take information in through movement. Your guy is no different, but he may have gotten in trouble for it in the past (think pen-clicking, finger-drumming, or gum-smacking). You can help your student immensely if you give him some constructive ways to keep moving while learning. For starters, try encouraging your student to take notes on one sheet of paper and have a blank sheet of paper for drawing. The kinesthetic motion of both activities will benefit them.
3. Help your dude develop a simple system for organization
Guys aren’t typically known for our vast powers of organization. More frequently we’re known as the gender that invented the “smell check” system for organizing laundry. Sure, every once and a while a guy will come along without the massive wad of former assignments stuffed into the bottom of his book bag. But those guys are few and far between.
So why do guys struggle with organization? While we could name multiple reasons, we’ll stick with the one we see most frequently: guys lack an effective system.
By “effective system,” we have something very specific in mind. Effective organization systems have 2 key characteristics in place. First, they’re comprehensive. Most of that spit-wad type material at the bottom of the backpack came from a guy not knowing where to put something. His system wasn’t comprehensive, so it gets smashed at the bottom.
Second, great organization systems have to be simple. Make it too complex, and guys aren’t going to use it. If you don’t believe me on that, think about the last time you saw a guy using instructions to put together … well, anything. We would rather figure it out than deal with the complexity.
If your dude is in this category, here’s our simple suggestion: help him develop a simple and comprehensive plan to stay organized. It will pay off in the long run.
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Skylar Anderson is the Seminar Director for StudyRight, a study skills training organization based in Raleigh-Durham. You can find out more about how StudyRight helps students succeed here.
These are excellent study tips for boys, or anybody that is a visual learner.