For those hoping to improve study skills, understanding how strong cognitive skills enable study skills is critical to improvement. We have many families contact us to help their child improve their study skills. Study and homework issues like procrastination, poor test taking, poor organizational skills and difficulties with prioritizing and time management are common.
Tutoring strategies can help as students bring their homework and work through it with the help of a tutor. This can help a child keep up and get their work completed, but it is not usually identifying and addressing why the child needs this type of study skills or tutoring help in the first place.
When a student struggles with study skills, we find that often a combination of weak cognitive skills can be driving the difficulty. If these issues exist and are not addressed, students can continue needing tutoring help year-after-year to keep up given the root cause is never addressed. We sometimes see that when a child goes off to college with these difficulties, they are overwhelmed having to manage themselves and their class load on their own.
To identify the root cause, an ideal first step is to contact the LearningRx Woodbury location to schedule an initial assessment. This assessment will identify your child’s cognitive strengths and weaknesses and provide insights as to why they struggle with study skills. Whether you move forward with us or not, finding out the root cause is an important step. For example, the assessment would let us know if your child’s difficulties are completely due to a lack of motivation or something deeper.
As far as cognitive skills and study skills, some examples as to how they are linked would be:
- Long-term memory issues: If this skill is low, a child can study all week for a test and then struggle on test day. This can lead a parent or teacher to believe they are not studying effectively, when the study methods are fine, but they can’t retain the information they studied.
- Processing speed issues: Processing weaknesses have significant impacts on attention skills, motivation and time management. Student with low processing speed often struggle to start or complete tasks.
These are just a few examples but the main point is that, if the root cause is not addressed, your child can do a lot of tutoring or coaching, but they will likely continue to struggle and need these aids. LearningRx training will identify and address the root cause enabling your child to excel and, ideally, not need extra help via tutoring going forward.
Contact LearningRx Woodbury to learn how strong cognitive skills enable study skills. Mention this article and receive $100 off the initial assessment.
We are so grateful for coming across LearningRx! Hartney approached the notion of “cognitive training” with a healthy dose of 13yo reluctance, but graduated with a “you can’t get rid of me that easily” attitude as she heads off to 9th grade. This speaks volumes to not only the staff and trainers she worked with but the value she, herself, found in the work she did 3 times a week with them for 5 months. We see a greater confidence and sense that she can take on whatever comes at her in school. She knows she has the tools to be successful in a rigorous high school environment and we’re hopeful she’ll tap into all the skills she’s developed from day one. Time will tell, but we’re feeling positive! We’re happy to talk to anyone about our experiences and share the benefits we’ve seen for Hartney!
~Amanda B., Woodbury, MN
*Results based on past client; you or your child may or may not achieve the same results.