5 tips to help improve your kids' study habits
By Amber Marquez-Moore
Many students have experienced waking up in a cold sweat as a result of an upcoming test, forgotten assignment, or sub-par report card. You can help your child avoid these restless nights with these simple tips and tools that will help put any student on the path to the head of the class (and give you a little peace of mind).
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Track your kids' priorities and progress
From sports teams to fashion trends, today's kids have a lot on their minds. Keeping track of homework assignments and projects can be an uphill battle. Encourage your child to try using a spreadsheet or a calendar to help prioritize assignments and keep track of due dates. PC-based options are great because your student can set electronic reminders for project deadlines. One easy-to-use option is the organizational help provided by Microsoft Works. You and your older children may want to use The Works Spreadsheet to help them (and you!) organize and track what they need to do.
All of you may want to use the Works Calendar. The Works Calendar enables 32 individuals to create their own personal calendars, which is great if you have multiple children in your household. You can view each individual calendar, or use the View Together function to see two or more schedules combined. With just a couple of clicks, you can get a snapshot of everyone's current and upcoming assignments and projects. You can help keep your kids on track by spending a few minutes every night checking in to see how various reports and papers are going. Showing interest can be a real motivator for kids and will also help them see the importance of working toward academic success.
Microsoft Works includes an easy-to-use calendar that the student in your home can personalize with project due dates and reminders.
Provide a trusted source
High-quality homework begins with accurate, credible content. The Internet is full of information, but a search engine may not be the best place for a student to begin his or her research. Younger students, in particular, may be overwhelmed by the number of links that come up when they search on a topic. For instance, a search for "China" on Google returns more than 700 million results!
Providing your child with a trusted source of information can not only cut down on the time spent researching, but can also help prevent exposure to Internet content that may not be age-appropriate. Microsoft Encarta Premium provides up-to-date, trusted content and engaging multimedia, allowing your student to search in a safer and more secure environment. Many topics within Microsoft Encarta include editor-approved Web links, which can also help your child approach the Web without becoming overwhelmed.
Learn more about how to make your PC safe and useful for children.
Microsoft Encarta Premium allows your students to conduct research in a safer and more secure environment.
Help your kids' homework look the part
To show off their best efforts, students should be encouraged to present polished and professional-looking assignments. Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium provides over 50 highly specific templates for Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that give students the guidance they need to turn a blank page into high-quality homework, whether it's an essay, report, chart, science project, or résumé. Microsoft Student also includes tutorials that accompany many of the templates, which walk students through steps that can help them complete top-quality work. Now they can spend more time developing high-quality content and less time formatting.
Templates within Microsoft Student can help students develop professional-looking assignments.
Does it add up? Graphing calculators can help
Graphing calculators are required in many middle-schools and almost all high schools, but these handheld tools can be complex to learn and navigate. Microsoft Student comes with full-featured graphing calculator software designed to make it easier for students to understand complicated concepts and solve math problems.
The 3-D graphing capabilities in the Microsoft Student Graphing Calculator can help students understand difficult math concepts.
In addition, Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium provides access to Online Math Homework Help, which aids students by giving step-by-step instructions and hints for solving math problems similar to those found in their textbooks. Microsoft Student teamed with Encarta and Hotmath.com to make the best math homework help available. Read what the critics are saying about online homework help in Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2009.
See more tips on how to use technology to help with math assignments.
Encourage taking notes in class
Make sure to tell your child that taking notes in class is fine and highly encouraged (as long as they are about the lecture and not the new class romance!). Taking notes and organizing thoughts are critical first steps in the creation of a good assignment. Without a detailed account of the assignment and the information that was provided in class, it can be difficult to produce quality work that meets the teacher's expectations.
Your student may benefit from using Microsoft Office OneNote if he or she uses a PC in the classroom. OneNote is a digital note-taking application that makes it easy for your student to take, organize, reuse, and share notes any way they want on a laptop, desktop, or Tablet PC.
Microsoft Office OneNote helps students organize, prioritize, and reuse notes so that they can study and produce quality assignments.
Students today are busier than ever and could use a little help staying focused along the way. Technology can play an important role in making time spent on homework much more productive.
