Game plan 2023: How to help your teen develop their Study System and kick study goals
I want 2023 to be your teen's year for reaching their academic potential, so how can we get them there?
Hi there folks!
Welcome back to the Cram Lab newsletter for 2023!
Despite some horrendous summer weather here in Auckland, my spirits for studying are not dampened and I am SUPER excited to help your struggling teen get their studying on track this year.
For my first newsletter of the new year, and because there are a number of new subscribers who have joined over the last few weeks, today I want to do a wee refresher of what Cram Lab is all about and how I can help your teen get the grades they are capable of this year.
Who?
For some mind-boggling reason, study skills generally aren’t taught at high school.
This automatically creates two camps of students; one who somehow inherently know what to do when it comes to studying, and one who have absolutely no idea what to do and so don’t get the grades they are actually capable of.
I am here for the second camp — for all the high school students who are struggling because they don’t know how to study and don’t know how to prepare for exams.
It makes me so sad and mad that there are so many students struggling and often failing, not because they don’t have the smarts, but because they don’t know how to translate those smarts into decent grades.
Such a waste of potential.
Studying is a learnt skill, just like any other, and it baffles me so much that so many students are expected to just know how to study without actually being taught how to do it.
Do we expect our kids to know how to play the saxophone without any lessons?! No!!! So why does society do this with studying?!
Well, to combat this insanity, through this newsletter and all of the resources over at cramlab.org, I am pouring out everything I know about studying, because I’ve done a lot of it.
I can’t sit your teen’s exams for them, but I can teach them the study skills they need to study and sit exams with confidence.
How?
By the time I finished high school I had developed a system for studying that I used every time I had to study for exams. This system was comprised of various steps, study methods and techniques that made me as prepared for my exams as possible.
I call this my ‘Study System’, and the very good news is that your teen can take my Study System and build on it, change it and refine it to curate their very own unique Study System.
Your teen’s Study System will be different to mine because we all learn and study most effectively in our own unique way.
While I like writing study notes and drawing diagrams, your teen might like listening to audio explanations and making flash cards.
There is no one right way to study.
Traditional study advice is, in my view, much too conservative and two-dimensional. There is more to studying than reading text books, and every student will absorb, process, and retain information most effectively in their own unique way.
Studying can be a multi-faceted process that is a lot more dynamic and engaging than perhaps your teen realises.
I want your teen to take the study tools that I benefited from — the ‘bones’ of my Study System, and finesse it up to create a system for studying that they can apply every time they have exams to prepare for.
This will give your teen their very own Study System that is tried and tested to work for them, which will give them the confidence to study in a way they know is effective.
Where?
Where to start?
Subscribe
If you haven’t already, I suggest subscribing to this newsletter as your first step, because this is where I have already written absolute tonnes about all of the different aspects of studying (essay writing, study notes, maths, organisation, and heaps more) and where I continue to write about study tips and techniques for your teen that are not only effective, but also really simple and practical.
By subscribing you will never miss another study tip for your teen, and I will also keep you posted about new study resources.
There are two subscription options…
Free study printouts for your teen
Next, head over (or back to) cramlab.org/study-system for free downloadable resources to help your teen start developing their own Study System today.
There you will find 8 teen-friendly printouts that you can download and printout / share with your teen, stuffed full of my most important tips for developing their Study System.
MORE free resources
You’ll find even more free study resources on the ‘Printouts’ page. You can download / share / print / whatever your heart desires with these, and they will further aid the development of your teen’s Study System.
Quiz time!
If you haven’t found it already, I have a free Learning Styles Quiz, which is for any teen who really doesn’t know where to start.
It will tell your teen what their predominant Learning Style is, and what study techniques are more likely to work for them (i.e. what study techniques will probably work well in their Study System).
It’s fun, it’s quick, it’s easy, and it might be one of the most important things your teen does because it can point them in the direction of their study success. Corny but true.
And that’s it folks.
As you can see, all roads lead back to the Study System for me.
I want to transform your teen from a struggling, unmotivated, confused student into an efficient, confident study machine.
Let’s make 2023 your teen’s year for getting their study on track.
Can’t wait to help,
Clare
P.S. Usually the comments are locked for paying subscribers, but today the comments are open to ANYONE, so if there are any study topics you’d like me to cover over the next few months, let me know in the comments below. I can help even more if I know what types of issues your teen is struggling with.
P.P.S. With lots of Northern Hemisphere students sitting exams over the coming weeks, my next newsletter will be about exams including a round up all of my top exam articles, so if your teen is facing the gauntlet of exams soon it’s one to watch out for in the next couple of days.