In Personal Development: Forming Effective Study Habits

Your success in school depends on how well you study. As a student, you should study your lessons in the right way in order to learn. Poor study habits result in little learning. Effective study habits help you succeed in your school work. In this article you will learn how to form good study habits.

Study Hints

1. Make a Study Program.

Plan out your day so that you can study at regular hours. You can use your vacant periods in school for studying. You can also study at home early in the morning, before supper, or in the evening before going to bed. At what time are you off from classes? What subjects are good for you to study during those periods? When are you usually free from work at home? A regular schedule for studying will help you get better results.

2. Have a regular place in which to study.

Art

Select a quite place, a place where it is good to study, where there is little or no noise and where needed materials are within easy reach. In school the best place in which to study is the library. There you have the dictionary and other references. It is quiet in the library. It is a place for reading and studying. In your home it is best to study in a room where you will not be interrupted often. It is not advisable to study in the living room if the other members of the family gather in that place to talk to one another. Neither is it good to study in a room where the radio or television is set on. Studying near the window where you can see people in the street is not desirable either. It has been said that one’s study table should face a blank wall so that he will not see things that will call his attention. If you study in bed, you may soon fall asleep.

Another thing to consider in selecting a place for study is the lighting condition. Reading or writing where the light is dim is bad for the eyes. A strong light is harmful, too.

3. Gather all the materials that you need before you begin studying.

See to it that you have within easy reach such materials as paper, pencil, or fountain pen, textbooks, the dictionary and other references, ruler, compasses, maps, and ink. Placing them within your reach in the room will save you time. It is such a waste of time and effort for a student to stand up from time to time to get a pencil, a fountain pen, a notebook, or a dictionary which he needs while preparing his lessons.

4. Go to work right away.

The moment you sit at your study table, begin working at once. Don’t pay attention to anything else. Start studying immediately. And once you have started, get going until you finish the work.

5. Concentrate on your work.

Close your eyes and ears to objects and noises that may disturb you. Request the other members of the family to tone down the radio. Don’t listen to the chatter going on. Don’t let other things take away your attention from your work. Have the will power to resist temptation to stop working and join the rest of the family or listen to the radio program. Remember that you have work that must be done. Study-time is study-time. It is not the time to trim your nails or to write letters to friends.

6. Have a clear idea on what you should accomplish in studying each subject.

Understand the assignment and do what it asks for. It is very important that you take down assignments accurately. The assignment tells what you are to do. It shows you the goal in the study of a particular lesson. You should therefore have a clear understanding of what it asks for.

7. Remember that goal and work for its accomplishment.

Do what the assignment asks you to do. If you understand what you are to do, you will know how to do it.

8. Review the preceding lesson.

It is usually helpful to review the preceding lesson, especially if the new lesson has some connection with it. What you have already learned may help you get a better understanding of the new material.

read and study to keep learning

9. Use the dictionary.

Look up key or important words that you do not understand. You cannot get the meaning of a sentence or a paragraph unless you understand the key or important words in it.

10. Suit your reading rate to your purpose in reading.

Learn to skim a selection to find items of information that you want. Remember to read more slowly and carefully if you are looking for important or supporting details.

11. Look for the topic sentence in the paragraph and make use of it to get the main thought of the paragraph.

Note sub-heads and sub-topics. They help develop understanding of the materials.

12. In reading a chapter or selection, it is better to skim through it rapidly, so that you will get a general idea of the whole material.

Note the title, read the introduction and summary, and notice the topic headings. Then go back to the beginning and read more carefully.

13. Pause at the end of a paragraph and state the gist in one or two sentences.

Ask yourself questions on the material and answer your own questions.

14. If the book belongs to you, underline the key or important words in the selection.

Doing so will enable you to get the main ideas and remember them.

15. If the material is somewhat long, make an outline of the selection.

An outline is helpful in remembering the important points in a selection. Learn how to outline. Learn to use the standard system of notation, to indent equally the points of equal importance, and to use the same grammatical forms for similar items in the outline. In that way the outline can be a good guide in knowing and remembering the important ideas in the selection.

16. Take down notes in outline form from a reference book.

Don’t copy everything. Make your notes brief. Use your own system of abbreviation in note-taking, but be sure you follow a uniform system so that you will be sure you will understand your notes when you go over them later.

17. Recite aloud the important points that you want to remember after reading a chapter or selection.

Doing so will help you remember them better.

18. Remember the ideas expressed and not the words in the selection.

Don’t memorize the sentences in the book.

19. Apply the ideas to situations that are true to life and evaluate their worth.

Think of examples to illustrate the ideas you have read. Correlate them with other ideas that you learned before.

20. Discuss with your classmates the ideas that you got from what you have read.

Such discussion will help you get a clearer understanding of what you have read and remember it longer.