Dear Ursuline Families:

Classes are well underway, you can click here for a My BackPack Refresher to find your daughter’s grades, and you have – most likely – been hearing talk at home about studying for quizzes and tests. Students learn a lot of studying techniques in school with the goal of storing new information in their long-term memory. However, as students enter high school and the assignments get more complex, some students may not always know which method to use when studying for assessments and mastering complex texts.

In her book, Under Pressure, by Lisa Damour, Dr. Damour discusses how girls often use study techniques, such as highlighting and re-reading, they may learn in middle school. These methods may result in high grades in middle school. In high school, they take a lot of time and give an illusion of mastery. Decades of research show that simply re-reading written material gives a false sense of fluency: a student may feel like re-reading is working most effectively with her memory. But memory can be perplexing. When that student gets into a classroom to take a test, she may forget what she read the night before.

Does any part of this scenario sound familiar in your home, or perhaps in your own school memories? What can parents do to support their daughters to become effective studiers to make the grades they want?

When looking at optimal ways to study, it is important to understand that most students will gravitate towards study strategies that make them feel like things are going great and, at the same time, are not too difficult. However, a more challenging approach to studying will pay off more in the long run. Studying is a two-way street: students need to put information into their brains, and they need to draw it back out. When your daughter actively tries to retrieve things from her memory, there’s a good chance they will cement to her memory.

An article published in the Association for Psychological Science characterizes common study techniques as “low, moderate, or high utility” and rates each technique’s effectiveness.

• “Low utility” study habits such as highlighting, recopying notes, and re-reading might help your daughter emphasize important information, but she might not form a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness among different pieces of information because these methods only focus on the input, not the retrieval.
• “Moderate utility” study habits include techniques such as interrogation (asking “why”) and self-explanation. These strategies begin to boost learning by supporting the integration of new information with existing prior knowledge.
• “High utility” study habits include spaced practice and sample testing, two of the most effective study techniques because they require putting the material away and recalling it from memory.

If your daughter has never studied using “high utility” habits, she may find it mentally difficult at first. Thinking about what class material means and quizzing one’s self is hard work. Your daughter may not feel like things are going very well as she tries out the “high utility” techniques, but they are important and effective for her memory. Using both techniques is especially effective at improving academic performance.

Here are a few recommendations to strengthen retrieval skills.

• Once your daughter finishes reading a text, she could write down two-three things she remembers.
• Ask your daughter to explain and/or “teach” the information to you, a friend, or classmate to test her understanding. In this way, she is defining knowledge with the correct criterion and can more confidently determine when she knows the concept.
• If your daughter uses flashcards, Quizlet, etc., she should say the answer out loud (in other words, retrieve it) before she checks herself.
• Encourage your daughter to use a timer and take some breaks while studying. During the break, she is letting things simmer a bit – a form of mini-spaced practice – before she gets back to work.
• Encourage your daughter to quiz herself over several days leading up to an assessment and not rely solely on passive rereading, recopying notes, and cramming the night before a test. When studying, she can use practice test questions (at the back of a textbook, online, and/or create some of her own study materials). If she cannot answer all the practice questions when she first begins studying, encourage her to identify what material she still needs to master. By beginning several days in advance, she has time to reach out to her teachers to ask questions and process information with which she is unfamiliar.

Girls learn best when they take the necessary steps to engage with material, step away from it, and then return to it across a span of time. Spaced practice creates a buffer between self-testing and the actual test, so girls can continue practicing a concept, reducing the likelihood of forgetting the material. As a bonus, your daughter will feel less anxious when taking the actual assessment if she has already tried to answer challenging questions on the same material. More importantly, she develops a deeper understanding of the content.

If you talk with your daughter about these “high utility” study techniques, she may not just flip a switch and change habits overnight. And that’s OK. We would never ask her to jump from learning lines of a play to performing on opening night without plenty of rehearsals. Changing study habits is a process and may take some time. If your daughter’s main study strategy is simply rereading material and recopying her notes, it’s quite a leap to go from looking over material to grappling with hard questions, one reason why some students may feel anxious when the material gets more difficult.

It’s hard to get girls to change their study habits, especially if they have been successful. Let them know that they have a great foundation, and they are responsible with their studies and respected by teachers. Then talk about how to streamline their approach to make the grades they want.

Even once your daughter knows how to study effectively, other obstacles may keep her from putting those skills into practice. For example, insufficient sleep negatively impacts focus and retention of information. Time management is also important - a busy after-school schedule can make it challenging for your daughter to prioritize studying. Encourage your daughter to make sure her weekly schedule is reasonable and sustainable, with space for sleep, studying, and downtime.

The next time your daughter prepares for or finishes a test, here are a few questions you could ask her about her study habits:

• What are a few of your study strategies that are helpful/not helpful?
• Do you feel that you studied too much, not enough, or just the right amount?
• What might you do differently next time?

Thank you for reading, and I wish everyone a wonderful and successful school year.

Best,

Elizabeth Smith
Dean of Academics