Top 5 ways to Improve your Grades

“I can’t believe there’s only a couple months of school left. What can I do to help my child improve their grades?” Time is going by fast and it’s important for students to stay focused and on top of their schoolwork although spring and summer are just around the corner. There are many steps that students can take to ensure that their grades don’t drop and also steps that parents can do to assist in this process.

Top 5 ways to improve your grades!

1. Get Organized
One of the first and most important steps in success, is to be organized. For students, this means having different binders or folders for each class and even placing separating tabs inside to distinguish between the different areas of your class. During and after class, make sure to put all of the papers in the appropriate tabs inside the binder or folder. Otherwise, all papers will end up in one binder or folder and then it becomes a stressful task to go through and separate everything.

One way to start is to pick a day to empty out a backpack or a locker and simply go through everything to put it in its correct spot. Make sure before a child does this, they check with their teacher to see what important documents need to be kept and which ones can be thrown out. Usually, the quizzes and tests should be kept but after a specific unit, it may be okay to toss the old worksheets and notes. For high school students, they should keep all notes and papers until the end of a semester so that they have everything they need in order to prepare for final exams.

Once everything is fully organized, your child will feel better about themselves and more accomplished. Try it out!

2. Seek Outside Help
If your child is having trouble in a specific class, the first person they should be seeking out is their teacher. The teacher knows your child best and knows the material that your child has been working on in class. Many teachers are available before or after school and a lot of the time, a question or problem can be addressed within a matter of 5-10 minutes. If that is not enough, hiring a professional tutor to work with your son or daughter is an option. Meeting with the tutor once or twice a week is recommended in order to achieve the best results.

3. Set Goals
Students can get very overwhelmed with school easily and not know what to do. Creating a goal sheet for students can be very beneficial because they will be able to map out what they need to do, when it needs to be done, and draw a checkmark or scratch off the task when they complete it. Nothing feels better than accomplishing a goal! Click below for some examples of goals sheets for students of different ages.

Click on the Goal Setting Tab in Pinterest to find examples of goal setting worksheets for all grade levels!

4. Identify the best way to study…or use a combination of many methods!
There are numerous ways to study and not all methods work for each student. Below is a list of important things to keep in mind while studying as well as different tools to use.

Find a quiet place to study that’s free of distractions whether it’s a specific room in your house or at the library.
Complete any study guides that were given out.
Review all notes and homework for a particular chapter or unit.
Talk out loud while taking notes.
Make a list of important topics that you think will be on an assessment.
For math, correct any problems that were done incorrectly and practice some more!
Get some physical exercise before studying. Exercise is proven to increase overall brain function by releasing certain hormones such as serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. These hormones are responsible for increased mood, attention, perception and motivation.
Teach the material to someone else. This can be a friend, a sibling, or a parent.
Use graphic organizers to help organize information and make flashcards.
Click on the Study Tools tab to find unique ideas to help your son/daughter study!

5. Don’t procrastinate
Procrastination is a very bad habit that many students have difficulty with. If there is a major quiz, test or project coming up they will find any reason to put it off. Watching TV, playing video games, playing on the computer, sleeping, eating, etc. Here are some ways to stop procrastinating and will assure that your child will get things done on time.

The first idea is to break learning up into smaller steps. For elementary school kids, have them do a small activity or worksheet and then take a break for 10 minutes or so. Continue this process so that the workload doesn’t seem so overwhelming. This works for older students too! Once they get that process down, then they can start working up to longer periods of study time.

Have small rewards or incentives. One idea is to have smaller kids set a goal to accomplish a task and when they do that, reward them with something small like 15 minutes of TV, video games or playtime. Older students can do this themselves. If they accomplish their studying goal, then maybe they can take a break and hang out with friends or treat themselves to a yummy snack.