Developing study skills
Love what you learn, and learn what you love. Create a culture of learning in your home. Embrace that an optimum level of stress motivates us to perform well. Middle and Senior School students and parents heard this and more on October 1 from Clinical Support Services reading clinician Carol Hryniuk-Adamov as well as social worker Carmen Bergeron. They provided strategies for learning with greater efficiency and increased resiliency.
Hyrniuk-Adamov encouraged us to consider the daily conversations in our homes as opportunities to build a culture of learning. Our conversations can stop students in their tracks, or they can encourage them to persevere. Ask your daughter questions about her learning. Post a calendar of upcoming assignments and assessments. Read the newspaper together. Share your own stories of perseverance in learning. Creating a culture of learning in our homes, and within Balmoral Hall School, is key to fostering a lifelong love of learning.
She also shared the following study strategies.
- Review your learning every day after class, not just for assessments.
- Rehearse and recite frequently.
- Make connections from the text to your life.
- Form a study group, and run it like a meeting.
- Tutor someone; this helps to consolidate your learning.
Bergeron then highlighted causes for test anxiety as lack of preparation, inefficient study skills, history of failure, and desire for perfectionism. She engaged the audience in a guided calming meditation to increase confidence. Recognizing that a small amount of anxiety is part of learning, and that an optimum amount of stress is a positive motivator, she urged students to practise good self-care using positive self-talk and relaxation techniques.
She reminded us to get support when needed, too. The Centre for Learning enables all learners to access the tools they need to achieve their goals. Faculty, along with Ms Schellenberg, Mrs. McConaghy, Mrs. Globa, and I, have begun study skills instruction and mindfulness practice in Middle School classrooms.
Balmoral Hall School
630 Westminster Ave. Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3C 3S1
Tel: (204) 784-1600 | Fax: (204) 774-5534 | info@balmoralhall.ca
Charitable Registration No. 12994 3932 RR0001
Tel: (204) 784-1600 | Fax: (204) 774-5534 | info@balmoralhall.ca
Charitable Registration No. 12994 3932 RR0001
Our mission at Balmoral Hall School is to inspire girls’ imagination and the courage to excel, to reach, to lead, to care.
We are a nondenominational independent day and boarding school, educating students from Junior Nursery to Grade 12.
