Brooke Higgins Uncategorized

If You Resolve to Get Better Grades, You Must Learn this Study Skill

What is your New Year’s resolution? Stay healthy? Make new friends? Get better grades? 


While all three resolutions are common for many teens, only one of them is actually quite easy to do. 

Staying healthy is always a challenge. Maintaining a diet and exercise regimen requires great discipline. 

Making new friends, for some people, can be equally as tough. Breaking out of your comfort zone to go out and meet people is not something that comes naturally for everyone. 

Getting good grades, on the other hand, is a resolution that anyone can tackle. It’s really easier than you think if you just think like a teacher.

Think like a teacher? How is that going to help you get better grades? 

First of all, thinking like a teacher means knowing your content so well that you can teach someone else the same content. Having to teach someone else requires that you know everything forward and backward. If you were to approach your next study session with the goal that you need to be able to teach the material, you would have to master the content. If you master the content, then the next test or assessment will be quite easy and your grade would improve. 

Second of all, thinking like a teacher also means putting yourself in your teacher’s shoes. Most teachers give fairly rigid instructions for assignments. Not only should you follow those instructions, you should think about what kinds of things your teacher would want to see from you. By following directions and anticipating what the teacher wants, you have the chance to produce something that will impress your teacher. 

Thinking like a teacher is a self-effacing act that requires some diligence. But if you are able to do it successfully, your grades will improve.

Learn more study skills by contacting CROSSWALK. CROSSWALK is the Monterey Peninsula’s local resource for academic tutoring, test prep and ACT/SAT Boot Camps. 

Read 2400 SCORES by Brooke Higgins and learn how to apply life skills to your SAT prep. 

Brooke Higgins Uncategorized

How to Stay Fresh During the Summer

In 3rd Grade, I struggled with Math. I did fine in most other subjects, but for some reason my performance in Math was not up to par. So the summer before I started 4th Grade, my mother purchased some Math workbooks for me. Math workbooks soon became the dread of my summer and predictably, Math became unenjoyable.

Summer is a time to refresh the brain, get outdoors and take a break from school. However, with so much pressure to perform academically, it is a good idea to keep the brain learning. Many parents–just like my mother–want their children to keep working on their academics all summer.

The challenge is maintaining the balance between productivity and enjoyment. Force your child to do Math activities all summer and she might end up dreading Math. Forget any Math activities altogether for your child and she might not be prepared for the school year. So how do you stay fresh over the summer without overdoing it?

Try these three things:

1) Keep it Fun: whatever subject that you or your child needs to improve/maintain over the summer, make sure the activities are fun. Games can be cool regardless of the age. Help your son or daughter enjoy learning, even in difficult subject matters, with interactive play. Think your child is too old for that? Think again. Even older students enjoy a friendly competition with Flash Cards. Another good element to games: a reward system. Keep things fun with milestones and checkpoints. For example, if a student reads one book (and they can write or give you a summary), they earn 30 extra minutes for video games.

2) Expose the Real World: many students fail to recognize the real world applications of what they are learning. How many times have your kids asked you, “why do I need to study a foreign language?” Or, “who cares about graphing functions?” In this case, summer is a great time to showcase how classroom learning translates into real world experiences. Talk to your child about how you use what you learned in school. And if you aren’t convincing enough, take your kids somehwere where English is not the primary language (like a restaurant) or find someone that can communicate to your child why Math is useful (An aunt that is an architect? A neighbor that charts statistical trends?).

3) Let the Child Choose: letting your child choose how to continue to study during summer is a great way to create accountability and ownership. To be most successful, a parent must establish some boundaries that they would enforce. For example, if you want to improve a child’s reading comprehension, let them pick a book. You would have final say in order to avoid your kids thinking that graphic novels would improve their vocabulary, but if they choose the book then they are more likely to enjoy the reading experience.

Staying fresh over the summer is crucial to academic success, so much so that many schools are moving to year round modules. Until this change becomes universal, you are in charge of your child’s learning for the summer. So keep it fun, expose the real world and let your child choose how they want to continue to learn.

Just try and avoid using force. Using force may result in the exact opposite of your intentions.

Brooke Higgins Uncategorized

Routinely Boring = Predictable Performance

Ah, routines. Aren’t they boring?

A routine might be boring but it is the path towards success.

We learn early in Kindergarten that routines are a key component to learning. A consistent time and place for each and every activity creates a predictable and stable learning environment. If Circle Time happens at 8:30 every morning on the Alphabet Rug, then students are prepared to share. If a visual schedule is hanging in the classroom, students can anticipate and prepare for the next steps. If transitions between activities are managed consistently then children will smoothly move from one endeavor to the next. It’s all about the routine!

Success after Kindergarten is no different: set a routine and you establish a predictable and stable learning environment. Create a time and place for your study activities and your performance will become predictable. Whether you are preparing for a test, a project or something else, set up a routine for success.

And don’t forget, just because you set a routine doesn’t mean you cannot adjust things over time. In fact, this is the beauty of a routine. Since you establish a predictable set of activities, you can adjust the activities to achieve a desired outcome. However, if you don’t have a set schedule, then there is nothing to adjust.

So don’t be afraid to alter your routine. Just make sure you establish a routine in the first place. This may be a bit of a challenge particularly during the summer, but if you want to improve your performance in school then you need to establish a routine. Boring, but predictable.