Tips for Homework Help: Reading, Highlighting and Note Taking

Your child or teen can remember more of what she reads – and you can remember more of what you read, too, with these strategies:

* Ever wonder why so many chapters start with questions?  This is one of the best ways focus your attention and improve your comprehension.  Write down questions. Then read to answer the questions.  If you look for specific information, you’ll find it more easily and remember it more fully.

This technique is called pre-focusing.  It helps get your brain ready for the incoming information.

* Highlighting text is a passive way to remember information.  If you really want to remember, write down the passage on another sheet of paper and summarize it in your own words.

When you summarize information, you are organizing it in your brain.  This manipulation of information allows you to understand the material better.  You make more associations and move ideas and details from working memory to long-term memory. You are beginning to visualize the information and therefore you will remember it better.

Reading comprehension draws upon many cognitive skills, including attention, memory, decoding skills, vocabulary knowledge, and logic and reasoning.

* Take the time to re-write your notes after class.  Try and put in textbook references such as page numbers and key points with your classroom notes.  The next day, spend a few minutes highlighting both your own notes and passages you wrote from the textbook.  The following day review your highlights.  If you systematically review your notes you will not need to cram.

Note taking skills use auditory processing, attention to detail, working memory and processing speed.

Learning Struggles and Attention

One of the foundation skills for strong learning is attention. Attention is the ability to focus and process information. There are different components of attention.

Sustained Attention:

Sustained Attention is your ability to stick with a task over time. Sustained attention is important in listening to stories, conversation, watching a TV show or movie, and reading.

Selective Attention:

Selective Attention is the ability to focus on stimuli when there is competing stimuli. There can be outside distractions (other people talking, phones ringing) or internal distractions (thoughts in one’s head, worries, and daydreams). If distractions pull your attention away, you can miss much of the information you need to process. Selective attention is especially important in busy environments such as school and work settings, grocery stores, the mall, and many sports and recreational activities.

Alternating Attention:

Alternating attention is the ability to shift attention from one focus to another. It requires good working memory to hold or temporarily hold information. Alternating attention is needed for driving, meal preparation, running a household, participating in a business meeting, listening to a lecture, taking notes and most group activities.

Divided Attention:

Divided attention is used when we are performing two tasks at the same time. We are usually more successful if the tasks are fairly different from each other, such as something automatic and physical (walking, riding a stationary bike) and something requiring more cognitive skills (talking, reading).

Whether you or your child has difficulties in organization, reading, note taking, math or another skill, one key area to improve must be attention.  Your reading and other skills won’t make as dramatic improvement or advance as quickly unless you can boost your ability to pay attention.