College Planning: Reduce, Recall, Remember - A Homeschool Guide to Study
By Mimi Rothschild
What does 'studying' mean? How is it different from, say, reading or looking over notes? Especially in a homeschool setting where everything is a form of studying, it is sometimes hard to pin down the steps to really learning something. The art of studying starts with taking the homeschool subject you would like to learn and then reducing the material to its bare basics. Have your homeschooler tell you what she just read, saw in the video, or understood from the exhibit or assignment to be true about the homeschool subject that she is studying. This is best done on paper. The added sensory experience of writing without the use of the notes will help both of you to be sure that she has a basic understanding to build on.
Recall
The next part of the homeschool study session should introduce the concept of recall. After the initial reduction of the material learned, your homeschooler should now return to her notes and review her reduction with you. Point out where she may have strayed or gotten mixed up. Note the parts that she easily picked up. Now, shade in her outline or reduction with the details. These details will be in her notes and yours: do this part together, section by section, as you work all the way through from the beginning of the homeschool assignment to the end.
After a few sections, go back to the beginning and ask her to recall the first section. What does she remember from the homeschool lesson? What has she forgotten that she initially remembered? And what new details that she didn't include the first time around does she now include? Do this repeatedly throughout the homeschool session, then put the notes aside and move onto another homeschool subject or stop for the day.
It's important that the first two homeschool study steps happen right after the lecture, reading, or other learning session.
Remember
Later that evening, ask your child some questions from the homeschool lesson earlier that day without having her look at her notes. Pull questions both from her initial reduction and also from the details that she added later. This gives her a three point introduction: the first interaction with the material, the reduction and recall session immediately after, and then the remembering session later on. After each question, let her know if she was right or wrong and fill in the extra details she may have missed. Then give her the notes so that she can do another once over on her own.
Studying is a matter of comprehension and repetition. When a homeschool subject is broken down into sections and each section is completely understood and the finer points are repeated often enough, your homeschooler will not only learn the material, but she will remember it as well.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, children's rights activist, author, and Founder and C.E.O. of online education company Learning by Grace, Inc. Rothschild and her husband of twenty-eight years reside in suburban Philadelphia with their eight children.
Feeling that “our current system of education has broken its promise,” Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. to provide families with Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children all over the world.
In addition to her twenty years of experience as a homeschool mother, Rothschild has written a number of books dealing with education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Home Education Websites Blog consists of helpful online content and activities for Christian homeschooling families.
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