Study Tools to Give a First Grader

First graders are like little sponges. They love memorizing rhymes and songs, reading and rereading their favorite books, recounting facts, and talking up a little storm about allllllll the amazing things they learn. This is the beginning stages of good studying. And my little first grader is learning to study well. Besides her innate desire to learn as much as she possibly can about polar bears, bats, pangolins, octopuses, Challenger Deep, anchors, and smoothies (all subjects she has chosen); I believe teaching her how to learn, is a key component in fostering that desire to learn. There are a few tools I'm giving her so that she thrives at independent study (which should be an end goal for any educator). And she is thriving! This is what I love about being a teacher-mom (which is the term I use  when people ask what I do for a living, lol).

With that said, what tools do I give my first grader to help her learn how to study?

First, I'm teaching her to observe the text. How do you know a text well? Read it over and over and over and over again. Each time she reads it I'm asking her to focus her attention on a few different things. This is teaching her how to observe the text. Here is an example of a daily lesson: "the first time you read it I want you to notice the punctuation. Now read it again and take note of repeated words. Let's reread this sentence and try to find the subject." etc. All of these things I'm teaching her about periods, question marks, quotation marks, nouns, verbs, I'm asking her to find them in a poem, song, or story we read one or two times a day, every day for five days in a row. At this point in her little life I'm NOT asking her to analyze why the author asked a question here, or what emotions the author meant to express in the sentence when he/she used an exclamation point, I'm asking her to locate them and remember how they are meant to be used. Analytical thinking comes later, I'm just wanting her to form habits. And the first habit I want to teach is the ability to focus and rereading. I would argue that the majority of study comes from reading and rereading a text; focusing on a specific thought, topic or idea. (Honestly, I thought she'd fight me with this but she actually enjoys it! The more she discovers the more excited she becomes.)

Secondly, I'm teaching her to use the dictionary (the app version and the book) to understand new words. (Note: I say both the app and the book because we live in a tech world. Not teaching how to use technology appropriately will actually be a disservice to your students.) Again, I'm teaching her how to use it. I'm teaching her guide words, table of contents, alphabetical order, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs... I'm showing her that this word is used as a verb to show what the subject did, which definition fits the way the author used it? Even that is a higher level of thinking that I wasn't sure if a first grader would be able to tackle, but her ability in this has surprised me. My purpose isn't to have her master finding the right definition just yet; remember, my purpose is to simply introduce her to the tools and how to use them!

Next, I'm teaching her to use her library. Einstein once said like, the only place we really really need to know is the location of the library. There is a wealth of free knowledge available to us there. We would be a fool not to use it and teach our children how to use it. Therefore, every week she must pick multiple books using the Dewey Decimal system. Sometimes I tell her it must relate to whatever subject we are learning, but most of the time I let her pick what she wants to learn because the likelihood of her picking that book up to actually read it on her own increases tenfold. After we pick a book I'm teaching her the text features: heading, subheading, table of contents, index, &etc. Those are invaluable to find exactly what you want to find, and the main idea of that section.

Another tool is the ability to write about what she's learned. Writing and discussing that new knowledge is an important step to helping it stick. The writing portion is the part of the learning process she dislikes the most, which is why I've gathered an armful of tools to make it fun (read this post on my personal blog for more on that: Top Ten Fun Writing Tools).

Finally, I'm teaching her to stop at points of confusion and ask questions. THIS is studying! When a learner doesn't know the answer to something or wants to know more of something - which presents the learner with a problem, perhaps even confusion - the first thing to do is ask questions!

• Don't know that word? That's okay, what tools do you have to help you understand? 
• Don't understand that sentence? That's okay, please ask. 
• Are you wondering about something in particular? Wonder away, kid. Wonder away. How can you find the answer?

The art of discovering anything new begins with a question and the desire to find the answer on their own. How can one do that well unless the tools are available in this discovery? But not just having the tools available, it's also knowing how to use them. We are only in the beginning stages, but with the end goal in mind: resulting in an independent life-long learner. I believe developing those habits begins now!

The point of all of this is to give my first grader tools upon which she can easily build. I want my child to become an analytical thinker, but I don't want her to become an analytical thinker without first having gathered basic knowledge and rules. I also want my child to grow from an analytical thinker to a critical writer and persuader. These tools are the beginning of such arts.