Assisted Study supports the dedicated involvement of guidance counselors, classroom teachers and parents in providing selected students with every opportunity to be successful in school, and in life, through personal responsibility.

Because regular and informative communication is important to getting good results, we are committed to helping parents understand the purpose of assisted study and to promoting direct communication among parents, teachers and their students.

What you can do at home to develop
organizational skills in your child

According to a school psychologist in the Longmeadow, Massachusetts Public Schools (Mengal, G (1998) Organizational skills for children: A handout for parents. National Association of School Psychologists), organizational skills are one type of study skill that can be taught by parents and teachers. Helping the disorganized child to gain a greater sense of control over their life is an important goal.

The ability to get organized and study for a lesson is frequently taken for granted. Parents need to teach children need organizational skills as follows:

1. Teach how to break down a task into parts in sequence

Use notecards to list the parts of a long-term assignment (book report, project, or paper). An example would be to list the following parts: a) choose a topic, b) locate the books and materials for research, c) take notes on index cards, d) write the first draft, etc. Notecards can also be used to list the steps to follow to complete and turn in a homework assignment. Steps to write might include the following: a) write the homework assignment accurately in an assignment book, b) locate and bring home all of the right materials to complete it, c) schedule time periods to work on the homework, d) do the homework, e) place the completed homework into a "return to school" spot at home (eg. on a table by the front door, in a backpack, etc.), and f) hand the homework in at school.

2. Teach strategies that help get the job done more easily, quickly, or better.

Strategies include effort saving shortcuts, thoughtfully devised plans, and the use of props. Props typically used include "To Do" checklists of activities, clocks and stopwatches, which are used to measure study periods, and written after school time schedules with blocks of time for various study tasks. Parents can also use 60 minute timers, tangible rewards linked to completion of assigned tasks, monthly calendars for plotting daily steps to complete a long term assignment, and color coding of containers to hold materials, section tabs in notebooks to separate parts of an assignment, and book covers of textbooks.

3. Allow room for decision-making

It is often observed in school that disorganized children are indecisive. Their desks and notebooks are messy because they do not know how to decide what to keep and what to throw away. Coach them to make decisions as follows: a) Give choices appropriate to their understanding, b) Gently coach by asking questions rather than by providing answers,
c) Raise awareness of making decisions by giving positive feedback ("Good decision," "That decision means that you will be able to..."), d) Draw decision trees which illustrate choices and their outcomes, e) Think aloud in order to model how you make decisions, f) Show them how to make lists of "pros" and "cons" to use in decision making, and g) help them narrow down the choices by eliminating the least desirable choices first and working backwards.

4. Raise their consciousness of their active thinking

Increase their self awareness by giving feedback of what you are observing regarding their thinking and organizational skills. Use concrete "thinking" words to illustrate observed instances of self awareness and self direction as follows: a) "You remembered to put your homework in your backpack", b) "You noticed that you did not put the heading on your paper", c) "You caught yourself starting to get distracted", d) "You realized that your library book was due today", and e) "You decided to use notecards to write down steps to follow to complete the lesson."