Good classwork does not equate to good exam grades. Many parents will share this agony of the mystery of a child doing well for his classwork but doing average for his exams.
The answer to this mystery is proper exam preparation. Exam preparation is a very important skill for every student in today's world.
In this blog post, I am going to share 3 strategies that I teach in my tuition class in helping my students ace for their exams.
1. Keeping up is 100 times easier than catching up
This is logical, isn't it? If there are 100 things to revise for the exam, revising 5 things a day is much easier than revising 100 things a day. I am totally against cramming for exams.
I use mainly the spiral approach to revise for exams. For example:
Day 1:
(New) Living things need air, food and water to survive.
Day 2:
(Revisit) Living things need air, food and water to survive.
(New) Living things grow and die.
Day 3:
(Revisit) Living things need air, food and water to survive.
(Revisit) Living things grow and die.
(New) Living things respond to changes around them.
Do you get the idea? At the end of the revision, the child would have a solid idea on the topic of living things because the child would have revisited some topics many times.
The broad strategy is as above. For my tuition class, I use the modified version (for maximum effectiveness) where the first few topics are the weakest topics for the student. In this way, the weakness would be strengthened many times by the end of the revision.
By spacing out the revision, the child will also be less likely to have panic attacks when the exam dates draw near. The child's confidence is built gradually and it is unlikely that the child discover major gaps in their learning near the exam dates.
2. Failing to plan is planning to fail
We must teach our children to plan. I emphasise this quite often in my lessons.
- When are you going to do this piece of homework?
- How will you remind yourself to do this work?
- How would you know if you have completed this work?
We are living in the generation where parents take ownership of the child's learning more than the child. The child must have the ownership of his own learning.
To teach the child to revise for the exam, get these missing pieces of information from THE CHILD, (not from the teacher).
- the topics for examination
- the dates for the examination
- the marks allocated for the papers
The school will usually give the child all these information on a piece of circular. Get the child to read the circular and filter out the information. Get the child to mark on his own calendar the dates for the examination.
(For younger children, the parent might need to teach the child how to read the circular the first time.)
I have seen cases where the parent feeds the child all the important dates and information. There was once I ask a child what his paper was the next day, he told me to ask his mother. I was totally shocked.
Every child needs to learn to be responsible for his own learning.
3. Goals and visual feedback
After getting the marks from the circular. Get the child to do goal-setting with you.
- What is the total marks for this exam?
- What is the mark he aiming for?
- How is the child going to achieve the goal?
The goal setting sheet should be simple and easy to read.
After setting the goal, this is the best time to get the child to commit to learning and revising everyday.
- 10 minutes a day?
- 20 minutes a day?
- Topics to revise?
- Number of worksheets to do?
The chart should look something like below and should be placed in a very noticeable place in the child's room.
The theory behind this visual goal setting is emphasising cognitive dissonance. If the child sets the goals himself, he will have to agree with himself and fulfil his goals. Seeing the chart everyday and not fulfilling it will create a 'disagreement' in himself and it will be very uncomfortable for him. He will either fulfil the commitment or remove the chart to make himself feel better.
By now, you would have realised that I am an avid fan of visual feedback. I feel that visual feedback is the best reminder to the student and it removes the need to nag.
There are many strategies to prepare for exams because every child is different. These three strategies are the most effective and the easiest to implement so far for me. I hope they will be useful to you too.
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