Easy, Effective Study Tips for Kids: What Works For My Students And My Own Kids
4:17 PM, Tuesday, and Javi just slammed his science notebook down hard enough that my half-empty mug of lukewarm coffee ripples. Crumbs of cheddar Goldfish are scattered across the kitchen table, Max the golden retriever is sitting by his feet whining, and Javi’s jaw is set. “I can’t study for this quiz,” he says. “All the tips everyone gives are stupid. My teacher says highlight everything, the tutor says study an hour a night, you said do flashcards, and my brain still can’t remember any of the rock cycle.”
I get it. I’m a 4th grade teacher, and I’d had three different kids after school today saying the exact same thing. Ten years ago, I would’ve given the same generic advice everyone else does: find a quiet space, stay organized, work hard. Now I know that most of the popular study tips out there are made for straight-A college students, not 12-year-olds who’d rather be playing Minecraft after school. Over the years, I’ve tested dozens of small tricks with my classroom kids and my two at home, and the ones that work are almost all low-effort, no-cost, and nothing like what you see in those fancy education reels.
I pull out a chair next to Javi, and I tell him first, we’re not doing 30 minutes of straight studying today. We’re doing three 10-minute chunks. When the timer goes off, he gets two minutes to do whatever he wants that isn’t staring at a screen. Last week, he tried to power through 30 minutes of science and spent 20 of that daydreaming about a new video game. Today, his phone’s already on the counter by the fridge—that’s the only non-negotiable rule I have—and he sets my old wind-up kitchen timer for 10 minutes and gets to work. When it dings, he chases Max around the kitchen table for a minute and grabs another cracker, then sits back down.
When he’s done going through his notes, I tell him he has to explain the rock cycle to Max. Max doesn’t care, he just wants the cracker Javi’s holding, but if Javi can’t get through the explanation without stopping to check his notes, that means he’s missing a piece. He fumbles through the first time, has to go back to check what makes a metamorphic rock different from igneous, then tries again and gets it right. I’ve been telling my students this trick for five years, and even the kids who swear they “can’t study” get it. You don’t actually know something until you can explain it out loud to someone who doesn’t know it, even if that someone is a dog that only cares about food.
A mom came to me for a parent-teacher conference last month, upset because she’d spent $180 on a new adjustable desk for her son, and he still does all his studying on the living room floor. I told her that’s fine. The best study space is whatever space your kid can focus in, not what Pinterest says it should be. My daughter Lila studies for spelling tests on the couch half the time, and Javi sometimes sits on the floor of the pantry when he wants quiet. The only rule is no phones within arm’s reach. You don’t need a fancy lamp or new organization bins, you just need to not be picking up your phone every two minutes to check a text. That’s it.
Another small change that makes a huge difference: I tell all my kids they can only highlight three sentences per page of notes. So many kids highlight entire paragraphs, turning their notebook bright yellow, and can’t tell you what’s actually important after. Limiting it to three sentences forces them to stop and think, “Okay, which of these things is the thing I actually need to remember?” A 5th grader I worked with two years ago started doing this, and her test scores went up a full letter grade in two months, just from that one small change. She told me she used to just highlight while she read, and never actually pay attention to what she was highlighting.
I also make my kids and my students do the hardest thing first. Most kids knock out all the easy homework first, save the hard studying for last, when their brain is already fried from a full day of school. Javi used to do that: bang out 10 minutes of spelling homework first, then leave science studying for right before bed, when he could barely keep his eyes open. Now he does 10 minutes of the hardest studying first, right when he sits down after school when his brain is still fresh, then knocks out all the easy stuff after. It takes five extra seconds of planning, but it makes such a big difference.
The night before a test, my rule is no hour-long cram sessions right before bed. I tell parents this all the time, and they look at me like I’m crazy, but sleep sticks information in your brain way better than last-minute cramming. All you need is a 10-minute quick review of notes or flashcards, then turn off the light. I had an 8th grader last year who pulled a two-hour cram session the night before her algebra test, got a D, because she was so tired she couldn’t remember half the stuff she’d studied. When she switched to 10 minutes of review before bed, she got a B on the next test.
My favorite no-cost trick is writing vocabulary or spelling words on post-its and sticking them around the house: on the fridge, on the bathroom mirror, on the back of the TV remote. Lila did this for her state capital test last month, and she got 100% without spending an hour sitting at the desk quizzing. She just saw the words every time she got a snack or brushed her teeth, and they stuck. No fancy index cards required.
That Friday, Javi got his quiz back and earned a B+, a big step up from the D he got on the last quiz when he crammed for 45 minutes straight. It’s not perfect. Some days, Javi still forgets to set the timer and zones out for 20 minutes. Some days Lila leaves all her post-its up for weeks after the test and I have to stand there peeling glue off the fridge. Some kids hate the teach-it-to-the-dog trick, and that’s fine—you can teach it to a stuffed animal or your annoying little sibling. None of these things work 100% of the time for every kid. But they’re small, they don’t cost any money, and they don’t require you to turn your whole house into a study hall or fight with your kid for an hour every night after school. Most days, that’s good enough for me.
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