By Curtis Hendricks
Welcome parents and students to finals season. Schools are beginning to start their end of the year procedures, which may include dances, graduation practices and of course the finals. Many students are already beginning to show signs of summeritis, which is a condition that causes students to lose focus on their studies and begin the process of living a life of no school. The condition of summeritis can be combated through extra efforts from parents and teachers by holding students accountable for their work and studies. I combat the symptoms of summeritis this time every year with my children and students with varying success rates.
Keeping our children in study mode is important at this time of year because of the dreaded finals. California uses many standardized tests in public schools throughout the year, including a final exam. California’s standardized final exam consists of procedures and questions to lessons that may not have been taught sense the beginning of the school year. Studying is essential, not just for new skills, but also for refreshing old skills. I find the best study notes can be found on the California Department of Education’s (CDE) website, http://www.cde.ca.gov. You want to find the “test release questions” on the CDE’s website. These questions are examples of previously used questions and similar questions may appear on the current test.
In addition to the state standardized testing, teachers may take it upon themselves to give their own finals. The teacher made finals may be more difficult as the state standardized test is multiple-choice. Teacher made tests will ask students to work out the problem and give the answer without giving other example answers. Studying for teacher made tests are made simple as the teacher will usually hand out a study guide/packet. If your child needs additional help, here are some excellent math and science websites to study with: purplemath.com, aaamath.com, khanacademy.org, brainpop.com and youtube.com. One of my favorites is youtube.com because you can search for specific skills within a subject and find hundreds, if not thousands, of useful video examples and lectures.
Studying should not be left solely to the student. I have noticed that the most successful students are the students that have parents as study partners. Please give some time to your child during study and help them, learn with them, and encourage them to learn.
