Racing heart beat. Nausea. Sweating. Trouble sleeping. Stomach aches. These can all be symptoms associated with exam anxiety‎. As your child moves through school, she will undoubtedly experience increasingly long, complex, and stress-inducing exams. Help her beat this exam stress with the ideas detailed below.

Create a GRAND plan
The amount of information your child needs to learn for an exam can feel downright overwhelming. There are dates to memorize, vocabulary terms to learn, notes to process, books to read – the list goes on. To help him feel less overwhelmed and more in control, encourage him to come up with an organized “grand plan” for tackling his exams. He should start by creating a diagram on a large sheet of paper, with a bubble at the top of the page containing the subject and date of the exam (i.e. English, March 1st; Math, March 3rd, etc.). Underneath each bubble, have him list the topics he needs to learn for each exam. Then, as he studies and learns each topic, ‎he should cross it off the list. This “crossing off” action will give him a feeling of accomplishment and a sense of mastery – building motivation and confidence and reducing exam-related stress.

Break studying into steps
Rather than trying to learn all material for an exam in one night or studying at random times, encourage your child to break down her studying into organized steps and put each step into her assignment book. For instance, if she has a history exam to study for covering five chapters, she may want to map out a six day plan ‎that involves studying one chapter per day for five days and a final (sixth) day for reviewing all five chapters. Then she should detail each day’s plan in her assignment book. For instance, on Monday she might study chapter one by reviewing the chapter material, creating flash cards on important terms, self-testing herself on the flash cards, and then perhaps answering the study guide or end-of-chapter questions. She should follow this same procedure for days two, three, for and five, and end by reviewing all of the information on the final (sixth) day.

Block distractions
Help your child come up with a plan for avoiding all distractions that may divert him from his study plan. He should turn off all phones, tablets, and noise making devises that he doesn’t need for studying. If he does need use his tablet or computer for his work, he can try using an app like Cold Turkey which blocks social media websites for a designated time period, so that he can focus solely on studying. Not only can checking social media be distracting, but it can lead to increased stress if his friends, say, post comments about how much they’ve already studied or how well prepared they feel for an exam, when your child feels far from ready.

Take breaks!
Help your child prevent information overload by ensuring that she doesn’t study for hours straight. Instead, she should build in regular pre-planned breaks. For instance, she may try a strategy like STUDY-REFLECT-BREAK, where she studies for perhaps forty minutes, reflects on what she learned for ten minutes, and then takes a ten minute break. She might even build in small rewards for herself during her breaks, like ‎a cup of hot chocolate, a quick phone check, or a short walk outside. If she effectively completes her “grand plan” (like the six day study plan detailed above) she may plan a “larger” reward for herself, like a trip to the movies, a manicure, or dinner at a special restaurant.

Try relaxation exercises
If your child continues to display ongoing stress, he may benefit from relaxation exercises. For instance, he can try laying flat on his bed or sitting comfortably on a chair and closing his eyes. Encourage him to relax his body parts, one at a time, while breathing deeply. He may start with his feet, then move to his legs, arms, torso, and so on, visualizing each body part fully relaxed and taking long, slow breaths. This type of relaxation exercise can help him feel calm, in control, and free of stress.

As your child moves through school, she will encounter an increasing number of complex, stress-inducing exams. Encourage her to try these strategies to help her tackle each exam with confidence, control, and success.

The post How Can Students Reduce Test Anxiety? appeared first on EBL Coaching.

In an age of constant distractions, these tips will help your little ones keep on track.

Your child sits in class all day but doesn’t remember a morsel of what he learned. He often drifts off task and has trouble sustaining his attention for longer than just a few minutes. As children progress through school, the focusing demands increase rapidly. They are expected to concentrate when reading stories, listen to teachers explaining multi-step directions, and stay on task while completing increasingly challenging tasks. Help your child stay focused in school with the ideas detailed below.

Multi-Sensory Activities

Working out of a workbook or listening to an adult explain a concept can seem mundane for many children. Instead of using one-dimenstional instruction, try employing a multi-sensory approach when working with your child. For instance, to help her focus on comprehending material when reading, try this tri-colored highlighting strategy: have her read a passage, then identify the topic, which is 1-3 words describing the passage, and highlight it in blue; then identify the main idea, which is what the author is saying about the ‎topic, and highlight it in green; and finally find the important details and highlight them in yellow. Interacting with the text will help your child process the information and remain more focused when reading.

You can also teach younger children how to write letters using a multi-sensory approach. First demonstrate forming a letter in the air while saying the strokes aloud, like “down, up, and around” for the letter p. Then have her trace the letter in the sky with you and on her own, then in colored sand, sugar, or shaving cream. The more multi-sensory you can make the activities, the more you will captivate her attention and increase her ability to stay focused on a task.

Remove Distractions

When your child sits down to complete homework, remove any and all distractions that may de-rail his focus. If he is sitting at a desk with a computer, make sure the computer is turned off or is in sleep mode to avoid any flashing lights or sounds that may distract him. The same is true for iPads or other electronics — move them to a place that is out of sight for your child. If he works at a kitchen table or desk in another room, try to minimize all background noises and even smells that may be distracting.

Play Games

Playing certain games can help your child improve her ability to stay focused for longer periods of time. Try playing the game Red Light/Green Light, for instance. To do so, all players stand on a starting line. When you say “green light,” the players start moving towards the finish line. When you say “red light,” the players must stop immediately. If a player keeps moving when you say “red light,” she moves back to the start line. The first player to reach the finish line wins. When playing this game, you child must listen carefully and focus on the instructions in order to make it to the finish line, thereby exercising her ability to remain focused.

Playing other games, such as Memory, can also help increase your child’s focusing abilities. To play, lay down a series of cards upside down and have each player turn over any two cards. If they match, the player keeps them but if they don’t, the player must focus on the card images in order to remember them for her next turn. Playing similar games, like I Spy, Simon Says, or Concentration can all help your child develop stronger focusing abilities.

Focus-Building Apps

You can also download some focus-building apps for your child to play. Concentration – the Attention Trainer is a great one for preschoolers and kindergartners. This app consists of puzzles and memory exercises that are fun and engaging, and that also build focusing, problem solving, speed, and retention skills. Players can track their progress and earn rewards along the way.

Your child will inevitably be required to focus for longer periods of time in school, and on increasingly complex material. Try these exercises and help him become more on task, focused, and ready for the challenges to come.

The post Help Your Child Stay Focused In School With These Expert Tips appeared first on EBL Coaching.

Structured, systematic techniques to help your student make the most of homework time

With the new school year in full swing, homework, studying, and afterschool demands are rapidly rising. For many students, this means figuring out effective ways manage their time, organize their materials, and memorize information for quizzes and tests. While some students are naturally able to identify effective study skills techniques, most benefit from learning structured, systematic tools for improving their study habits. Help your child stay on top of his workload with the techniques detailed below.

Stop Distractions Before They Start

Most of us know children who become easily distracted when trying to complete their schoolwork. A missing writing utensil, background noise, or wandering thought can quickly veer them off task. Identifying triggers and coming up with ideas to avoid these distractions can help students sustain their attention and complete their tasks. To build this focusing ability, it is helpful for students to identify distractions and then come up with a solution for each one. Encourage your child to create a sheet with two columns: Distractions on the left and solutions on the right. Have him list each distraction with a corresponding solution to the right of it. In doing so, he will become much more self-aware of distractions and ways to solve them.

Measure Estimated versus Actual Time

As students move through school, they tend to receive more quizzes, exams, projects, and assignments. As such, effective time management skills become increasingly important. For many students, knowing how much time to allocate to a given task can be challenging. A key element of time management is learning to understand how long tasks take to complete. To build this skill, start by explaining to your child that ET stands for estimated time, or the amount of time she thinks it will take to complete a task, and AT stands for actual time‎, or the actual time it takes. Then try various activities at home to practice this skill. For instance, one task may be to sharpen five pencils. Ask your child how long she thinks it will take to sharpen five pencils and write down the ET, or estimated time. Then have her time herself to see how long it actually takes and write down the AT, or actual time. Then, have her apply this method to her studies by keeping a notebook where she writes down the estimated time for each assignment, and uses that to decide on the method for how she approaches her work—making sure to track the actual time it takes her to complete each assignment. When students first use this strategy, there is often a large discrepancy between estimated and actual times, but with practice these times tend to merge as they develop more effective time management skills.

Create a Two-Column Study Guide

The task of learning a large amount of information and retaining it for an exam can be overwhelming for many students. Two-column study guides can help them combat this challenge. Rather than sorting through piles of flash cards, ripped out notes, and endlessly highlighted textbook pages‎ in a hopeless attempt at studying, students can feel well-organized and well-prepared for their exams with these guides. To create a two-column guide, your child should turn a horizontal sheet of paper into four parts. He should label the middle two columns “Questions” and “Answers.” Next, he should come up with a series of questions and answers based on the information he needs to learn. He should write the questions under the “Questions” column (second of four columns) and the answers under the “Answers” column (third of four columns). He should then fold over the first column on the left to cover the questions, and the fourth column on the right to cover the answers. He can then quiz himself as many times as needed until he grasps all of the information. These guides serve as an organized, consolidated method for learning exam material.

Reward Organization with The “Box System”

Many students argue that they can remember all of their assignments, including the materials necessary to complete them, without writing them down. Yet as students move through school, this super-power becomes less and less realistic. It is important for students to begin using a homework planner regularly, starting at a young age. In class, they should write down all of their assignments, with as much detail as possible. At home, they can estimate how much time they think each assignment will take and compare it to the actual time. They should also cross each task once it is completed and put in its proper place to be turned in. If, however, your child continues to forget to write down her assignments, you can try using the “box” reward system. To do so, next to each day in her planner, draw a box. If your child completes all of her homework and ‎turns it in on time, she colors in the box green. If she does not complete and turn in all of her work, she colors it red. If she colors five green boxes in a row over five days (or whatever number you feel is appropriate and attainable), she receives a pre-determined reward. This type of reward system can serve as a catalyst for kick-starting top-notch homework habits.

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