Development of a Study Skills Handbook for the Elementary Grades at Waterloo Central School

Abstract

Study skills are essential to academic success, however, there is often little communication between teachers as to what skills have been taught at various education levels. This paper asserts the importance of early instruction in study skills and describes the development of a study skills handbook for standardizing and improving instruction for elementary level students at a Central New York public school. First, a committee of teachers created a list of vital study skills. This list was then used to construct a questionnaire, which was distributed at a faculty meeting to gauge the emphasis teachers placed on each skill at their respective grade levels. A follow-up questionnaire surveyed the teachers about the methods used to introduce and improve these skills. The author and several committee members then tabulated the results of these surveys, which were examined and analyzed by the committee to determine handbook content. Analysis showed that a general lack of communication between teachers led to some duplicate instruction of some study skills and inadequate instruction of others. The author recommends using the handbook at all grade levels to prevent this inconsistency, and offers several recommendations for evaluating the handbooks usefulness. Appendices include the handbook text, as well as the surveys used to gather data.