StudySkills Search

Susan Kruger Winter, M.Ed.

October Is “Shakedown” Month!

September 29, 2024

October Is the Most Difficult Month… Are things getting a little “intense” in your classroom? Are your kids stressed out at home? Several years ago, my daughter’s 1st grade teacher, Robert, sent an email update: This week was something of a challenge. Tears and arguments cropped up on several occasions. By Thursday, I was fairly exhausted. Then…

How to Use a Digital (or Paper) Planner

September 22, 2024

When it comes to using a planner, you really should go “back to the future.” We get lots of questions from our clients about how to use a digital planner. To be successful with a digital planner, it’s critical to employ the basics of a paper planner. Paper vs Digital Planners We still stand by…

How to Build an “Anxiety-Free” Environment in Your Classroom

September 15, 2024

Previously, I wrote about How to Help Your Students Manage Anxiety. If you haven’t read that article yet, I suggest you start with it, here. It explains what causes anxiety, which is key to understanding how to manage it. Today, I want to share some strategies for building an “anxiety-free” environment in your classroom. Obviously,…

How to Help Students Manage Anxiety

September 8, 2024

The key to helping students manage anxiety is to understand what’s happening in their brain. “Emotions are the on/off switch to learning,” says Priscilla Vail, author of Smart Kids with School Problems. You and I both know this is true. We know from our own experience that it’s pretty hard to learn geometry theorems when…

The Challenge of Executive Function:
What’s the Antidote?

September 2, 2024

“Students Greatest Need Is Executive Function!” This year, in the SOAR® Learning Laboratories, we challenged ourselves to discover “What do students in special education need the most?” We interviewed special education educators from across the country, expecting to make a “top ten” list we could narrow down to the “top three things” students need. However, we were stunned when one response came…

How to Organize: Papers + Digital Files + Email for Virtual Learning

May 19, 2024

Dozens of Problems… One Solution Ever have a set of horizontal blinds go all wonky… tilting sideways, individual slats facing every different direction?  Yet, with one careful tug on a string, they all conform and neatly snap right back into place… Satisfying feeling, isn’t it? That’s what we do with learning, organization, and soft skills……

How I Almost Forgot the Meaning of Thanksgiving…

November 13, 2023

I sent this out Thanksgiving of 2019, in the midst of a lot of chaos. We received so many wonderful comments, I thought it would be worth sharing again. Although I’m very blessed to be hosting family members at my home for Thanksgiving, I almost forgot to be thankful… The plan was to move my husband,…

Happy Halloween!
My Grandma’s Eternal Halloween Departure

October 29, 2023

Happy Halloween! On this peculiar holiday that celebrates death, I thought I would share a very crazy, but 100% true story about my Grandma’s Eternal Halloween Departure. Hey, I’m not the one who invented this holiday! So, if it sounds a little weird to celebrate this story, well… it is. But, death is a natural part of…

How to Study for a Math Test

October 8, 2023

When I was a student and teachers would say, “Study for your math test!” I would think, “How do I study for a math test?” I now realize that study is the wrong verb. You really need to ‘practice’ for a math test. You not only need to KNOW material for a math test. You…

Tips for Taking Notes in Class

September 17, 2023

Note-taking may be the quintessential study skill. Even people without a real concept of “study skills” know that students are supposed to take notes. Teachers like to say, “If I’m talking, you should be writing.” But how many students listen? Students struggle with note-taking because they are overwhelmed by the content covered in class. They…

Six Steps
Conquer the Chaos


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