Are super-achieving students born or made? Research overwhelmingly confirms that the common denominator between gifted students is found within their habits, not their DNA. That’s good news! For students looking to start this upcoming school year on the right foot, their best chance for success lies in cracking the secrets of A+ students and applying them themselves. Here are some of the most common habits top students apply to make the grade.
Time Management. In Lewis Carroll’s classic tale Alice and Wonderland, a white rabbit makes his unforgettable entrance by running past the story’s heroine at breakneck speed, uttering his infamous cry: “I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!” One of the most important habits of A+ students is developing an understanding of personal time management. Students should resolve to kick procrastination to the curb (and leave the short-on-time chant to the bunny!) by building margin into their day, developing a long-term plan for studying and devising a plan of attack for big projects, breaking them into reasonable tasks. Learning what you’re capable of accomplishing on a day-to-day basis is key to preventing last minute crash studying and all-nighters. Some students find that waking up early to study works best, while others find late-night study sessions more productive. The key is to find what works best and just stick with it.
Land Running. Stanford graduate and college professor Mark Draper, Ph.D., notes that one of the most critical parts of his academic success was found in a concept he refers to as land running, which simply means starting the school year off by hitting the books as hard as you would when preparing for finals week at the end of a semester. Hard work and dedication prepares a student for pop quizzes and helps build confidence when content becomes increasingly difficult. Land running also establishes initial academic success, a key motivator in long-term success in school. Social science has proven time and time again the power of early positive rewards. A student can see the fruit of how success breeds success when he gets the ball rolling early in the semester.
Technology is one of the biggest benefits of our time, but students looking to it to study can get lost in a labyrinth of social media time wasters from Facebook to Youtube to email. Thankfully, there’s an app for that. It’s true! With StayFocused, students can set a time limit on how often they can visit distracting sites each day (after the day’s limit, those sites become blocked) while the app KeepMeFocused sends warnings to a user when he has reached his allotted time on preferred social media websites.
Reading Comprehension. From science to grammar, history to creative writing, reading comprehension ensures better understanding of them all. One of the hallmarks of good students is understanding the text and being what Gordon W. Green, Jr., author of Getting Straight A’s, refers to in his book as “an active reader,” someone who frequently asks questions to get a better understanding of the author’s intended meaning and message.
Take Good Notes. Reading the course work is only a part of the equation. Teachers also may have key points they wish to drive home throughout their lectures that a student won’t find in his textbooks. That’s where good note-taking comes in. Preparing for quizzes, tests and reports is significantly easier when a student can refer to content and concepts discussed both within his textbooks and classroom lectures. Listening for big overarching themes and recording them throughout class time provides a fringe benefit: It’s hard to get distracted when intently focused on taking good notes.
Parental Involvement. It should be no surprise that the biggest secret to academic success is really no secret at all. As Edwin Kiester discovered when researching for his article
‘Secrets of Straight-A Students,” parental involvement is absolutely critical to how a student performs. Kiester concluded that, by and large, exceptional students came from homes where there was a high value on education. When parents set high standards for their children, encouraging them in their studies (but not doing the work for them), they essentially teach the merits of responsibility...and their kids, in turn, deliver.
Lauren Greenlee was one of “those” students that loved all aspects of school. She was the top performing student in her class (although as a homeschooler, that’s not saying much). She passes along her love of learning to her three boys and freelances from her Olathe home.