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Teaching the skill of note-taking
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I have a 13yo dd who does not do all that well with written narrations. She is good at oral narrations for literature but not necessarily for other subjects. History, for example, has to be narrated after just a few paragraphs or a page in order for her to give good narrations.
She is currently going through Apologia General Science. She reads a module, then she watches/listens to a series of lecture slides prepared by a teacher for Virtual Homeschool Group. She takes notes, but she doesn’t include much. For example, the current module mentioned an “independent variable.” She wrote down that term, but she didn’t write down anything to tell what that meant. She actually took very few notes. The students are able to pause the voicethread while watching the slides & listening to the lecture, so it’s not like they aren’t able to keep up with the lecture.
After reading the text & listening to the lecture, she is allowed to use her notes while taking the quiz, but not during the module exam. Her quiz scores have not been good at all. (Let’s not talk about the exams….)
I’m wondering if any of you know of something online or some printed resource that teaches about how to take good notes, especially for middle school kids. I could use some help explaining this skill to her.
Sue
I have been going through this issue with my two older girls – 15 and 17 – recently! They both take VOLIMINOUS notes and do not organize them in such a way that you can look back at them and easily see the outline of the chapter they just read.
This is probably not the most efficient method – but I went back and took notes on the same chapter as I would do it – with clear indentations, bullet points, highlighting, underlining, etc. I explained that they didn’t have to do it as I did, but what they need to do is create an outline (not rewrite the whole chapter!) so they can look at it and know fairly quickly what the important points of the chapter were.
I will be following this thread as we need to continue to improve in this area!
My kids are 14 and 12 and I have been having them take notes in an outside chemistry class they are taking. They write little compared to what I would have them write. I’ve told them to write everything that the teacher writes on the board plus other important things he writes. For instance he is going through the periodic table – I told them to write the name of the element and a few things about it that he says. They don’t seem to hear it like I do (I am sitting in on the class and taking notes). I’m not sure about this. It seems to me that it takes time – maybe lots of it – to listen right. You know, listen for the important points.
One other thing about the voluminous notes. I wouldn’t be too hard on this. Lots of people (me being one) remember what I write down. I always took tons of notes in school and they certainly weren’t in any sort of outline. But I remembered them. I could see the things on my notes in my mind. I did very well in school. Not saying they couldn’t be a bit more organized and put things under heading or such, just saying….well, what I’ve already said.
I hear what you are saying, but in this case my girls were writing and writing but NOT retaining. It was taking my 17 year old HOURS to take notes on a chapter, only to walk away with very little meaningful information in her head. That’s why I was trying to show her another way that I hoped would “click” with her. I told her she didn’t have to copy my style, but to use it as a guide in taking her own notes.
I very much understand and agree that you have to have a personal style that works for you! In my area, public high school students have to follow a very particular format for all their notes in every class – I don’t care for it at all and it would have been an impediment to learning if I had to do it when I was in high school.
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