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Operation Organization
Help Your Preteen Make the Middle School Transition By Kelly Burgess
(Owl Books, 2002).
A preteen not too long ago, Morgenstern-Colon has some excellent advice for helping children get organized. "It's very important for parents to do this as a side-by-side activity with their children," she says. "There are as many organizational systems as there are people, so you just have to find one that works for your child. My personal way was to have a separate binder for each class. Each of those binders was divided into three sections: one for homework, one for things to be handed in and one for class notes. However, I have a friend who likes to have one huge binder. You need to analyze their class schedule, their locker location and their personality and find what works best for all those needs. Most important, parents need to keep a positive attitude so the child feels like he can succeed."
Morgenstern-Colon also recommends getting organized at home to make it a constant habit. In her experience, parents can also be quite disorganized, and setting up a system can help the entire family.
Utay agrees with the total-family organizational approach. She also suggests trying a variety of methods to see what works. She has found that there are some kids who need to literally carry everything with them all the time until they feel confident that they can follow a routine.
Utay suggests the child supplement their reading by highlighting and summarizing in writing the main points of whatever they're studying. When there is more than one test coming up, such as at midterm time, she suggests making a study schedule to devote an appropriate amount of time to each subject.
Utay also notes that while developing study skills can be difficult for any child, gifted children often have even more trouble simply because middle school may be the first time the material challenges them. They have to learn to learn at a much later time than their peers who may have had to always work hard.
"We like to teach kids how to be a student," says Utay. "Some kids get it. They want to sit up front, ask the teachers questions [and] be an alert, engaged student. On the other hand, there are students who are surprised that they have to listen to the teacher when she stands up to talk. We teach the kids cues of when to listen and how to ask questions."