With Brianna heading off to classroom school for high school in the fall, this seemed like a good time to teach and/or review study skills. As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, we received the Student Workbook and Teacher Edition of the Victus Study Skills System to work through.
Victus Study Skills System is a Tennessee-based company that aims to change the way students think about studying. The Victus program was created in the 1970's by a group of teachers who realized, while tutoring students of all grades, K-12, that the kids weren't struggling with the content of the courses so much as they simply did not know how to study.
The Teacher Edition is an 82 page, spiral-bound, softcover book. The price for the teacher's edition is $40. It gives the Procedure for each lesson, but is not "scripted" like some teachers manuals are. It also includes a smaller snapshot of the student pages, so you can see what they are seeing as you instruct.
The Student Workbook is a 65 page, spiral-bound, softcover book. The price for the student workbook is $20. The student workbook is predominantly fill-in-the-blank style work, but there are other page styles as well, such as drawing pictures and coming up with life goals. The appendix contains organization information, mnemonics, flash cards, a great sheet for filling out class and teacher information, and a grade record sheet.
Both books have a quote from Dorothy Sayers, a favorite author of mine, on the cover. On the title page, there is a little more about her and a mention of two of her contemporaries, also favorite authors of mine.
The 10 lesson course is designed for 5th to 12th graders, although it can be taught to younger children with a higher level of teacher involvement. Brianna is currently in 8th grade, and I felt the level of the material was just right for her. Older children can do 2 lessons a day, making this a week long course, younger children can spread it out a bit. We did 4 lessons/week, so it took us under 3 weeks to complete the program.
The book starts out by having the students take a quiz to determine their own, personal study habits, and then goes on to help them identify whether they are more a Visual Learner, an Auditory Learner, or a Kinesthetic Learner. It then gives specific suggestions to help each of the three learning styles study better.
The course covers Organization, Time Management, Motivation, Goal Setting, Note Taking, Test Taking, and more. As a result of taking this course, Brianna was inspired to set up a study area in her room, using some of the suggestions in the book.
I feel that going through this program was a good way to help equip her to succeed as she transitions to a traditional school setting. She is not expected to "study" in our homeschool, so learning how to do so efficiently will hopefully be highly beneficial to her. I guess we'll see come first quarter progress reports!
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