Here are a few things to focus on when teaching your kids good study skills: 

• Note Taking

From an early age, I try to model note taking.  Every morning, my elementary students and I do what we call 'group time' for the beginning of our school day.  We sit around the dining room table and whiteboard and read, discuss, and take notes about the day's topic.  For example, on Monday, we read a history lesson.  I read out loud and write down key pieces of information on the white board for them to copy into their notebooks.  As they enter 4th grade, I encourage them to add their own notes and not just the ones that I write down.  We then recap what we read and use our notes to review the material.  This simple act of reading and narration helps cement the material and the simple act of showing them how to take notes from a text helps them start the path to good note taking. After all, it is from good notes that we study.

• Learning Style

When I was in college, learning styles were all the rage.  Every educator and educator in training was working to adapt his teaching to match every student's learning ability.  Recently, I've read more articles on the bunk of learning styles than on their benefit.  So why is it listed in my list? Because although learning styles aren't the god of good learning, they do exist. Every person is unique and we all have strengths and weaknesses.  We all use every learning style, but we do prefer one. I learn things well by seeing them, but I have a son who has an ear for learning.  Not only does he remember our conversations, but he is extremely distracted by any noise separate from a lesson.  Simply discussing with him the strengths and weaknesses that he has with being an audible learner helps him know how to prepare his space for a good study session. 

• Repetition

You knew this would be here right?  After all, I am a classical educator.  Repetition is how we truly remember anything.  We repeat it to ourselves over and over.  This is why we take notes, so that we have the material readily available for repeating it to ourselves.  Now, take what you know about needing to repeat the material with what you know about your learning strength and: voila! You've got great study skills!

• Communication

Now comes the epilogue to this entire list.  Communication is what helps our children see that by taking good notes, focusing on using our strengths, and repeating the information to ourselves is how we build good study skills.  This may seem obvious, but I guarantee you that my 3rd grader doesn't know that he is building these skills every morning in group time. Oftentimes, I fail to take the last simple step and point out to my children that our simple habits serve a greater purpose.   Make creating good study skills part of your family habit building and part of your conversations!