1) What is meant by learning skills

Learning Skills are simply the skills that the best learners have that differentiate them from
poor learners. When a child is seen at school to be a good learner that ability to learn well is
often attributed to a higher natural intelligence than another child who has more difficulty
learning, and whilst that may actually be true, the way in which the higher intelligence manifests
itself is in the application of specific skills. These skills, once isolated, are skills that can be taught
to every child. Once any child has learned the specific learning skills needed to process,
understand, remember and apply the knowledge, skills and information given to them at school
their learning ability improves. They then gain more confidence in their own abilities, their
success in all school subjects improves, they achieve higher results in tests and exams and their
manifested intelligence increases.
Just think for a moment, what are some of the simple things that good students do that
differentiates them most from poor students?
Do they:
- concentrate better in class?
- take better notes?
- review those notes regularly?
- find areas they do not yet understand and ask questions of teachers or parents or find
other resources to help them understand?
- know where the best resources are for each subject?
- do all their homework and keep up to date with all assignments?
For tests and exams do they:
- create a good study timetable well in advance and stick to it?
- manage their time well?
- make effective study notes?
- try different learning strategies for different subjects?
- practice working through old exam questions?
- get extra help when they need it?
- have good exam room techniques
At a higher cognitive level, do they:
- know how to develop self-motivation and persistence?
- understand how to develop resilience to overcome difficulties?
- know how to organise information to suit their own individual processing style?
- monitor the effectiveness of their own learning strategies and make changes where
necessary?
- know how to handle pressure and stress?

These are some of the skills that you might call learning skills, and there are many more.
They can all be taught, they can all be learned.
Having all these skills is a huge advantage for any student.

2) How does teaching learning skills differ from teaching specific subjects?
Learning skills are not subject specific , they are generic. They are the skills that underlie all
learning but the application of specific strategies may be particular to specific subjects. For
example mathematical competence, in most people, relies on visual/ spatial thinking and the
recognition of pattern while language competence usually relies on linguistic memory and the
ability to make auditory distinctions. These are all skill sets that can be trained and could be
taught either within related subjects or in a generic learning skills training programme.
To teach learning skills within a particular subject requires a subject teacher to identify the key
skills needed for the processing, understanding and retention of the coursework s/he is teaching
and to focus on teaching those skills through the content of the subject. For example a Modern
History teacher whose task is to help students understand the causes and effects of terrorism
for example might:
- first teach internet research skills and then get the students to find, cross reference
and verify the 10 most significant acts of terrorism in the last 20 years, then
- teach a memory technique to enable students to remember the dates and locations of
those 10 events, then
- teach an information mapping technique and then get them to map out all the links,
causes and effects of those 10 incidences of terrorism, and then
- teach a summarising technique and get them to decide on the 5 main causes and
effects of terrorism.
The advantage of this technique is that it develops within the student a dual focus on the
subject matter and the methods they are using to process it thus improves both their process
skills and their content knowledge.
The other way to teach learning skills is through specific learning skills lessons which may be
included in the timetable every week to help students to process the information received in
every subject or may be developed around particular tasks in the school calendar. For example
two months before a major exam, all students might be taught an Exam Skills unit which might
include a curriculum of skills like:
- developing purpose and self-motivation
- creating a study timetable

- organising their home study environment

3) Are learning skills and meta-cognitive skills the same thing and if not what is the
difference?
The words learning skills are chosen to encompass all the process skills involved in effective
learning. Learning skills can be subdivided into three sub-categories of skills:
- cognitive information research, processing, storage, retrieval, analysis, synthesis and
communication skills
- affective the skills of self-motivation, regulation, resilience, collaboration,
perseverance
- meta cognitive planning, organisation and implementation of specific cognitive and
affective skills, monitoring effectiveness and making changes where necessary.
Metacognition refers to the learners awareness and knowledge of their own learning
processes, as well as their abilities and tendencies to control those processes during learning.
Metacognitive activities for regulating and overseeing learning include planning (goal setting,
choosing strategies, scheduling time and resources ), monitoring (checking progress, reviewing,
rescheduling), and evaluating outcomes (both process and content).
Metacognitive skills are the umbrella skills which drive the whole learning improvement process
and through which the greatest improvements in academic performance can be achieved.
Metacognition simply means the executive function of thinking. That is, that part of our thinking
that is always reflecting on the success or otherwise of our strategy use, looking to make
changes and try out new ideas where necessary, implementing changes and reflecting on
results.
The implementation of metacognitive skills training helps build self regulated learning. Once a
student has built up a library of specific cognitive and affective learning strategies and skills
they can then learn the skills necessary to employ, monitor, check and evaluate the success of
the strategies they employ.

Cognitive skills have the purpose of teaching learner-initiated use and practice of active
information processing and retrieval strategies as well as study habits and learning skills. Some
of the specific cognitive skills which have been shown in the literature to bring about significant
improvements in learning are:
Making effective notes in class and for studying
Organising ,transforming and summarising information mind mapping, spider
diagrams, graphic organisers
Using structural writing planners for different types of essays, scientific reports,
academic papers, research reports - organizing, writing, editing, and revising
Timetabling general task mapping and specific use for assignments, assessment
preparation, goal setting
Memory techniques mnemonics, multi-sensory techniques, visualisation, review
Questioning
Calibrating own learning preferences mental representation, environmental and
experiential preferences
Self assessment
Research shows that possessing a good repertoire of cognitive learning strategies and applying
metacognitive awareness to the selection and use of those strategies correlates well with higher
academic achievement.
Affective skills - in addition to the cognitive skills mentioned above it is also advantageous for
students to learn the skills that enable them to gain some control over mood, motivation and
what we tend to call attitude. These are the skills needed for students to build resilience in
learning, to learn to deal effectively with any setbacks and difficulties, to learn how to bounce
back, make changes and persevere the skills of the self-regulated learner.
The self-regulated learner is the one who is using the metacognitive process, as described
above, to not only monitor effective cognitive strategies for learning but also to regulate their
emotional or affective responses in learning situations. These students, whether through
training or natural ability have learned how to monitor their own emotional state and its effect
on their learning and how to cope well with the emotional highs and lows of academic
endeavour.
Students who employ self-regulated, self-determined approaches to learning not only achieve
higher levels of academic achievement than those that dont, they also experience a sense of
personal satisfaction in their work and are more inclined to make adaptive changes to enhance
future performance.

Affective skills are teachable and they can make a huge difference to a childs motivation and
resilience. Affective skills training has within it the potential to address some of the most critical
influences on a students learning which lie at the heart of helping students to achieve the
characteristics of the learner profile.
Affective Skill development involves a focus on the development of:
persistence and perseverance
focus and concentration
mental quiet
overcoming distractions
reducing anxiety
practising delayed gratification
managing self talk

4) Do our schools currently equip our children with the right learning skills?
Every school is different but in my experience of working in over 200 high schools world-wide I
have yet to find one school that has a fully integrated learning skills programme in place. Most
schools that want to place an emphasis on the direct teaching of learning skills do so by bringing
in outside experts to run courses of study skills for their students. This is an approach which
usually has a short term benefit for most students and a long term benefit for some students
but the most effective way to make sure that every student learns how to learn to the best of
their ability is to have a fully integrated programme of learning skills incorporated within the
curriculum.
Across the world there is a growing recognition of the importance of teaching what I am calling
learning skills within the standard curriculum:
Singapore MOE
Competencies for the 21st
Century
Civic literacy, global awareness
and cross cultural skills
Critical and inventive thinking

International Baccalaureate 3500 schools world-wide

USA accepted to date by

Social Skills

Creative Thinking Skills

skills

Communication Skills

Information and
communication skills

Self Management Skills

Academic Success Skills

Research Skills
Resilience
Self-Awareness
Self-Management
Social Awareness
Relationship Management
Responsible Decision-Making

Singapore is also a founder member of the Assessment and Teaching of 21st-Century Skills
(ATC21S) project hosted by the University of Melbourne and sponsored by Cisco, Microsoft and
Intel which is looking at the teaching and assessing of 21st-century skills in the classroom.
ATC21S has defined the essential skills of a knowledge-based economy as those that promote
collaboration with others and connection through technology and has categorized 21st-century
skills internationally into four broad categories:
Ways of thinking - creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and
learning
Ways of working - communication and collaboration
Tools for working - information and communications technology (ICT) and information
literacy
Skills for living in the world - citizenship, life and career, and personal and social
responsibility
ATC21S is now in Phase Four with wide-scale fieldwork trials being conducted in Australia,
Finland, Singapore and the U.S., with associate countries joining in to help test how language
and culture affect the 21st-century teaching and assessments. This stage will lead to Phase Five
where resources will be placed in the public domain. Government policy-makers, teachers,
school systems and assessment institutions will be able to use and modify the existing research
and materials to bring the two 21st-century skills into the classroom and utilize the model to
build out the remaining skills.
Once all these current projects are complete and implemented there will be curricula based
approaches to the development of learning skills available across the world for millions of our

children to access but until then it will come down to enthusiastic teachers and parents and
forward looking schools to design and implement their own approaches.

5) The ATC21S recommendations will come too late for the current generation of
secondary school students as they will take several more years to implement; so what
can parents do to help their children in secondary school?
There are many things parents can do to help their children succeed well at the secondary
school level.
First there are two key principles parents need to understand and adopt in order to put their
focus in the areas which will yield the best results:
1)

Successful learning requires the application of good learning skills - successful learning
in any subject depends on the use of the most effective learning processes - skills,
strategies and techniques
2) Failure is feedback - any failure to achieve an academic goal, to learn well, or do well in
a test or exam is simply giving you valuable information on which processes are not
working and which processes need to change, any failure needs to be seen as a failure
of process not a failure of the individual.
The remedy to ineffective learning is not to do more of it! The remedy is to change.
All too often I see parents whose children are not performing well in a particular subject who
get extra tutoring in that subject for their children which does not improve their childs
performance and they just dont know what to do. The problem in that case is most likely that
the child has a learning skill problem rather than a lack of the correct information to study from.
Giving them extra tutoring in that subject will just perpetuate the problem unless the learning
process problem is addressed first.
A learning skill problem is not the same as a learning disability. In my experience, having worked
with over 150,000 students around the world, I have found that every student can improve the
efficiency and effectiveness of their learning. That does not mean they had a disability to begin
with it just means that they had not previously been exposed to or taught the most effective
learning skills. When they practise the best learning skills their learning always improves.
Some subject tutors will of course be addressing the correct problem by first exploring the
childs present thinking and learning strategies with regards the subject matter and then
providing training in more effective methods before exposing the child to the subject matter

again. Other tutors may address the problem more subtly by exposing the student to the subject
matter through a range of different activities and experiences, different media, different sensory
processing modes and helping the student to assess the effectiveness of each processing
technique or strategy in order to work out the processes that work best for them.
Other, more process focused tutors will have in place a specific learning skills programme which
teaches the most effective cognitive learning skills eg:
Making effective notes in class and for studying
Organising ,transforming and summarising information mind mapping, spider
diagrams, graphic organisers
Using structural writing planners for different types of essays, scientific reports,
academic papers, research reports - organizing, writing, editing, and revising
Timetabling general task mapping and specific use for assignments, assessment
preparation, goal setting
Memory techniques mnemonics, multi-sensory techniques, visualisation, review
Questioning
Calibrating own learning preferences mental representation, environmental and
experiential preferences
Self assessment
If it is a thorough programme it will also address some of the affective learning skill areas like:
Self-motivation
Developing focus, concentration, persistence and perseverance
Overcoming distractions
Reducing anxiety
Practising delayed gratification
Managing self talk
Developing resilience
Sometimes process focused training is provided by external tutors around specific learning tasks
for a student during the school year, eg. preparing for exams. In which case a specific course
which teaches your child the most essential skills for exam preparation can be very helpful.
See http://www.taolearn.com/events.php?id=9 for such a course t be held in Singapore in May
2012.
There are also blogs available which give process tips to parents throughout the year see
http://lancegking.wordpress.com/
And also books available which focus on the processes of effective learning see
http://www.taolearn.com/books.php

In terms of practical tips for parents the key is developing meta-cognitive awareness. To do this I
suggest parents need to:
focus your praise for their achievement on observed effort rather than ability, focus on
the work they did to achieve the grade they got rather than the score or the grade itself
if your children have difficulty understanding or learning something new, help them to
focus on the process - the strategies they are using - as the best source of improvement
if they are having difficulties encourage them to try new ways of learning, to find the
information they need to learn represented in a new way, a different style or sensory
mode from their teachers methods of delivery and see if they can learn it better that
way. There are many good websites for every school subject where subject matter is
represented in different ways see http://www.taolearn.com/students.php for a list of
good websites
help them to learn from their mistakes
encourage them to take on new challenges and to use failure as feedback
use role models, biographies and your own stories to show them that failure, resilience
and perseverance are the keystones of success
make sure they get good training in effective learning skills
6) Whether they admit it or not many children are nervous about the move to secondary
school; what can parents do to reassure them and prepare them for the new
environment?
Very little.
Moving from the security and more family nature of primary school to the more formal and less
personal nature of secondary school is a big step up but thats life. It is all part of growing up
which requires us always to be handling bigger and bigger challenges until one day we are ready
to venture out into the world and handle any challenge the world may throw at us.
All we can really do as parents is to tell our children how we handled similar situations in our
own life, what worked and what didnt work and reassure them that it was all worthwhile. Help
them to see the purpose of secondary education, the goals that are worth achieving and why.
Children need to understand the relevance of their education to their personal future so they
can take ownership of it and overcome any difficulties.
What parents can do is:
1) make sure their children know that they will support them no matter what
2) make sure they have all the information they need to make good decisions
3) put in place the best possible home study strategies they can.

Getting Involved:
The biggest difficulty I have always had is simply getting involved. Like you I am sure, I find my
own life to be very busy and there is not much time available to get involved in my childrens
schooling and it is so much easier just to leave it all up to the school. Also my children do not
want me to be involved, they do not want to be picked out as having an interfering parent and
would much sooner I just kept out of it! And of course I have chosen the school they attend
because I believe it will do a good job for them so my tendency is to just let them get on with it.
And I have found that schools often encourage that approach. They want parents involved if
there are performances to attend, sports teams that need coaches or extra transport, fund
raising for specific projects or discipline matters to attend to but involvement in the processes of
learning? Generally not encouraged in my experience.
But this is the area that pays the biggest dividends.
The right information;
Beginning a new year the information you need to obtain from the school is:
1) All your childs subjects details
- teachers names for each subject and contact phone numbers or email addresses if you
can get them
- subject assessment structure % internal assessment, % exams for every subject
- assessment schedule for the year especially timing of major exams
- website and parents access to subject information
2) Most schools do some kind of pre-enrollment assessment of students and form an idea of
what academic results they can expect from your child. You need to know what those
expectations are, stated as clearly as possible, that the school holds for your child for their major
assessments IGCSE, GCSE, O-Level, A-Level, IB Diploma etc
3) The names (and email addresses if possible)of other important people at school the Head,
the year Dean, any specialist teacher your child will be with, etc
And the information you need to supply to your childs teachers or pastoral supervisor is:
4) Based on your own past experience and records the subjects s/he is likely to excel in and
the subjects s/he may struggle in
Obviously textbooks, pens, books and other resources will need to be taken care of too.

Study at home:
What we are always seeking is to get our children into a rhythm, a habit of homework, review
and study, which needs to start as soon as possible.
1) encourage your children to get their homework done as soon as possible after coming home
from school
- this enables focused work to be completed while the brain is still functioning well and not
fatigued by the lateness of the hour
- they will often need to get their blood-sugar levels up by eating first but homework should be
next.
- of course this wont suit everyone but if you make things like TV, video games, the internet etc
contingent on completion of homework then this process can become self rewarding
2) make sure they have a place to do school work which suits them physically desk or table
and chair at the right height with good light
3) as a vital part of homework, each night all notes completed during the day need to be
reviewed read through again.
- this will enable the connections made in the brain during the day to be reinforced within 24
hours and facilitates the process of shifting information into long term memory
4) as part of the review process, on a regular basis, maybe once a week, key-point summaries
need to be made in each subject to consolidate the main ideas and act as the basis of study
notes for the next exam

7) Children are expected to take on a lot more responsibility for themselves at secondary
school; what advice and tips can parents offer them to help them cope?
Once again the only thing parents can really do for the child is to connect taking more
responsibility to growing up and becoming more adult. All children want to grow up but we
should be very careful about trying to accelerate that process. It is very useful for children to
take on board the idea of a good education being important for a successful future but the
message needs to be portrayed from the point of view of giving them more choices rather than
less. I have seen many parents over the years pressuring children to make career choices at a
young age and defining their subsequent subject choices in one direction on the basis of that
immature uninformed choice. A sound, broad based education provides a child with a range of
options, possibilities and choices for their future within which they may find the field that
interests them most. Narrowing the range of possible choices down at a young age greatly
reduces any childs chances of finding the field they could excel in.

Taking responsibility at school is partly about good time management (see next heading) and
partly about the values of community like respect, integrity, care, leadership and facilitating
harmony. These are also family values which are best taught by imitation.
The best lesson parents can ever give is to demonstrate all the values listed above through
taking responsibility for all their own actions and working within their community to lead by
example.
One idea that can help children to cope with the rigours of secondary school is to allow them to
form study groups with friends to share experiences and resources and to help each other with
study and homework. These study groups need to be occasionally monitored by parents though
to make sure your children are using the time together to get work done rather than engaging in
other less appropriate activities.

8) There are a lot more demands on childrens time once they start secondary school,
longer school days, more homework and CCAs for a start, how can parents help their
children to become good at time management?
Procrastination:
One problem parents often complain about is their childrens procrastination. Leaving
everything to the last moment before starting and consequently not doing their best work and
not achieving the results they want.
The solution to procrastination is organisation.
Students at high school often find that they either dont get all the information they need to
plan well for assessments or they get so much information that they forget half of it. Parents can
help with this.
I think it is every teachers responsibility to provide every student with all the assessment
information they need at least a semester or term ahead or preferably a year ahead. This
information needs to include:
- assessment structure for the year what % marks are awarded by internal assessment
and what % by external assessment, what % of internal assessment marks come from
assignments and what % from tests etc.
- dates for all tests and exams, all assignment due dates
- assessment criteria for all assessments what marks will be given for and taken away
for
- teacher availability outside of classroom time

- whether teachers will accept a draft assignment ahead of time for comment before the
submission of a final copy
Parents can help by making sure that their school and their childrens teachers provide this
information and making sure their children record it all accurately.
Then they need to get hold of a large year planner, pin it up in a prominent place in the
household and make sure all that data is entered in correctly:
- exam dates
- test dates
- assignment due dates
When this is done, then as soon as the student receives notice of the next assessment or
assignment s/he can break the task down into manageable segments and put them on the
timetable eg:
- completing any assignment can be broken down into a series of steps like:
a) Finding the information research
b) Processing the information reading
c) Planning the piece of work sequencing ideas
d) Doing the writing
e) Proof reading, making corrections and handing it in
And each step takes a certain amount of time decided on by the student involved. Then they
need to decide roughly when they will need to have the assignment 25% completed, 50%
completed, 75% completed, and mark the dates on their calendar/year planner and aim to
always finish all assignments with one day to spare.
Resources:
The best students know where all the good resources are. Your child needs to be very familiar
with the school library, any local library, the schools on-line resources and all the websites that
relate to their school subjects see http://www.taolearn.com/students.php for a list of good
websites
Exam Timetabling:
One of the most important times for students to get themselves organised is in the lead-up to
exams. Creating a study timetable is a very important pre-exam task and is a great help to
organising study. One method for doing so can be found at
http://lancegking.wordpress.com/2010/07/10/the-run-up-to-exams/
or in my book available at http://www.taolearn.com/books.php

9) Another big change at secondary school level is the increased independence students
have that requires them to make more decisions for themselves; how can parents
encouraging independent thinking and make their children more confident of their
decision-making?
To encourage independent thinking all we have to do is to encourage our children to think
independently. Which means differently from us! This is the hardest part for parents because we
want to encourage our children to think for themselves but we dont want them to disagree
with what we know to be true. Unfortunately, every time we as parents insist that we are right,
that we know the truth we are limiting independent thinking. The trick to developing
independent thinking is in not supplying the answers to questions but in helping children to find
the answers for themselves. This is where the internet is vital. There does not need to ever be
anything that is unknown again. If a child wants to understand something or find something
out, as long as they have an internet connection they have the world of information at their
fingertips. But this doesnt mean that there is no longer a need for parents help it just means
that a parents role needs to be that of helping a child to formulate the right question to ask to
get the information s/he needs and to develop a line of inquiry to reach the answer they need.
Similarly with decision making, children only learn how to make good decisions by having
practice in doing so. We need to allow our children to make decisions for themselves even
when we know those decisions are not the ones we would have taken - and to take
responsibility for all consequences. Decision making needs to be a learning process and every
decision can be reflected on later and analysed for whether it was a good decision or not and if
not what the child can learn from that experience.
It is when we provide the answers to our children and when we make decisions for them that
we rob them of the opportunity to practice being adults.