Study Skills and Exam Techniques
Our speech pathology services
Help your child or teen learn how to study and prepare for exams
Learning how to study doesn’t come naturally for all children, especially if they have language-based learning difficulties or a language disorder. But the good news is that study skills can be taught and there are evidence-based strategies to help your child learn how to process and retain information. We can work with your child to improve their ability to process and retain information, making the most of their cognitive ability.
Our therapists can work one-on-one with your child to find approaches that work for them to:
- Research and synthesise information
- Revise classwork
- Interpret exam questions
- Plan and structure responses
- Manage stress and anxiety in exam conditions.
As speech therapists, we can work with your child holistically to tailor our approach to their individual language and literacy weaknesses, and the goals they want to achieve. We’re language experts so we can provide structured and scaffolded instruction at the word, sentence and text levels to help students understand information. This means they can study effectively and show their learning in exams.
Effective study skills for children with language processing difficulties
If your child has a language processing difficulty, they might have trouble understanding or producing work at the word, sentence or text level.
We commonly work with children and teens to help them:Understanding academic vocabulary
- Comprehending complex sentence structure
- Organising information at the paragraph and text level
- Reading and spelling below grade level
- Writing summaries and making notes about the main ideas in the text they are reading
- Synthesising information from a range of sources
- Grasping some individual details of a topic, and integrating them to form a complete picture of the topic
- Putting elements of what they have heard and read together correctly to draw the right conclusion
- Recognising and/or remembering the multiple meanings of words
- Interpreting questions and identifying what the question is asking them to do
- Planning and completing work in a sequenced and structured way
- Writing ‘on topic’ when answering questions and writing essays
We’ll work in collaboration with your child, you and your school to determine appropriate expectations and work together to achieve the desired outcomes.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Effective studying relies heavily on foundation language skills, including reading comprehension and the ability to summarise and paraphrase information, note-taking, and organising ideas logically. A speech pathologist can teach evidence-based study strategies tailored to your child’s learning style, including techniques for breaking down complex texts, creating effective study notes, understanding exam questions, and structuring written responses. These skills are particularly valuable for children who find it hard to extract key information from textbooks or classroom instruction.
This is a common concern. Some children have difficulty understanding what exam questions are actually asking, which is a language comprehension issue rather than a knowledge gap. Others struggle to organise their answers clearly under time pressure, or have difficulty retrieving information they have studied. A speech pathologist can assess whether underlying language or processing difficulties are affecting exam performance and teach specific strategies to address the gap between what your child knows and what they can demonstrate in an exam.
Study skills become increasingly important from Year 5 onwards as homework expectations increase and children are expected to learn more independently. However, the foundational skills, such as summarising, note-taking, and organising information, can be introduced from Year 3 or 4. Starting earlier gives children time to develop these habits before the academic demands of high school. For children preparing for selective school exams or scholarship tests, targeted study skills support can help them work more efficiently.