Academic skills are a collection of study habits, learning strategies, and time management tools that help students learn and absorb school lessons. For most students, learning is about much more than access to information. Teachers often include academic skills in their lessons in order for students to really master certain concepts. These skills not only benefit the students when it comes time to take tests, but can also help in the future: solid study skills are essential for college success, for instance, and learning to balance multiple demands at once is valuable to many different career paths.
Core Skill Areas
Education around the world tends to focus on five primary areas: language arts, including reading and writing; mathematics; science; history; and technological literacy. Academic skills go hand in hand with these core subjects, giving students the tools they need to deeply learn the key lessons of each discipline.
Importance to Early Schooling
Students are typically exposed to academic skills from a very early age, often without even realizing it. The practice of daily homework, for instance, helps elementary students learn how to manage their time. Reading and discussing a book chapter by chapter emphasizes the importance of breaking large assignments into smaller, more digestible chunks, and keeping a daily journal of thoughts or a lab notebook during a semester of chemistry reinforces the notion of note taking and self-review.
In most cases, academic skills are organizational in nature. Students must learn to organize their time, their notes, and their study habits in order to effectively progress through a class.
Research is also a major component. Effective research skills do not come naturally to most students, and must be honed and refined over time. Elementary research projects that center on current events or class field trips pave the way for more advanced high school projects, college research papers, and even