Middle School Study Skills Curriculum | Executive Functioning G 6-8

Middle School Study Skills Curriculum | Executive Functioning Units Advisory 6-8

Study skills for middle school shouldn't mean telling students to “try harder.” This 10-unit curriculum explicitly teaches the systems, strategies, and habits students need to manage six or more classes and become more independent learners.

📦 WHAT'S INCLUDED

• ⭐ Facilitator Guide

• 📋 Scope & Sequence with flexible pacing options

• 📝 Student Self-Inventory

• 🧠 10 complete study skills units

• 🗂️ Organization systems

• 📅 Time management and backward planning

• 🎯 Attention and focus strategies

• 📖 Active reading

• ✏️ Cornell note-taking and note revision

• 🧠 Retrieval, spacing, interleaving, and elaboration

• 📝 Test preparation and error analysis

• 🙋 Self-advocacy and asking for help

• 📚 Subject-specific strategies for math, science, humanities, and world language

• ✂️ Printable student tools, logs, templates, and trackers

• 📓 30-prompt reflection journal

• 🏠 Family Guide

• 📊 Assessment and Progress Tracking

🏫 HOW TO USE IT IN THE CLASSROOM

Every lesson follows the same predictable 30-minute structure:

1. Hook — challenge a common student belief

2. Model — teacher thinks aloud

3. Guided Practice — students try the strategy

4. Transfer Task — students apply it to real coursework

5. Close — students reflect briefly

Choose the pacing that fits your program:

• Year-long advisory: one unit per month

• Quarter-long elective: two units per week

• Intervention or tutoring: teach the skill connected to the student's presenting need

The transfer component is especially important. Students don't just practice study skills on worksheets. They apply them to work from their actual classes.

🎯 SKILLS & LEARNING GOALS

Students learn how to:

• Build physical and digital organization systems

• Capture assignments in one reliable place

• Plan across multiple classes

• Break long-term projects into milestones

• Reduce distractions and use focus blocks

• Preview and actively monitor reading

• Take useful notes and revise them within 24 hours

• Study using retrieval and spaced practice

• Prepare for tests using practice testing

• Analyze mistakes and adjust study methods

• Ask teachers specific, appropriate questions

• Match study strategies to different subjects

The resource supports CCSS ELA, CASEL, and executive-function skills including planning, organization, task initiation, working memory, metacognition, and self-monitoring.

⭐ WHY TEACHERS LOVE IT

Less lecturing. More actual skill-building.

Students are given practical systems they can use immediately.

Built for middle school.

The lessons address the jump from one highly scaffolded classroom to multiple teachers, deadlines, digital systems, and cumulative assessments.

No moralizing.

The curriculum treats organization, procrastination, and studying as skills with teachable mechanisms—not character flaws.

Easy to monitor.

The four-point rubric tracks independence, consistency, transfer, and growth without turning study skills into a traditional academic grade.

Designed for independence.

By Grade 8, students are encouraged to transfer these systems across classes and prepare for the demands of high school.

✨ Give middle school students the tools to understand how to be a student—before high school makes the gaps more expensive.

Download the Study Skills Resource Pack for Grades 6–8 and give your students routines they can actually use across their school day.