How to get over the “mid-year slump”

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The middle of the year can feel like a crossroads. Distractions are creeping in, and the energy kids started the school year with seems to fade like a distant memory.  But what if this moment isn't a sign to slow down but an opportunity to reset?

In this episode, we talk to Kate Garcia, MEd. Listen as Kate explains how parents can turn the mid-year slump into a launchpad for success for their kids with learning and thinking differences. And get tips on how to help kids overcome distractions and refocus for the school year.

We love to hear from our listeners. Email us at opportunitygap@understood.org.

Timestamps

(01:15) What is the “mid-year slump?” 

(04:59) Ways study habits change during the “mid-year slump” 

(09:12) How parents can help to improve study habits

(14:12) Strategies for overcoming the “mid-year slump”

Episode transcript

Julian: We've all been there, you know, when the enthusiasm of the first few months gives way to distractions and that overwhelming sense of I can't keep this pace up. But what if I told you there are ways to not just survive the mid-year slump, but to thrive in the second half of the year?

What is going on, OG family? Welcome to the "Opportunity Gap." I am your host, Julian. Today we're talking about how to help kids navigate that mid-year slump and build effective study habits to finish the year on a high note. Joining us for today's conversation is an old friend of the show, Kate Garcia. Kate is a special education teacher with a super strong commitment to supporting students with diverse needs in achieving their full potential. Kate, how's it going?

Kate: Great. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Julian: Of course. Of course. Your expertise is incredibly valuable. And for listeners out there, Kate and I are both Pennsylvania residents. I'm in Philly and she's a little bit outside of Philly. So, it's a really interesting dynamic where we get to compare notes. What is it like working in a suburban school versus an urban school? All right. Let's jump in, Kate.

(01:15) What is the "mid-year slump?"

So, mid-year slump, right? We hear this term thrown around a lot. What exactly is this, quote-unquote slump and how would parents know it's happening? Is it just a drop in motivation or is it something deeper than that?

Kate: Right. So, I think the slump can look different for each kid individually, of course. But overall, I think what you're seeing is a drop in motivation caused by something deeper. If you think about when we lead up to this slump, we're coming from a holiday season, and no matter what holidays you celebrate, there's a lot of intense emotions going on. In November, December comes with a lot of excitement, a lot of nervousness, can be overall anxiety-producing for a lot of kids. And those weeks feel very quick and it all happens in kind of a blur.

And then we return in January and things can feel a little bleak, can feel like what I like to call the break desert, where we don't really have a lot happening. But what you do have happening are big events for a lot of kids. So, you're either switching semesters, you have exams that come with that, a lot of high-stress times. And on top of that, you have parents with their structured schedules, also trying to hop back into work, get back into their thing.

Julian: For us in the city with a lot of our students, the holiday break, you know, that December to January break, is probably one of the highest stress times for them, given there's housing issues, there's financial things that are coming into play. And it's cold for those of us that are in the Northeast. So, there's just a lot of things that come into play that add stress. And the thought of jumping back into school structure is really, as you said, anxiety-inducing. And I wonder, is it something related to, you know, the natural rhythms of how children break up their year?

Kate: Yeah, they can feel kind of stuck because it feels like this long stretch, you know, this winter stretch where maybe all of the habits that you've already formed feel like it's impossible to change them. And so, you can feel kind of stuck.

Julian: Yeah. What are some pretty clear signs, if you're a parent and you know your child is potentially going through this quote-unquote, slump, what are some signs that we should look for?

Kate: I would say any change in your child's general attitude towards things that they typically enjoy. So, you know, if they enjoy or look forward to a particular subject or a particular special that they might have, and they all of a sudden seem like they're not really looking forward to that. Or just general apathy when it comes to various school activities. You might have kids who just kind of say like, "Oh well, who cares?" Or "I'm not ever going to be good at that."

Those kind of statements, you really want to take stake in that because it can point to your child feeling a certain type of way about themself and their performance in school, which could lead to a bigger motivation issue.

Julian: Would you say that we might have a bigger drop-off with our students with learning and thinking differences or not so much? Or is it the same? Or what are we looking at?

Kate: I think it depends on the support they have this time of year. I think if you have the right supports in place, you can, this is a big turnaround time. You have a lot of kids who are able to kind of come back and jump-start things and give it a fresh perspective. But if they come in feeling like "Nothing's going to change, no matter what I do," then yeah, you might see that apathy continue.

Julian: Let's talk about something just as important. The idea of study habits. What are some ways study habits tend to change during a mid-year slump?

(04:59) Ways study habits change during the "mid-year slump"

Kate: So, I think you see some students who maybe have been doing well will become overly comfortable. And so, they might feel like, "Oh well, you know, I've done well on these past few tests. I don't really need to do much. You know, I'm kind of paying attention." They might get a little extra comfortable. They also might be bored with their current resources. So, if you have teachers that are providing specific websites or specific ways to study, this is a good time of year to change that up so that we don't find that we're kind of apathetic towards the same resources that we have.

You also might have some students who have that, "Oh well, who cares" attitude. You know, they might be confident that whatever they're doing in class is enough and that nothing they do outside of class is going to matter.

We also tend to see a lot of students being less responsive to communication. So, I'm at a high school and we do a lot of email or like notifications through our canvas system. And because parents and kids are both overwhelmed with a lot of communication this time of year, we see a lot more of, "I didn't see that" or I" didn't know that was coming up." A lot less checking of information.

Julian: Do you find that there might be a tie-in to some of the social-emotional needs that our students are displaying now?

Kate: Absolutely. I think they receive a lot of input from social media, especially with holidays. And if people are going on vacations or all these different things that they might be seeing. And so, when you have that, you have this sensory overload of input, why am I going to check my email? It's just like another thing to look at, another way to maybe feel bad about myself if I'm not feeling great about things. So, absolutely.

Julian: Yeah. It's interesting because there's a mindset shift that a lot of what you're saying, it kind of comes up in my head. Like, I wonder how our mindsets, not only as parents but as educators can really shift to prevent or be proactive about addressing some of the study habit issues that occur. And I'm wondering how you or maybe some of the teachers you work with, how do you utilize this time to kind of switch mindsets around what study habits can look like during this really rough time of the year?

Kate: Yeah. So, one of the — I don't know if it would, I would say perk, I think it's a perk — of high school though is we do switch semesters. So, I see kids all year, but I do get a shift in our rosters so kids do get a kind of shuffle up towards the end of January. But I think, you know, once we have that little shuffle up and we're back into that period of time that you're referring to, it's really reflecting on educational practices and all of those things we've had in PDs from the fall starting to use them.

Julian: Yeah.

Kate: So, finding time in this instructional stretch to go back to what you learned at that November PD that you wrote down that looked like a great idea and actually implement it. I sat down with a couple of my co-teachers and we went through our January, late January unit and we started incorporating new differentiated instruction. Not that the old stuff didn't work, but we need some strategies that are going to keep the kids on their toes and us.

You know, as teachers, it can also become a little monotonous and you're preparing for state tests or other things coming up. So, you want to find things that not only energize the kids but also energize you as an educator to keep you connected with them.

Julian: Right? Yeah. I mean, the way I look at it, it's almost like a game where, you know, at halftime any good coach, they read the defense and they make adjustments, right? And this is the point where our teachers are making adjustments.

Kate: Yeah, it's a good time of year to do it.

Julian: Exactly. Then this is a great time for us as adults to model some of those habits that our children need to do. So, thinking about that word modeling. What about those of us that are parents and we're seeing our kids struggle with some of these study habit issues? Talk to me about those. Like what what can parents do to support their kids in improving study habits?

(09:12) How parents can help to improve study habits

Kate: Yeah, it's tricky. My top tip is to set aside one day that works for your family and your family dynamics and dedicate that to your student and their study habits. So, that might look different depending on what age your student is. But basically sitting down with them, going over schedules, projects, school communication, use it as a time for you and your student to kind of catch up on everything that's going on, as well as reflect back on what they did really well for the fall.

Because inevitably you have a lot of successes and a lot of growth that might have been overlooked until you sit down and really acknowledge, "Oh hey, you have been keeping your homework planner really neat. You have been doing well on these tests. You've been studying well." Talk to them about what's going well and make sure that you know what's coming up with them.

Being involved is really important. And even if you're not involved in every microcosm of what's going on, having your student know that you're checking in on things, you're looking ahead with them is going to help build that executive functioning for them.

Julian: Got it. What are some tangible things that parents can do to help build study skills, especially for our children with learning and thinking differences?

Kate: So, I'd say first, check what resources your teacher already has available. So, that might be Google Classroom, whatever, a learning management system. If that's not available, you could reach out to the teacher directly. I'm sure there's a study guide. I'm sure there's practice, something that...don't recreate anything. Don't as a parent, sit down and try to do all of that. That's definitely in the teacher's wheelhouse and they should be providing that.

And then I would say help block out time for your child. So, just like you schedule sports, just like you schedule dinners and other things that you're doing, help your child set aside time and show them how to increase that time as they get closer to that deadline of the test. So, one way to do this, if you're not sure where to start, is to model for your student when you're preparing for something big. So, if it's a project at work or even the grocery list, you know, "I'm going to go grocery shopping on Saturday. Here's how I plan out what I'm going to purchase on Saturday."

All of those little things might seem insignificant, but you're teaching your child how to think through things. Put things in order and feel less stressed, because that's the goal of this, right? When kids are less anxious, they can prepare better for a test. If we go into the test feeling overwhelmed, especially with learning and thinking differences, we're already at a disadvantage. So, we want to help kids see that there's time and that in those blocks of time we can accomplish little things and we can see a big impact from that.

Julian: I'm wondering, as a case manager, where do you fit in IEP goals into this process? And especially given that those of us listening, we know that there's usually an annual IEP meeting that happens where once a year you come together as an IEP team and discuss goals and objectives. But a case manager is doing something called progress monitoring, where they're monitoring progress over the course of the year. And I'm wondering is, Kate, being a special education teacher and a case manager for students with learning and thinking differences, where do IEP goals and progress monitoring fit into this process of the mid-year slump?

Kate: That's a great question. So, you know, as a case manager and someone who teaches one particular subject a day, I have to rely on some of my colleagues to get some of that data. So, it's a lot of data that we're looking at. And it can be difficult this time of year depending on what the goal is, especially with writing goals, I find, this time of year. We have a lot of resistance from students to produce some work.

So, we have to get a little creative with how we're getting data points at times, and I often have to pull students into smaller sessions and work more one-on-one as opposed to a larger group. We find that this time of year, having that one-on-one connection with students for progress monitoring makes a huge difference. They might not see me every day in class, but if they see me for a progress monitoring session, for a writing piece, the comfort level goes up, a little bit of anxiety goes down, and we tend to get a better writing piece that we then have to use for the IEP goals.

So, a lot of personal connection this time of year to get that data collection and to make sure it's accurate because sometimes we'll look at data this time of year, and we're like, "That's not very reflective of what we see going on in the classrooms." So, we have to kind of get creative with how we connect with the students.

Julian: Got it. Got it. Now I want to know your top three. What are your top three strategies to help students overcome the mid-year slump? Are there particular study techniques or routines that have worked well for you and your students in the past?

(14:12) Strategies for overcoming the "mid-year slump"

Kate: Yes. So, there's so much so I could give you like 15 different answers to this question.

Julian: Top three.

Kate: But I'll start with my first, first one. First strategy is to do a reflection of the first half of the year to make sure you're identifying what you're proud of. What have you accomplished over this first half of the year and what do you want to improve? And I like to accompany this with a countdown.

Julian: OK.

Kate: So, for some kids at the end of the semester, because they're just ready for summer. For some kids, it's spring break. For other kids, it might just be to when they think the weather is going to shift into warmer weather since we're up here in this cold period of the year. My second strategy is to schedule studying.

So, make sure that your study habits are regular by putting them on the calendar. Plan out about 30 minutes and blocks of time throughout your week, ideally more, but at the very minimum, start with that and figure out, in those little blocks, what you want to accomplish. Is there a certain subject you should be preparing for? Are you going to reread your notes? Try to plan all that out?

It's kind of like, you know, thinking about working out or going to the gym. If you just say, "I'm going to walk into the gym," there's less of a likelihood that you're going to accomplish and feel good about what you did, as opposed to somebody that goes in and says, "Here's my plan for my workout today". So, try to approach it with this mindset of "These are the things I want to get done."

Third strategy is to work with teachers to compile a recommended study strategy or technique for that particular class. So, although there's a lot of sites that I love, so I love Khan Academy, IXL, Quizzes, Quizlet, it really depends on the subject that you're looking at and what your teacher has provided as to what's going to be the biggest bang for your buck in that particular class.

But oftentimes textbooks have websites that have lots of additional resources, if you're using a textbook guided with websites. But IXL is great for reading and for math. They have a lot of targeted practice. Khan Academy, as we all know, is wonderful, especially for math, with a lot of videos and quizzes and Quizlet have a lot of teacher-created resources that can be really specific, like down to the unit, down to the textbook, down to the grade level and filter down to all of that so that you can make sure you're really hitting all of the things that you want to hit instead of just generalized topics. So those would be my top three.

Julian: OK. All right, Kate, last question before we close up. We keep hearing about the two letters, AI. I'm sure you're seeing it a lot as much as I am in schools. And I'm wondering, you know, what are your thoughts on how parents might begin to utilize technology to prepare kids where education is going to look a little different?

Kate: Yeah, I mean, I think it's ever-evolving and AI has a lot of amazing benefits. So, I think it's going to depend as a parent on your comfort level with AI and what you're using it for and as your kids become old enough to understand how to use it. So, my daughter's in third grade. She has a lot of writing assignments with like spelling words and things. Even Google Docs now has different features where you have Google ReWrite so she can talk and the text will pop up and then it has these features of like, check it for me or, you know, give me a different word for this.

And so, we're trying to teach her to use those little tools after she's written it. So, start integrating it in age-appropriate ways that don't take away your child's creativity and their spark for learning but enhances it. So, when you're thinking about these study plans, ChatGPT or some of these other resources, you can go on there and say, "I have a huge midterm to study for. I have four units, I have five days next week that I can study in ten-minute blocks. What should I focus on?" And then you can kind of go from there and use an outline of it.

I think we have to start teaching students to use it in a beneficial way that makes them feel empowered because if we don't, they're going to start to get to a point where AI is going to take over their creative thinking and their individualness when it comes to education, and we want to get ahead of that. So, we want to make sure they know that it's a tool that can be managed by us and it can benefit us for education and for executive functioning when we use it properly.

Julian: Got it. Very, very politically correct answer. I love it. You and I have been in the game about the same amount of time, and education has changed dramatically since we started. And I imagine it's going to continue to change as we remain in the work. But so many of our families are asking about how they might be able to utilize it. And I think that to your point, the word enhance stuck out. How do we use this tool to enhance our learning and also enhance the skills that our students have? I love the fact that you gave a really specific way for our students to use this for study habits, too. Like, there's nothing wrong with the good old outline and using that outline to bolster your understanding and interpretation of the information.

Kate: And one other AI tool that might be helpful for families to take a look at is Magic School AI. So a lot of their AI technology is geared more towards school-based needs. So, starting there, ChatGPT can be kind of overwhelming because it's just kind of, you know, put anything in and get anything out. But looking at what AI you're using and introducing to your family and to your kids can be really important too.

Julian: All right, listeners. Everybody heard that, Magic School AI, Magic School AI, along with Chat GPT, another resource. And obviously we're going to link all these resources in the show notes. Thank you, Kate, for joining us and sharing such practical, actionable tips.

Kate: Thank you. This was great, very timely. So, I hope that it's helpful and that all these great parents listening to your podcast continue to support their kids because it's really important.

Julian: OG family, please do not forget to check out the additional resources in the show notes. Kate dropped a lot of gems about resources that you can use to support your children. I hope you leave this episode feeling more energized and ready to take on the rest of the year.

Remember, and honestly, I really do believe this, this stretch of the year is my favorite time because it has the most potential to really lock in and make instructional strides. So, it's full of potential and it is never too late to turn things around. Till next time, family. We'll see you out there. Thank you.

Thanks so much for listening today. We love hearing from our listeners. So, if you have any thoughts about today's episode, you can email us at opportunitygap@understood.org. And be sure to check out the show notes for links and resources to anything we mentioned in the episode.

This show is brought to you by Understood.org. Understood is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering people with learning and thinking differences like ADHD and dyslexia.

The "Opportunity Gap" is produced by the Tara Drinks and edited by Daniela Tello-Garzon. Our theme music was written by Justin D. Wright, who also mixes the show. Ash Beecher is our supervising producer. Briana Berry is our production director. Neil Drumming is our editorial director. Our executive directors are Laura Key, Scott Cocchiere, and Seth Melnick. Thanks again for listening.

Host

  • Julian Saavedra, MA

    is a school administrator who has spent 15 years teaching in urban settings, focusing on social-emotional awareness, cultural and ethnic diversity, and experiential learning.

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