I think it’s a great hack to use highlighters for studying with students! There I said it. I even like to keep a big bag of them ready to pass out to students to use in class. And why do I love them, you ask? Well let me just sit down and tell you all about something you didn’t know you wanted to know about: how using highlighters in your lessons is a wonderful asset!
Do you have any students in your groups that have a whole arsenal of highlighters in their pencil case? Like with all the colors and everything? They love highlighters as much as I do 🙂 They probably use them all the time too, and are super good at color coding, am I right? Well, I’m here to tell you, there is much more you can do with highlighters!
Why highlighting is important
Are highlighters good for studying, you ask? The answer is yes. When a student reads a text and highlights the key information in the text with a highlighter, that will help their brain find and then remember said important information better. And of course they can find that important information again more easily when they revisit the text.
But this traditional way of using highlighters is not the only good use of them! I’ve got four more ways that you can use highlighters in your lessons to help students learn. And each of these will help boost engagement in your students, which is always great! I like when I can create some movement in my lessons, and, quite literally, add some color.
How to use highlighters for studying
These are the five ways I get students to use highlighters in my lessons:
- Highlight important information in texts for summaries
- Highlight new words in texts, look them up in dictionary later
- Identify different types of words in texts or sentences, using different colors for different parts
- Color code different parts of work in a planner
- Color code notes to remember what they are part of
Highlight important information in texts for summaries
The most obvious use for highlighters is of course to highlight key information in texts in order to summarize it. In my lessons, I get students to highlight key sentences and paragraphs in order to show reading comprehension.
Highlight new words in texts, look them up in dictionary later
Another instance in which I get students to highlight is when we read a text and I asked them to highlight words that they don’t know. After reading, they will guess the meaning of the words and look them up in a dictionary, and, this way, they will add to their vocabulary every time they read a new text.
Identifying different types of words in texts or sentences, using different colors for different parts
I really love using highlighters for color coding the parts of something. This is when that bag of highlighters (see pictures) comes in handy, because not all students have more than one color in their pencil case. What I do is I ask them to highlight each part in a different color.
For example, we will read a text and I will ask them to highlight each Part of Speech in a new color. Yellow for adjectives, blue for nouns, green for verbs, etc. Or I get them to highlight in a different color instances of literary elements in a fiction text. Where do they read about setting, where can they see characterization, theme, etc.? And in my lessons about the PEE paragraph I will ask him to highlight in different colors the Point, Evidende, and Explanation parts, so that they can show they can really distinguish them from each other.
Color code different parts of work in a planner
This is more of an executive executive functions type of task, but I also use highlighters to get students to color code different parts of, for example, a research project in their planner. For example, they highlight the research phase parts in yellow, the presentation parts in blue, and the reflection parts in green. I also have them color code the different skills in their files, so for reading, listening, speaking and writing they will choose a different color.
Color code notes to remember what they are part of
I get my students to keep all their notes in a portfolio. These notes are all parts of a larger whole, and it is good for them to keep track of what the various notes are a part of. They will highlight the sections that belong together in the same color, so that when they get to the end of a period, the know which notes belong together.
Best highlighters for studying
If I had to choose the best highlighters for students I would tell you: the cheapest ones, lol! I can never resist a big pack of them for only a dollar/euro or even less! I’ve got to keep that bag stocked, and lord knows, students do swipe some occasionally 🙂 So I get new ones all the time from various dollar stores, like Action.
So, have I convinced you? Are you also going to grab all the highlighter colors for studying with your students? I hope you give it a try!! Have fun!
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