For years, people have developed strategies for ways to become more organized, while recognizing how challenging and time consuming getting organized can be. Also for years, teachers and parents has been “informally” using COLORS to improved students’ achievement. They use magic markers to color notebook borders, they used colored covers and they also put colored numbers on notebooks covers to improve or assist organization.
Well known subject matters experts, such as psychologists, therapist, teachers and educational organizations have research , studied, evaluate and theorized about effectiveness of the use of color in facilitating the organizational success of people. Click on the articles below to read some of what they have been saying:
In 1995, “Journal Of Experimental Psychology” magazine published (volume 122, pg. 5) that color has a major influence y the way we read and process information. Also, the story recommend the use of color as a crucial element to retain information.
Organization skills play an important role in the pursuit of personal and professional success. Thus, parents and teachers are key players as facilitators of tools and techniques aimed at developing organizational function in their children and students.
Students of all grades have experienced frustration and failure in classes, not because they don't have abilities, because they do not have the adequate study skills. Sometimes students loose their completed homework. Putting their homework in a folder that holds all homework already done, could be a very good problem solving technique.
Study Skill Support
What is organization?
The goal for organization is to eliminate tardiness, forgetfulness, lack of preparedness and procrastination.
Insist your child write down his/her assignments in a planner or notebook.
Help your child establish daily agendas or timetables to help tasks become routine.
Work with your child to choose notebooks and folders that are different colors for each class.
Color-coding by content area ensures students will habitually learn to take the right notebook/folder to its corresponding class.
Ask your child to explain his/her organizational system to you. Chances are if the student can explain the system to you in a manner you understand, the system is working.
ADHD Kids Can Improve their School Performance by Improving their Organization Skills
A recent study reported in the School Psychology Quarterly conducted by a team at the University Of Cincinnati College Of Medicine and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center found that children who participated in an 8 week program to improve their organization skills improved their academic skill and their GPA.
Efficacy of an organization skills intervention to improve the academic functioning of students
with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
by Langberg, Joshua M.; Epstein, Jeffery N.; Urbanowicz, Christina M.; Simon, John O.; Graham,
Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) exhibit significant academic impairments, as evidenced by poor academic achievement, grade retention, and school dropout. Deficits in organization skills may contribute to these academic impairments, as children with ADHD frequently lose assignments, misplace their completed work, and have difficulty planning for tests. The present study examined the pilot efficacy of an 8-week organization skills intervention for children with ADHD. Parents of children in the intervention group reported decreased homework problems. This study suggests that targeted academic skills interventions have the potential to improve overall academic performance among children.
The Voice and Vision of Special Education
by: Elgen H. Hillman
Whether the students are in kindergarten or high school, they may have difficulty finding their materials or homework and need help completing tasks and organizing objects and ideas.
Assignment Folders and Class Notebooks
Assignment folders and class notebooks can help students organize coursework and assignments. Assignment folders/notebooks can include sections or pockets for work “To be completed”, “Completed,” and a “Calendar or Assignment Log”. One can hear teachers exclaiming, “They can’t get the notebook organized.” However, with time and effort from everyone, students can learn to keep the notebook organized. The key is daily reinforcement and assistance from everyone-–teachers, student, and parents. All of the student’s teachers need to incorporate the notebook into their classes.
Developing good organizational skills is a key ingredient for success in school and in life. Although some people by nature are more organized than others, anyone can put routines and systems in place to help a child become more organized.
For children and teens, visual cues such as writing the daily schedule on the blackboard are very helpful because they help the student literally see where they're up to and reduce any stress associated without having to actually remember what to do. Color, used properly, can also be an organizing aid. If you're not already using this technique in the classroom, consider using color to organize materials. Color code school books so that all "science" books, workbooks, and notebooks are one color, while all "social studies" books and materials are another color. At the end of the day, if the student has science homework, they just grab everything that is the science color. It saves a lot of time and increases the chances of the right workbooks and notebooks coming home. When I was in a school recently observing a student, I commented to the teacher that the use of color-coding notebooks seemed to be working well in her class. She informed me that the color-coding system was now being used building-wide. What a great idea! Once a student learns that "science is blue," they stick with that color code throughout all of their years in the school.
Color-coding notebooks and/or textbooks works even more effectively if the classroom teacher also uses color coding for corresponding bins where the students turn in their work (e.g., all science homework would get put in the blue bin, all language arts in the green bin, etc.). [Because some children may be color blind, adding easily discriminable shapes to the bins and notebooks may be helpful in some cases.]
Color can also be used to help prioritize, another executive function. Teach the student to color highlight information as they study, and establish a different meaning for each color (e.g., yellow for definitions, green for facts, etc....).
Developing good organizational skills is a key ingredient for success in school and in life. Although some people by nature are more organized than others, anyone can put routines and systems in place to help a child "get it together." Here's a list of strategies that you can use to help your child get -- and keep -- his life under control.
Keep organized notebooks.
Help your child keep track of papers by organizing them in a binder or notebook. This will help him review the material for each day's classes and to organize the material later to prepare for tests and quizzes. Use dividers to separate class notes, or color-code notebooks. Separate "to do" and "done" folders help organize worksheets, notices, and items to be signed by parents, as well as provide a central place to store completed assignments.
Conduct a weekly clean-up.
Keep a master calendar.
Prepare for the day ahead.
Provide needed support while your child is learning to become more organized.
Adapted from "Tips for Developing Organizational Skills in Children" by the Coordinated Campaign for Learning Disabilities
Help your child keep track of papers by organizing them in a binder or notebook. The purpose of a notebook is to help keep track of and remember the material for each day's classes and to organize the material later to prepare for tests and quizzes. Use dividers to separate class notes, or color-code notebooks. Having separate "to do" and "done" folders helps organize worksheets, notices and items to be signed by parents as well as provide a central place to store completed assignments
Organize Your Homework/ With Color Coded Supplies
by Grace Fleming, About.com
Organize your homework and watch your grades improve!
One way to do this is to incorporate a color coding system into your homework routine.
Select a color for each class.
Make a mental connection between the color and the class to remember your system. For instance, you might relate the color green to money—to make you think of math.
Folders: Obviously you'll use each folder to keep track of homework for each class.
Organizational Skills Learned in School Can Last a Lifetime
By Aldene Fredenburg
It’s actually pretty easy to teach organizational skills to children. Kids love color, so color-coding file folders, book covers, and other items will be fun for them.
The ABCs of Helping Kids Succeed
by: Be Specific
For each major subject, students should have a separate notebook and folder to help them organize handouts, homework assignments and notes.
Color is Key - Even a preschooler knows his colors -- so what better way to teach kids to organize, even before they can read. Organizational experts agree that color can be a strong memory jogger and teachers have been requesting matching notebook and folder colors for years. As a student peers into his desk or locker, one of the easiest ways to identify all the necessary supplies for the next class is to color coordinate.
Study Skills in Education-
Educator Develops New Resources to Help Stay Competitive in Global Economy
"95% of the problems that my students have in school have nothing to do with their level of intelligence," said Jessica Miller, a high school teacher in Rochester, MI. "They simply do not know how to get organized, get their homework done, and study efficiently." Miller's observations are echoed by educators all over the country. In Prince Geo County, VA, the district's school psychologists have discovered that more than half of the middle and high school students referred to them for problems in school do not have learning or other disabilities…they simply do not know how to organize themselves.