Training Happy Hearts: Victus Study Skills {A Review}

Traditional study skills are something my family sometimes neglects with our eclectic homeschool style, yet I know they are important. So I was happy to receive the Victus Study Skills System to use with my children and ended up trying out Level 2: Elementary (2/3-4/5) and Level 3 (5/6-10/11) and reading through the rest.

What is the Victus Study Skills System?

The Victus Study Skills System is a program that has been developed and taught for over 40 years, equipping thousands of students with strategies and skills to become life-long learners. It teaches study skills to primary, elementary, middle school, high school, and college students using student workbooks, a teacher edition, and supplements.

Ideally, the 10 lessons of the course are taught in five one-hour sessions over five consecutive days, using the same basic concepts at each of the program's four levels, but, of course, going deeper with each subsequent age bracket. This means, if you wish, you can teach children at a variety of age levels at the same time with each level working on age-appropriate materials that coincide with one another.

Further, the creators of the Victus Study Skill system believe that repetition is the mother of all skill, so they recommend that the course be reviewed yearly. That way, as students mature, they can better master understanding and skills.

Basically, primary students are introduced to terms and concepts. Then, elementary school aged students build on those basic ideas and begin to learn and apply new study and life skills.

By middle and high school, students better establish skills as habits in all areas of life. Then, college-bound and college age students not only master the basics, but also establish good habits and understand the importance of time management and related skills as a way of life.

Of course, it is not vital for students to start using the Victus Study Skills System at the primary level, though. Nor is it necessary to use it at all four levels. The system is flexible and can be effective regardless of if a student jumps into it at Level 1, 2, 3, or 4, does it just one time, or repeats it in each subsequent year of schooling.

The Victus Study Skills system works at each level, step-by-step, to focus students on such skills as:

understanding personal learning styles
time management
goal setting
organization
note taking
active listening
test preparation
test taking

After reading through the complete program at every level and trying two levels of it with my children, I can say that for students following traditional learning approaches, the Victus Study Skills System offers a time-tested and practical way to teach, build, and reinforce study skills.

In fact, I can recall learning similar skills in middle school and high school and many of those skills served me well through the years.

Will It Really Help Every Child?

When I took on this review, I pictured using the system together with my 8, 11, and 13 year olds to stretch my children beyond their typical comfort zones and learning styles in order to introduce and teach study skills in just five short hours.

To be honest, that did not happen.

The program - though wonderfully well thought out and organized - just did not appeal to my children and so it dragged some.

Why? Well, my children were immediately put off by the Study Habit Checklist towards the beginning which talked about taking notes, preparing for tests, and taking tests.

Why were they put off by this? Well, that's just not how we tend to "school".

So, I explained to my children that this program is for all students and many students do, indeed, take regular tests, etc. I also explained that at some point in their learning and work career, they will likely face the challenge of traditional study needs and tests, so this course will help prepare them for it.

Then, understanding why my children had little desire to spend our precious present on something with little relevance to them, I said, "For now, we can skip some questions and parts, but let's give the course, overall, a try." I encouraged them. "It will surely have some relevant ideas and may be interesting."

Thankfully, the next portion of the program - the learning strengths quiz - held greater appeal for my children, and they actually asked to take the quizzes written for their own levels and, then, to do the ones written at different levels to compare results.

Following the children's lead, we discovered that the quizzes at different levels came up with similar, but no exactly the same, results. They also, thankfully, re-ignited my children's interest in the program again.

So we carried on.

In doing so, I admit, I veered away from the lessons as written, and chose to skip the tips pages related to learning strengths, paraphrasing and adapting the suggestions from these pages to our less schooly style of homeschooling before moving on to the mission, statement, time management, and goals sections.

Then - ugh - parts of these lessons had my children feeling a bit disenchanted by the "schooliness" of some of the material (such as a focus on improving grades). So, again, we adapted and worked to make materials relevant to our eclectic, sometimes relaxed and delight-directed, way of homeschooling.

Through doing so, my children picked up some helpful strategies and I noted a new way of looking at goals as versus objectives.

Then, came sections focused on strategies for note taking, test prep, and tests, which held little to no relevance for my children, but which I could see being a wonderful resource for them should they choose to take outside classes which require such skills or should they decide to dual enroll in their high school years or go to college as a step in pursuing their vocations.

Thus, we chatted about how and when the skills in the latter half of the program might help them and even found some applications for our here-and-now with note-taking and memorization ideas that my children could use for some classes and clubs they have chosen to partake in this year.

Final Thoughts

Obviously the Victus Study Skills System was a less-than-best fit for our present homeschool style; however, I can see its merit.

In fact, having tutored homeschool, private school, and charter school children for years, I can definitely see how the Victus Study Skills program could be a huge help to brick-and-mortar school children, be well-suited to homeschoolers who follow a structured, school-at-home style approaches, and act as an excellent preparation tool for any style of homeschooler that chooses to enter college.

Learn More

If you'd like to see what homeschoolers of various styles thought about the the Victus Study Skills System, find reviews of 50 Homeschool Review Crew families.