Highlighting Skills For Middle Schoolers

As a homeschool mom guiding a middle schooler, I’ve found that introducing effective study skills, like highlighting skills for middle schoolers, can be an invaluable part of building learning independence. One skill we’re currently focusing on is how to highlight key information – a technique that can be surprisingly tricky at first, especially when every line seems important! Here’s how we’re working on developing effective highlighting techniques using Curiosity Chronicles’ Snapshots of Modern History Volume 1’s comprehension questions and some hands-on methods that might be helpful for others, too.

Setting Up: Teaching Highlighting Skills for Middle Schoolers with Curiosity Chronicles, Yoto, and Goodnotes

I’m excited to share how we’re making highlighting skills more approachable with Curiosity Chronicles, Yoto, and Goodnotes! For middle schoolers, diving into highlighting can feel daunting, so I wanted to create a hands-on way to keep things practical and manageable.

First, we’re using Curiosity Chronicles’ audio and digital text as part of this approach. I downloaded the audio version for Snapshots of Modern History Volume 1 and set it up on a “Create Your Own” card for the Yoto Mini player. This allows my middle-schooler to focus more on the information in the textbook and worry less about the reading side of it. If you’re interested in creating your own Yoto card, check out my guide, where I walk through the process step-by-step. Click here.

I then uploaded the textbook PDF to Goodnotes, which allows my child to highlight directly onto the digital text, erase, and adjust as needed—a lifesaver for practicing this skill! Before listening to the audio, my child reads through the comprehension questions that Curiosity Chronicles provides for each chapter. These serve as a roadmap, helping focus my child on specific details to listen for and eventually highlight.

The Highlighting Process: Making It Click Through Guided Questions

When listening to a chapter, we pause whenever we hear key information that might answer a comprehension question. For instance, when learning about Florence Nightingale, we didn’t just settle on the fact that she was a nurse. Instead, we dug deeper using two different highlighter colors to organize our notes visually. With a yellow highlighter, we marked the main idea—that Nightingale essentially invented modern nursing. Then, we switched to blue to capture supporting details, like where she was from, the war she served in, and her revolutionary ideas on cleanliness and patient care.

This approach helps my middle-schooler quickly identify the main idea with one glance at the yellow highlights, while the blue highlights add depth by capturing key supporting information. Using different highlighter colors makes complex information easier to process, enabling them to distinguish between central points and supporting facts effectively

Reviewing and Reinforcing with Highlighted Text

One of the most valuable parts of this process is the review. Highlighting lets us revisit and reinforce key information easily. After a few days, we’ll go back to topics and ask questions like, ‘Who was Florence Nightingale?’ If my middle-schooler needs a refresher, they can scan the highlighted sections to quickly pull up the essential details. This shows firsthand how highlighting works: instead of re-reading multiple paragraphs, they can quickly review what’s marked and answer in seconds.

Patience and Progress for Every Middle Schooler’s Learning Journey

Highlighting can be challenging, and every child’s approach will differ. Some students might catch on immediately, while others might need more support. This structure – listening along with the comprehension questions, highlighting main ideas and details, and reviewing highlighted material – takes some of the pressure off. It also addresses that common worry: “What do I even highlight? Isn’t everything important?”

Using a guided, hands-on approach to teaching highlighting skills for middle schoolers allows us to slowly build a skill that will hopefully lead to more independence and confidence in future learning. If you’re navigating similar challenges, remember that it’s a process, and every child will find their rhythm in time!

How are your children progressing with skills like highlighting? I’d love to hear about your experiences and any strategies that have worked well for you. Feel free to leave a comment below and share your thoughts!

More Resources

Curiosity Chronicles

Want to learn more about Curiosity Chronicles? Click here!

Goodnotes

Curious about how and why we use GoodNotes in our homeschool? Click here for a blog post that will dive deeper into its benefits and features.

Interested in purchasing Goodnotes for your homeschool? Click here!

Yoto Mini

Interest in purchasing a Yoto Mini or Create Your Own cards? Click here!