How can a bright kid bring home a ho-hum report card? There can be many reasons, but one that holds true for all kinds of bright kids is quite simple: They have not yet learned how to learn. Kids need to develop strategic skills. Such skills are usually taught in the upper grades, but small kids usually have to fend for themselves. Here are a few tips that may help your child: 1. Encourage her to analyze what needs to be done and how best to do it. For example, for a multiplication quiz, flash cards are appropriate. But to study for a vocabulary test, it might be best to use each word in a few sentences. 2. Teach her to break down big projects into manageable units, putting in a half-hour's work each night. 3. Show her that there are many approaches to any problem—the key to strategic thinking. An outline will improve some English papers, but so will brainstorming beforehand! 4. To improve reading comprehension, ask her to rephrase a paragraph in her own words, summarize main ideas, and try and predict what comes next. Read on—was she correct?