My younger son, Nick, is in first grade, which means that homework is still an interesting novelty for him.

His class was studying owls for a while, which captured his imagination. He checked out some books from the school library on owls and we read them together. He told his teacher some of the things that he’d learned, so she suggested that he write down a few facts from the book so he could share them with the class.

That evening, he sat at the dinner table happily reading and writing (and taking frequent breaks). Later, unasked, he shared his research method with me: “I read a little and then I decide what I thought was interesting. Then I go back and write that down.”

I told him, “that’s exactly what I have been telling college students to do these last few weeks. You have an excellent head start on college.”

I had another shock of recognition later when I was looking at the work Nick had brought home. Apparently the class had moved on from owls to bats:

This is exactly what I have been telling my students to do this fall. Take your subject and put it in the center. Then come up with a few things you know about the subject–if you don’t know much, go to Wikipedia or some other source likely to give you an overview. Then write down around the central subject some details that you find interesting, using single words or short phrases. From there, you can come up with something that looks more like a research question. Why do bats have white noses when they get sick? If they eat 1,000 bugs an hour, what happens if they run out? How do scientists know they have a real good sense of smell, and when they get sick (with their white noses) does that mean they can’t smell so well? How does that affect them? And so on.

I’m not sure if I’m thrilled that my son is learning these strategies so young or if I’m a bit saddened to realize that people need to be taught the same thing over and over again before it really sticks.