Victus Study SKills System ~~ A New TOS Review!!

When we are teaching our kids one skill we can sometimes skip would be HOW to study. We just expect that they will study, but we skip teaching them the how. That's where Victus Study Skills System comes in. With this program we learn study skills from organization to test taking as well as learning strategies and strengths to help your student learn and implement the WAY to study to be successful in their academic life. Although we were sent the entire system to review which includes the Level 1: Primary (K - 2/3), we focused on the next 3 levels -- Level 2: Elementary (2/3 - 4/5), Level 3: (5/6 - 10/11); and Level 4: (10/11 - College), as well as one Student Planner.

Included in the box of items we received was a Teacher book and Student Workbook, a College Workbook, an Elementary Workbook with a Teacher Supplement, and finally a Primary Workbook with a Primary Teacher Supplement. We also, as I mentioned above, received one Student Planner.

The system is also separated into three major parts:
Where am I Now? (Lessons 1 & 2)
Where do I Want to Be? (Lesson 3)
How do I get There? (Lessons 4 - 10)

These three areas are the cornerstones to help the student become the best student they can be. The course was created becauseas a founder, Susan, realized her daughter had no idea how to study. It's name victus is way of life in Latin and that is her goal, to make studying a way of life for our students. The study skills system is build on four main concepts:

1. Zeal with Knowledge
2. Results Come from the Process.
3. Any System Must have an Aim or Purpose.
4. An Effective System will Aid Success.

In the Teacher Manual you will find prepatory pages that help the teacher be prepared for teaching this course slated for 5 hours. First is how it is organized. Section One is just for the teacher to understand the program and foundation of the course. Section Two is where all the lessons are and included are Student Views that match the Student Workbook (5/6 - 10/11) perfectly. Then you are briefly told about the method, along with materials and activities you will need. There are times for the student to apply what they have learned by performing activities as well as talking about the skill and also using it. There is also a sample course plan which schedules the entire course to be completed in 5 days in about one hour per day. 

College and Student Workbook

Teacher Manual

The Student Planner is like most planners, but includes some additional pages that specifically go along with their study skills system. There is an introduction to the planner, which allows room for the student to rewrite their Mission Statement (which was a part of lesson3). Then there is a values page, a goals/priorities page, and then some help pages with obejctives and action plans as well as how to prioritize your daily to-do list. At the back of the planner you will also find a notes section, a life plan area, and finally a grade log. The bulk of the planner is blank pages to plot out your weekly schedule at a glance.

The one area we did not delve into was the Primary Grades since I have no one in those grades any longer 😔. The Primary Workbook only has 6 lessons instead of the 10 lessons that the rest of the grade levels have. This will take less time to complete, but be a great starting point or jumping off point for these young students. The six lessons are broken down into the three main areas with Lessons 1 & 2 for Where am I now; Lesson 3 for Where do I want to be; and Lesson 4 - 6 for How do I get there. The teacher manual still has a small student view so you know what the student is looking at for all the lesson pages as well as teaching points and suggested activities to help cement the learning points of the study skills they are learning.

The majority of our time we spend delving into the Elementary, Student, and College books. The Elementary workbook is a step up from the Primary one and also comes with a teacher supplement. But it does include all 10 lessons of the program.

Each lesson was stated to be about an hour. Ten lessons in the rest of the levels.
They took us a bit longer because of teaching a student in elementary, upper grades, and since my 10th grader is currently taking college classes at our local community college as a dual enrolled homeschooler she used the College Workbook.

The lessons are clearly explained and always include a Purpose, Preparation, and a Procedure. These were ways to help understand the upcoming skill in a more hands-on way. The first 2 lessons talk about study habits, figuring out what the students habits currently are and then moves on to learning strengths. Here is where they find out how they best learn (visual, auditory, or kinesthetic) and are given some tips on how to study better for their particular dominant learning strength.

The next lesson talks about their Mission and how to set goals. This was eye-opening for my eldest most. She spent some time really narrowing down her mission statement to get it to the 25 words they suggested. They also learn the S.M.A.R.T. method for objectives when setting their goals.

Once we move on to Lesson 4 we begin the nitty-gritty of how we get from point A to point B. The first lesson in this section coveres time management where ALL my children suffer, Funny enough my eldest had just completed a 'Time Monitor' for her Student Success college class so this was a bit eaier for her to work on then it was for my 9 and 13 year olds. They were each given a "fake" project that they had to schedule out on the monthly calendar as well as having to write out their weekly schedule.

Elementary Supplement with Workbook

I thought the student views in the elementary supplement were very small.

The following 6 lessons cover things like organization and your study environment - how what's happening around you can study better or worse; the principles of PQRST (something I had never really heard of), which is a method of improving reading comprehension; listening (the biggesst one my son really needed to learn andis slightly improving) and how to be an active listener; note-taking, which in a homeschool setting isn't something we've really had to deal with much, although it did cement some ideas my 10th grader was also learning in her college class; test taking and knowing the different formats and that you need different skills and strategies for the different types of tests; and then finally the review section where you talk about all you have learned, elaborate on concepts they are still working through, and suggest some follow-up steps.

As I mentioned earlier, this course is scheduled to be taught in one hour chunks over a 5 day period. This was not the case for us. I think part of that was because I was teaching 3 different levels and that the Teacher manual was indexed only for the student workbook. The college workbook pages and activities were similar but not the same and not on the same pages so my eldest daughter would have to find her own pages and then tell me. My son, who was using the elementary workbook, would have to wait for me to read the notes in the elementary teacher supplement and then the book was smaller so the student pages, for me, were hard to read well.

All in all I believe this is a solid program teaching about the HOW to study which is much needed for all students. I do think this needs to be tweaked a little more to properly fit the typical homeschool family. One of the biggest issues If found was that the indexing of the teacher workbook didn't quite work for the college level and student level. And when you add in the elementary supplement it seems to skip some pages or not be exactly what's in their workbook. When I do this again I think I will set a time to do it with each child at a time. It did not work well doing it all together and was a bit confusing to my children as well as to myself.

The lessons and material though are right on point. As homeschoolers some of these skills would not intuitively be learned because they are not generally in group situations where you take notes, write down assignments, or plan out your days/weeks/months. These are skills that need to be taught and taught again so that they become more like second nature.  I hope you take the time to also read or view some of the other Crew reviews that have been also using the  Victus Study Skills System in their homes. You can also find the company on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube. Be sure to click below and read the other reviews!