Quotes & Sayings About Achieving Academic Success

There is no more important homework than reading. Research shows that the highest achieving students are those who devote leisure time to reading, even when the school day and year are only mid-length and homework isn't excessive. Recently, the largest-ever international study of reading found that the single most important predictor of academic success is the amount of time children spend reading books, more important even than economic or social status. And one of the few predictors of high achievement in math and science is the amount of time children devote to pleasure reading. — Nancie Atwell

The same researchers also wanted to know why red hampers academic performance. It turns out that the color red activates the right hemisphere of the frontal cortex, a pattern of brain activity that typically indicates avoidance motivation. Avoidance motivation is the technical term for a state in which you're more concerned with avoiding failure than you are with achieving success. It's a distracting state of mind that all but guarantees poorer performance when you're trying to solve questions that require insight and mental effort. Psychologists have also shown that people literally recoil from the color red, leaning slightly farther backward in their seats when they're about to begin a test with a red rather than green cover. None of these effects occurs consciously, but when they occur together it becomes clear why the color red can be so damaging in academic contexts. — Adam Alter