One of the most important activities parents and teachers can do with preschool and kindergarten students, is reading aloud to them. This also holds true for older students. Apart from the obvious benefits of building literacy skills [reading, writing, speaking, listening], fostering a love of the written word and a huge sense of fun, reading aloud to children also help them internalize language and structures that will eventually inform how they themselves will read and write. Listening to a story read aloud frees one from decoding the written word, and allows one to build a visual narrative in the mind. Students at various reading abilities get to participate together in the unfolding story and reading becomes a joyous community adventure. Teachers can model reading practices as they read aloud - predicting what the book might be about from the title and cover illustration, stopping at various points to discuss what just took place and what it might mean, predicting what might happen next and adding new information to previous information to further understand character motivations and plot points. Teachers or parents can pick books that might be a little too complex for the child to read on their own, but can still be within grasp when read aloud. This can build confidence in one's ability to read and comprehend new text.Read More
Read Aloud
One of the most important activities parents and teachers can do with preschool and kindergarten students, is reading aloud to them. This also holds true for older students. Apart from the obvious benefits of building literacy skills [reading, writing, speaking, listening], fostering a love of the written word and a huge sense of fun, reading aloud to children also help them internalize language and structures that will eventually inform how they themselves will read and write. Listening to a story read aloud frees one from decoding the written word, and allows one to build a visual narrative in the mind. Students at various reading abilities get to participate together in the unfolding story and reading becomes a joyous community adventure. Teachers can model reading practices as they read aloud - predicting what the book might be about from the title and cover illustration, stopping at various points to discuss what just took place and what it might mean, predicting what might happen next and adding new information to previous information to further understand character motivations and plot points. Teachers or parents can pick books that might be a little too complex for the child to read on their own, but can still be within grasp when read aloud. This can build confidence in one's ability to read and comprehend new text.Read More
Closing the Loop
When the school day begins or a class begins, a learning loop is 'opened', so to say. Closing Routines help students process their learning, check their understanding, reflect and set goals for the next day. Closing the Loop routines are done two-fold, at the end of each learning session and at the end of each school day. Routines at the end of class might include a quick quiz, discussion about the learning objectives, if students felt the objectives were met, what concept/topic they understood well, what they did not understand so well, what they might do in the next class etc. Students might rate the lesson on a scale of 1 to 10, use a graphic organizer, or just share orally what they think to questions like 'What did you learn? What surprised you? What is unclear? What do you want to know more about?'. Closing the loop at the end of the day may include routines like discussing the highlights of the day, goals for the next day or taking a few minutes to write in journals. Closing the loop helps students end the day on a peaceful, reflective note and send them off with a sense of accomplishment.Read More
Closing the Loop
When the school day begins or a class begins, a learning loop is 'opened', so to say. Closing Routines help students process their learning, check their understanding, reflect and set goals for the next day. Closing the Loop routines are done two-fold, at the end of each learning session and at the end of each school day. Routines at the end of class might include a quick quiz, discussion about the learning objectives, if students felt the objectives were met, what concept/topic they understood well, what they did not understand so well, what they might do in the next class etc. Students might rate the lesson on a scale of 1 to 10, use a graphic organizer, or just share orally what they think to questions like 'What did you learn? What surprised you? What is unclear? What do you want to know more about?'. Closing the loop at the end of the day may include routines like discussing the highlights of the day, goals for the next day or taking a few minutes to write in journals. Closing the loop helps students end the day on a peaceful, reflective note and send them off with a sense of accomplishment.Read More
Reflection Routines
The ability to reflect upon an experience and process it can help a learner move from one experience to the other with a deeper understanding of its relationships with other experiences and ideas. Reflection has a significant impact upon student learning and academic achievement. To help students practice reflection as a daily habit, various reflection routines are incorporated into class activities and assessment tasks. Oftentimes, reflection is oral as in a class discussion or peer-interaction. Students are also encouraged to reflect in writing through daily journals, blogs, graphic organizers and term-end and unit-end written reflections. Thinking Routines like See-Think-Wonder, I Used to Think...But Now I Think...,Think-Puzzle-Explore and KWL also help reinforce the habit of reflection. The goal is to help students naturally, easily adopt reflection as a personal habit, asking questions of self like: What did I learn? How did I learned it? What helped me in learning? What hindered me in learning? What can I do differently next time? What have I learned about how I learn?Read More
Reflection Routines
The ability to reflect upon an experience and process it can help a learner move from one experience to the other with a deeper understanding of its relationships with other experiences and ideas. Reflection has a significant impact upon student learning and academic achievement. To help students practice reflection as a daily habit, various reflection routines are incorporated into class activities and assessment tasks. Oftentimes, reflection is oral as in a class discussion or peer-interaction. Students are also encouraged to reflect in writing through daily journals, blogs, graphic organizers and term-end and unit-end written reflections. Thinking Routines like See-Think-Wonder, I Used to Think...But Now I Think...,Think-Puzzle-Explore and KWL also help reinforce the habit of reflection. The goal is to help students naturally, easily adopt reflection as a personal habit, asking questions of self like: What did I learn? How did I learned it? What helped me in learning? What hindered me in learning? What can I do differently next time? What have I learned about how I learn?Read More
Reflection Routines
The ability to reflect upon an experience and process it can help a learner move from one experience to the other with a deeper understanding of its relationships with other experiences and ideas. Reflection has a significant impact upon student learning and academic achievement. To help students practice reflection as a daily habit, various reflection routines are incorporated into class activities and assessment tasks. Oftentimes, reflection is oral as in a class discussion or peer-interaction. Students are also encouraged to reflect in writing through daily journals, blogs, graphic organizers and term-end and unit-end written reflections. Thinking Routines like See-Think-Wonder, I Used to Think...But Now I Think...,Think-Puzzle-Explore and KWL also help reinforce the habit of reflection. The goal is to help students naturally, easily adopt reflection as a personal habit, asking questions of self like: What did I learn? How did I learned it? What helped me in learning? What hindered me in learning? What can I do differently next time? What have I learned about how I learn?Read More
Collaboration Routines
In a world that is rapidly changing and evolving, collaboration has become a critical 21st century skill for career and life success. Workspaces in the future, as well as many current workspaces, require participants to collaborate seamlessly in the physical and virtual worlds with people spread across the world. Skills and mindsets like working respectfully with diverse teams, listening carefully, self advocating politely, flexibility, willingness to compromise, assume shared responsibility and value individual contributions are vital to working well in teams. This type of sophisticated teamwork takes practice and reinforcement over years. Collaboration Routines practiced in the classroom like frequent opportunities for teamwork, stimulating engagement through a provocative text or interesting task, setting common norms for collaboration [eg: one person speaks at a time, listen to each idea, no put-downs etc], activities to practice active listening, asking good questions, negotiating skills [patience, flexibility, thinking under pressure], conflict resolution tactics etc can offer sufficient practice in these skills from an early age, so that they eventually become easy and intuitive.Read More
