Teachers

Matthew Lynch published in Reading Education, Teachers

Develop Language Proficiency and Scientific Literacy In Students

Language development is not an isolated skill. Once a student learns to read and write and becomes familiar with new vocabulary, it will trickle into their understanding of other topics and subjects. 

Therefore, parents and teachers should realize that helping children expand their vocabulary is one of the most effective ways to help children learn science concepts. Continue reading to learn how you can work on both your child’s language development and scientific literacy. 

Language Proficiency and Scientific Literacy Go Hand In Hand

A child is curious and easily stimulated during their early years. Therefore, that is the best time to help them learn a lot of things. 

While they learn to read and write English, they should also expand their vocabulary with words specific to other subjects. This will improve their learning of different subjects. For instance, they could learn words like “era”, “reign”, and “empires”, which would help them in their history lessons.

How To Increase Scientific Literacy In Classrooms

First, realize that students do not have compartments in their brains to learn only one thing at a particular time. Instead, their brains are like sponges that are ready to absorb knowledge at all times. Make use of that. 

You can write down words often used in a laboratory or science class and pin them onto the classroom word wall. Start by listing words such as predict, estimate, atmosphere, and so on. 

Moreover, make sure that those words are not just stuck on the wall. Model them during conversations. You can say, “You’re right, Sarah, the greenhouse gases are changing Earth’s atmosphere by making it warmer.”

Specific Ways To Model Language and Develop Science Concepts In Class

  • Conduct experiments in the laboratory. This will help model science-related vocabulary and allow students to learn while engaging and having fun experiences. 
  • Encourage children to speak during discussions. Try to subtly suggest new words that they could use to express their thoughts. 
  • Ask open-ended questions that promote predicting and problem-solving skills. For example, you can ask students questions like, “This is 50 ml of oil, and it is denser than water. Do you predict it will float on water or sink?” Make them write their predictions down or discuss them one by one. 
  • Children can observe what happens during experiments. However, they do not have the vocabulary to explain it, so continue speaking and explaining what happens during science experiments and activities. For example, when showing how filtration works, you can say, “The chalk does not dissolve in water, so it remains as residue on the filter paper.”

Concluding Thoughts

Students’ learning does not happen in a bubble. Their language development and scientific literacy are interconnected. There are many ways that both could be improved together. Incorporate the tips discussed above, and you will be able to do just that.

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Matthew Lynch published in Teachers, Testing

Is the Formative Assessment Concept Effective?

Formative assessments help teachers analyze the particular topics that students are struggling with. They can target the learning progress of students through different means to get feedback from the students. 

The feedback is formally known to be the formative assessment, which can be in the form of an essay, journal entries, worksheets, research papers, projects, ungraded quizzes and tests, lab results, presentations, or even art. 

Formative Assessment Reform

Formative assessment has only been around since the 1960s. This assessment method is now considered to be outdated by many experts. However, many schools still practice the concept of formative assessment. 

Their reasons for still using the concept of formative assessment may appear to be valid because educators can track their students’ progress and improve them significantly as they assess them midway through their learning. 

Many researchers and educators are now questioning the concept of formative assessment for similarly valid reasons. Another assessment system may be produced due to the drawbacks of the formative assessment system.

Why Use Formative Assessment?

Formative assessment helps teachers better analyze their teaching progress, but often, students also find the assessment beneficial. They can understand better where they stand from a different perspective. 

Through immersive learning, they can improve their performance and eventually score better than many of their peers. 

Teachers primarily use formative assessment to:

  • Direct students towards critical thinking and improve their learning progress rather than focus on grades or extrinsic rewards
  • Encourage students to perform better rather than dwell on their weakness
  • Provide students with a detailed concept of the topics at hand 
  • Speed up the learning progress of children who are lagging behind the rest of their peers

Measures To Assess Students

Many educators follow the following steps to assess their students through formative assessment.

  • They gather their feedback on the topics that have already been taught in class through various methods. This way, they can understand what topics their students are struggling with the most.
  • At the end of every class, teachers collect slips to ask students to jot down what they learned from the class. These slips are collected by the teachers and then assessed to analyze if the classes fulfill the children’s learning needs.
  • They allow students to speed up where they feel they are lagging in the classroom.

Concluding Thoughts

Many teachers focus on assessing their students through various grading systems. Although assessing students is not necessarily a bad idea, teachers make a few mistakes unknowingly along the way. 

Teachers who focus on formative assessment to track their students’ progress use a variety of methods to evaluate their student’s comprehension, learning skills, and academic progress.

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Matthew Lynch published in K-12, Teachers

20 Genius Tricks for Getting Students to Participate in Learning Activities

Are you looking for genius tricks for getting students to participate in learning activities? If so, keep reading.

1. Do not embarrass the learner by giving them orders, requirements, etc., in front of others.

2. Make positive remarks about participating in school and special activities.

3. Do not force the learner to interact with others.

4. Go with the learner or have someone else escort the learner to those learning activities in which they may not want to participate. Slowly decrease the duration of time you or someone else stays with the learner.

5. Take into account those learning activities the learner avoids. If something unpleasant is causing the learner not to participate, try to modify the situation.

6. Praise other students in the classroom for participating in group learning activities or special activities.

7. Select a peer to sit/work directly with the learner (e.g., in various settings or learning activities such as art, music, P.E., tutoring, group projects, recess, etc.). On occasions where the learner has become comfortable working with one other learner, slowly increase the size of the group.

8. Assess the appropriateness of the task to determine (a) if the task is too easy, (b) if the task is too complicated, and (c) if the duration of time scheduled to finish the task is sufficient.

9. Communicate with parents (e.g., notes home, phone calls, etc.) to disseminate information about the learner’s progress. The parents may reinforce the learner at home for participating in classroom learning activities or special activities at school.

10. Draft an agreement with the learner stipulating what behavior is required (e.g., taking part in classroom learning activities ) and which reinforcement will be implemented when the agreement has been met.

11. Provide the learner the chance to pick a topic or learning experience for the group to work on together.

12. Talk with the learner to explain(a) what the learner is doing wrong (e.g., failing to participate) and (b) what the learner should be doing (e.g., talking, taking turns, playing, sharing, etc.).

13. Praise the learner for participating in group learning activities or special activities: (a) give the learner a concrete reward (e.g., privileges such as leading the line, handing out learning materials, 10 minutes of free time, etc.) or (b) give the learner an informal reward (e.g., praise, handshake, smile, etc.).

14. Create classroom rules: • Complete every assignment. • Complete assignments quietly. • Remain in your seat. • Finish tasks. • Meet task expectations. Examine rules often. Praise students for following the rules.

15. Give the learner the chance to select a cooperative learning experience and the group members (e.g., along with the teacher, decide what the learning experience will be, and decide what individual group members will do, etc.).

16. Get the learner to take part in learning activities that require minimal participation. As they become more comfortable, slowly increase the learner’s participation.

17. Consider using a classroom management app. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.

18. Consider using an adaptive behavior management app. Click here to view a list of apps that we recommend.

19. Consider using Alexa to help the student learn to behave appropriately. Click here to read an article that we wrote on the subject.

20. Click here to learn about six bonus strategies for challenging problem behaviors and mastering classroom management.

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Matthew Lynch published in Reading Education, Teachers

The Five Key Aspects To Teach Vocabulary More Effectively

For the most part, vocabulary is something that is not taught formally. It is something that children pick up through exposure to the language as they grow, meet new people, and find new material that introduces them to the language. It also happens to make up a large part of our ability to communicate, as knowing more words means you can communicate more effectively and precisely.

Teaching vocabulary is not overly emphasized in school because it is mainly learned through exposure to media. However, there is much to be said about taking an active role in the classroom and devoting time to helping young students develop and expand their vocabulary. Here are some fundamental principles that can help pave the way for more effective vocabulary instruction.

Focus On Practical Meaning – Not Simple Dictionary Definitions

The first of these various principles is to have the student work with more complex definitions. This can be quickly done by choosing to use encyclopedic definitions instead of dictionary definitions. Those explanations of the words do a better job of describing word usage in a practical sense. This also provides much more context.

Additionally, you can then help develop vocabulary by providing more practical context to the words in question. For example, you can start with the simple dictionary definition but then have the student learn synonyms and antonyms, what part of speech the word belongs to, what comparison you can make with words, and what the word is classified as. Finally, you can provide real-world context through actions, graphics, or examples.

Highlight the Connection Between Words

The brain is wired to categorize words in a way that is unlike how they could be associated in a vocabulary program. Instead of words being categorized by broad subjects – such as healthcare or medicine – words are instead organized by similar ideas, such as the word’s attributes, function, and synonyms. There are a few ways you can use this association to your advantage.

Of course, there are cases where you might have to cover words similar to the subject they are teaching, such as in science or biology, when discussing the atom or cell structure. In other cases, it might also be good to link groups of words to an associated concept that they are already well aware of instead of simply linking a string of words together.

An example of what not to do would be to teach words that are loosely similar in meaning but have different applications, as then the student will associate these words together and could use the incorrect one.

Encourage Word Usage

With the plethora of words available to use, it is crucial to become aware of the words and encourage them to use them daily. By using these new words in their writing and speech, students can become even more fluent, to the point of truly understanding the place of these words in their vocabulary, which is vastly more important than simply knowing of the word.

Review the Usage

Adding to the previous point, it is just as important to review the word usage and ensure that words are being used correctly and with minimal confusion. Our vocabulary is only as large as the words we use, and it becomes difficult to remember to use new words if we do not use them at the right opportunities.

You could assign your students words or groups of words to use and then have the times they used it recorded. Then, you could review it later for any corrections if need be.

Engage Your Students In Identifying Words

Because a vocabulary is mainly developed through exposure, another approach you could take is to actively engage your student in identifying new and unknown words through reading. 

By engaging students with new reading material and then pointing out new words that they may not understand, you could provide context and then loop back to any of the above points to better learn and apply it in their vocabulary.

Concluding Thoughts

Vocabulary is an essential part of literacy and understanding language. With a smaller vocabulary, students are limited in their diction and opportunity to express themselves. 

While it may not be a significant focus in schools, you can still help your students develop their vocabulary to become more fluent and perform better in other areas of their schoolwork.

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Matthew Lynch published in Teachers, Writing

Writer’s Workshop: Everything You Need to Know

This is a writing program focused on strategies for composing written materials. Here, students are afforded the opportunity, space, and time to think, prewrite, draft out, read through, and edit their work, to the point where it can be published or simply shared for the consumption of others.

In other words, such a workshop involves an interdisciplinary writing technique that can build students’ fluency in writing through repeated and continuous exposure to the process of writing.

Teachers can use the following steps to create a writing workshop in their classroom:

Step 1: Setting up a framework

A typical writing workshop can be divided into four daily activities:

  •         A writing mini-lesson – where the teacher introduces a new concept, topic, or skill to the class and asks students to apply it in their write-ups
  •         Work check – where the teacher tracks the work each student will handle that day
  •         Student work – where students write, revise, and edit their writing
  •         Sharing with the entire class – where students share their writing with the entire class or ask/answer questions related to their write-ups

Step 2: Teach how to become a writer

Teachers shouldn’t just guide students on how to write but also teach them how to team up with their peers, respond to them, and improve their own write-ups based on peer feedback.

Step 3: Form a writing community

Teachers should provide spaces in their classrooms that support group and individual work, thus helping students learn from each other and on their own.

Step 4: Provide various models and topics

Models help students notice how other writers have given shape to their ideas in the form of stories and essays. Giving students multiple topic choices is equally crucial, as it’ll help them pick topics they feel interested in.

Step 5: Allow students to work at a pace that suits them

On a particular day, some students in a writer’s workshop may be researching a topic, while others could be revising or drafting. A handful of students may even have completed one write-up and started work on the next. This makes it important for teachers to allow students to work at their own pace.

Step 6: Seek peer feedback

Teachers should form peer response groups where students get feedback on their write-ups from their peers, which will help them strengthen their writing skills and feel part of the writing community.

Step 7: Offer adequate support

Teachers should offer advice and suggestion to students, as and when needed, during their independent writing time.

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Matthew Lynch published in Disabilities, Teachers

How To Better Understand Learning Disability In Your Child

Children around the world suffer from reading disabilities. It is important to note that you should know how to differentiate between the various disabilities that exist. Some might have dyslexia, while others might have ADHD. Catching on to these disabilities early on is essential, as you’re able to help them with it as they grow older. 

By focusing on the early signs of learning disability, you can ensure that your child overcomes their struggles over time.

When Should You Suspect That Your Child Has a Learning Disability?

You will find a range of reasons and behaviors that indicate your child might have a learning disability. Some might show difficulty in processing information, while others might find it challenging to understand sound input. 

If you find your child struggling at any of these given points, you must take adequate steps to help them. Keep in mind that having trouble with input is not the only thing to worry about. You will also need to make sure that they have no trouble with their output information. 

For instance, difficulty with coordination is a common output issue that children with learning disabilities face.  Remedial reading and other methods can help your child with a learning disability.

Cues To Look For In Preschoolers

If your child is in preschool, you must keep an eye out for a few things that would indicate a learning disability. Let’s look at what these can be.

  • Difficulty in developing language
  • Lack of motor skills development and poor coordination
  • Issues with remembering things or with their routine
  • Not being able to interact with others

These can be improved through various EdTech solutions for children with special needs. There are various opportunities available for them to overcome their struggles.

Cues To Look For In Elementary School Children

If your child is in elementary school, they might showcase different behaviors that would show you that they might have a learning disability.

  • Difficulty in learning about phonemes
  • Problems with letters and numbers
  • Challenges in math and calculations
  • Difficulty in organizing things
  • Inability to understand instructions
  • Weakness to plan steps

You might find more than these behaviors present in your child when looking for learning disabilities. Assistive technology can help children succeed academically, so you can use it to see a difference in your child’s learning.

Concluding Thoughts

You need to know the various cues that tell you whether your child might have a learning disability. Using classroom practices, at-home training, and assistive technology apps for special needs children can help them learn. Start early so that your child can have control over these struggles sooner rather than later.

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Matthew Lynch published in Reading Education, Teachers

Tips On Reading Nonfiction Texts

As a parent, you are probably in an endless quest to find entertaining fiction books to promote reading and active listening in your child. Little do you know, children enjoy real-life and nonfiction stories. These present a fantastic way to learn about different experiences and animals, plants, and, most importantly, people. 

By teaching your child how to navigate nonfiction text using captions, diagrams, and the table of contents, reading is likely to become their favorite activity. How do you do it, though? That is something we will discuss throughout this article.

Introduce Them To Nonfiction

For your child to gain interest in reading nonfiction books, you need to introduce them to these topics. The first step is to explain to them that these texts hold information and realistic situations that they may encounter in life instead of fiction books. 

Furthermore, it would help if you told them that most nonfiction books focus on a particular idea. An excellent method to help your children understand the difference is to organize books by topics in their free time. This increases their interest in reading and learning from texts and understanding the interconnection between written and spoken language.

Lead the Read

It would be best if you allowed your child to choose a nonfiction book to read. Still, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be the leader who guides them through the text. Compared to fiction stories, skipping a few chapters in a nonfiction book doesn’t have to be inconvenient. 

However, if your child is eager to cover all the components of a specific text, you should support them. Start by educating them on the importance of a table of contents and discuss why the chapters are placed in order (for example, the characteristics of an animal, then its habitat, food, etc.). 

Furthermore, you should help them increase their understanding through presented charts, diagrams, and sketches. The coolest part about reading a nonfiction book with your child is that they are interested in the topic and are more likely to stay focused. 

Educate Your Child On Essential Components

As a first-time reader, your kid probably doesn’t understand the index, list of sources, table of contents, and other components that comprise a nonfiction book. You have to guide them through and educate them on how to use some of these elements. 

For example, a table of contents is perfect for navigating an idea or a topic of interest (if they don’t have enough time to read the whole text). The same goes for the index, which presents the covered topics in alphabetical order. 

Although you may skip the glossary as an adult, it can be interesting for a kid who wants to learn new phrases and words. In the end, photos and charts are probably the elements that your reader will focus on the most (in the beginning), as they present visual explanations of written text. 

Concluding Thoughts

To prepare them for challenging texts and concepts, you should introduce children to nonfiction books at an early age. Educating them on how to navigate a nonfiction text and find the topic that they are interested in is a valuable skill that they will significantly benefit from later on in life.

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Matthew Lynch published in Reading Education, Teachers

The Benefits Of Non-Fiction Reading Time

All kinds of books can help children learn better, and you can easily make the most out of reading with your children by using a range of methods. These will help you get the maximum benefits for your child when it comes to reading. 

They will get to improve their literacy and reading proficiency over time. One of the main genres of books that children should read is non-fiction, but why is that so? 

Why Are Non-Fiction Books Important?

Non-fiction books are essential for children to read, as they offer your child a range of new learning possibilities. They get access to new information, concepts, and vocabulary through these new books. These are sometimes different from what children gain from typical story picture books. 

Non-fiction books may also come with graphs, charts, and many other types of illustrations, and this will easily allow your child to learn more about new things. It also helps your child work on their reading skills. 

Book Walk – Going For the Preview

Before you start reading non-fiction books with your child, you must make sure that you go over the book. This way, they will have an idea about what it is. 

You don’t want to confuse them by giving them too much information all at once. Allow them to ease into it. You can help them go over the book by first reading the front and back covers. 

Along with this, skimming is a necessary process that will help them develop a better understanding of what the book is all about. Book previews or book walks prove to be quite effective when getting the most out of non-fiction reading time. 

Active Reading and Questions

You can generate increased interest in reading for your child by prompting them with questions. This will help them learn better as they go about reading non-fiction books. Lead them with statements that would make them want to question what they are reading. This will help them better learn about the ideas presented to them. 

Not only this, but they will develop a sense of reflective reading, as they will understand things that they read and see. 

You will find that active reading leads to a better learning experience for children. Helping them ask questions and reading more actively allows them to retain the information they receive from books. 

Concluding Thoughts

You can use reading apps and tools to help your child gain access to non-fiction reading material. Help them learn about new things by enabling them to ask questions and by giving them previews of what they will be reading. You’re sure to see them learn better and improve their vocabulary over time.

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Matthew Lynch published in Reading & Literacy, Teachers

Are Reading Workshops Effective?

Teachers have raved that reading workshops work exceptionally to help children get a better grasp of reading. But is this true, and to what extent is it true? There is a range of reasons that you must consider when determining whether reading workshops are effective or not. 

It is a reading intervention, one can say. But how effective is it in ensuring that a child improves their ability to read?

The Need For Reading

There is an impending need for children to learn how to read. There is no other way to go about it. But the way this is done depends entirely on what you believe. The best option to choose is to ensure that your child is given a gradual understanding of the reading process to help them learn better. 

Activating the student’s interest in reading is essential to ensure that they can work on their reading skills. A reading workshop might not be as effective as other home environmental aspects when it comes to this. While there is a need for reading, forcing it down with reading workshops won’t necessarily help children with reading. 

Reading Within Instructions

Offering children the right strategies to read is vital to help them develop fluent and reflective reading. There is a need to give them instructions for their reading to follow through with it.

Expecting them to learn too much in a given workshop is asking too much from them. Things must be easy for them to comprehend and shouldn’t be time-limited. While reading comprehension strategies for the classroom work great, setting up workshops might not lead to the ideal result that teachers want from children. 

Reading In Regular Environment

Children learn to read better when they are surrounded by an environment that they are comfortable in. Forcing them to read is not the best way to go about this. Instead of workshops, regular practice and incorporation of reading material in their familiar environment can help them learn about this better. 

There is a better chance of improving while-learning reading experiences through this as well. Children can comprehend what they read through a simple process of gradual understanding. 

Parents play an essential role in this as they are the ones who provide children with the right environment for learning. Offering kids screen time to their advantage is another way through which children can benefit. 

Concluding Thoughts

There is no actual evidence that supports the saying that workshops are effective for children to learn how to read. They might seem like the best choice, but one should know that the learning that the home environment and regular classrooms give offers much more learning to them than anything else.

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Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform, Teachers

K-12 Writing Standards: What Will it Take to Improve Them?

While global communication has grown and improved by leaps and bounds in the past two decades, the same cannot be said for K-12 writing skills. A new study released by Gary Troia at Michigan State University finds that K-12 writing standards are stagnant from a decade ago, along with student writing achievement. What’s more, Troia says that nearly 25 percent of K-12 students in the U.S. are not performing at a proficient writing level. He takes aim at the Common Core standards for writing and says that though some ideas are strong, others are still not asking enough of student writing.

Any U.S. K-12 educator, in any topic area, can certainly relate to Troia’s findings and surveys have found that employers also bemoan the writing deficiencies of their workforce. So if Common Core suggestions are not enough, what is needed to truly transform the writing landscape of K-12 classrooms and learners? Here’s what I think:

Earlier computer/keyboarding introduction

Troia touches on this point in his study when he says that most schools do not comprehensively address keyboarding until third grade. Many children are learning to type, or peck out letters, on a computer keyboard long before they are tracing letters in a Kindergarten workbook. Through keyboarding, children learn spelling and reading, as well as develop their memory skills. So why are schools waiting until the third grade to maximize on this facet of early composition and phonics? Basic handwriting and traditional ways of learning to write are important, but so is the technology that supports contemporary communication. Writing curriculum should include keyboarding and generally more screen instruction at a much earlier age to capitalize on the technology that can catapult U.S. students into a higher level of writing proficiency. The ideas are there – they just need to start earlier.

More interdisciplinary focus 

Writing is not an isolated school subject; it is a skill that permeates all topics of learning. Parents, teachers, students and administrators need to stop considering writing an area of strength or weakness (much in the way we gear students towards math/science pursuits or creative areas if the talent exists). Writing is a must-have skill in the global economy and one that will be needed in some capacity for every career. We can’t let students off the hook if writing is simply not their strong suit. Writing is a skill that anyone CAN master with enough practice and its practical applications need to be emphasized in every subject area.

Remedial intervention

College is not the place where students should receive remedial help on their writing. Stronger programs need to exist as young as pre-K to ensure that no child moves forward without a firm grasp of the writing skills required. Teachers need time and resources to intervene on an individual level. Of course parental help here is also a necessity but cannot be relied upon to ensure that all students have writing proficiency as graduates. Promoting students that lack grade-level writing skills in the hopes that they will catch up only furthers the problem down the road.

It’s time to put writing on the pedestal it deserves. It is the foundation of K-12 academic success and workplace achievement. If we put writing on the back burner, it has the potential to damage every other subject area and hold our students back from their true achievement in school and life beyond the K-12 and college years. Now is the time to make writing a priority, particularly if we expect this next generation of students to lead globally.

How do you think we can collectively improve K-12 student writing proficiency?

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