The Question Formulation Technique: 6 Steps to Help Students Ask Better Questions

• November 29, 2011 by Sherrelle Walker, M.A.

The ability to ask questions is the genesis – the “big bang” – where learning really starts. It is that moment where information that has entered the brain mixes with other ideas and begins to synthesize new ideas. Questions demonstrate curiosity. Questions represent the beginning of discovery and innovation. The first step of the scientific method itself is the careful formulation of a question.

But how often do we focus on teaching our students how to formulate good, well-considered questions? Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana have focused their work on exactly this skill, developing an approach they call the Question Formulation Technique (QFT). The two are co-directors of The Right Question Institute (RQI), a non-profit organization that focuses on helping people learn to better advocate for themselves and participate more in decision-making processes by teaching them how to ask questions. While the RQI applies their techniques across health care, community service, public agencies and community-based organizations, their ideas represent an excellent tool that we can use in our classrooms every day.

Recently published in the Harvard Education Letter, their article “Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions,” describes the Question Formulation Technique, a way for educators to present material in ways that encourage students to take a more active ownership role in their learning. There are six steps to the technique, as follows:

1.      Find a focus - The “QFocus,” as it is called by Rothstein and Santana, is a prompt that serves to focus student questions so they can explore more expansive ideas. The authors offer an example presented by a teacher after covering the causes of the 1804 Haitian revolution: “Once we were slaves. Now we are free,” With a clear, direct thought like this to focus their thinking, the students begin formulating and posing questions around this idea.

2.      Brainstorm - Constrained by a few simple rules to help people stay focused, students formulate as many questions as possible. At this point, they are asked not to judge the quality of the questions, nor pursue any answers. This is much like the classic “brainstorming” process, where ideas are generated in a free, uninterrupted flow.

3.      Refine - The students work with the questions they have created, reformulating them as open- and closed-ended questions. They categorize them and make them clearer, more focused and more apt to yield the desired answers.

4.      Prioritize - Using lesson plans and teaching goals, the teacher helps students select their top three questions and use them to zero in on the most important aspects of the material.

5.      Determine next steps - Students and teachers together review the priority questions and make decisions about how best to use them for learning. The questions can be used to drive experimentation, further reading, research and/or discussion.

6.      Reflect - The teacher and students review their questions in the context of the six steps they have worked through to produce them. According to Rothstein and Santana, “Making the QFT completely transparent helps students see what they have done and how it contributed to their thinking and learning. They can internalize the process and then apply it in many other settings.”

Note the key word in that last sentence – internalize. Through this process, students add question formulation to their cognitive toolbox, making it a part of how they address information and problem-solving going forward. The authors note a number of benefits to the QFT, including increased group participation and better classroom management. But more importantly, they found that students were more apt to delve deeply into topics on their own, posing well-considered, critical questions that not only help direct their learning, but allow them to take more effective ownership of that learning as well.

As a “habit of mind,” the Question Formulation Technique demonstrates beautifully how the brain is built for pattern recognition. It also represents research that holds great promise for helping students form thinking patterns early on that will yield lifelong benefits.

Related Reading:

Teaching Creativity in the Classroom

Inspiring Students to Dream, Learn and Grow

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Categories: Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: cognitive skills, creativity, decision making, elementary school learning, how children learn, motivating students, science, teacher effectiveness, teacher impact

Tapping the Source: Finding and Using the Innate Student Passion for Learning

• June 16, 2011 by Sherrelle Walker, M.A.

In a previous post, I began an exploration of methods for increasing student motivation. We delved into Daniel Pink’s model of motivation that he describes in his book, Drive, and how motivation arises most effectively when a project or task addresses three internal emotional variables at the same time: autonomy, mastery and purpose.

Along with Pink, another great contemporary thinker, writer and speaker in the world of education is Mark Prensky, who coined the idea of “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” (now well-known across the education technology community) to characterize how technology advances have completely changed the way students learn in a single generation. Like Pink, Prensky is a student of the mind who has dedicated his career to exploring and developing ideas to help educators help their students learn as effectively and purposefully as possible.

In a recent piece, Blame Our Young? Or Use Their Passion!, Prensky briefly references how we try to motivate the next generation to succeed through hitting them hard with the message that the future is in their hands. Prensky cites President Obama, Colin Powell and Newt Gingrich for all using this technique of heaping responsibility upon our youth. An excellent example of this style can be seen in President Obama’s 2009 speech given at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. It was a wonderful talk, to be sure, and it was historic in that it was one of those rare moments when a president has directed an entire speech to our nation’s young people. In that address, Obama talked about how our youth had the opportunity to make choices to help build their own futures, as well as to contribute to helping make our nation become great.

Still, let’s face it: as wonderful as those sentiments might sound to adults, to a young person, that is a daunting amount of responsibility. According to Prensky’s thinking, this kind of discipline-based, “the weight of the future is in your hands” approach to motivation does not come from within, and for this reason, is bound to generally fail. If you think about it, middle schoolers have a hard enough time worrying about next week, much less what might be coming in five or ten years.

“What if,” he ponders, “instead, we asked the kids what their passion is, and invited them to follow and use that passion as a gateway to all kinds of learning—learning that will help our country and the world.” (Prensky, p. 2)

What if we were to really take the time to ask what our students were passionate about and then used that as jumping off points for greater learning? If a student loves music, fantastic! We can use that to talk about history, mathematics and acoustics. If a student is interested in boats, excellent! Now we have a great place to launch into conversations about history, technology, geography and ecology. What? Janie loves dogs? Wonderful, let’s talk about all those wonderful breeds and the genetics (and by extension, mathematics) behind all their beautiful differences.

Considering that due to our different neurological wirings each of us perceives the world differently, the conclusion that a true, long-lasting passion for learning must come from within seems obvious. How can we expect every student—each with his or her own completely unique perspective on the universe—to learn in the same way?

This is why it is so essential for educators to help students find and pursue their passions. We can teach math or science or geography in the classroom until we’re blue in the face. Some students may absorb the lessons, some may not. If, on the other hand, we can help our students find the links between their passions and these same lessons, then we create a direct connection between the essential content and something they truly and deeply care about, helping motivate the student to not only continue learning, but strive for individual excellence.

According to Prensky, “Wherever this (passion-based learning) has been tried—in scattered public, private and charter schools, and even MIT—it has been a resounding success. Kids flock to be part of something that allows them to follow their own interests.” (Prensky, p. 2) In case you hadn’t noticed, we have come full circle back to Pink’s elements of motivation—autonomy, mastery and purpose—and using that innate passion to help encourage students to take ownership of and responsibility for their learning.

In today’s age of technology-based classrooms, with our ability to have self-directed discovery and learning so integrated into the learning experience, we have the opportunity for educators to assume more of the role of coach and less of the role of lecturer. In so doing, we can help our students identify and tap into the very core of the topics that genuinely interest them and give them the learning tools to pursue those topics. At that point, once we uncover those passions, we then have an immediate in-road into the mind of each student and a pathway we can travel with each individual as they explore the world around them and begin to figure out how to make it better.

Further reading:

Prensky, Marc. Blame Our Young! Or Use Their Passion? We can do better than just laying the responsibility for solving our nation’s problems on the backs of our kids. 2010.

Prensky, Marc.  What I Learned Recently In New York City Classrooms: How to keep all kids busily engaged at all times. 2010.

Related Reading:

Individualizing Instruction Through Understanding Different Types of Learners

Teaching Creativity in the Classroom

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Categories: Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: adaptivity, digital natives, emotions in learning, how children learn, Innate abilities, motivating students, school leader effectiveness, teacher effectiveness, teacher impact

Individualizing Instruction Through Understanding Different Types of Learners

• June 14, 2011 by Terri Zezula

For an educator, getting to know each learner is like experiencing a new book. Every child—every mind that comes into the classroom—represents a new discovery with every turn of the page, their own way of seeing and experiencing the world, and they each bring a unique library of experiences, hopes, fears and dreams.

Now, while that makes for a poetic discussion about the wonderful variety among students, it also makes for a practical challenge in helping every one of these individuals achieve their greatest potential. How can an educator present information such that all of these learners—with all their different world views and brain wirings—will get the most out of the school experience?

Researchers have generated multiple models of the mind, each providing its own way of understanding how we can conceptualize and leverage learning differences in the classroom. Such categories are simply ways for us to classify students and ensure that we are reaching every one as effectively as possible.

All these models strive to answer one single question: How does each individual learner experience and process the world around them? Academics have spent great energies on unlocking these secrets and developing models of how we learn. A quick trip through just a few of these theories (and there are many other theories out there) gives us an idea of the breadth of ideas posed by experts of note since the 1980s:

• David Kolb described four types of learners: convergers (who develop abstract concepts and then actively experiment), divergers (who experience the world and then reflect on their observations), assimilators (who develop abstract concepts and then observe and reflect), and accommodators (who experience the world and then actively experiment).
• Honey and Mumford labeled learners as activists, reflectors, theorists and pragmatists.
• Anthony Gregorc described how people perceive the world in two ways (concrete and abstract) and order the world in two ways (random and sequential), and developed a model with four learner types based on the possible combinations of these qualities.
• Fleming’s model described learners as visual, auditory, read-write or kinesthetic, classifying learners by the kind of information that they most effectively assimilate.
• Howard Gardner described eight different “intelligences,” including linguistic, logical/mathematical, spatial, bodily/kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal and naturalist.

 

In looking at these frameworks as a group, they all converge in certain ways and diverge in others. But one element remains consistent throughout, and that is the motivation for having them in the first place. There is a clear practical need for such frameworks in the classroom. Education is not a one-on-one teacher/learner proposition. As much as we would like, we as educators simply cannot provide fully individualized instruction for every student in a classroom of twenty or thirty.

The art and science of classifying how the human brain processes and learns is and will constantly change as we discover more and more about how the brain works. Whichever model or models are applied in the classroom (and again, the best educators will have a deep enough command of each of these models to leverage the best of each), it is up to educators to ensure that each learner is developing and cultivating the same set of core, fundamental cognitive skills: memory (the ability to store information), attention (the ability to focus on tasks and filter out distractions), processing (how fast a student can perceive and manipulate information), and sequencing (how accurately a student can order information).  These four key cognitive skill sets, when developed together, have been demonstrated to improve learning and reading. Thus, any teaching we do based on learner classifications must support the development of these skills.

That said, if these classifications add power and efficiency to the way we impart these skills to our students and classes, then we should make use of them as much as possible. In the end, any tricks we can use, any knowledge we can leverage, any technique we can employ—if the research demonstrates it to be effective—represents a valid bit of knowledge that we can use to help our students succeed.

Learn more about the four essential cognitive skills of memory, attention, processing, and sequencing. For further reading:

Kolb, D. A. 1984. Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Honey, P & Mumford, A, (1982). The Manual of Learning Styles. Maidenhead, UK: Peter Honey Publications.

Mills, D. W. (2002). Applying what we know: Student learning styles. Retrieved May 22, 2011.:

Gardner, Howard (1983; 1993) Frames of Mind: The theory of multiple intelligences, New York: Basic Books. Second edition published in Britain by Fontana Press.

Related Reading:

Inspiring Students to Dream, Learn and Grow

AMPing Up Our Teaching to Increase Intrinsic Student Motivation

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Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Brain Research, Reading & Learning

Tags: attention, cognitive skills, how children learn, Innate abilities, learning environment, memory, motivating students, processing rate, sequencing, student growth, teacher effectiveness

Endorsing the Common Core State Standards Initiative

• May 26, 2011 by Corey Fitzgerald

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a state-led effort to provide a nationally consistent framework that will ready American students for success in college and in the global workforce. To date, 44 states have adopted the common core standards approach and numerous public and private business partners, including Scientific Learning, have endorsed this vision of consistence and clarity in our nation’s education system. 

What’s important to recognize is that the Common Core State Standards Initiative is NOT a directive from the federal government.  Each state voluntarily adopts the standards based on timelines and context within their state; this is key.  The role of the federal government will be to support states as they begin to implement this approach by providing flexibility in the use of existing federal funds, accountability metrics and revise or align existing federal education laws with the lessons learned from past initiatives.  The outcome will be a more collaborative state- and federal-level relationship that will focus on employing the best practices and highest evidence-based outcomes from educational research across the country.

The goal of the Common Core is to provide educators with an exocentric understanding of what students are expected to learn, allowing them to identify the most effective strategies and modes of instruction that will help them excel in serving their students’ needs.  Leading the effort are the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center).  Comprised of state leaders in conjunction with parents, teachers, school administrators, business partners and experts from across the country, they have developed a shared set of goals and expectations that will help our students succeed.

To ensure this process is collaborative, inclusive and rigorous, several working groups and committees have been formed to develop, write and validate the approach to implementing these common standards across the country.  By aligning our country’s standards with other high achieving educational models and setting realistic goals, we will be better positioned to meet the real world expectations and prepare our nation’s students for college and career-oriented success beyond the K-12 classroom.

The importance of the Common Core State Standards Initiative continues to be viewed from many angles, although there are areas of uncertainty that have given rise to opposition.  Of course, standards alone cannot improve the quality of our nation’s education system, but they do give educators a clearer vision for setting goals and expectations for their students.  The standards will not prevent different levels of achievement among students, but they will help teachers provide more consistent exposure to curriculum and meaningful instruction through opportunity-based learning and classroom experiences. 

Students will no doubt benefit as our country continues to do the right things in calibrating the education system, promoting more frequent, intense and adaptive instruction to improve the way students learn and strengthen our rank among the top-performing nations in the world.

Related Reading:

How Scientific Learning Products Correlate with Common Core State Standards

Common Core State Standards Initiative: Myths vs. Facts

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Categories: Education Funding, Grants, and Stimulus, Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic success, curriculum, elementary school learning, high school learning, how children learn, instructional reform, literacy, middle school learning, motivating students, student growth, teacher effectiveness, teacher impact

AMPing Up Our Teaching to Increase Intrinsic Student Motivation

• May 24, 2011 by Sherrelle Walker, M.A.

Think about this discussion on motivation presented in 2009 by Daniel Pink, career analyst, ex-speech writer for Al Gore, and author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.  He described how modern business management styles once motivated employees—the old “carrot and stick” or reward and punishment approach—actually works in direct conflict with what science has shown about human motivation.

When it comes to optimizing performance on creative tasks, Pink, drawing from the conclusions of numbers psychological studies, tells us that it comes down to three elements:

1)     Autonomy: people have the urge to direct their own lives.

2)     Mastery: people have an innate desire to improve in skills that matter.

3)     Purpose: people want to contribute to something larger than themselves.

Environments that cultivated these three conditions led to faster, better, more creative work.

Now, consider this idea applied to the classroom. We have a great opportunity to make our classrooms into places where students can experience learning based on the three principles above, autonomy, mastery and purpose (AMP). I would argue that we need to “AMP up” our teaching.

When I consider instilling self-motivation in students, Pink’s three elements give us a great framework upon which we can begin to construct our teaching strategies.

Now, giving up the carrot and the stick will be a tough one for many of us to stomach, especially because our educational system is so rooted in such thinking. Certainly, rewards can serve to get a student to finish his homework, clean up her desk or complete a project. But, incentivizing does not cultivate self-motivation, and as Pink describes, the research shows that it actually decreases creative capabilities.

So, what might an AMPed classroom look like?

• Autonomy: In such a classroom, students have clear goals to reach, but maybe they have the freedom to schedule their own time (within reason) and create their own strategies for how and when they will reach those goals.
• Mastery: Students need to understand why they are learning what they are learning. They need to understand the context around why these skills are so important. In an AMPed classroom, this information is integrated into instruction and students are encouraged to assimilate the “why” of their lessons just as much as the “what.”
• Purpose: In AMPed classrooms, lessons and projects are not hypothetical. They are based in the real-world and allow students to truly affect positive change in our classrooms, schools and communities.

In the end, if we look at these three ways of looking at motivation, we are simply shifting the motivators from external ones to internal ones. We are connecting our lessons directly to what is important to each individual student at a personal level. Through providing a way for the student to insert themselves into the material through the creative process and their own solution development, the learning becomes directly relevant to their lives and priorities.

Edward Deci, a premier researcher on motivation, wrote: “The proper question is not, 'how can people motivate others?' but rather, "how can people create the conditions within which others will motivate themselves?"^[i] Ultimately, our success as educators must lie in taking the long view of our students’ lives—beyond their lives as students to when they will put their educations to use as professionals. And with that long view, the future adult who is a self-motivated individual will certainly be more successful than the person who stands by waiting for others to move them.

Watch Daniel Pink’s 19-minute TED talk on the surprising science of motivation.

[i] Ferlazzo, Larry. “Helping Students Motivate Themselves.” Education Week Teacher, April 22, 2011. 

For further reading:

Self-Determination Theory: An Approach to Human Motivation and Personality, Edward Deci and Richard Ryan

Helping Students Motivate Themselves: Practical Answers To Classroom Problems, Larry Ferlazzo, 2011

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Related Reading:

Teaching Creativity in the Classroom

Inspiring Students to Dream, Learn, and Grow

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Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: creativity, how adults learn, how children learn, learning environment, motivating students, school leader effectiveness, student growth, teacher effectiveness, teacher impact

Our Changing Education Landscape: Cutting-edge Research and Strategies for Today’s Educators

• March 15, 2011 by Norene Wiesen

Where is K-12 education headed? What might the future look like for educators and students? Join us for a free webinar and get the answers with Dr. Willard R. Daggett, Friday, March 18, at 10am Pacific.  A nationally acclaimed education expert, Daggett will discuss cutting-edge research and strategies to address today’s education challenges, improve teaching and accelerate learning for all students.

What are the real challenges facing schools today? How can we effectively and intelligently address student performance, leadership, finances, and the use of technology? Learn how K-12 educators can work to proactively address these issues in today’s accountability-driven climate.

Daggett is the CEO of the International Center for Leadership in Education, and author of numerous books, articles and studies about learning and education. He brings a comprehensive expertise in moving education systems toward more rigorous, relevant skills and knowledge for all students.

Join us for this free learning session! Register now for “Our Changing Education Landscape” with Willard Daggett—and visit the Scientific Learning webinars page to learn about other events about brain fitness and accelerating learning.

Related Reading:

The Technological Lives of Today’s Students

Creating the Optimal “Internal” Learning Environment

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Attend one of our popular webinars with thought leaders in learning. Live and pre-recorded webinars are available. Register today!

Categories: Education Trends, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic problems, academic success, accelerate learning, how children learn, learning environment, Scientific Learning events, student reading growth, teacher effectiveness, teacher impact, technology in education

Data Driven Decisions: A GPS Approach

• November 2, 2010 by Corey Fitzgerald

Technology offers us so many useful tools and strategies; it’s a wonder how we ever got along without them.  Let’s consider the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) receiver and its remarkable ability to pinpoint our location anywhere on earth.  Accurate to within one meter, a long step for most adults, and capable of tracking your route across any terrain, they rely on a continuous feed of real-time data that is accurate and reliable.  As educators, can we apply concepts like these to the classroom to make better, faster and more accurate decisions about the learning landscape?   

It’s a rhetorical question, and the resounding answer is Yes. However, there is room to argue that our current system leaves us falling perpetually short as educators are forced to wait weeks or months for standardized assessment results to flow back into their hands.  The resonating concern is that this periodic data limits the ability to accurately address the underlying causes of failure in-step with the ongoing instruction.  Corrective action must ensue, and initiatives to support a more timely return on the data must be put into place through a process with strategies to track the day to day activities and progress monitoring for all students. 

Thankfully, some of these efforts are already underway, reflected in the nation’s focus to implement state-wide reform, with a priority being placed on Assessment and Standards.  However, a paradigm still exists, in that benchmarking is limited to designated grade levels and the “in between years” are somewhat neglected, leaving variability and non-standardization to chance.  So how does your state stack up?  Visit the USDOE Institute of Education Sciences website, National Center for Education Statistics, and query the collection of data and reports to learn more: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/statereform/

Next steps: Plotting a course to data utopia. 

Using cutting edge technology underpinned with neuroscience principles on how the brain learns, Scientific Learning has pioneered software that accelerates the acquisition of language and reading skills, yielding years of gain in a matter of weeks.  Like a GPS, a continuous stream of real-time data provides accurate and reliable measures of student performance daily, plotting an ideal course of learning that eliminates the lag time of data collection and analysis.  Furthermore, educators can weave this information back into the classroom immediately, and focus intently on the specific areas of need.  In keeping sights set high on the destination—achievement for all students—there’s a proven way to deliver success where getting lost is not an option.

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Categories: Education Trends, Progress Tracker

Tags: assessments, decision making, teacher effectiveness, technology in education

The Results of Fast ForWord Use at the Westfield Washington Schools in Indiana

• July 13, 2010 by Melissa Agocs

The Westfield Washington Schools are located just north of Indianapolis, in Indiana. During the 2007 - 2008 school year, the Westfield Intermediate School implemented Fast ForWord products.

For this study, the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) were used as a pre- and post-test. The MAP assesses language arts, math, and reading skills. Ninety-eight students used the Fast ForWord products and had MAP scores that could serve as pre- and post-tests.

School personnel administered the assessment and then reported scores to Scientific Learning for analysis. On average, students used the products over a period of six months. The majority of students used three or more Fast ForWord products, starting on the Fast ForWord Literacy product, then advancing to the Literacy Advanced product, and then on to one or more Fast ForWord Reading products.

MAP scores are reported in terms of RIT scores, which indicate a student’s achievement level within a specific subject. To provide a performance comparison, participants’ gains were compared to the student’s expected gains, which were based upon RIT growth norms in the three subject areas of language arts, math, and reading.

Students showed exciting results and exceeded the expected RIT growth norms. Students who used Fast ForWord products made 7 points of RIT growth in language arts, which is 67% greater than the expected growth of 4.2 points. Gains of 10.1 points were seen in math for the Fast ForWord participants, which is 35% greater than the expected growth. Students gained 8.8 points in reading, which is nearly double the expected 4.5 points growth.

The differences between the gain scores and the expected gain scores were statistically significant in all three subject areas. These results suggest that using the Fast ForWord products strengthened the students’ foundational skills and better positioned them to benefit from the classroom curriculum.

For more information, please see the Educator Briefing and Full Report on this study as well as any of our 200+ additional reports on Fast ForWord results. If you have questions about any of our research studies, please contact us.

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Categories: Fast ForWord, Progress Tracker, Reading & Learning, Scientific Learning Research

Tags: academic success, accelerate learning, assessments, brain training, child reading development, curriculum, improving reading skills, increased test scores, Indiana, investing in innovation, language learning, learning to read, literacy, MAP, math, phonemic awareness, school leader effectiveness, teacher effectiveness, technology in education

The Imperative of Cultivating Healthy Adolescent Sleep Habits

• July 8, 2010 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

As dedicated parents and teachers, when we talk to adolescents, we tend to focus our coaching on coping with the big dangers like drugs, alcohol and sex. We talk a lot about the imperative of developing good eating and study habits. But when was the last time you talked to the teen in your life about sleep? Research has shown us that our young people’s sleep habits are suffering, creating negative ripples across their waking lives. Quite simply, we need to become better "sleep coaches."

Like breathing or eating, sleep is a physiological necessity. As sleeping and waking habits change during our adolescent years, youngsters begin to experience the effects of lost sleep. Even losing less than an hour a night on a regular basis can result in serious problems. In their 1998 study, "Sleep Schedules and Daytime Functioning in Adolescents", Amy Wolfson and Mary Carskadon examined the correlations between sleep/wake habits, student characteristics and daytime functioning (mood, performance and behavior). Their study of 3,120 students uncovered concerning trends:

• Forty-five percent of tenth to twelfth graders go to bed after midnight on school nights, and 90% go to bed later than that on weekends.
• On weekends, 10- to 15-year-olds get 30 to 60 minutes more sleep; by age 18, that difference goes up to over 2 hours.
• Reductions in sleep time were directly attributable to later bedtimes paired with no change to wake-up time.
• Students getting C’s, D’s and F’s got, on average, 25 minutes less sleep and went to bed 40 minutes later than their counterparts getting A’s and B’s.

See Wolfson and Carskadon’s paper for complete data, but on the whole, adolescents in their studies overall did not get enough sleep, which directly correlated with reduced capacities during the day.

So we know that these important minutes of sleep are being lost, but what are the neurological outcomes? In his 1999 study, "The Consequences of Insufficient Sleep for Adolescents," Ronald Dahl describes five effects that can create negative ripples across an adolescent’s life, such as: 1) sleepiness, 2) tiredness 3) mood, attention, and behavior, 4) impact of emotional and behavioral problems, and 5) bi-directional effects.

• Sleepiness: While highly stimulating activities can stave off sleepiness, a sleepy brain drops into sleep mode during periods of low stimulation. For a sleep-deprived adolescent, activities like reading, driving and classroom learning can be prime dozing times.
• Tiredness and decreased motivation: When we're tired, we find it difficult to initiate and follow through on tasks, especially those that we might find boring. Our motivation and ability to focus on future goals drops; we become less able to engage in activities like reading or studying.
• Emotional variability: Sleep-deprived brains experience a greater range of emotions. Adolescents who haven’t had enough sleep are more likely to experience more extremes of responses like anger, aggression, frustration, sadness and impatience.
• Attention and performance: Youngsters working with a lack of sleep experienced mental lapses in attention during simple tasks, as well as reduced abilities to perform more complex, multifaceted tasks.

So what can we do to change this trend and coach our young people to have healthier sleep habits? If knowledge is power, we can give them the facts. We can actively teach the importance of sleep and the science of circadian rhythms and our innate connection to natural cycles. We can inform our students about the importance of good, healthy sleep, and help them understand some of the real, serious consequences like those above. For some resources, check out this Circadian Rhythms Fact Sheet from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences or these five ideas for better sleep written specifically for teenagers.

Finally, as parents, we can create quiet, comforting evening environments and rituals in our homes to move our families from the fast pace of the day to a slower, protected, unpressured environment where sleep can come. For hints and tips, check out Sleep Rituals: Training The Body And The Mind by Dr. Michael Breus (from the Huffington Post, January 2010).

Are the teens in your life getting enough sleep?  Share your observations on the Scientific Learning Facebook page.

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic problems, attention, behavior, cognitive skills, health and well being, high school learning, sleep, struggling students, teacher effectiveness

Teaching Children to Read

• July 6, 2010 by Martha Burns, Ph.D

According to the Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read Reports of the Subgroups, the capacity to learn and grow as a reader depends on five essential skills:

Foundational Skills for Beginning Readers:

1) Phonemic Awareness: The insight that every spoken word can be conceived as a sequence of phonemes. Phonemes are the speech sounds that are represented by the letters of an alphabet.

2) Phonemic Decoding: The ability to capture the meaning of unfamiliar words by translating groups of letters back into the sounds that they represent, link them to one's verbal vocabulary, and access their meaning.

Skills Needed to Read for Meaning:

3) Vocabulary: Understanding the words in a passage, including the specific dimensions of their meanings or usage that matter in context.  For example, knowing that “tree” when reading about a “family tree” has a different meaning from “maple tree.”

4) Fluency: The ability to read with sufficient ease and accuracy that active attention can be focused on the meaning and message of the text and the text easily retained.

5) Comprehension: Thinking about the meaning of each segment of the text as it is read, building an understanding of the text as a whole, and reflecting on its meaning and message.

Teachers today are fortunate to have access to a wealth of scientifically based research into what works when teaching children to read.  The links that follow are courtesy of the National Institute for Literacy:

Birth to Early Childhood

Children begin building literacy skills long before they go to school.  Even very young children can be prepared to become successful readers later on.  Research has identified certain skills that are important for later literacy development; these skills include knowing the names and sounds of printed letters, manipulating speech sounds, and remembering what has been said for a short time.  Here are some ways to teach younger children these pre-reading skills.

Childhood

From kindergarten through third grade, young readers are actively developing all five of the core reading skills from phonemic awareness to fluency and comprehension.  Research has shown that teaching children to read successfully during this window requires a combination of strategies and instructional approaches.  Teachers must know how children learn to read and be able to tailor instructional approaches to individual children--especially those who are struggling readers.  Here are some instructional approaches for the five essential skills.

Adolescence

While many adolescent readers have mastered phonemic awareness and decoding strategies, they are often still challenged to fully understand what they read.  In middle and high school, it is common for literacy skills to be developed not only in language arts courses, but also in a variety of different content areas.  To prepare students for the literacy challenges of secondary school, language arts and content area teachers need to focus on the last three components of reading: vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.  Here are some approaches to teaching vocabulary and comprehension skills.

 

Related reading:

Sing the Alphabet Backwards Sometimes: Kindergarten Phonemic Awareness Activities

Sharing the Practices of Phonics Practice: 5 Instructional Approaches

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Categories: Reading & Learning

Tags: child reading development, early learning, elementary learning, elementary school learning, fluency, high school learning, how children learn, improving reading skills, intervention, learning through play, learning to read, literacy, memory, oral language skills, phonemic awareness, phonics, reading comprehension, reading intervention, struggling readers, struggling students, teacher effectiveness, teacher impact, vocabulary