The Benefits of Teacher Read-aloud in Classrooms

This week's article summary is Make Time for the Read-Aloud.

As most reading is done silently, children don’t get much opportunity to hear an adult (teacher or parent) read with clarity and intonation. 

There are many benefits to reading aloud to children, no matter what age. As the article states, the benefits of reading aloud to children has been supported by countless research studies for decades.

While engaging them in the joy of reading, reading aloud also helps children begin to understand how writing is structured.

They also get to hear the correct pronunciation of words and, if they are following along with the text, they can see how punctuation supports word syntax.

The article below provides some ways teachers and parents can prep in advance to ensure their oral reading not only engages kids but also helps them enhance their own literacy skills.

Joe

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Reading aloud to students during class time may sound like a quaint endeavor from a bygone era. 

But literacy experts insist that it’s every bit as relevant now as ever, and they urge English/language arts teachers—especially of early elementary students (although many experts espouse the practice as meaningful throughout K-12)—to make the ritual part of their daily instructional practice.

The “read-aloud” requires a significant commitment by the teacher—beyond simply committing to the act of reading aloud to students routinely. In its most effective form, the read-aloud demands thoughtful advanced preparation. It’s time well-spent, say literacy experts.

“I would argue that, of all components of reading, read-alouds have one of the longest-standing research bases. There’s a lot of data showing the power of read-alouds,” said Molly Ness, a former teacher, reading researcher, and vice president of academic content at Learning Ally, a nonprofit organization that supports educators.

Ness’s perspective isn’t new. The Commission on Reading, in 1985, declared read-alouds “the single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading.”

The rationale behind support for the read-aloud is simple: The activity offers an engaging way to pack a big literacy “punch” into a single classroom activity, particularly regarding reading comprehension. 

“The read-aloud increases vocabulary and background knowledge, which increases comprehension. And the better you can understand, the more likely you are to read, and it becomes this cycle, an upward spiral of a literary trajectory,” Ness said.

Below, literacy experts and teachers share three strategies on how to plan for read-alouds that ignite a passion for the joy of reading while also boosting literacy skills.

Examine texts for literacy components: Ness recommends that, well before picking up a text to read to students, teachers consider its potential obstacles and opportunities by asking themselves questions like: Will the vocabulary present a challenge? Do students have the background knowledge to grasp the text’s content? Weighing these elements beforehand can help teachers plan a developmentally appropriate read-aloud accordingly, she explains. Try to choose texts whose content matches what is being taught in other classes. This strategy mirrors an instructional strategy a growing number of districts are implementing called “knowledge-building curriculum,” which is intentionally designed to grow students’ knowledge about topics they’re learning in other classes, including in social studies and science.

Choose texts that unlock the joy of reading: While read-alouds aim to boost literacy skills, their goal of sparking the joy of reading is perhaps equally important. Not every student will be attracted to the same text, but there do seem to be some common features in literature that children find engaging. A 2023 Harvard study assessed factors that contribute to “story absorption”—the mental state a reader experiences when fully immersed in a story. Students prefer information presented in a narrative format, regardless of whether the text was fiction or nonfiction. Mysteries and fast-paced plots proved to be engaging genres to young readers. Respondents said they were also drawn to characters who are misfits as well as those to whom they could personally relate.

Make seating arrangements a high priority: Seating arrangements can impact students’ learning experience. At the very least, all students should be able to see and hear the teacher with ease. To promote the read-aloud as a special ritual, teachers may consider emphasizing students’ physical comfort, some proponents of the practice suggest—perhaps allowing them to stretch out on a rug or use pillows or bean-bag chairs. But ultimately, teachers will need to assess their students individually and as a class before determining how to balance the twin goals of creating an environment for the read-aloud that encourages comfort yet supports students’ ability to focus on the learning activity. Presenting a read-aloud differs from a standard classroom presentation. Appropriate prosody—reading with expression and meaning, which includes elements like correct pronunciation, appropriate pace, effective pauses, and adopting different dialects—takes practice. Doing it daily, as literacy experts suggest, allows for plenty of practice.

“There are so many reasons to read aloud to students,” Ness said.

Are Educational Apps Valuable For Learning in Early Childhood

This week's article summary is Can Young Children Learn from Educational Apps?

Last summer, I spent a week with my grandkids in Hilton Head. Most of the time they were either on the beach or in the backyard swimming pool. In the early morning and late afternoon they played various card and board games with my wife and me.

What was interesting to me was during the entire week they never asked to watch TV or to use any technology. On the five-hour drive from Atlanta, they had used their iPads, but once they got to the beach, they ignored technology.

Even though my grandkids never asked for technology, we adults occasionally offered them technology as a distraction, so we could have some adult time. (You can only play so much Uno after all.) 

What further amazed me was how quickly my grandkids laser focused on whatever app they opened or You Tube video they watched. They were transfixed until we physically yanked the iPads from them. 

So, the article below intrigued me. Do younger children (my grandkids are now 8 and 6) learn from technology?

With certain parameters and enhancements, educational apps, including video games, can result in student learning. 

The article refers to the Sesame Street ‘video deficit’ effect: kids don’t learn lessons through TV shows, even if they’re ostensibly educational. They need human interaction, dialogue, and explanation to have lessons from TV or educational apps stick and transfer to real life. 

So, the lesson for parents and teachers is there is certainly a place for technology to support young children’s learning but nothing as of yet is a substitute for human interaction. (Take that, ChatGPT!)

I’ll remember this article this summer, as I endure never-ending games of Uno with my grandkids rather than tempt them with an iPad!

Joe

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Parents often hear about the dangers of screen time for children, but rarely does there seem to be a distinction among different types of screen time. 

In particular, apps on smartphones or touchscreen devices for children seem to be growing in popularity, even among young children. 

In fact, research finds that 90% of children aged 2 to 3 years use a touchscreen device and that infants and toddlers on average spend 10 to 45 min per day on touchscreen devices.

Many apps claim to be “educational” and some apps are used as part of the curriculum in elementary school classrooms. 

Can young children actually learn from this technology? Are apps more educational than TV shows and movies? And if parents allow their children to engage with apps, which apps are best?

Research broadly finds that young children can learn from interactive apps, but it remains unclear the extent to which this learning is transferable to the real world. A meta-analysis found that most studies involving children five years and younger show an overall positive impact of touchscreen apps on learning. 

Another study found that children under 6 years old can learn from interactive apps, particularly in math skills. They also found some evidence that apps may improve phonics skills, teach science facts, and improve executive functioning. 

The review failed to find evidence that apps improved social communication skills.

Although we have consistent evidence that young children can learn from apps, it remains unclear the extent to which they can transfer this knowledge to the real world. It is well documented that young children (particularly children under 3) do not learn as well from video as they do from real life interactions and do not transfer learning from video to real life, referred to as the video deficit. However, there is some evidence that children can transfer learning when screen time is more interactive such as Facebook or video chat.

So, research finds that it is possible for children to learn from apps and that engaging in apps with them may enhance the transfer of learning to the real world, but does this mean they can learn from just any app? How can you determine which apps are truly educational?

A recent study evaluated 124 popular “educational” apps and found that 58% of popular apps were “low quality” in terms of how they promote learning.

The researchers evaluated apps based on the following:

• Active learning – whether the app requires critical thinking or intellectual effort versus a simple cause-and-effect
• Engagement in the learning process  – whether the interactive features enhance or distract from learning, including whether the app has unnecessary visual and sound effects and distracting ads
• Meaningful learning – how relevant what the child is learning in the app is to the child’s life and existing knowledge
• Social interaction – the extent to which the app encourages children to interact with characters in the app or with their caregivers while engaging with the app

The following apps received the highest scores in terms of promoting learning: 

• My Food – Nutrition for Kids
• Daniel Tiger’s Stop & Go Potty
• Toca Life (Neighborhood, School and Hospital)
• LEGO DUPLO Town
• Zoombinis
• Measure That Animal
• Math Shelf
• Know Number Free
• Endless Alphabet
• Letter School
• First Word Sampler
• Word Wall HD
• Pocket Phonics
• Skills Builder Spelling
• Phonic Monster 1
• ABC Touch and Learn
• Bee Sees
• Kindergarten Lite
• Starfall
• Super Why

This research provides the following tips for parents related to apps: 

• If possible, wait until your child is at least 3 years old before trying educational apps. Research finds that although children younger than 3 can learn within an app, they may be less likely to apply this knowledge to the real world. 
• Engage in apps with your child. Provide some help and assistance without doing the task for them. Help the child to understand the instructions and pay attention to relevant features.
• When engaging with apps together, use a lot of language to help to explain the task to the child. Offer frequent praise and encouragement.
• Choose apps that require the child to think critically rather than simple cause-and-effect, such as an app in which they have to choose the correct answer rather than an app in which they simply press a button and an animation plays.
• Avoid apps with irrelevant or excessive features or advertisements that are not related to the learning process.
• Look for apps that teach children skills that they can easily transfer to real life and that are related to their existing knowledge, such as an app that teaches about letters of the alphabet.
• Choose apps that encourage your child to interact with the characters in the app and/or with you or other caregivers while engaging with the app.

What is Reggio Emilia

This week's summary is Everything Parents Need to Knoe About the Reggio Emilia Approach, and it’s follow up to last week's article on Maria Montessori.

Reggio Emilia pedagogy (so named for the town in Italy it originated from and where a number of our Early Learners’ teachers will visit this summer) began after World War II in the mid-1940s.

A Reggio Emilia approach, primarily in the preschool years, has become especially popular over the past 20-25 years.

As you’ll see in the article, the qualities of a Reggio Emilia classroom are time-tested pedagogy that, similar to the Montessori approach, respect children as innate, inquisitive, learners. 

Some of the key aspects of a Reggio Emilia classrooms are as follows:

• Trust the child as a capable and motivated learner
• Utilize project-based learning activities to give children opportunities to be critical and creative thinkers and problem solvers
• Document the students’ process of learning
• Provide a classroom environment that is rich and stimulating and that encourages exploration and discovery
• Involve children, teachers, and parents as partners in a child’s learning process

This article is a reminder of the educational values we esteem at Trinity. As you read the article, even if you teach upper elementary grades, look for the parallels in your classroom, i.e., emphasis on child-directed learning, creativity, and collaboration, and see to what extent you provide similar experiences for your students.

Joe 

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Anyone researching alternative schools and/or non-traditional curriculums will come across the concept of the Reggio Emilia approach or schools inspired by the philosophy, as it continues to become more and more popular across the US. 

But, what is the Reggio Emilia Approach, exactly and what makes this model different from others?

Reggio Emilia is not a person, it is a city in Italy where this educational philosophy and pedagogy originated after World War II and is most commonly used in preschool and early elementary classrooms. 

Unlike in traditional-model schools where lessons are teacher-led, educators that follow the Reggio Emilia approach let the students lead the way and offer guidance, knowledge, and direction as needed. Teachers closely observe children to help them in planning and offering learning opportunities that will connect to their interests or questions. This shows the children that their ideas, thoughts, passions, experiences, and preferences are valued.

Even though they aren’t leading a class in the traditional sense, teachers are still observing the students’ academic growth and evolving their classrooms as needed to ensure students have the tools they require to master benchmark skills. Teachers are consistently documenting the learning and making it visible to children, parents, and the community. Documentation provides the opportunity for children to reflect and revisit learning experiences and reflecting with the children allows them to make meaning of the work and helps plan for future learning experiences.

Reggio Emilia-inspired curriculum is hands-on, collaborative, and taught through projects, exploration, and play. Because of this, the classroom’s setup is very important. The environment is set up as the ‘3rd teacher’ so children can independently engage and learn in a space that has been intentionally set up to be beautiful, engaging, encourage investigation, and promote relationship building. Materials are carefully chosen based on sensory elements and kept within reach of the students, and learning spaces are set up so that there is enough room for multiple kids to work together.

The Reggio Emilia approach falls somewhere between Montessori and traditional classrooms, in that there are still daily routines (like the traditional model) but the actual learning is student-led (like Montessori), so it’s the best of both worlds. However, unlike traditional and Montessori schools, this approach gives kids the freedom of demonstrating their knowledge through various methods. Children tell the teacher what they know as they build, dance, draw, paint, sculpt, create, explore, read, write, observe, investigate, experiment, garden, dream, engineer, talk, act, cook, etc., which illustrates that there are many ways for children to express themselves outside of writing and speaking.

Other benefits of the Reggio Emilia approach include:

• A relaxed learning environment that encourages exploration 
• Teacher-student relationships that are rooted in respect
• Students build social skills through a collaborative environment
• A student-led approach allows consistent opportunities for problem-solving
• Kids develop a strong sense of community
• Emphasis on creativity and artistic expression
• Adaptive curriculum means lesson plans are created based on what the students need to master a skill (as opposed to standard curriculum that continuously moves forward and can leave some students behind)

All of that being said, the most important benefit is that children are shown that learning is a joyful experience.

Maria Montessori's Impact on Education

This week's summary is How Maria Montessori Transformed the Realm of Children's Education.

Most of us have a rudimentary idea of Maria Montessori and her impact on education philosophy and practice.

Much like John Dewey, Montessori was a pioneer of progressive education tenets that shifted schooling away from a mechanical pedagogy of lecture, worksheets, and rote learning to a more child-centered, process-oriented, problem-based focus.

Even though the roots of progressive education can be traced to philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s book Emile in the mid-1700s, it was Montessori and Dewey in the early 20th century who put children’s innate curiosity and desire to learn at the forefront of the classroom.

Rather than viewing the child as a blank slate whose brain needed to be force fed with knowledge, Montessori put trust in her students and developed classroom pedagogy and activities (many of us are familiar with her pink tower) to engage children’s natural instinct to learn. A major belief for Montessori was to allow a child to learn at his/her own pace.

While today she is primarily associated with preschool grades, her beliefs influenced changes at all levels of education.

The article below is a short introduction to her life and influence. For a more comprehensive picture of her, you can read the recent biography of her, The Child is the Teacher.

 Joe

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Maria Montessori stood before a crowd of 60 underprivileged children, her students. It was January 6, 1907, and the 36-year-old educator was opening her first school: the Casa dei Bambini or “Children’s House,” a preschool that would revolutionize children’s education.

Today, the legacy of the Italian woman behind Montessori schools lives on in preschools around the globe. 

But at the time, the theory that providing children with stimulating activities would help them more than rote learning and academic drills was revolutionary.

Though her innovations inspired a movement in young children’s learning, Montessori saw her work more simply. “I did not invent a method of education,” she wrote in 1914. “I simply gave some little children a chance to live.”

Montessori was passionate about education from a young age. Born in 1870 and raised in Rome, she took a path that defied the era’s expectations for women. Montessori studied engineering, then applied to medical school at the University of Rome, telling a professor during her interview, “I know I shall become a doctor.” The school refused her, so Montessori enrolled in the general university; studied physics, mathematics and natural sciences; and reapplied to medical school. She was finally admitted, becoming the first woman to enter the university’s medical school, and in July 1896, she became Italy’s first female doctor.

Montessori’s medical work led her to the University of Rome’s psychiatric clinic. As part of her job, she visited asylums for children with mental disorders, searching for patients eligible for treatment at the clinic. It was here that her interest in child development intensified.

In 1898, Montessori spoke at the National Medical Congress in Turin, advocating that lack of adequate provisions and care for children with mental and emotional disorders caused them to misbehave. She continued her advocacy at the 1899 National Pedagogical Congress, where she proposed special training for teachers working with special-needs children.

Montessori’s interest in early childhood education strengthened over the next few years. She developed her own teaching materials, and in 1907, she opened her first school.

Her method revolved around engagement. Though Montessori introduced her students to many activities and materials, she retained only those the kids were interested in. She realized that activities could help children socially develop, and she theorized that, surrounded by such activities, students could educate themselves. Montessori’s self-dubbed “auto-education” approach soon had the 5-year-olds at Casa dei Bambini reading and writing.

News of Montessori’s success spread quickly, and by 1908, her name was known around the world. By the fall of 1908, five Case dei Bambini were operating in Italy. Her method soon crossed borders as kindergartens in Switzerland adopted her methods. 

A couple of years later, Montessori published a book, The Montessori Method -- over time, it would be translated into 20 different languages. In the following decades, Montessori schools and teacher training programs sprang up around the world.

Before her death in 1952, Montessori lived to see her educational theories enacted around the globe, as more and more “awakened” children—as she called activity-stimulated students—successfully learned their letters.

As Montessori biographer E.M. Standing notes, Montessori proved that the “awakened” child “develops a higher type of personality—more mentally alert, more capable of concentration, more socially adaptable, more independent and at the same time more disciplined and obedient—in a word, a complete being—a ready foundation for the building up of a normalized adult.”

“This is Montessori’s great achievement,” Standing writes, “the discovery of the child.”

Teen Pressure to Succeed

This week's summary is Teen Grind Culture.

Unlike today’s teenagers, I had the time and freedom to discover who I was during high school and college. There was little internal or external pressure on me as a young man to have it all it figured out and my future path established.

As you’ll see in the article below, today’s teens feel pressure (from parents, social media, themselves) to be on duty all the time with the expectation of excelling in everything (school, sports, social life, appearance, community service).

Consequently, many teens feel that they can’t ever take a breath and relax. It was particularly disturbing to read that some teens feel guilty for doing anything at all for pleasure and enjoyment.

The small percentage of teens who don’t feel this pressure shared similar practices: more sleep, more time outdoors, a less structured daily schedule, and limited activity on social media and with technology.

Fittingly, those habits the healthiest teens possess are what Trinity as an elementary school espouses for its students. 

It’s tougher for teens today yet we do have the opportunity to shape our students’ attitudes and habits during these formative years so they’ll perhaps learn to relax a little bit when they reach high school.

Joe

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Like it or not, children and teenagers today are live participants in an unprecedented experiment. Ubiquitous cellphones and hyper-engagement in social media have coincided over the last 15 years with a sharp increase in teen anxiety and depression.

Researchers from Harvard’s Center for Digital Thriving surveyed U.S. teenagers in the fall of 2023. 

What emerged was a vivid description of the “grind culture” dominating kids’ lives – “this sense of always needing to be productive, to be striving in all these different areas, even at the expense of your health,” said Center co-director Emily Weinstein. 

Some specific findings:

• 56 percent felt “game plan” pressure – to have their future path clear and set
• 53 percent felt pressure to earn impressive grades or excel in sports
• 51 percent to look their best
• 44 percent to have a robust social life
• 41 percent to be available to support friends
• 32 percent to stay informed and do good for their community

All these were more intense for girls. And one in four respondents described symptoms of burnout more common among adults in high-stress jobs.

On the “game plan” pressure, it’s striking that teens said they didn’t have time for the typical adolescent quest to figure out who they are and what they want to be. They seemed to believe that noodling around with new interests and ideas would work to their disadvantage. “Teens literally described feeling guilty for reading a book for pleasure,” says Weinstein.

Where do all these pressures come from? Parents, teachers, teens themselves – and social media. About one in five of those surveyed said they were “almost constantly” on social media, messaging apps, and YouTube. Using Instagram, Tik Tok, and Snapchat intensified the pressures teens felt.

The researchers were struck by the fact that 19 percent of those surveyed said they were not feeling pressure in any of the six areas listed above. Several practices and patterns were common among these outliers:

• They got more sleep
• Were more likely to spend time outdoors
• Had more open schedules
• Watched less television
• Spent less time on social media and the Internet.

The more self-care practices teens engaged in – including seven or more hours of sleep, regular exercise, time in nature, hanging out with a friend, engaging in creative projects – the less likely they were to feel burned out. 

The Benefits of Applied Math

This week's article summary is Applied Math Education Can Make Americans More Numerically Literate, and it’s written by a college science professor who bemoans her students lack of mathematical confidence and reasoning skills.

It’s a follow-up to a recent summary on the importance of math in elementary school.

Her worries extend beyond her classroom: due to math illiteracy, many adults are ignorant about personal finances and blindly believe politicians and others who spout exaggerated statistics without providing any evidence.

She encourages elementary schools to do a better job teaching math, including real-life applications so kids can see the connections between math and real-life.

As mentioned in the earlier summary, Trinity is in the vanguard of enhanced math instruction in elementary school. Over the past number of years, we’ve all seen our students and teachers gain much more confidence and comfort in math.

Joe

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As American elementary schoolchildren head back to school, one subject just might be the most dreaded of all—mathematics. 

A distaste for arithmetic, calculations, and numbers in general starts young in America, where it's socially acceptable to claim to "hate math" or simply "be bad with numbers." 

By the time U.S. students hit middle school, our educational system has already failed them. American 15-year-olds score far below their peers from other countries in mathematical literacy. 

I will meet many of these students a few years later in my college classroom, where they will react with dismay at encountering calculus-based modeling in biology class, a subject which, in their prior experience, was virtually a math-free zone. While math is a key tool of modern biology—allowing us to predict how diseases spread or calculate the sustainability of our food supply—it's usually avoided in introductory classes, where it's viewed as "too complicated.” 

The American educational system is failing to prepare its citizens to face mathematical challenges with confidence.

This "math anxiety" has serious social and political consequences. 

In personal finance, Americans typically struggle to scale expenditures with income. 

More dangerously, innumerate people may become data-avoidant, assessing risk and quality of arguments based on "gut feelings" rather than numerical facts.

In contrast, math and statistics classes provide us with the logic frameworks we need to assess risk and link the magnitudes of cause and effect, making us better decision makers. There's still a role for experts and pundits, who help us make sense of a complex world. But as an American voting public, we should strive for better mathematical reasoning skills to supplement these expert analyses.

Educators have shown that it's possible to build strong math skills from Day 1 by investing more time on mathematical reasoning in our elementary school classrooms. 

And for those who remember math as boring or recall struggling to learn something wholly disconnected from daily life, there's a solution—applied math, which grounds math concepts in real-world examples.

These examples can start early. When our research team visits second-grade classrooms, we use "helpful" and "harmful" relationships between animals and humans to introduce number lines with positive and negative values. 

Similarly, elementary school educators have shown time and again that music lessons improve student math scores by introducing students to this note-based arithmetic. The same concepts apply for little girls curious about engineering and little boys helping parents measure ingredients in the kitchen.

Even after we've left the classroom, let's challenge ourselves to stop flinching away from numbers or blindly trusting (or mistrusting) those reciting them. When hearing a number or statistic, let's adopt a "stop and study" approach, asking what's being argued, by whom, using what rationale. 

Mathematical reasoning gives us a core, common set of facts that we can interpret together. By building math skills—in the classroom and in adulthood—we can be part of an American public that prides itself in mathematical exceptionalism, not mathematical avoidance.

 

Explicitly Teaching Reading Comprehension

This week's article summary is Reading Comprehension Loses Out in the Classroom, and it's a follow up to last week's summary.

When I taught middle school humanities (language arts and history/social), one of my principal academic objective was to get my students to form, substantiate, and express (orally and in writing) their opinions.

For most humanities teachers the vehicles used to accomplish the above goals are reading novels, short stories, textbooks, and primary sources. Usually teachers ask their students to complete their reading assignments at home, and then the classroom is used to assess, deepen, and expand their understanding of the material they read.

I always thought that through class discussions I could assess if my students were successfully comprehending their reading assignments. But, as you’ll see in the article below, I should have included more direct reading in my classroom.

Reading comprehension has remained an elusive goal in education. We know how important it is but struggle teaching and assessing it.

It’s critical to learn to decode words, develop an extensive vocabulary, and possess extensive background knowledge. Yet these skills don’t necessarily mean a student is effective at reading comprehension.

The article below recommends more direct reading in class – both by students themselves and from read alouds from their teachers. Thid should be followed from a class discussion of open-ended questions.

As I read the article, I kept thinking of two questions to repeatedly ask students about what they’re reading: What is the reading selection telling you? How do you know this?

Classroom reading is a staple of most elementary school teachers’ pedagogy. Yet, in addition to being entertaining for children, classroom reading is also a great opportunity to see if they are developing reading comprehension skills.

Joe

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Nearly a half century ago, a landmark study showed that teachers weren’t explicitly teaching reading comprehension. Once children learned how to read words, no one taught them how to make sense of the sentences and paragraphs. Some kids naturally got it. Some didn’t.

Since then, reading researchers have come up with many ideas to foster comprehension. Although the research on reading comprehension continues, there’s evidence for a collection of teaching approaches, from building vocabulary and background knowledge to leading classroom discussions and encouraging children to check for understanding as they read. 

This should mean substantial progress toward fixing a problem that was identified decades ago. But hardly any of these evidence-based practices have filtered into the classroom.

“It’s a little bit discouraging,” said Philip Capin of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. “What we often see in classrooms is devoid of high-quality strategy instruction or knowledge-building instruction.

Capin is referring to a host of comprehension strategies, such as checking yourself for understanding after reading a paragraph, identifying the author’s main point, or summarizing what you have just read.

Teachers spend limited time reading texts with children. The dearth of reading is especially pronounced in science classes where teachers tended to prefer PowerPoint slides over texts. More time is spent on reading comprehension instruction in reading or English class, but it was still just 23 percent of instructional time. Still, that is a big improvement over the original 1978 study, which documented that only 1 percent of instructional time was spent on reading comprehension.

A survey of middle school teachers published in 2021 echoes these observational findings that very little reading is taking place in classrooms. Seventy percent of science teachers said they spent less than 6 minutes on texts a day, or less than 30 minutes a week. Only 50 percent of social studies teachers said they spent more time reading in classrooms.

Capin said his team found that reading instruction was more focused on word reading skills, what educators call “decoding.” Researchers noticed that teachers were also building students’ knowledge, especially in science and social studies classes. But this knowledge building was mostly divorced from engaging students in text comprehension. 

Classroom researchers observed “low-level” reading instruction in which a teacher asks a question and students respond with a one-word answer. Teachers tended to confirm whether student responses were “right” or “wrong.” Capin said that only 18 percent of teacher responses elaborated on or developed students’ ideas. 

Capin said teachers tended to lecture rather than encourage students to talk about what they understand or think. Teachers often read the text aloud, asked a question and then answered the question themselves when students didn’t answer it correctly. He said that leading a discussion might help students better understand the text. 

Capin said teachers also often ask generic comprehension questions, such as “What is the main point?” without considering whether the questions are appropriate for the reading passage at hand. For example, in fiction, the author’s main point is not nearly as important as identifying the main characters and their goals.

Some teachers are leading reading discussions in their classrooms. Capin said he visited one such classroom a few weeks ago. But he thinks good comprehension instruction isn’t commonplace because it’s much harder than teaching foundational reading skills. Teachers have to fill in gaps in students’ skills and background knowledge so that everyone can engage. Teacher training programs don’t put enough emphasis on evidence-based methods, and researchers aren’t good at telling educators about these methods.

Interest in the science of reading has been exploding around the country over the past five years, especially since a podcast, “Sold a Story,” highlighted the need for more phonics instruction. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait another 50 years for comprehension to get better.

 

Rethinking Reading

This week's article summary is Rethinking Reading.

As you’ll see, more and more elementary schools are implementing Science of Reading curricula, e.g., Fundations, with their specific focus on strengthening word reading.

As we all know intuitively and through experience, strengthening student reading comprehension goes far beyond the ability to break down and read individual words. Quoting the article, ‘reading comprehension is one of the most complex activities, and our ability to do so is dependent upon a wide range of knowledge and skills.’

A recent research study from an earlier summary notes that ‘phonics is just one crucial piece of the reading puzzle—which must eventually be applied to authentic reading materials, such as books and short stories, as a regular part of the reading diet that involves more advanced skills like comprehension, prediction, vocabulary, and sustained attention.’

The five components of reading (phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension) can erroneously be considered and taught as independent skills rather than in an integrated fashion befitting the complexity and gamut of reading comprehension. 

I am thankful that under the guidance of Marsha Harris we have made available this school year more content-rich reading materials to support student development of content-specific vocabulary and knowledge, as word reading is but one aspect of being a strong reader.

Joe

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How can this be?” This was the response of principal Jane Avery when she saw her school’s most recent third-grade reading scores. Three years ago, she worked with her primary grade teachers to adopt and implement a new reading curriculum based on the “science of reading” with systematic and explicit instruction in phonics. Ms. Avery expected that the curriculum would lead to greatly improved scores on the state reading exam. She was shocked to see only a small improvement.

Ms. Avery is not alone in her expectations. Many others have seen the recent emphasis on the science of reading as the answer to America’s “reading crisis.”

Researchers have made significant progress in our understanding of how children learn to read, and this work is having an impact on classroom instruction. Much of the emphasis has been on developing word reading accuracy and fluency through explicit instruction in phonics. Word reading is critical to reading achievement, but reading involves much more than recognizing the words on the page. Students must also comprehend what they read. 

Research within the science of reading has investigated what is involved in comprehension and how children learn to understand what they read. Some of the findings from this research have been incorporated into educational practice, but not all that is known from research has been implemented in the classroom. 

Many educators view comprehension as a component of reading and one of the pillars of reading instruction. This view is an outgrowth of the report from the National Reading Panel (NRP) that separates reading into alphabetics, fluency, and comprehension. In the report, alphabetics was further divided into phonological awareness and phonics, and comprehension was divided into vocabulary and text comprehension. Over time, these components, along with fluency, became known as the big five or the five pillars of reading instruction. 

Today, much of reading instruction in the United States is guided by this component model of reading.

One limitation is that it can give the impression that the five components are independent and can be taught individually. In practice, the components are generally best taught together in an integrated fashion. That is, phonological awareness is best taught in the context of phonics, and vocabulary in the context of comprehending a text.

A more significant limitation is that including comprehension (and vocabulary) along with other components gives the impression that comprehension is skill based and similar in complexity and malleability to the other components. The model also implies that like phonics, comprehension can be explicitly taught, and once acquired, can be applied to all texts. 

In recent years there have been significant advancements in the science of how to teach and assess comprehension that are beginning to impact educational practices. At the forefront is the movement toward providing integrated comprehension and knowledge instruction within content-rich literacy curricula.

The focus on knowledge is important because of the critical role it plays in comprehension. Knowledge lays the foundation for building our understanding of text and provides an anchor for holding new information in memory. But despite the importance of knowledge, it has typically been neglected in comprehension instruction, which has focused primarily on teaching domain-general reading strategies and general vocabulary. 

Researchers who have recognized the importance of knowledge have begun to examine the effectiveness of content-rich literacy instruction in the classroom. Systematic reviews of this research show that content-rich literacy programs successfully increase vocabulary and content knowledge, as well as performance on standardized tests of reading comprehension. 

The Importance of Math in Elementary School

This week's article summary is Kindergarten Math is Often Too Basic, which bemoans the math curriculum in most schools.

As you read the article, note how different Trinity is in terms of what we teach in math, how we teach it, and what we expect of our students.

Even though we are not a standardized-test-drive school, our annual ERB results indicate strong student foundation in math skills and concepts.

Our overarching philosophy of teaching math is that conceptual understanding leads to automaticity and fluency, which is the opposite of most other schools that believe that skill and repetition will lead to conceptual understanding.

Activities like Number Talks, subitizing, and asking students to solve math problems in multiple ways help them see that math is fluid and multi-dimensional.

Thanks to the oversight and coordination of Jill and Kerry, Trinity’s math program from Early Learners through sixth grade enables our students to understand math at a deeper level.

With this strong foundation, they are truly set up to thrive in math after they leave Trinity!

Joe 

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Kindergarten may be math’s most important year — it lays the groundwork for understanding the relationship between number and quantity and helps develop number sense, and how numbers relate to each other.

But too often teachers spend that crucial year reinforcing basic information students may already know. Many kindergarteners learn early on how to count and recognize basic shapes — two areas that make up the majority of kindergarten math content. Though basic math content is crucial for students who begin school with little math knowledge, a growing body of research argues more comprehensive kindergarten math instruction that moves beyond counting could help more students become successful in math later on.

For a variety of reasons, kindergarten often misses the mark: math takes a backseat to literacy, teachers are often unprepared to teach it, and appropriate curriculum, if it exists at all, can be scattershot, overly repetitive — or both.

Deep thought is important, even in the earliest grades. Kindergarten math proficiency is especially predictive of future academic success. Students’ number competence in kindergarten — which includes the ability to understand number quantities, their relationships to each other, and the ability to join and separate sets of numbers, like 4 and 2 making 6 — presage mathematical achievement in later grades, with greater number competence leading to higher math achievement.

But the math content commonly found in kindergarten — such as counting the days on a calendar — is often embedded within a curriculum in which the teaching of mathematics is secondary to other learning goals. Learning experiences in which mathematics is a supplementary activity rather than the primary focus are less effective in building student math skills than if math is the main goal.

Breaking numbers apart and putting them back together and understanding how numbers relate to each other does more to help develop kindergarteners’ mathematical thinking than counting alone. Students should move from using concrete objects to model problems, to using representations of those objects and then to numbers in the abstract — like understanding that the number 3 is a symbol for three objects.

One reason for redundancy in kindergarten math may be that classrooms lack cohesive materials that progress students through skills in an orderly way. Only  36 percent of elementary schools use high-quality instructional materials.

Some worry that increasing time spent on academic subjects like math, and pushing kindergarten students beyond the basics of numbers and counting, will be viewed as unpleasant “work” that takes away from play-based learning and is just not appropriate for 5- and 6-year-olds, some of whom are still learning how to hold a pencil. Kindergarteners can be taught more advanced content and are ready to learn it. But it should be taught using practices shown to work for young children, including small group work, hands-on work with objects such as blocks that illustrate math concepts, and learning through play.

Mathematician John Mighton, the founder of the curriculum JUMP Math, said it’s a mistake to believe that evidence-based instructional practices must be laborious and dull to be effective. He has called on adults to think more like children to make more engaging math lessons.

“Children love repetition, exploring small variations on a theme and incrementally harder challenges much more than adults do,” he wrote — all practices supported by evidence to increase learning.

Simple lessons, when done well, can teach complex ideas and get children excited.

“People say kids don’t have the attention,” to learn more advanced concepts, he said, but he strongly believes that children have more math ability than adults give them credit for. Getting students working together, successfully tackling a series of challenges that build on each other, can create a kind of collective effervescence — a feeling of mutual energy and harmony that occurs when people work toward a common goal.

 

6 Ways to Capture Students' Attention

This week's article summary is 6 Ways to Capture Students' Attention.

During pre-planning, I talked about how students need to know they’re safe and cared for in the classroom. That’s why over the first few weeks of school teachers devote much time to setting class norms and routines. Once students become familiar with these practices, they can focus on school work and learning.

The challenge for teachers is that while there’s comfort for all of us in routine and predictability, our brains need periodic jump starts to maintain attention.

So, teachers have the seemingly contradictory challenge to be predictable on the one hand and unexpected on the other.

Just as we all find the sweet spot intersection of cherish/prepare and nurture/challenge, teachers must do the same for routine/novelty.

The article below provides some helpful hints to maintain and stimulate student attention within an organized, predictable, well-run classroom.

Most of us have utilized most or all of these techniques. Still, the article is a reminder that even though we have set up a classroom for learning with our patterns and routines, we need to ensure that we keep student on their toes so their focus and attention remain alert.

Joe

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The brain evolved to promote survival. 

Every second, millions of bits of sensory information from the receptors of the eyes, ears, internal organs, skin, and muscles make their way to the brain’s attention entry gate, but only about 1 percent of it enters consciousness. 

In the wild, an organism is well-served by an attention system that gives priority to things that are unexpected, changing, and different from the usual: Any perceived source of danger is prioritized. However, in the absence of threat, attention is directed to any changes in an animal’s or human’s environment. 

Although survival in the wild isn’t much of a priority for most humans today, our brains still attend to perceived threat and change. If students feel physically and psychologically unsafe in a school or a classroom, they’re less likely to focus their attention on the lesson. In the absence of perceived threat, our brains are particularly receptive to what’s new, curious, or unexpected. 

In school, the students’ brains are always attending… just not always on the topics we’re teaching! When students aren’t attentive to a lesson or a textbook, their brain isn’t giving priority entry to the teacher’s voice or words on the page, but to other more interesting or distracting sights, feelings, and thoughts.

In order to capitalize on the brain’s selectivity, here are six practical and proven attention-getters you can use at the start of a new unit or lesson.

SURPRISE STUDENTS: Since the brain is attracted to novelty, do something unusual or unexpected to arouse curiosity and open the brain’s attention filter. Examples: Wear something unique, bring in an unusual object, or play a song when students enter the room to promote curiosity, hence focus. Tell students that there’s a link between your clothes, the object, or the words in the song and something in the lesson. Invite them to guess what it is.

PRESENT ODD FACTS, ANOMALIES, OR DISCREPANT EVENTS: The brain is fundamentally a pattern-making organ. Constructing patterns enables humans to make sense of the world. However, when an established or expected pattern is broken, the brain is immediately aroused. Example: A science teacher blows up a balloon, then slowly pierces one end with a sharpened wooden cooking skewer. To the amazement of students, the teacher pushes the skewer through the opposite side of the balloon without bursting it.

INVITE STUDENTS’ PREDICTIONS: The ability to make sound predictions is fundamental to survival, and the brain rewards successful prediction through its release of dopamine, a pleasure-inducing chemical. Teachers can provide opportunities for students to make predictions about the relationship of the curious sensory input or other novelty to the lesson. When this happens, students will seek information to help them make correct predictions and remain attentive as their brains seek to find out if their predictions are correct. Examples: In a science lesson for first graders, ask children to predict which objects will float and which will sink in a tub of water.

POSE A PROVOCATIVE (HOOK) QUESTION: A stimulating question can be an “itch” in students’ brains that they’ll want to scratch. Can what you eat prevent zits? Is aging a disease? What superpower would you want? The best hook questions are open-ended. They’re meant to stimulate thinking and discussion and to open the door to further exploration. Give students a reasonable amount of quiet thinking time before they answer. Have them do a quick write about their thoughts and/or engage in a think-pair-share with another student. After this personal engagement, learners are likely to be more attentive to your teaching on the related topic.

CITE A CURRENT EVENT OR ISSUE RELEVANT TO STUDENTS: Students often have opinions about current events or controversial issues in their school, town, state, etc., and these can be used to spark engagement. Example: For a unit on persuasive writing, a middle school teacher shows a newspaper article about a school board proposal in another district that would require students to wear uniforms. Students then discuss the pros and cons, state their position, and even switch sides to try to better understand different perspectives and develop rebuttals, all as an opening to the unit on persuasion.

USE HUMOR: Humor is a guaranteed dopamine booster and can serve as a great attention hook. Example: A sixth-grade mathematics teacher begins a unit on ratio and proportion by presenting funny caricatures of celebrities. She asks students to describe why the pictures are funny, and they note that various physical features (e.g., eyes, nose, ears, head) of the characters are greatly exaggerated. Then, the teacher shows da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man to illustrate idealized proportions of the human body. 

HOOK AND HOLD ATTENTION: We recommend that you rotate your attention-getting techniques to avoid being predictable. The intent of using the techniques described above is to hook student attention, but the intent isn’t simply to gain immediate attention for the moment. The longer-term goal is to hold that attention over time. There are numerous ways to capitalize on initial attention by employing active-learning strategies, including the use of authentic tasks and projects, inquiry-oriented instruction, cooperative learning, Socratic seminars, simulations and role-plays, and design thinking (e.g., using makerspaces, where students can create tangible products), and allowing students appropriate “voice and choice” options in assignments and performance tasks.

Do the President's Executive Orders for Schools Have Any Impact on Trinity?

This week's article summary is today's lead story in Education Week's daily update: What's in Trump's New Executive Orders on Indoctrination and School Choice.

I felt that this article was a perfect springboard for reminding us how little local, state, and federal governments influence Trinity.

 

First and most important, Trinity is an private-independent school. 

 

As such, we do not take any funds from any government, including the federal government. Why? Because once a school begins accepting funds from any government program, agency, or department, that school will have to follow government stipulations, which often includes required standardized testing.

 

We do obey government health and safety laws, regulations, and guidelines, but all other aspects our school operations are based on our compliance with SAIS standards and best practices for private-independent schools. 

 

So, by being private and independent, we get to a) choose the students we best serve, b) how and what we teach, and c) the ways we measure the progress and learning of our students.

 

So the big take-away from reading the article below is Trinity does not need to worry about any presidential executive order.

 

As I have only worked in private-independent schools, I accept the bias I have for how we operate and function—think, for example, how independent schools were able to deal with the Covid pandemic.  Yet even with my bias, I firmly believe that educational matters should be left to the experts (we teachers), not local, state, or federal politicians.

 

In particular, Trump’s recent executive order wants to eliminate ‘radical indoctrination’ around issues of diversity, including race and gender identity. 

 

You can read in the article the specific details about how the order defines these issues, but what’s most important to me is how Trinity deals with diversity.

 

First,  as a mission-driven school, Trinity is about inclusion. We can’t properly serve all of our applicants and occasionally need to counsel out some students for academic or behavioral reasons, yet we are a school that celebrates the individuality of all members of our community – race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, etc. One of our stated goals/outcomes is to develop in our students a strong, confident sense of self.

 

Equally importantly, we help our students develop and demonstrate care and concern for others. We guide our students to welcome and include others, to see how others are similar and different from them, to learn to work cooperatively with others.

 

In age-appropriate ways befitting an elementary school, we explore topics and issues thatt the executive order brands as controversial. While we often make abstract concepts concrete and tangible for our students, they begin to see that the world is complex and  imperfect, particularly around areas of diversity. 

 

With such a polarized culture outside of schools, it takes courage to teach today.

 

While it may seem that all schools are being attacked and challenged, rest assured Trinity will continue to do what’s right for our students, as we have always done!

 

Joe

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In the 10 days since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, he has set a dizzying pace for his second term and is endeavoring to make his mark on the nation’s schools, despite laws limiting the federal government’s K-12 reach.

His most direct efforts to dive into education came Wednesday, when the president issued two executive orders, directing federal agencies to determine how to expand school choice and develop a strategy to end what he considers ’radical indoctrination’ in schools. 

Both orders put federal dollars on the line to hammer home his agenda. With existing law, though, the White House has no bearing on curriculum, and no unilateral ability to pull back funding from individual schools or federal education programs.

Regardless, the administration is moving aggressively in ways that differ from Trump’s first term, said Derek Black, a professor of law at the University of South Carolina who specializes in constitutional law and public education.

“This seems like a situation in which they know they don’t have the power, but they seem to be more aggressive, and trying to push power where they may very well not have,” he said.

“Part of what we have, to be honest, are executive orders that are putting what would normally be private conversations on public display; there’s a certain amount of shock and awe to that, because you just don’t normally do that,” Black said.

Here’s a closer look at these two executive orders, and their implications.

What does this order do?

It mandates that administration official develop plans to eliminate federal funds or schools that Trump says indoctrinate kids based on “gender ideology” and “discriminatory equity ideology.” 

The order also reinstates Trump’s 1776 Commission, which the president created in his first term to promote “patriotic education,” but was disbanded by former President Joe Biden.

What does Trump consider “radical indoctrination,” and is it happening in schools?

Trump’s executive order identifies “discriminatory equity ideology” and “gender ideology” as two examples of “indoctrination” happening in schools.

The order defines “discriminatory equity ideology” as “ideology that treats individuals as members of preferred or disfavored groups, rather than as individuals, and minimizes agency, merit, and capability in favor of immoral generalizations.” Examples of this, according to the order, would be saying that members of a race, color, sex, or national origin are morally or inherently superior, while another is “racist, sexist, or oppressive.”

Citing an executive order from Trump’s first day in office that made  federal policy to recognize only two sexes, it defines gender ideology as replacing “the biological category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity.” It asserts that students are being “made to question whether they were born in the wrong body and whether to view their parents and their reality as enemies to be blamed.

Though Trump and other Republicans—in state legislatures, in school board meetings, and in the Capitol—have repeatedly alleged that schools are using critical race theory to indoctrinate students to believe the United States is a racist nation, there’s little evidence this is happening on a wide scale.

An EDWeek Research Center Survey found in 2021 that just 8 percent of teachers said they had taught or even discussed critical race theory with their K-12 students. A study released this month found that high school students confirm that most schools aren’t teaching a one-sided portrayal of the nation’s politics and history, and that their teachers grapple with how to discuss controversial topics in class. And a sweeping report last year from the American Historical Association found teachers mostly said they try to develop students’ historical thinking skills—teaching them how to think, not what to think.

Meanwhile, roughly 3 percent of high school students identify as transgender, and 2 percent are questioning their gender identity, and these students face high rates of bullying and symptoms of depression. Researchers and advocates say schools are a vital piece of the puzzle for improving those mental health outcomes and supporting students.

Does this order immediately cut funding to schools?

No, this order does not immediately cut funding. It directs several federal agencies—the Education, Defense, and Health and Human Services departments—to develop a strategy with recommendations and a plan for eliminating federal funding to schools that are “discriminatory” based on its definition of “gender ideology” and “discriminatory equity ideology.”

Over the next three months, agencies must identify funding sources and streams, including grants and contracts, that go toward K-12 curriculum, instruction, and activities, as well as teacher education, certification, and training that support what the administration considers indoctrination and social transitioning. The agencies must then identify a process to prevent the distribution of rescind awards for those funds.

The Education Department, its secretary, and the federal government have no authority over curriculum matters. Within the last decade, Congress tightened up this very language to make clear that the states are fully in control of curriculum and academic standards, Black said.

What does the order do?

The executive order directs a number of federal agencies to look into their ability to use funds they oversee to allow families to attend private schools--including religious schools—and charter schools. Under the order, agency heads have to report back in the coming months on the options they have for doing that and their plans for implementing those options for families starting next fall.

 

Boys Need Strong Relationships with Their Teachers to Thrive

This week's article summary is Boys Want a Strong Relationship with Their Teachers.

From my teachers point of view, I was a decent student: worked hard enough (more to keep up rather to excel), typically paid attention in class, wasn’t overly disruptive, and displayed appropriate respect for my teachers.

While I got along well with most of my teachers, there were some I didn’t like -- those that didn’t seem to notice or understand me. Consequently I didn’t demonstrate the above behaviors in their classes. I was more surly, distractible, and unmotivated. Not surprisingly, I didn’t do well in their classes.

I blamed those teachers for my poor performance, and they most likely thought I was a lost cause as a student.

The article below confirms what I’ve mentioned in many faculty meetings: to excel, students need strong relationships with their teachers and classrooms of care, trust, routines, and high expectations.

The challenge for many teachers is that it is easier to have a better relationship with organized, well-behaved, obedient children.

And, as most girl students fall into this category, a lot of teachers prefer them to boys, who can be more of a burden in the classroom.

As the article further explores, teachers often believe the stereotype that the typical male student is a ‘feral beast that needs to be controlled.’

A blindspot for many teachers is that boys are less educable and less motivated to learn than girls.

The advice from the article is that teachers need to understand that all their students are relationship-based. Teachers often need to work extra hard to connect and relate to their male students.

As some boys also may fall into the trap of acting like the negative stereotype of them as students, teachers have to keep trying to reach them and inspire them to focus on learning, not on being the class clown.

In my case as a student, it’s the chicken or egg conundrum: did some of my teachers assume I was a hopeless case as a male student or did I come onto their class with an attitude?

The article lists a number of ways for teachers to strengthen their relationships with students.

Yes, boys and girls typically act differently in class and it’s often easier to prefer girls and their meticulousness and politeness in the classroom, But boys, even those who act out and appear indifferent to learning, need to be seen, understood, and believed in by their teacher(s) if they are to thrive academically.

Joe

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For 17-year-old Warren Coates, a teacher who’s taken the time to build a relationship with him is highly motivating. “When there’s a teacher that I have a relationship with, I—100 percent—try harder in class,” said Warren, a senior at Smyrna High School in central Delaware.

More than a dozen other boys interviewed by Education Week also strongly agreed that their performance in class depended on their relationship with the teacher. So, too, did over 1,000 male middle and high school students from six countries, including the United States, and various backgrounds who participated in a study on the subject.

Despite the well-established body of research on the importance of student-teacher relationships, there has been less focus on how boys, specifically, relate to their teachers, who are predominately female. The overwhelming affirmation from boys that positive relationships with teachers matter to their academic motivation and success has come as a surprise to some—even those who study boys for a living.

“Why didn’t we know that boys were so clear that they need that relationship with their teachers?” asked Michael C. Reichert, co-author of the aforementioned study and executive director of the Center for the Study of Boys’ and Girls’ Lives at the University of Pennsylvania. 

The answer is somewhat complicated. But it’s worth examining as it’s the first step toward breaking down barriers to establishing these connections—which, ultimately, prove beneficial to both students and teachers.

After all, boys on a whole are not reaching their full potential in school, data show. Stronger relationships with their teachers could be key to their success.

In order to build strong relationships, though, teachers first must recognize boys’ need to connect.

“The reason we’re surprised to find that boys are relational learners is the fog of stereotypes: We expect boys to be the independent, non-relational creatures that stereotypes would paint them as,” said Reichert, “And of course they’re not.”

Boys are expected to act emotionally stoic and physically tough, said Yvonne Skipper, a lecturer at University of Glasgow’s school of education whose research findings suggest that adolescent boys feel extreme pressure to conform to gender stereotypes.

An EdWeek Research Center survey of a nationally representative sample of K-12 teachers found that teachers generally consider boys to be less motivated than girls by a wide range of factors, including a desire to please the teacher.

“Many of my male students seem to dislike school,” one survey respondent wrote. Another said that girls “have time and again proved to me to be superior leaders, more motivated, and dedicated than many of their male counterparts.”

When teachers harbor stereotypes or negative perceptions of the boys in their classes, they may be less likely to develop positive relationships with those students, said Reichert.

“We get pushback from teachers because many have always regarded boys as feral beasts that need to be dominated and controlled,” Reichert said.

He suggests this perception is in part to blame for the disproportionately high discipline rates among boys, which begin in preschool and continue through high school.

Establishing and maintaining positive relationships with students takes work, especially when boys appear to resist teachers’ efforts to connect. But certain teacher behaviors can inspire even seemingly disengaged male students to engage in learning.

Reichert named eight best practices for teachers to build strong relationships with students, especially boys:

• Reach out often
• Demonstrate mastery of their subjects
• Maintain high standards
• Engage with a student’s personal interest or talent
• Find a common interest
• Point out a common characteristic with a student
• Respond to defiance with restraint
• Be vulnerable about their own learning challenges

Despite teachers’ best efforts, boys may not always respond to these gestures, Reichert said. But he urges teachers to maintain the role of relationship manager with students—regulating their own emotional reactions and maintaining their commitment to reaching boys by continuing to invite them to be partners in learning.

Brandon Mollett, academic dean at Boys’ Latin School of Maryland, an all-boys K-12 private school in Baltimore, agrees. “You can’t bring frustration, you can’t bring disappointment and emotional aspects to your work when you’re a teacher,” he said. “You have these emotions, because it’s an emotional profession. But as a professional you have to do your best to manage that, and to see the best in each one of these students.”

Male teachers, especially those who teach elementary students, tend to see strong student relationships as an important part of their profession. In a 2021 study that surveyed male elementary school teachers, respondents overwhelmingly reported that relationships with their students were central to their work

But teachers needn’t be the same gender or race as their students to form strong bonds, insists Reichert. Any teacher can connect with boys. “When teachers are encouraged to see the good in kids, and when you provide a complementary system where there’s more parts that are positive than negative, you build trust. And relationships are founded on trust,” he said. “I think that’s often a missing piece at schools.”

 

The Most Important Education Studies of 2024

This week's article summary is The 10 Most Significant Education Studies of 2024.

Every year the website Edutopia posts an article on the most impactful educational studies of the past year.

While some of these research studies debunk long-held educational beliefs (the subject of a recent summary), the majority of the studies affirm long-held best practices in the classrooms.

Below you’ll see validation of the following:

• While teachers want to challenge and push students, their students must experience concrete success in the classroom in order to maintain their confidence and engagement. For most of us, our confidence in learning new material is fragile.
• Spending time in class explaining how and why students answered incorrectly on assignments helps students better learn classroom content. This is further proof that most of us prefer to think concretely, not abstractly.
• AI helps students complete school work but thus far does not help students learn new material. As AI continues to evolve, teachers will need to figure out how to use it as a tool for their students yet ensure it’s not a crutch to avoid doing school work.
• Inattention contagion in a classroom is a real danger for any teacher. Keeping the inevitable class clown in check is vital!
• The Science of Reading is taking hold in more and more elementary school classrooms, but that shouldn’t squeeze out teachers bringing to life the magic and excitement of literacy. We all benefit from being read to and reading complete novels.

Joe

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A Simple Tactic for Warm Demanders: We tend to measure academic success by the big wins: Passing a test with flying colors, for example, or earning top grades in a demanding course. But it’s the small wins that motivate students to keep going amid the inevitable academic struggles. Third and sixth graders were given 10 difficult math problems to solve, with half receiving an additional five problems that were appreciably easier—allowing students to experience a few bouts of success through the tangle of tough questions. Despite grappling with the same number of difficult problems, the students who were also given a handful of easy ones were twice as likely to look forward to solving another set of challenging problems. They were also twice as likely to rate the activity as enjoyable.

Winning the Battle For Student Attention: Researchers recruited students and gave them a special mission: Take their assigned seats in a lecture hall and quietly sabotage the attention of classmates by slouching, looking bored, and failing to take notes. Like dominoes, students sitting next to malingerers began to lose focus—formerly attentive students struggled to pay attention, wrote about half as many pages of notes, and scored nine points lower on a follow-up quiz. “Inattention contagion,” the researchers explained, “is an ecologically valid phenomenon” and “may be particularly contagious” when students are seated next to inattentive peers. Not every lesson lights up the room—there will be boredom. Your best chance to keep misbehavior and inattention at bay starts with thoughtful preparation: Make students accountable by co-creating classroom norms, set up clear classroom rules for transitions, audit your lesson instructions for clarity, design, and consider strategic placement of chatty or daydreamy kids to keep everyone on task.

AI Vaporizes Long-Term Learning: Proponents of AI chatbots in educational settings say the tools can assist in activities like brainstorming—or help students get started on tough math problems. But many teachers say their students lack the skills to improve upon what AI produces, or the maturity and self-awareness to know where the work of AI ends and their own responsibility begins. In a study, ninth, 10th, and 11th graders attended a brief math lesson, then practiced solving related problems in preparation for a quiz. Some students relied on traditional methods—sifting through their notes and textbooks to find possible answers—while others had access to a basic version of ChatGPT. Students using the basic and tutor GPTs scored higher on quizzes but when later asked to  retrieve the information their scores significantly dropped.

Take Your Students Outside: Schools have gradually reduced the amount of time students spend outside, As a result, today’s young scientists-in-training may learn about molting earthworms or flower pollination without ever studying the organisms in the wild. But outdoor activities like nature journaling—drawing trees and jotting down observations as they shed leaves, keeping a “moon journal” to track lunar phases are cost-effective antidotes to our estrangement from nature, and can be aligned with state standards in subjects as diverse as art, science, social studies, and English.

Learning to Love Academic Mistakes: Nobody likes making mistakes; students often come to fear them. But when teachers is a recent study spent time focusing on their students’ mathematical errors and engaging in collaborative discussions about common mistakes of logic or computation, teaching efficacy improved dramatically. Researchers observed hundreds of eighth graders studying for a high-stakes algebra exam. Some students prepared for the big test by attending eight sessions of explicit math instruction; others spent the same amount of time in teacher-led sessions devoted to learning from answers students got wrong. While both groups of students improved their final exam scores by about the same amount, teachers in the “learning from errors” group had invested only half the time. What made learning from errors so effective? Researchers hypothesized that teachers who dove “into the nature” of errors and worked collaboratively with students to determine “how to avert them in future” reaped the benefits of more student engagement and personal relevance.  Embracing mistakes alters the climate of the classroom, deepens relationships, and improves student motivation.

Covid’s Long Tail: Years after the pandemic’s peak, nearly 80 percent of preschool and kindergarten teachers reported that newly arriving students were performing worse than their pre-pandemic peers, and faced steep deficits in emotional regulation and literacy. For early childhood teachers, that could mean more focus on classroom routines and student self-regulation.

A Modest Mental Health Turnaround: For nearly a decade, the erosion of teen mental health showed no signs of slowing. As the years ticked by, more and more students struggled with despair, turbulent thoughts, and suicide—enough to force the American Academy of Pediatrics to declare a national emergency. But the latest CDC data suggests that we may finally be reaching a turning point. After a prolonged rise in the percentage of students feeling persistently sad or hopeless—peaking at 42 percent in 2021, that number modestly ticked back down to 40 percent in 2023.

The ‘Science of Reading’ Meets Real Children: Foundational reading skills like phonemic awareness play a crucial role in helping students learn how to read, but not every child needs the same amount of help. A recent study discovered an “optimal cumulative dosage” of 10.2 hours, a finding that held for students at risk for reading disabilities, while cautioning that “our findings should not be used to dictate an oversimplified prescription regarding dosage.” More isn’t always better—and overemphasizing parts of any reading program can result in a suboptimal allocation of time for promoting reading achievement. “The science of reading is not settled,” the prominent scholars of literacy Robert Tierney and P. David Pearson wrote in a recent report, noting that “phonics-first approaches were lively and controversial matters” as far back as the 1960s. In the decades since, claims of a reading crisis have routinely surfaced in an effort to “justify a purging of past practices.” But phonics is just one crucial piece of the reading puzzle—which must eventually be applied to authentic reading materials such as books and short stories, as “a regular part of the reading diet” that involves more advanced skills like comprehension, prediction, vocabulary, and sustained attention. 

 

People Are Nicer Than We Think

This week's article summary discusses recommendations from the book Humankind: A Hopeful History.

The book’s premise is that most of us have the pessimistic view that humans are innately greedy and selfish.

I remember being a college freshman in Government 101 discussing one particular sentence from Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan: “The life of man is nasty, brutish, and short.” After having read in middle and high school Machiavelli’s The Prince and Goldings’ Lord of the Flies, I had developed a pretty dim view of human nature: given the chance, we humans will resort to selfishness, run amok, and break any rule/law that doesn’t benefit us. Think of the popular series Yellowjackets – take away civilization and law and order, and anarchy and violence reigns, even with a high school soccer team. Or as author Jack London concluded, civilization keeps us from living under the law of club and fang.

While it’s more of an academic, philosophical debate about whether people are innately good or evil, the problem is many of us carry this negative view into our real world interactions with others. We assume others are out to take advantage of us and are motivated by greed. Our only chance to survive is to be equally selfish.

Humankind: A Hopeful History - along with Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - provides evidence and examples that humans are not genetically predisposed to be cruel and selfish. Rather by nature we are kind, cooperative, and compassionate. At the end of the book, the author Rutger Bregman lists 10 things we can do to avoid being cynical and distrusting of others. These 10 things are the subject of the article below.

So as we settle back into the routine of school and try to hold on to our New Year’s resolutions, let’s follow the advice of Rutger Bregman and see the world through a more positive and optimistic lens!

Joe

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In the epilogue of his book, Humankind: A Hopeful History, Rutger Bregman gives advice on how to apply his thesis – that humans are basically good – in a world that embraces the opposite view.

“For ages,” he says, “we’ve assumed that people are selfish, that we’re beasts, or worse. For ages, we’ve believed civilization is a flimsy veneer that will crack at the merest provocation.” He argues that this is simply not true – including in a chapter on the true story that contradicts Lord of the Flies: when 14 teenage boys were stranded on an island in the middle of the Pacific, they cooperated, solved problems, and were healthy and happy when they were rescued 16 months later.

Bregman’s advice for pushing back against the negative narrative:

When in doubt, assume the best: Communication is tricky, he says. “You say something that gets taken the wrong way, or someone looks at you funny, or nasty comments get passed through the grapevine.” Negativity bias kicks in, and you assume the worst. Far better, says Bregman, and far more realistic, is to give people the benefit of the doubt. Most of the time, this pays off.

Think in win-win scenarios: Many companies, schools, and other institutions are organized around the idea that it’s in our nature to be locked in win-lose competition. “In truth,” says Bregman, “this works precisely the other way around. The best deals are those where everybody wins.” Doing good is not only good, but it feels good because of the way we’re built.

Ask more questions: The Golden Rule comes in two flavors, says Bregman: the positive injunction (Treat others as you wish to be treated) and the negative (Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you). But both versions fall short, he believes, because we’re not that skilled at empathy – sensing what other people want – and making assumptions robs others of their voice. It’s better to ask them, listen carefully, and be guided by what they say.

Temper your empathy, train your compassion: What Bregman calls the Platinum Rule calls for compassion versus empathy. What’s the difference? Empathy is feeling with people who are suffering – I feel your pain – putting yourself in their shoes. The problem is that it’s exhausting and unproductive. Compassion is feeling for others, recognizing their distress, and then deciding how to help. “Unlike empathy, compassion doesn’t sap our energy,” says Bregman. “That’s because compassion is simultaneously more controlled, remote, and constructive. It’s not about sharing another person’s distress, but it does help you to recognize it and then act.”

Try to understand the other, even if you don’t get where they’re coming from: “When we use our intellect to try to understand someone,” says Bregman, “this activates the prefrontal cortex, an area located just behind the forehead that’s exceptionally large in humans.” Yes, people have foibles and rational analysis doesn’t always work, especially when we don’t see eye to eye with someone. But using our intellect mostly works better than relying on our gut. “Understanding the other at a rational level is a skill,” he says. “It’s a muscle we can train.”

Love your own as others love their own: “Humans are limited creatures,” says Bregman. “We care more about those who are like us, who share the same language or appearance or background… Distance lets us rant at strangers on the Internet. Distance helps soldiers bypass their aversion to violence… As humans, we differentiate. We play favorites and care more about our own. That’s nothing to be ashamed of – it makes us human. But we must also understand that those others, those distant strangers, also have families they love. That they are every bit as human as we are.”

Avoid TV news and social media: They are the biggest sources of distance among people, says Bregman, skewing our view of the world by generalizing people into groups and zooming in on the bad apples with the media’s negativity bias and manipulative algorithms. His rule of thumb: steer clear of television news and push notifications and read a more-nuanced Sunday newspaper and in-depth feature writing. “Disengage from your screen and meet real people in the flesh,” he says. “Think as carefully about what information you feed your mind as you do about the food you feed your body.”

Don’t punch people you disagree with: It may feel good to lash out at bigotry, says Bregman, or lapse into cynicism: “What’s the point of recycling, paying taxes, and donating to charities when others shirk their duty? If you’re tempted by such thoughts, remember that cynicism is just another word for laziness. It’s an excuse not to take responsibility.”

Don’t be ashamed to do good: “To extend that hand you need one thing above all,” says Bregman. “Courage. Because you may well be branded a bleeding heart or a show-off.” It feels safer to keep a low profile and make excuses or fabricate selfish motives: Just keeping busy. I didn’t need the money anyway. It will look good on my résumé. But this approach isn’t helpful, he believes: “When you disguise yourself as a egotist, you reinforce other people’s cynical assumptions about human nature. Worse, by cloaking your good deeds, you place them in quarantine, where they can’t serve as an example for others.

Be realistic: Bregman hopes his book has changed the meaning of that word. He believes a realistic view of humankind is that “people are deeply inclined to be good to one another.” His closing exhortation: “Be realistic. Be courageous. Be true to your nature and offer your trust. Do good in broad daylight, and don’t be ashamed of your generosity. You may be dismissed as gullible and naive at first. But remember, what’s naïve today may be common sense tomorrow. It’s time for a new realism. It’s time for a new view of humankind.”