Year: 2025

School is a place where young people learn about the world around them. It is the foundation for their academic, social and personal development.

Schools have manifest functions that everyone believes are obvious: socialization and the transmission of cultural norms and values. But they also serve latent functions. These include fostering a love of learning and the desire for knowledge.

Modern Facilities

Modern facilities at schools provide a comfortable and stimulating environment that improves student performance. From specialized laboratories to onsite libraries, classrooms that are equipped with the latest technology infrastructure make learning easier and more engaging for students.

A modern school’s facilities also encourage creativity and innovation. Art spaces and music rooms allow students to explore their imagination and problem-solving skills, while STEM labs give them an opportunity to create groundbreaking projects. Additionally, sports facilities help students to stay healthy and build a sense of teamwork and discipline.

Modern facilities can also reduce costs and environmental impact by implementing predictive maintenance and smart building sustainability initiatives. For example, a smart HVAC system can optimize energy usage and identify potential problems before they become costly repairs. Additionally, school facilities that embrace green practices may qualify for LEED certifications. Despite the challenges that come with managing school facilities, it is possible to transform outdated space into a learning environment that meets the needs of today’s students.

Involvement with the Local Community

Schools can’t operate in a vacuum; they need the involvement of local communities. This engagement includes fostering mentorship relationships with local organizations, hosting guest speakers, conducting community projects and cultural events, and more. These partnerships allow schools to enrich the community while also strengthening their reputation, boosting recruitment and retention efforts, and making uncomfortable situations like bond votes and tax increase referendums run more smoothly.

The most successful schools capitalize on the expertise of the people in their neighborhood to create a supportive network for both students and educators. By doing so, schools become a hub for community activities that improve property values and boost local economic growth.

These community-school partnerships also provide students with the opportunity to learn from their neighbors and share in the joy of a healthy, well-rounded lifestyle. By embracing the unique culture of their neighborhood, students grow as individuals and learn to appreciate and understand the differences in other cultures.

Personal Attention

Individual attention is a fundamental aspect of a student’s educational journey. It involves tailoring instruction to fit the learning needs of each child, enabling them to learn at their own pace and develop skills that will help them throughout their lives.

This approach also helps to improve a child’s focus and attention span. Children who feel that their teachers recognize and support their abilities are better able to sustain attention during learning activities.

It also allows teachers to spot talent in students who may not excel in the classroom, but have impressive skills and abilities in extracurricular activities like sports or art & craft. Suitable encouragement from educators can go a long way in allowing students to shine and pursue their passions. This is especially important in an increasingly competitive world, where students must be able to adapt to changing circumstances. It can also foster confidence and a strong sense of self-esteem. This is why many schools offer this form of personalized attention to their students.

Personalized Learning

Personalized learning emphasizes self-paced, student-driven instruction. It involves learning activities that promote self-reflection, collaboration, and social construction. It is an educational aspiration that reflects a school’s commitment to moral purpose, high excellence, and equity for every child.

Using personalized learning allows students to forge their own paths and develop a sense of personal fulfillment. It also helps them stay engaged because it gives them the freedom to choose what they want to learn and how quickly.

For example, instead of using standard tests that encourage teachers to teach to the test, personalized learning encourages teachers to let students create projects or presentations to prove what they’ve learned. This approach also avoids the problem of some students being held back by slower peers. In addition, schools that use personalized learning often offer different types of assessments to monitor each student’s progress. They also use competency-based progression, where students move on to the next topic only when they’ve demonstrated mastery of previous topics.

Kindergarten is one of the biggest first steps kids will take toward their formal education. It can be a big adjustment for both kids and parents.

Kids develop a variety of skills in kindergarten, from physical development to language and literacy. Learn how these developmental milestones will help your child thrive in the classroom.

Social and emotional development

As children enter kindergarten, they have a lot to learn. They’ll have more independence, be expected to focus for short periods of time, and follow a structured curriculum. They’ll also need to be more able to deal with their emotions than they might have been in preschool, where teachers often have more limited time to discipline impulsive kids and focus attention on teaching them skills.

For many children, this will be their first experience away from home. It can be scary for both parents and kids alike. To help prepare them, parents can talk about school and their expectations of their kids on a regular basis. They can also set a good example by incorporating learning through play into everyday life. They can read together, role play, and make activities that will teach them about expressing themselves in positive ways. Early social emotional skills are important predictors of future mental health and academic performance, so it’s critical that children develop these through their early years.

Cognitive growth

In kindergarten, children learn to understand their relationships with others and how the world works. Teachers help them communicate and cooperate, recognize their own emotions and those of others, and resolve disagreements.

Cognitive development occurs through various activities, including movement, pre-reading and math games, and creative play. It is also an important time for enhancing vocabulary, tracing shapes and patterns, and following directions.

Children move from the preoperational stage to the concrete operational stage, according to Piaget. They develop their language skills, and their egocentrism becomes less pronounced. Their reasoning becomes more logical and they become able to answer “what if?” questions. Between the ages of two and six, they usually learn to count to ten accurately and identify letters. They may even write their names and draw simple pictures. They can also identify the seasons and the days of the week. Moreover, they can describe the similarities and differences between things that are far apart.

Fine motor skills

Fine motor skills allow children to perform important everyday tasks, such as eating and putting on clothes, and they enable them to engage in hobbies, such as playing instruments or video games. These tiny movements start developing from birth and continue to develop as children gain dexterity.

Kindergarteners can balance on one foot for a few seconds, ascend and descend stairs with an alternating step pattern, string 8-10 beads, hold a pencil and write horizontally and vertically, and draw a circle. They also use a pincer grip—holding thumb and index finger together—to grab objects, such as a peg, a block or a paper clip.

In a longitudinal study of kindergarteners, researchers found that EF and fine motor skills predicted achievement on six academic assessments administered in the fall and spring of kindergarten. Compared with control variables, fine motor skill measures were stronger predictors of achievement. In particular, a fine motor task called design copy, which requires spatial organization and manual dexterity, significantly predicted kindergarten entry mathematics performance and fall-spring improvement in Woodcock-Johnson III math subtests.

Self-confidence

Whether they are learning new skills or trying to overcome challenges, kids in kindergarten (TK and K) need confidence to succeed. In fact, their self-esteem and confidence are essential to their mental health.

Children’s confidence level is influenced by many factors, including their genes and cultural background, as well as childhood and life experiences. These can influence how they view themselves and how they respond to their successes and failures.

Teaching young children how to build their own self-esteem is an effective way for them to learn and grow. Activities like the affirmation mirror exercise, where children stand in front of a mirror and name three things they like about themselves, help to promote a positive self-image. Similarly, encouraging children to engage in healthy self-talk by using positive thinking task cards teaches them how to reframe negative thoughts and foster resilience.

Reading intervention is typically part of a school’s (federally mandated) RTI or Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS). It provides additional literacy instruction to students who are struggling.

Effective reading instruction includes five key aspects of literacy: phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. In addition, writing compliments reading by reinforcing letter recognition, phonics skills, and vocabulary development.

Phonics

Phonics is the knowledge of letter-sound patterns that enables students to decode new words. Children who have good phonics skills can read more easily, quickly and independently.

Teaching phonics is one of the most important ways to help struggling readers learn to read. Research shows that if students receive explicit and systematic instruction in phonics, they can make substantial gains in reading.

Learning to segment and blend sounds is a crucial component of phonological awareness. It takes time to hone this skill and the distinction between short and long vowels can be particularly challenging for struggling learners.

This is an area where we need more research on phonics-based instruction for students with intellectual disability. However, we do have some evidence that phonics can be an effective way to teach decoding for students with ID. One study found that a phonics-based program had positive effects on decoding for students with moderate ID, even when taught by teachers in a small group format.

Fluency

Students need to read fluently to gain meaning from the words they are reading. Reading fluency also enables students to make grammatical inferences and understand figurative language.

Reading research supports the use of repeated reading as an effective fluency intervention for students with learning difficulties. Many studies have found that it is more effective than other interventions such as paired reading, passage previews and goal setting. In addition, it is also more effective when a teacher models and provides feedback to the students during the practice sessions.

To help students build fluency, we encourage you to incorporate the Pause, Prompt and Praise (PPP) strategy into your instruction. This involves encouraging students to stop and clarify a word they don’t know, rather than trying to guess it at the sentence or paragraph level. To support this, we also suggest you teach morphological awareness: breaking words into their base elements like prefixes and suffixes, as well as into their parts of speech such as subject, predicate and adverbial sections.

Comprehension

Comprehension is an active process that involves connecting what a student reads with his own knowledge and experiences. It requires that a reader understand the meanings of words and ideas and makes inferences to fill in gaps in information. It also requires understanding the relationships among different parts of a text, including the gist or main idea and supporting details.

To develop comprehension skills, teachers can use reading strategies that involve students in cooperative learning groups. For example, Reciprocal Teaching, a strategy developed by Palincsar and Brown, has each student take on the role of a summarizer, predictor, questioner or clarifier to reconstruct the meaning of a passage together. Other cooperative learning activities, such as class discussions, book clubs, grand conversations and paired reading, can support comprehension development as well.

When addressing comprehension, it is important to offer students texts at their grade level and to chunk informational text into manageable sections. This is a key strategy for developing reading fluency and will ultimately improve comprehension. However, studies show that this type of instruction alone does not lead to practical improvements on standardized reading comprehension tests.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary knowledge is one of the largest contributors to reading comprehension skills. Research has shown that students with low vocabulary scores have lower text comprehension, while students with satisfactory or high vocabulary scores have higher text comprehension (National Reading Panel 2000).

Educators can support the growth of vocabulary by providing students with exposure to varied texts and books, by teaching specific words with rich, robust instruction, and by teaching word-learning strategies that they can use independently. Additionally, educators can provide multisensory learning opportunities, which engage students’ visual and kinesthetic senses to help them remember new words, such as using flashcards with images or playing games that involve physical movement.

Another promising strategy for building vocabulary is book embedded vocabulary instruction, which involves explicit vocabulary instruction within a shared reading experience. For more information on this, see our blog post describing this approach.

Children gain confidence and self-esteem in a quality educational setting. They also become better communicators and problem-solvers.

Children’s developing theory of mind permeates their everyday interactions with people. They learn that people have different perceptions, goals and feelings.

Children need to be exposed to a variety of cultures and languages in order to develop tolerance and acceptance of diversity. They also need to be able to work together in group projects and activities.

Socialization

Socialization is the process that teaches individuals how to function as members of their society. It involves learning to behave according to certain societal norms and values, developing impulse control and a conscience, and understanding the impact of one’s actions on others.

The family is the primary agent of socialization, but it also takes place through schools, religious institutions and the media. In addition, it can happen through developmental or anticipatory socialization, which is when people learn about future roles and expectations to prepare for them.

Gender socialization is an important part of children’s education as well, and it starts early in life. For example, young girls are often given toys that emphasize physical appearance and domesticity while boys receive playthings that promote action or building skills. This ingrained gender socialization can continue into adulthood. However, there are ways to counteract it, such as having “the talk” with your children about how they should interact with police officers.

Adaptation

Adaptability is essential for children to thrive in life. This skill is a major component of quality early childhood education and care (ECCE). The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals emphasize that all children need access to high-quality ECCE in order to grow into healthy, productive adults.

To teach children about adaptation, it is important to use relatable examples. For example, it is helpful to talk about how different living things adapt to their environments. For example, animals in cold climates may have thick fur or layers of fat to keep them warm. Similarly, animals in the desert might have humps to store water or long legs to navigate hot sand.

Moreover, teachers should encourage students to learn from their mistakes and use their strengths to overcome challenges. This will help them develop resilience, a crucial skill for surviving life’s uncertainties. Additionally, educators should also provide children with a safe space to express their emotions and promote healthy relationships. Activities like trust walks, musical chairs, and yoga can help build resilience and foster empathy.

Communication

Children and youth need to feel safe talking with adults about their learning. This means establishing a culture of mutual respect and tolerance, and providing resources to promote communication. It also means ensuring that parents and families can easily understand the learning goals, relevance and success criteria of their child’s activities.

Virtually all children develop the ability to understand causality, adopt another person’s perspective and sort objects by categories. However, individual differences can be seen in children’s vocabularies, familiarity with the alphabet and its relationship to sounds and printed words, their ability to reason through problems and their knowledge of different notational formats (e.g., 3-D models, maps).

Encourage children to communicate their ideas with you by using games, play, music and storytelling. Getting down to eye level when they speak with you and actively listening to their responses can help them feel understood and safe. In addition, encouraging them to talk about what they’re learning with other kids in their group can help them feel connected to one another.

Teamwork

Early childhood education (ECE) focuses on the cognitive and social development of children. It encompasses formal and informal educational programs that guide children’s learning through their preschool years. ECE professionals work in two-way partnerships with families to support children’s growth and development. They also collaborate with community resources to further enhance children’s learning.

UNESCO’s work in this area is guided by the belief that ‘learning begins at birth,’ first articulated in the World Declaration on Education for All Jomtien Declaration (1989), and reinforced in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. As such, it supports governments in their efforts to ensure that all young children have access to quality early care and education.

In addition, UNESCO promotes the inclusion of an ECCE component in country’s education sector plans to address the needs of different age groups including marginalized communities. This approach will help achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4.2, which calls for “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all by 2030.” Learn how you can help support this effort.

Education support includes tutoring, counseling services, access to learning materials and technology. It also involves creating a supportive environment and fostering positive relationships with students.

ESPs — paraeducators, custodians, cafeteria workers and bus drivers, among others — play a critical role in ensuring student success. They are the foundation of every school and they deserve decent wages, respect and safe working conditions.

Supportive Environment

Education support is the various forms of assistance students receive to help them overcome educational obstacles and enhance their learning skills. This can include tutoring, mentoring, counseling and access to additional resources that may not be available in the classroom. It helps boost students’ confidence and self-assurance, while providing them with a more comprehensive learning experience.

Education support also offers a student-centered approach to learning, which prioritizes the individual needs, interests and concerns of each student. It focuses on building relationships with both educators and students and encourages collaboration, discussion and teamwork. It can also promote a sense of community by fostering peer-to-peer support, which is important for the emotional well-being of students.

From classroom assistants and custodians to cafeteria workers, bus drivers, secretaries and security and technology staff, MSEA education support members are the backbone of every school in Massachusetts. They are dedicated to the total student learning experience and deserve decent wages, better working conditions and respect for their vital contributions to our schools and communities.

Individualized Instruction

Individualized instruction tailors content, learning strategies and pacing to student needs and interests. It is a powerful way to increase student engagement and academic achievement.

It can be used on its own or as part of differentiated teaching. This pedagogical approach meets the learning needs of all students, even those with exceptionalities or disabilities.

Unlike traditional classroom teaching, which moves on to new material before all students have fully grasped the previous subject, individualized instruction allows teachers to provide more time for deep practice for students who need it. This can be especially important in subjects such as math, where building skills requires repetition and practice at the right level of challenge.

Students who prefer one-on-one attention with instructors, like to ask lots of questions or love to work on projects will thrive in a school that provides individualized instruction. It can give them the confidence boost they need to pursue their goals and excel in all subjects.

Technology

Technology is more than an education add-on – it provides the foundation for modern educational learning. It empowers teachers to innovate, excite and inspire students.

Digital tools help teachers improve the quality of their instruction, support student learning and make the best use of their time. However, the cost of many devices and internet connectivity remains out of reach for disadvantaged groups, compounding inequality.

Online platforms such as collaborative software and e-commerce systems allow students to share assignments, work on projects together or exchange ideas with classmates. Digital tools also save paper and space, reduce the need for sharpening and rewriting, and allow learners instant access to information.

Technology supports learning continuity in emergencies. However, most education systems’ distance learning efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic were led by non-educational actors as short-term emergency responses and have limited recorded impact. More robust, evidence-driven education technology decisions are needed. Regulators should ensure unbiased public procurement. They can decentralize procurement or leverage e-commerce and open source platforms to limit the risks of collusion and corruption.

Feedback

Education support programs must be flexible to ensure that they can meet students’ changing needs. This may involve implementing new teaching methods or making adjustments to existing ones. It also involves assessing students’ progress and engagement with their education.

Feedback is important for improving learning outcomes. It can provide information about a learner’s performance, help them evaluate their own self-assessment, and cultivate metacognitive skills (such as goal setting, task planning and monitoring, and reflecting on their own work). Feedback can be based on the performance of a particular task, the underlying processes or understandings, or the learner’s management of the learning process and/or self-regulation.

Effective feedback is timely, specific, and clear. It can be provided by teachers, peers, or self-reflection. Peer feedback is often more useful than teacher feedback, and simple structures such as Wows and Wonders and critical friends protocols can be used to elicit helpful feedback. Feedback that is designed to move students from the task level to the underlying processes or understandings is most effective.

Schools may look different around the world, but they all share one thing in common: education. A school is an organization that provides instruction to students and is usually housed in a dedicated building.

Many parentsand some studentscomplain that school subjects such as history, foreign languages, and advanced math will not prepare them for worksay, as a firefighter or restaurateur. But schools do more than teach job skills. They pass on the treasury of knowledge.

Learning at Your Own Pace

Self-paced learning is a growing trend in schools. When students aren’t forced to move through material at the same pace as their peers, they are less likely to feel frustrated or bored. The ability to work at their own pace also helps students develop their autonomy, self-regulation skills, and critical thinking skills. Students can even use games and checklists to track their progress in place of traditional grade books.

However, some students can fall behind in a self-paced learning environment if they don’t have the proper support. They may need help from a tutor or family member to ensure they stay on task. In addition, if they aren’t disciplined enough to study without someone watching them, they may get distracted by other activities and miss important lessons. It’s essential for students to build good studying habits in a self-paced learning environment so they can master their education at the fastest possible pace. The result is better knowledge retention and higher grades.

Expanding Your Professional Network

In an ever-changing career landscape where the adage “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” rings true, schools can play an important role in helping students cultivate their own professional networks. Students can begin by looking beyond their inherited networks, which typically include family, friends and high school teachers and guidance counselors.

Reaching out to new people online through social media and networking sites like LinkedIn can be a good starting point for students interested in building a PLN. Attending conferences, panel discussions and workshops that are relevant to their interests can also be a great way to connect with other educators and professionals in their field.

In addition, students can also join collegiate chapters of national educator organizations and state education organizations to build their connections. By staying in touch with people they meet through these channels, whether it’s a LinkedIn message asking how things are going or sending an email congratulating them on a recent achievement, students can ensure that their new connections are accessible for future job searches or mentorship opportunities.

Involvement with the Local Community

When you participate in community involvement, whether it’s organizing a charity run, attending local events, or participating in a neighborhood clean-up, not only are you helping out people and places in need but also expanding your network and meeting new friends. It’s also a great way to learn about the different issues in your local area and how you can make a difference.

Other forms of community involvement include voter registration drives, helping organize political campaigns, and serving on school and community boards to help make decisions that affect your neighbors. These experiences give you the opportunity to apply your academic skills and develop strategies for tackling real-world problems in different contexts. This helps you become more confident when it comes to applying your knowledge in a real-world setting. It can also increase your sense of purpose and identity in your community. This is important for long-term success. Studies have shown that students who are more engaged in their communities are more likely to be successful academically and feel a strong sense of responsibility for their local environment.

Learning for the Purpose of Learning

One of the most important aspects of education is teaching students about their own cultures and respecting others. This is an important lesson because the world is becoming increasingly populated with diverse cultures and living peacefully with them is essential for everyone.

Schools should also help students learn to love learning for the sake of it. This is a process that takes many different forms and it’s up to each school to find their own way. However, some of the most effective methods involve focusing on learning as thinking and learning as feeling.

Curriculum, instruction and assessment that are centered around deeper learning support student development in all academic areas, including core subject matter content. They develop student abilities to think critically and solve problems, work collaboratively, communicate effectively, and learn independently. This enables students to adapt and thrive in an ever-evolving society. This is the kind of learning that will make students ready to tackle the economic, cultural, and social challenges they will inevitably face in their lives.

Kindergarten is the first step toward children realizing their potential and reaching their goals. It is an educational approach that emphasizes playing and practical activities such as drawing to prepare children for school.

By the 1920s, kindergarten advocates worked tirelessly to alter state policies and secure resources that would allow for its integration into public school systems. Several regional histories from the Association for Childhood Education describe these efforts.

Social and Emotional Development

Among the most important skills for children to have as they enter kindergarten are social-emotional. Students with healthy social-emotional development are happier, more interested in learning, have a positive attitude toward school, and often perform better academically than those who don’t.

A growing body of evidence demonstrates that social-emotional skills can have just as profound an impact on a child’s ability to learn as letters and numbers. This is why teachers are increasingly emphasizing the importance of preparing kids for the social-emotional transition to kindergarten.

Parents can help their preschoolers and kindergartners get ready by practicing their skills with them. They can role-play simple problems that kids might encounter in a classroom, like sharing with their peers or following directions. They can also play with stuffed animals and practice expressing their emotions in positive ways.

Math

Kids entering kindergarten are often getting their first taste of structured learning, and it can be a lot to take in. Building math skills early can help them adjust to the classroom and thrive at school.

Kindergarten math includes recognizing numbers and shapes, counting objects, and basic addition and subtraction. Other important concepts include patterns and measurement. Kids learn to identify and create repeating patterns, such as the beads on a necklace or LEGO pieces, and sort and classify items by size, such as comparing lengths of toys.

Kindergarten number competence is predictive of first-grade mathematics achievement. However, the relationship is moderated by income. In particular, low-income children enter kindergarten with less number-related experience at home and in their communities than middle-income children. This gap in experience may explain why the correlation between kindergarten and first-grade number competence is smaller for these students than it is for their peers.

Science

Children are naturally curious, and a good homeschool curriculum aims to cultivate that curiosity. Nurturing their questions and providing them with a space for exploration fuels learning.

Young students are capable of learning about science concepts that seem complicated, especially when presented through familiar, everyday experiences and in child-friendly language. They learn the parts of a plant and how it grows, for example, and observe water’s physical changes, such as freezing and melting.

Moreover, they learn about the needs of living things and compare them to their own. They also explore the concept of force by building with blocks, using a lever and pulleys, or taking a field trip to observe planets and stars in our galaxy. Power Homeschool offers Kindergarten science courses that incorporate these essential skills into fun, hands-on activities that foster your student’s innate sense of wonder.

Language Arts

Language arts can feel overwhelming because there are so many different aspects to learn. They include handwriting, phonics, reading, literature study, spelling, grammar, creative writing and more.

You will also work with your children on dictation, which is when they write what you read out loud. This is a great way to develop spelling and grammar skills at this age too!

For younger children, keep your teaching times short — kindergarteners have limited attention spans. Try to spend no more than 10 minutes a day on phonics-type activities. Also continue to READ ALOUD to your children every day!

You should start to introduce prefixes, suffixes and word roots at this time too. CKLA follows the Core Knowledge Sequence and provides a comprehensive Teacher Guide with background information, daily lesson plans, read alouds, assessments and more.

Music

Music provides children a natural way to move and explore their bodies. It helps support gross motor development as they clap, bounce, dance, walk and stomp to music. It also helps develop their sense of rhythm and spatial awareness.

Musical activities allow children to practice cooperation and collaboration, a necessary skill in kindergarten and life. They learn to sing and dance together, working out difficulties while having fun. They become proficient at humming melodies and doing hand gestures that go with songs even if they can’t say the words.

Music connects children with their culture and is a powerful tool for emotional regulation. Lullabies and folk songs can help a child feel safe, secure and loved. They also provide a means of passing down cultural traditions to younger siblings.

Reading intervention is one part of a school’s federally mandated Response to Intervention (RTI) or Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS). It targets five core aspects of reading.

These include phonological awareness, meaning students learn rhyming and individual sounds. They also build morphological awareness by learning prefixes, suffixes and roots.

Group Reading Intervention

Students who struggle with reading require intensive support. Individual reading interventions allow teachers to address a student’s specific needs one-on-one. This personalized instruction has a powerful impact on students’ progress and can make a significant difference in their grades.

This group focuses on teaching students the necessary skills to become fluent readers, including reading rate, expression, and phrasing. Students can practice their decoding and comprehension skills using texts that are appropriate for their skill level.

According to a recent study, small groups that target a single skill area have higher effectiveness than broad-based groups. The research found that students whose instructors use ability-based groups in kindergarten through 3rd grade have worse reading scores than those who were taught without ability grouping. In addition, researchers have found that ability-based reading groups reinforce social hierarchies in the classroom. This can negatively affect the social development of boys, migrant children, and other vulnerable populations. By limiting labels, educators can avoid these harmful effects.

Individual Intervention

A range of research suggests that students whose reading difficulties are not being met by classroom instruction require supplemental, intensive and personalized intervention to improve their skills. Adolescents with severe problems often need this individualized support, especially to gain the necessary reading fluency and comprehension strategies needed for grade-level performance.

Individual interventions allow teachers to provide highly customized instruction that matches students’ learning needs. This allows them to better monitor and address student challenges, which leads to improved reading outcomes.

Research also shows that students need a lot of time to improve their reading abilities, and independent reading (IR) experiences are important. However, making IR time contingent on work completion can undermine students’ reading performance; poor readers may not complete their assigned reading tasks and thus miss out on critical IR experiences.

Picture-Based Comprehension Program

Picture comprehension is a fun and easy way to improve comprehension skills. It requires students to pause and observe a picture, then respond to questions that focus on the who, what, where, when, and why. This is a great way to build children’s confidence and prepare them for more complex texts.

Research has shown that mental imagery is a key component of reading comprehension. Children who have higher levels of mental imagery are better able to build a mental model that connects words and pictures to understand a story. (Kouwenberg, 2013)

Students from Fort Smith Public Schools who received Lindamood-Bell instruction showed large standard score gains in reading comprehension. Watch educators from this district discuss how their students gained success with this approach. Students who receive visualizing and verbalizing instruction also show a dramatic improvement in comprehension. This teaching strategy develops concept imagery, which may be the foundation of higher level thinking and reading comprehension.

Text-Based Comprehension Program

Many struggling adolescent readers have no trouble reading words correctly, but are unable to make sense of the information and ideas they read. For example, a student may struggle with reading a science text about the human body even though they can understand and read Shakespeare.

One solution for students who struggle with reading comprehension is to teach them higher-level comprehension strategies that allow them to connect the new information they read with what they already know. These higher level processes include previewing (identifying what will help them understand the new text), generating main idea statements and summarizing through text-based discussions, and integrating information across multiple texts. In the study mentioned above, MCPER researchers found that teaching these higher-level comprehension strategies improved proximal measures such as Woodcock Johnson-III Oral Comprehension and Passage Comprehension measures. Adding instruction in key word and main idea instruction further enhanced this effect, as compared to the business-as-usual control group. In this study, students received 40 minutes of small group instruction four times a week for eight weeks. They were taught using semi-scripted lessons and grade-level science texts that focused on four, two-week thematic units (natural disasters, ecosystems, human body systems, and space exploration).

Education is a fundamental right that allows children to acquire the knowledge they need to interpret life situations and make informed decisions. Children who have a solid educational foundation are more likely to be healthy and productive adults.

Children also learn to collaborate with their peers in group projects, and explore new cultures, languages and technology games. This helps them become more tolerant of differences and better understand the diversity of humanity.

Self-discipline

Self-discipline is a crucial life skill that can make or break a child’s success. It is the ability to control one’s feelings, desires and cravings. It can be difficult to teach a child to exercise this type of self-control, but it is important to start early.

For example, if you want your 10-year-old to get dressed before school without prompting, you can help them plan ahead by encouraging them to select their outfit the night before. This also teaches them problem-solving skills, which are essential for self-control. Encourage your children to practice this self-discipline by giving them challenging activities such as indoor obstacle courses for kids. Practicing self-control will help your children overcome obstacles such as procrastination or lack of motivation to work. It will also help them become better at identifying their strengths and weaknesses.

Self-confidence

Having healthy self-esteem is essential for children, especially in the educational environment. It can influence their academic performance, creativity and resilience. It also helps them to better understand and embrace their full potential.

When children are confident, they feel secure and can explore their surroundings without feeling intimidated. They are more likely to take risks and tackle challenges, such as learning new skills or overcoming obstacles. They are also more able to accept failure and try again.

Help kids build confidence through positive reinforcement and encouraging them to share their achievements with parents and other familiar adults. Using supportive language and helping them set realistic goals can also be effective. Providing ample opportunities for them to succeed is important too, as this can help them develop a strong sense of self-worth and encourage them to continue exploring their talents.

Social skills

Social skills are verbal and non-verbal communication methods that help kids build friendships and form strong relationships. These skills enable them to cope with stressful situations and develop a positive outlook on life. They also aid in building self-confidence and are essential for healthy functioning.

Developing social skills involves teaching children about empathy, generosity, and communication. Parents should teach these skills to their kids at an early age, which is when they are most receptive to learning them. They can do this by reading books and demonstrating them in real-life scenarios.

It is also important to reinforce the idea that mistakes are normal. Children will learn better when they know that they can practice these skills in real-life settings without fear of failure. Furthermore, they should be rewarded for their efforts.

Creativity

Creativity is an important part of children’s education. It promotes their ability to synthesize new information and bring joy into their learning experience. It also helps them develop a deeper understanding of academic content. According to David Kolb’s experiential learning theory, students need to combine and transform their experiences to understand and retain new knowledge.

Creating art, music, language and game activities is another way to develop creativity. These activities allow children to use their imagination and think creatively (TC5). Parents can encourage their children to express themselves through these activities and ask open-ended questions to foster creativity.

Similarly, using games to teach math and reading skills can be an effective way to boost children’s creative thinking. For example, pretending to work at a restaurant can teach children about writing menus and counting money.

Communication skills

In children’s education, communication skills are vital for learning and development. These skills enable kids to interact with their peers and teachers, handle stress and express their thoughts and emotions. They also help them develop empathy and interpret non-verbal communication cues.

Evidence from studies of child care suggests that enriched verbal input may influence children’s construction of language, and that the quantity of their vocabulary is not only a marker of general ability but has a direct impact on the use of that language. This finding supports Vygotsky’s theory that knowledgeable people can enhance students’ cognitive development by sharing meanings in their environment and guiding them through the zone of proximal development.

Activities that encourage cooperation and imagination like group projects, art and music foster communication skills. Reading together improves vocabulary and reading comprehension, while age-appropriate technology games and apps promote tech literacy.

Education support encourages students to develop a love for learning and helps them reach their full potential. It also promotes inclusivity and fosters mental health and resilience.

Educators can offer education support by creating a supportive environment, making learning relevant, and providing feedback. They can also utilize community programs and online resources to help students thrive in their studies.

Educators

Education is a crucial part of the development of individuals and societies. It enables individuals to take on new challenges and succeed in life. However, some students may struggle with the learning process due to various reasons. Education support helps these students overcome educational barriers by providing them with the necessary resources and assistance.

One of the main components of education support is individualized instruction, which involves tailoring teaching methods and materials to each student’s needs. This allows educators to identify and address each student’s unique strengths and weaknesses.

Educators can also provide students with extracurricular activities and community resources, such as tutoring programs or academic mentorship services. These types of resources can help students master subject-specific topics and improve their grades.

In addition, they can also help students develop study skills and build confidence by identifying their strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, they can foster a supportive environment by creating a culture of collaboration between teachers and parents.

Students

Students often need education support from a variety of sources. This may include a tutor, mentor or online learning platform that helps them clarify doubts and improve their performance. It also involves creating a supportive environment that encourages participation and collaboration.

Educators can provide education support by fostering a nurturing environment that fosters creativity, critical thinking and open-mindedness. They can also implement social-emotional learning programs that help students develop self-awareness, self-management and empathy.

Many community programs and online resources can offer educational support, including libraries that host study sessions and workshops, nonprofits offering mentoring services and after-school programs, as well as various academic and practice platforms that help students learn. Providing these additional resources allows students to get the help they need outside of school, and it also helps them become more confident in their abilities and overcome barriers that can impede their educational journey. FEA members are encouraged to connect with their ESP coordinators to identify community-based education support opportunities in their area.

Parents

Parents play a vital role in their children’s education, from providing a nurturing learning environment at home to encouraging them to pursue their academic goals. They can also provide education support by helping them access available resources, such as tutoring or counseling services.

Parents can help their children develop a positive attitude towards learning by showing interest in what they are studying and asking open-ended questions about their homework assignments. They can also encourage them to participate in extracurricular activities and campus events, and prioritize communication with their children’s teachers to stay updated on their academic progress.

In addition, parents can advocate for educational choice by ensuring that their local elected officials and state lawmakers support policies that enable parental choices in education. This includes support for public charter schools, community schools, homeschooling and microschools. They can also support the educational choice movement by educating their friends and family about the benefits of this movement.

Community

Community involvement in education is a crucial part of the learning process. It can provide students with a supportive environment, inspire them to excel, and create a strong sense of identity. It can also help schools to connect with their local residents and foster a strong sense of community ownership and pride.

Education support encompasses a wide range of services, resources, and guidance that can help students navigate their learning journeys. It can include academic support, such as tutoring and homework assistance programs, counseling services, and financial assistance, such as scholarships and grants.

These resources can be found in many different places, including schools, libraries, and online platforms. Increasing collaboration with the community can provide access to additional avenues for education support, and it can encourage families to be more active participants in their children’s educational experiences. It can also allow for more opportunities to address the needs of students, including social and emotional support.