Word Families
Using word families is a great approach to teaching students to read. Word families (also known as phonograms or “chunks”) are beneficial because they help students recognize patterns in the English Language. Word families are composed of syllables or syllable endings that are pronounced the same way. For example, a common word family is the “an” family. The an family [Read on...]
Just Write! Guide
After two years of research, Teaching Excellence in Adult Literacy (TEAL) has released a guide that helps adult basic education teachers with evidence-based writing instruction. This guide has many interesting ideas that are aimed at promoting and improving writing, the thought process around writing, and how to enhance overall instruction. Click here to go to the guide online.
Click here to [Read on...]
Tutor Tip: SQ3R
Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Review
SQ3R (Robinson, 1970) is a method for active elaboration of material that you read, say in a textbook. It consists of 5 steps. I’ll talk in terms of a chapter from the text, but this can be adapted to almost anything.
1. Survey (1 minute): Before beginning reading, look through the whole chapter. See what the [Read on...]
Tutor Tip: Why Spelling Is So Difficult
President Andrew Jackson once remarked, “It’s a d____ poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word!” Many Americans would readily agree. In fact, the English language is notorious for its spelling irregularities. Only about half of our spellings exactly match their sounds.
What a crazy system, in which the word fish could be spelled as “ghoti.” [Read on...]
Tutor Tip: Helping Your Student with Sight Words
Sight Words are common or frequent words that we recognize instantly or “by sight.” Two common sight word lists are the Dolch Word List or Fry words. The 600 word list compiled by Edward Fry contains the most used words in reading and writing. The words on this list make up almost half of the words met in any reading [Read on...]
Getting Information into Memory, continued
Learn By Doing
Many teachers have a feeling that people learn better by doing, but what evidence is there? Five experiments where people heard words, watched an experimenter do something, or did something themselves, showed that “doing” has a powerful effect on learning. Those who “did” remembered from 1/3 to 2 times more than those who just heard, and they remembered [Read on...]
Working Memory and Learning
Principal: Working Memory Helps All Learning
Talking to Myself Again….
A word can last in working memory for about 2 seconds without any work. To keep a word in working memory, you need to rehearse it, as in the example above of remembering a telephone number. Working memory stores words using a king of “talking to yourself” (although your mouth does not [Read on...]
Working Memory and Learning
Principal: Working Memory Helps All Learning
“Without learning, there is nothing to remember, and without memory, there is no evidence of learning”—Kay L. Huber, Nursing Professor
Questions for Teacher Reflection
How do you remember a phone number after looking it up in a phone book?
Do your students ever get to the end of a sentence and forget what the beginning of the sentence [Read on...]
Memory and Learning
What it means for teachers
Teach the most important information at the beginning of your class to take advantage of better learning at the beginning. Use the rest of the class for students to practice, apply, and reinforce. End the class with a summary to take advantage of better learning at the end.
Students may be able to “take in a lot [Read on...]
Thinking about Thinking, even more
Here is the example from a literature lesson using summarizing:
Explain Why to use the strategy.
“Today we are going to learn about making a summary of a story. This will help you learn and remember better because you will put the story in your own words. To make a good summary, you have to really understand the story.”
Demonstrate how and when [Read on...]
