The Teacher's Key: Finding the Answers for Learning: Recent Episodes
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Here is some practical advice for establishing a peaceful classroom. Tune in to Faith Music Radio during the eleven2one show every Tuesday at 12:30.
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Sometimes as teachers we need to explicitly teach executive functioning skills or even set up a plan that helps students follow through on what these skills look like while in action. Time management and task initiation skills are easy to implement steps and strategies for students to follow.
Do we set our classrooms and management systems in such a manner that we model planning while teaching students strategies for prioritizing important information. Helping our students to plan and prioritize will set them up for success.
1 Corinthians 14:40 "Let all things be done decently and in order." So many of our students could find more success in the classroom if they only had the skill of organization! We can be the teacher that can help them organize and hold them accountable while they are in our classrooms. Thank you to Sarah Hudon for all the work she did in organizing these lessons to help teachers know how to help our students.
Executive Functioning skills are key to student success. As teachers we can realize that some students through no fault of their own need help while their EF skills are still developing. Thank you to Sarah Hudon for putting these resources together so we can be better teachers!
Executive functioning skills can interfere with the learning process and is critic for students to receive help developing skills. Thank you to Sarah Hudon for organizing and providing this information helping teachers and parents gain knowledge about executive functioning skills.
Executive functions help us to plan, organized and regulate our learning and behavior. God gave us the first executive functioning skills to help us after salvation. We find that in the Fruit of the Spirit. He changes our thoughts to love, joy, and peace. He also changes our behaviors to longsuffering, goodness, kindness, faithfulness and temperance.
Join me as we discover how some students need more time and effort to develop executive functioning skills.
Students do not always avoid a task simply because they do not want to do the work. Sometimes they can be embarrassed by the fact that they do not understand the task or simply do not have the skills to perform the task. Teaching our students to walk in truth includes them understanding that they can do hard things and they can work through their weaknesses instead of running from them.
One reason for students to misbehave is to seek attention. Mrs. Evans used to say, “Why can’t we just give people what they need?” We just need to decide that some students just need more attention. Go ahead and give it to them. Don’t make them seek it. Then teach them how to appropriately seek the attention they need. Teach them how to ask for extra time they need or how to wait and get it later. But teach them about what they are doing and how to correct it.
We can recognize obvious reasons students disobey, like defiance, rebellion, and just plain ole disobedience or foolishness. But there are some reasons some children actually have a problem with self-regulating. This is where we can help students walk in truth by acknowledging the problem and using scripture and strategies to overcome their struggles. Walking in truth is not being perfect. It is knowing who we are in Christ and growing through our faults.
The Lead me part of our model is the abstract teaching and leading students in their own ability to study and learn.
Jesus used pictorial or representation teaching when He met with Nicodemus and related being born again to our physical birth. We can help students learn with charts, graphs, graphic organizers, and pictures. Some students need to "see" what they are learning with the help of visual aids.
Jesus taught using the concrete method when He fed the 5,000, put mud on the eyes of the blind man, or perform the many miracles during His teaching. We certainly cannot perform miracles like Christ, but we can use concrete items for students to touch, feel or taste for learners that need to use their senses to learn.
Did you know God's Word is full of methods for teaching! Psalms 25:4-5 has three methods that Jesus models for us in the New Testament. Shew me; teach me; lead me. Following Jesus's example, we can see where he used concrete, representative or pictorial, and abstract methods depending on who he was teaching! He knew His audience!
Children may not always remember what was taught, but they remember how they feel. We can help students feel safe and loved through our teaching process.
Adding our senses during an experience will add lasting memories. I love the smell of cut grass. That smell always takes me back to when I was a little girl coming into our small town as we were driving home from camp. Those memories are etched in my mind and triggered through the smell of cut grass. When we add taste, smell, touch, sounds, and smells to a lesson it deepens the learning paths in our brains building long term memories.
Children learn best when they experience something. We can easily set up experiences in order to deepen and lengthen learning for our students.
The next few lessons are from the Daycation break out session in case you missed it. I found these verses and this truth out of a desire for finding the answers to learning. I don’t know why, but I am so amazed that God’s Word teaches us everything we need to know about teaching! I have not found all the answers yet, but I keep discovering hidden gems throughout His Word. God’s Word is packed full of learning and teaching strategies.
Another life changing therapy that we found in our search for answers was FIE. FIE helps to develop cognitive functions needed for learning. I like to say it is learning how to learn. These are strategies we need to input, process, and express information. You can find information about it on the website NILD.org.
I have found that the most common success for students is segmented blending. Segmented blending is sounding out one letter at a time with a pause between each sound: blending until there is no pause between each sound.
But remember the best method for teaching phonics is the one that works for your student!
Another method for teaching phonics is Body -coda blending. This is the opposite of onset and rime. You begin with the body of the word (the beginning consonant along with the vowel) then finish with the coda (the ending vowel).
Find the method that works best for your students!
Zephaniah 2: 6 And the sea coast shall be dwellings and cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks.
Shepherds have fences and boundaries for their flock. Graham Donovan tells us in his book Teaching Redemptively, about how the shepherds do not just put food in a container for the sheep to eat. Rather he leads them out to the pastures and lets them choose the best grass.
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Onset and rime describe the division of a syllable into two parts: the onset and the rime. The onset is the initial consonant sound, and the rime is the vowel and ending sound. Basically, you are reading rhyming words.
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John 10:14 “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.”
As a shepherd, teachers need to know their students, and students need to feel like they belong and can trust their teacher.
Hebrews 13:20 “Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep…”
We are always looking for ways to improve our classroom management.
We can improve our teaching skills simply by applying some shepherding techniques to classroom management.
Eph 3:4 “Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ.”
I often say the best curriculum to use is the one that works for your students. Curriculums are different because they use different methods for teaching. I talk about different methods for teaching phonics in this episode and will go into details in the next few episodes about why the methods work and what curriculums you can use for teaching those methods.
A book I want to recommend is by Chris Nikic. Chris is the first person with Down Syndrome to complete an ironman triathlon. His book 1% Better: Reaching My Full Potential and How You Can Too is about how he reached his goal by improving by 1% every day on his goals.
Our ultimate goal should be reaching students with the gospel of Christ through all our teaching- including our process and discipline methods.
Do you ever sing "I shall not be, I shall not be moved" when talking with other teachers about classroom policies and procedures? I have! But when my child's academic life was hanging in the balance, I was finally willing to listen, hear, and change what I had thought was the only right way. I was an 'I shall not be moved teacher.' It took a very personal trial for me to change. What will it take for you?
Do you ever sing "I shall not be, I shall not be moved" when talking with other teachers about classroom policies and procedures? I have! But when my child's academic life was hanging in the balance, I was finally willing to listen, hear, and change what I had thought was the only right way. I was an 'I shall not be moved teacher.' It took a very personal trial for me to change. What will it take for you?
Do you ever sing "I shall not be, I shall not be moved" when talking with other teachers about classroom policies and procedures? I have! But when my child's academic life was hanging in the balance, I was finally willing to listen, hear, and change what I had thought was the only right way. I was an 'I shall not be moved teacher.' It took a very personal trial for me to change. What will it take for you?
Did you know that God created us with 6 Memory Systems? Six that we know. We should challenge students with using all 6 memory systems. We cannot get stuck thinking one way is the right way or the best way for learning.
The wordless book has long been a favorite of mine to tell the Gospel story. Children love to relate colors to heaven and salvation. It also makes it easy for them to share with family and friends.
Having a reading contest during the month of March can energize and improve student reading abilities.
Do you ever read something and get to a point and think wait, what did I just read. And you must read it all over again? Reading is often a task we often find ourselves mindlessly going through the fluency steps but without understanding. We are just checking a box that yes, I simply read what I was supposed to read.
Students that struggle with reading comprehension often skip prior reading skills because let’s face it, they would rather have the plague than read!
They also need to be taught some pre reading skills that will help to bring their reading alive and more exciting for them.
Reading Comprehension does not come easy for some students. Dare I say it is because we wait too late to teach reading comprehension. Steps for teaching reading comprehension can begin long before a student learns to read.
Ephesians 3:4 “Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ.” The purpose of reading is that we understand first and foremost God’s Word for salvation. But overall, the purpose for reading is to comprehend what has been written.
Adding a theme to teach curriculum can be so much fun. This week I share how I added Flat Stanley to Phonics while learning blends. Fun!!!
Using the voiced and unvoiced letter sounds makes so much sense when you are reading or adding suffix -ed to a word.
Knowing when suffix -s says /s/ or/z/ and when to properly use the spelling es can be simplified when you know your voiced and unvoiced letter sounds.
Learning which letter sounds are voiced and which are unvoiced and have a puff of air, can help students with spelling and reading skills.
Our students are precious! We should set high goals and be like Paul and press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus when it comes to their education.
A learning center can be curriculum based or Thematic. Themes are so fun and will draw a student's interest. sometimes they even forget they are learning!
A learning center is governed by rules that students are well aware of and requires students to be responsible and accountable for their own learning and behavior. This is key to a learning Center success.
A learning center has a variety of ways for students to be grouped. Be creative in how you group students together.
- By ability
- By gender
- By interest
- By behavior
An academic learning center is discovery, review, and application of the direct teaching the teacher has recently taught.
In well-designed learning centers, students participate in activities that help them see curriculum subjects in real-time, hands-on ways.
How do you add experience and discovery into your lesson plans?
Studying words in a systematic, direct, and intensive approach, instead of just choosing 10-12 words at a time to memorize, will increase vocabulary and improve spelling for all students.
The multi-sensory approach is when the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic is used all at once. Get your students seeing, hearing, and using their muscles while talking and writing all at one time.
The Teacher's Key
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I always love it when I discover a fun way to help students understand or master a concept. Seeing a student enjoy the process of learning gives me hope that they will seek learning opportunities throughout their life.
I found the best Lego mega blocks this summer. Listen for some fun creative ways to learn using legos!
I found a new learning tool this year and I cannot stop thinking of all the ways to use it for learning! It is a fidget pop. It is supposed to be used for people that need to reduce stress and improve focus and fine motor control.
But I discovered how fun they are to use for learning!
Tune in today for a few creative ways to learn with pop its while having fun!
Summer is a great time for teaching hospitality and blending that time with some fun learning activities! Keeping our children active and learning all summer will help their transition into the next grade level. Remember keep it fun!
The Teacher's Key
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During a very traumatic time for our daughter, most academic learning was underdeveloped at best. I now realize that she was putting so much effort into simply functioning in life, she didn’t have anything left to give for learning.
Are you dealing with trauma and still trying to make it through school? Tune in today for encouragement and how we dealt with life during a most difficult time for our family. Remember you are not alone!
Perceptual Motor Skills are so important because these functions are necessary to plan and make decisions. Students must plan and make decisions for every paper or problem that they work to solve. Eliminating the parts of class time that develop these skills will literally handicap student growth, development and academic success.
For students to reach their full potential and greatest academic success, I must consider more than just the curriculum information I need them to learn. I must realize that perceptual motor, trauma, spiritual, cognitive, executive and neurological processes all work together for academic success.
Often a student is handicapped by one or more of these functions that is under or over developed. Students need to be able to function as a member of their classroom community to achieve full student success.
Join me on Faith Music Radio this month to learn more about this topic.
Using a scaffolding system benefits all students and It makes teaching manageable for us weary, worn-out, stretched in all directions teachers!
Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn. Benjamin Franklin.
Find ways to get your students involved with your class routines and learning procedures. Get them talking and moving in positive ways that encourage them to want to learn.
Planning, preparing, executing, and reflecting on a task, can deepen the learning process and bring about a different viewpoint.
What experiences are you creating to achieve a lasting impression on your students learning process?
Tune in for just one example that might inspire you to create lasting impressions with your students.
Prior knowledge can set a student up for success by giving enough information that he feels comfortable continuing the learning scenario with interest. Then, after the learning process, reflecting on the information learned can solidify and enhance the student's learning.
I share one way to go through this process with one age group of students in this episode of The Teacher's Key.
How are you creating lasting impressions with your students that deepen their learning experience?
Do you find yourself looking for balance when teaching students how to have conversations and not just being silly and loud when given the opportunity to talk during class?
Guiding their talking time can bring focus for all students in helping them understand social skills inside the classroom.
Are your students just the recipients of lectures, drills, and facts? Or do you involve them in their learning process?
How do you provide for or challenge your students to be involved in their learning and apply new information?
I am excited this year to begin using Lego task boxes with math. Enhancing our curriculum with learning centers will create lasting memories and deepen learning for all students.
We are continuing our Creation Fun this summer breaking down the days of Creation.
Honestly, this is such a fun way to teach children that God is the EVERTHING we learn. The ideas are endless and can fill up your day with crafts, activities, food, and discovery!
With the creation of light, we are exploring light and how it relates to colors. We use prisms to refract the light which allows us to discover all the colors! We can then realize the way we see colors are a refraction of the light God created on the first day!
Rainbow cookies a creation of Linda Glenning!
It is that time of year to bring out the fun of summer!
The continual learning that God is our everything doesn’t stop when school stops. During the summer we continue to bring out how God is the everything we learn.
Tune in this week and all summer for our study and FUN while we learn about everything around us in relation to God's creation!
Teaching students that God is the EVERYTHING we learn, reveals to them that God is science; He is math; He is language; and He is history!
Are you pointing out God’s fingerprints to your students while teaching?
After pointing out that God created the first pattern through establishing time on the first day of creation, then finding God’s fingerprints all throughout the obvious patterns in math, they are AMAZED that they find patterns throughout language classes. They really start to see God is the everything we learn.
Are you pointing out God’s fingerprints to your students while teaching phonics?
God’s Word has proven over and over that God is a God of order. He uses patterns, precepts, and principles through-out His Word for us to study, learn, and follow. He wants us to see He is the Everything we learn.
Are you pointing out God’s fingerprints to your students while teaching Math?
As Christian educators, do we truly equip our students to recognize that God is not only the beginning and foundation of everything we learn, but He is the EVERYTHING we are learning.
I find students are little humans with personalities that that are growing and developing under my care for a large part of their day. The teacher often has more awake time with students than their own parents. Does this cause you to pause about their learning?
In a learning classroom you hear students talking and asking questions in an orderly fashion. You will also see students working, building, discovering, and engaged in an orderly fashion. Whoever is doing the talking, is doing the learning!
The new year always brings a time of reflection. This year I find myself reflecting on my purpose for why I stay in the education field. For a long time, my purpose was to successfully teach my own children. Why do I stay, now? Has your "Why" changed?
Romans 12:6 “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us.”
What a beautiful time of year! Even for those of us that don’t get snow, we still reflect on snow and snowflakes and all of its beauty. My thoughts always go to how no two snowflakes are alike. But all of their differences come together in unity to make something so beautiful!
Be the encouragement your co-teachers need to be a cohesive team striving together modeling and teaching continual growth-spiritually, academically, and professionally.
A great teacher will focus on and develop her weaknesses so in time those weaknesses will rise closer to the level of her strengths. In building our weaknesses, we actually strengthen as a whole person and balance our teaching skills.
Competitive Wages for support staff of people with disabilities is vital to the stability and longevity of support. Getting people independent in their community benefits the whole community.
Imagine living without a car in your community. Chelle is blessed that she has a church community of people that don’t just know about her but love her AND- this is key- they take part in her care. When we as a church community have our identity in Christ and not each other we can then get involved and help those in need.
Imagine not being allowed to have money set aside for when things break or for when she is older, and we are no longer here for her.
Imagine having to choose between having the supports you need and providing for your future.
Faith and trust in God is a must as an adult with disabilities.
It is hard to come to the realization that this world through fear is cruel to adults with disabilities.
Our churches need to rise above this kind of fear and take part in the care of adults with disabilities at least within their own membership.
If you have followed our story, you are in for a real treat! God has abundantly blessed our family and specifically Chelle! He continuedly lights our path in the way we should go!
Psalm 119:105 "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path."
Job 6:24 “Teach me, and I will hold my tongue:”
You might think this week's lesson is a contradiction of last week. But it is not. when I say get your students talking, it should be decently and in order.
A good teacher works hard to control her class. A great teacher sets her students up for success early in the year and her class is easy to control.
Proverbs 15:23, “A word spoken in due season, how good it is!”
Don’t stop your students from talking. Teach them how to talk in the classroom that enhances their learning!
Memorizing facts is important; but that is just transferring knowledge. We need a vision for the whole child.
Be the teacher that stays current and learns the new systems. Be the teacher that can help all our students progress and be ready to succeed and reach their full potential.
Do you find it hard to implement new things? Would you just rather stay in your own comfort zone. Comfort zones are great for a while, but we don't learn and progress by staying in our comfort zones. Much of our learning comes through trial and error. Thomas Edison said, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that that won't work."
I am so thankful that God never changes, but I am not perfect like he is. I need growth, development and sometimes change.
1 Corinthians 9:22 “I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.”
Beginning a new school year is always exciting! If you are like me, I start to evaluate everything- my attitude, my classroom management and even my teaching style.
Evaluate your style and begin anew this year!
Think back about your classroom management. Is it working for you? Or does it only work when everything is going perfect? Does it fall apart when you need it the most? Today's episode will have a few tips for you!
Yes, it is almost that time again! Maybe you are not quite in the classroom yet. You might not even want to think about school yet. This could be the spark you need to get you rolling for the new school year!
The Teacher's Key
Syllabication is dividing words or breaking them down into syllables.
After a good phonics foundation has begun, it is time to introduce closed and open syllables.
Open and Closed syllables are the first two syllable types taught by IMSE.
Having a solid phonetic foundation is key to teaching the syllabication of words. Now students are ready to encode and decode multisyllable words.
Orton-Gillingham
Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths. Lead me in thy thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day. Psalm 25:4-5
“Children don’t hate math. What they hate is being confused, intimidated, and embarrassed by math. With understanding comes passion, and with passion comes growth- a treasure is unlocked.” Larry Martinek
Everybody needs a little help now and again. Here are some helpful tools we found that enriched our college experience!
Psalm 46:1 “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
As young adults are transitioning out of high school and into the next phase, sometimes it can feel overwhelming. There is a shift in expectations of how and when work gets done and there is a sudden drop off of parent/teacher involvement for scheduling important tasks. Many times, you are simply given a syllabus to follow, and it becomes your job to divide up due dates for yourself.
What can you do?
John 3:2 "The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that doesn't, except God be with him.
Let's not kid ourselves; we all know we remember more from what we memorized as a young child than what we try to retain now!
Psalm 119:11 tells us "Thy Word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee."
The best time to hide God's Word in our hearts is when we are young. Those elementary years are truly golden!
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Matthew 19:14 “But Jesus said, Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
The Teacher's Key
In all my years of studying and learning unique strategies to teach students, one of the most fascinating things I discovered is that your arm is a muscle memory. It is a form of procedural memory.
Adding a tactile approach to spelling sight words will enhance the memorization of words.
Isaiah 28:10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.
A simple change in the order you teach sounds for spelling words can make a difference for the success of some students.
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