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We've heard from the TpT community that social-emotional learning (SEL) is a top priority for teachers during these challenging times. Educators are looking for ways to ensure students feel supported, heard, and loved as they grapple with uncertainty and change. To help teachers meet their students' social and emotional needs, we reached out to experts in the field of SEL to get their perspectives and advice. Keep reading to learn why these experts think it's a critical time to focus on SEL, and discover strategies you can start using today.

How can SEL help students during distance learning?

The Teacher-Authors we spoke with emphasized that, in our current climate, students' social and emotional needs are high. "Students might be experiencing a wide range of emotions at this time," says Counselor Keri, a current K-6 school counselor and former mental health counselor. She explains that students may feel anxious, lonely, or even excited depending on their situation. Elementary school counselor Vanessa, from Savvy School Counselor, adds, "Although [some students] may seem fine, there may be some feelings they are experiencing that they've been unable to verbalize." On top of this, students aren't connected to their usual systems of support. Ellen Weber, PhD and secondary educator, points out, "It's vital to remember that students [...] suddenly shifted from a familiar community to trying to learn alone from home... They can easily feel isolated or vulnerable."

Given these needs, teacher experts explain that SEL must be a focus for student learning to continue. The Counseling Teacher Brandy, a current middle school counselor, points out, "If students are in survival mode, they won't be able to learn new things until they address their worries and regulate their emotions." Plus, focusing on these skills will also benefit students in the long run. To this point, TpT Teacher-Author and special educator, Kris from Pathway 2 Success, says, "Social-emotional skills are often the foundations of good academic skills. Things like working well in a group or being able to plan for a long-term assignment are all rooted in social-emotional skills."

As teachers and caregivers look to support the social-emotional needs of their students, there are many strategies they can implement. Keep reading to find out what experts in the TpT community recommend.

1. Keep responsibilities manageable

2. Identify and address emotions

Have students start a journal. Students may be navigating intense emotions during this time, so to help them process, several Teacher-Authors suggest having students keep a journal where they can express and reflect upon their feelings.
Suggested Resources:
3. Practice mindfulness and gratitude

Explore mindfulness videos. To help students learn mindfulness techniques, The Counseling Teacher Brandy recommends trying mindfulness and breathing exercise videos on Youtube. Says Ellen Weber on mindfulness, "A mindful approach to stressful situations can lower or eliminate toxic cortisol from [students'] online learning."
Suggested Resources:
4. Build social skills

These are challenging times, so your commitment to the needs of your students is all the more admirable. As you take care of your students, it's vital to take care of yourself too. Just as Vanessa from Savvy School Counselor says, "Allow for grace during this time. Everyone is adjusting to this new normal. We may not get it right the first time, or we may have to face some learning curves, but we will get through it."

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Distance Learning: A Critical Time for SEL and 4 Strategies to Support It | The TpT Blog

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We've heard from the TpT community that social-emotional learning (SEL) is a top priority for teachers during these challenging times. Educators are looking for ways to ensure students feel supported, heard, and loved as they grapple with uncertainty and change.

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The value of mindfulness-related activities in schools is not new. Writer and scientist Jon Kabat-Zinn helped legitimize the concept through his research, but its early connection to meditation raised red flags for some and kept its recommended practices from catching on. Now, however, as the adverse impact of stress on learning is quite well understood and the pandemic, along with racial and economic disparities, has escalated stress levels in schools worldwide, mindfulness practices are enjoying a resurgence.

I have had the opportunity to see many mindfulness practices in action in schools and to speak to a number of master teachers of mindfulness. I have identified eight activities that are relatively easy to implement in classrooms and schools. With a little practice, these can be part of any educator's pedagogical toolbox.

Caring Openings

1. Silent 60: Start the class by having all students sit quietly for 60 seconds to get themselves ready for learning. You can add a focus on a particular sound in the room, an image you provide (e.g., a dot on a piece of paper, an abstract picture you put up on a screen), or their breathing. Start with 15 seconds for early elementary students and gradually increase. Begin with 20-30 seconds for upper elementary.

2. Powerful Listening: Ring a bell, use a wind chime, or employ another object that makes a long, trailing sound. Ask students to listen and raise their hands when they no longer can hear the sound. After all agree that the sound has stopped, set a timer for one minute, ask students to sit quietly, and then when time is up, ask them what they heard during that minute.

3. One Minute for Good: Start the class by having students reflect for a minute about something that has gone well or something that they are grateful for. This can be done in writing, pair shares, or small or large group discussions. Larger groups work best for early elementary.

4. Morning Classroom Conversations: Start the day with a quote that can stimulate short conversations to help middle and high school students begin to interact with classmates in supportive ways. Sample conversation prompts can be found here.

In the Moment

5. Three Breaths: Have students take three deep breaths at regular intervals, such as before class changes or whenever strong feelings of anxiety or tension arise. Teachers should instruct students on this breathing technique and create visual reminders and prompting signals for students to begin. This is a valuable practice for staff as well, as expert mindfulness teacher Danielle Nuhfer, who has compiled an array of marvelous techniques in The Path of the Mindful Teacher, shared with me:

"The great thing about Three Breaths is that if the teacher would like to share with students what he/she is doing, they can. I've been known to pause, put my hand on my chest/heart, tell my class that I need a moment, and take three breaths. This is something that is a great way to demonstrate our own emotional regulation. When students witness their teacher work through a stressful situation in a way that demonstrates awareness and presence, they may remember that themselves. Sometimes this kind of role modeling can be more impactful than even teaching a lesson to our students about emotional regulation."

6. Body Scan: Educators benefit from learning to focus on their bodies. Make sure you are feeling centered with both feet on the floor as you teach your classes or meet with students or colleagues. Notice when and where you are feeling tension or when your breathing is shallow or labored, and use Three Breaths (or more!) to help you feel some relief. Don't hesitate to let students or colleagues know that you are taking a few moments to gather yourself via breathing.

7. Speak Your Mantra: Develop a phrase that helps you keep focus and keep perspective. Repeat it often-when you encounter roadblocks and when things are going well. Put it in places where you will see it because when emotions run high, we can lose sight of our more cherished values. Some examples:

"I am preparing all of these children for an uncertain future."

"I want all students to enjoy well-being, happiness, and peace."

"My goal is to prepare students for the tests of life-not just a life of tests."

Ending the Day

8. Concluding Reflections: Many have extolled the value of reflection, from Sir John Templeton, founder of the character-focused foundation with his name, to the SEL exemplar Responsive Classroom. Mindfulness experts like Nuhfer have joined that group. Below are five of her favorites for closing the school day, plus two of my own:

Something I learned today...

I am curious about...

I am looking forward to tomorrow because...

Something I'll do (next, later today, this weekend, before the end of the week, etc.)...

A question I still have is...

I had the best feeling today when...

Something from today that I am grateful for/thankful for/appreciative of is...

Most teachers start off as teachers who use mindfulness; moving to become a "mindful teacher"-what Nuhfer describes as a teacher who "acts with awareness about what is happening in the moment," at every moment-takes practice with multiple techniques, reading the relevant literature, being aware of implicit biases, and being part of a community of like-minded educators who help each other improve.

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8 Activities for Students (and Teachers) to Create a Mindful Classroom

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Everyone in the classroom benefits when there are opportunities throughout the day to reflect and prepare for learning.

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Elementary students face a constant stream of distracting sensory stimuli throughout the day, but these simple, quick exercises can help them stay on track.

Anna Godeassi / The iSpot

Elementary school students are constantly bombarded with sensory stimuli throughout the day, during school hours, and at home. Sensory processing plays a critical role in self-regulation and in how children function, interact, and learn at school, so it can be difficult to separate emotional regulation issues from sensory processing concerns, as they often connect.

Children who have functional sensory processing skills are able to take in sensory information, filter out what's irrelevant, and stay relatively calm and self-regulated. They may occasionally engage in compensatory behaviors, such as biting their nails, playing with objects, getting a drink of water or going to the bathroom (when they don't need to, for a brief respite), tapping their legs, fidgeting with their hands, and so on.

When children have difficulty processing sensory information, they can have trouble completing school- and home-based tasks that require them to sit still, attend to instruction, engage socially with peers, and play or work cooperatively with others. They have a lot of difficulty interacting with their environment and peers functionally, because they're not receiving appropriate sensory feedback. They may engage in maladaptive behaviors-for example, they may be unable to sit in their seat and may collide with objects or peers while navigating the school setting, put objects in their mouth, and have difficulty following multistep directions (among other difficulties).

Providing young students with increased awareness of their sensory system at regular intervals throughout the day may help improve their behavior and overall self-regulation.

Simple Sensory Strategies to Improve Participation

Hug your knees: Ask your students to sit on the floor, knees up, feet firmly planted on the floor. Have them bring their knees under their chin, hugging them tightly. They can rest their chin briefly on their knees, as if they were using them as a table. This strategy integrates proprioceptive input (the ability to perceive the position and movement of the body) through joint compression (applying deep pressure).

Backwards hug: Sitting on the floor as tall as they can, students should reach both arms backwards, crossing their hands to squeeze their wrists. This strategy also integrates proprioceptive input through joint compression.

My own learning space: This is a good strategy for students who may be sensitive to auditory and/or visual inputs. When a child is having strong emotional feelings, it can often be helpful to "take space," or move away from the challenging situation at hand (e.g., when they're frustrated during a lesson that's difficult to understand). This strategy allows students to take space while learning. Have an agreed-on location for this exercise. Consider creating a visual boundary to the space, such as painter's tape, so that the student has a guide for where to go.

You may want to add sensory-blocking tools, such as noise-reducing headphones and something that blocks the student's visual field, such as a folder standing up vertically, to further decrease sensory stimulation.

Velcro on rug spot: Consider placing Velcro around the student's learning space, such as under the desk, on the floor, and even on their learning materials (on the back of their notebook, on their pencils, etc.). I like to alternate soft and rough textures for the added sensory stimulation. Feeling Velcro on the floor at the student's rug spot can help them keep their eyes on you and will definitely be less distracting than having a stress ball in their hand.

Chair: Sitting on a chair with a back while listening to you can help the student focus when they're feeling low-energy. The back support gives them the information of where their body is in a space, while their body doesn't have to focus on trying to sit against gravity. This strategy provides tactile and proprioceptive feedback.

Floor desk: This is a small desk that provides a physical and visual boundary around the student. It can be helpful when they're feeling high-energy. It also provides the student with a writing surface while you're teaching. This strategy can be useful for those who benefit from increased proprioceptive and visual feedback.

Tangle/string fidget tools: These types of fidget tools are somewhat circular, so that the student can fidget with them in a repetitive and functional way, getting rid of excess energy. This tool also provides tactile feedback.

Big body breaks: Having the class stop at regular times to check in and do big body breaks so that everyone can feel just right can be very productive. Remind students that sometimes, our bodies may need to check in more often, and that's OK. Ask your students to do downward dog/upward dog yoga poses and head-below-knee poses, and to bend down and squeeze each joint of their body, beginning at their ankles and working their way up to their shoulders.

These strategies provide a reminder to allow for increased proprioceptive (body awareness through joint compression) and/or vestibular (head below knee and rotational) inputs to ensure that students perform consistent large-movement exercises that have those components.

Cardboard box/laundry basket stuffed with pillows: This is a large, firm, and shallow cardboard box filled with a few pillows. Students should be able to sit in there, slightly squished, bringing their notebook/worksheet and a clipboard. Using this seat the right way, on the rug with their classmates, means that they are sitting up and participating. This strategy provides increased proprioceptive, visual, and tactile feedback.

The above strategies can help alleviate the sensory overload that young students experience from the continuous wave of sensory stimuli and keep them in the frame of mind for learning.

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Sensory Strategies That Help Students Refocus on Learning

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Elementary students face a constant stream of distracting sensory stimuli throughout the day, but these simple, quick exercises can help them stay on track. Anna Godeassi / The iSpot Elementary school students are constantly bombarded with sensory stimuli throughout the day, during school hours, and at home.

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9 tips to help students be independent learners

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Encouraging students to be independent learners, not only has huge benefits for them, but it's also a proven high impact, low cost way to improve progress.

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) found that self-regulated, independent learning has a high impact on pupils' progress for a very low cost. They learnt that the average impact of self-regulation over 8 months' progress was found to cost under £80 per pupil per year.

What is independent learning?

Put simply, independent learning is when pupils set goals, monitor and evaluate their own academic development, so they can manage their own motivation towards learning.

Why is it so important?

Students exploring for themselves is at the very core of learning. Making discoveries from a task the teacher sets that they are genuinely interested in and find challenging, and the feeling they gain from self-direction, is wonderfully rewarding for learners as well as an incredible life tool.

In the report, What is Independent Learning and What are the Benefits for Students? (2008), it was found that the benefits of independent learning for students include:

Improved academic performance

Increased motivation and confidence

Increased chances to be creative and intellectually creative

Fostered social inclusion and countered alienation from peers

Increased opportunities for completing differentiated tasks, set by the teacher

9 tips for encouraging students to become independent learners

1. Provide students with opportunities to self-monitor

Self-monitoring depends on the two processes of establishing goals and receiving feedback from others and from oneself. You can encourage your students to self-monitor by helping them develop their use of self and peer assessment to see whether the strategies they were using were effective for achieving learning goals.

2. Use questioning as scaffolding to independent learning

The aim here is a gradual, step-by-step transfer of responsibility from the teacher to the student. The teacher must develop effective classroom discourse, asking higher order, open-ended questions, responding flexibly to students' responses to promote thinking, problem-solving skills and deeper understanding.

3. Offer models of behaviour

Encourage your students to model your behaviour. For example, by showing them how categorising information can make it easier to remember.

4. Develop communication that includes language focused on learning

This helps students to become more aware of the steps involved in learning, to understand their own individual learning style and helps them share their thinking.

5. Provide written and/or oral feedback on classwork and homework

This can be a good way to improve students' confidence in working independently. Limit use of attainment grades and scores and consider giving grades for level of effort.

6. Encourage collaboration

Give your students regular opportunities to complete quality, small group tasks and encourage them to learn from each other and develop their own ideas, rather than always looking to you for answers.

7. Give pupils choices and encourage your students to set their own learning goals

So that they can reflect on their own interests and preferences and take ownership of their learning, this will make your students feel empowered and in control of their own learning.

8. Involve pupils again in lesson planning

Asking your students for their input will help them feel that they have a responsibility for and involvement in their own learning. Video reflections can help you recognise the level of student involvement in a lesson and allow you to plan your practice better.

9. Encourage your pupils to be reflective

Suggesting your students keep a 'learning diary' can enable them to keep track of their learning and monitor their progress. Hopefully their confidence will increase as they look back and become aware of how far they've come throughout the school year.

Get free resources, video examples and reflection questions to help you develop independent, self-regulating learners - join IRIS Connect Film Club >

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Developing independent learning skills that improve outcomes

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Encouraging students to be independent learners, not only has huge benefits for them, but it's also a proven high impact, low cost way to improve progress. The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) found that self-regulated, independent learning has a high impact on pupils' progress for a very low cost.

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The Science of Adversity

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There is a connection between adversity, stress and academic performance. Children often endure stress from adverse experiences, such as exposure to violence, loss of a loved one, racial discrimination and homelessness. Unfortunately, most schools aren't designed or equipped to address the impact of stress on learning.

Adversity doesn't just happen to children, it happens inside them.

Stress gets inside their brains and bodies with risks to health and learning. The good news is the brain is malleable. We can use science to address what stress does to children and to schools.

Cytokines and Cortisol

Stress begins with an experience, and this experience is remembered both psychologically and biologically. Humans feel it and relive it for weeks, months, even years.

Under stress, the body releases a cascade of cytokines, cortisol and adrenaline, biochemicals that function as an internal fire alarm. They permeate key brain structures involved in learning, such as the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and amygdala, which are tightly interconnected and highly sensitive to stress.

The physical experience of frequent and prolonged stress is like being locked in a state of fight-flight-or-freeze, unable to calm down or reset. Children in this state have trouble paying attention, remembering things and getting organized.

Chronic stress can influence the physical structure and function of brain centers that are essential for learning and performance in school, work and life.

Prefrontal Cortex

The prefrontal cortex plays a role in executive function and self-regulation. Under prolonged exposure to stress, signaling between brain centers can be altered, disrupting the prefrontal cortex as it manages the brain's stress response.

Hippocampus

The hippocampus contributes to learning and memory. It is especially vulnerable to surges of cortisol. When the brain is subjected to prolonged and repeated stress, the hippocampus has difficulty converting working memory into long-term storage of information, thereby interfering with the ability to learn.

Nucleus Accumbens

The nucleus accumbens is associated with motivation, reward and addiction. The experience of persistent, unbuffered stress can dull responsiveness in this area of the brain and lead to greater risk-taking.

Amygdala

The amygdala is essential for emotional regulation and reactivity. It regulates the fear response and sends out distress signals to other parts of the brain. When the amygdala is activated for long periods of time, it can alter signaling to the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, derailing the learning process.

Cytokines and Cortisol

Stress begins with an experience, and this experience is remembered both psychologically and biologically. Humans feel it and relive it for weeks, months, even years.

Under stress, the body releases a cascade of cytokines, cortisol and adrenaline, biochemicals that function as an internal fire alarm. They permeate key brain structures involved in learning, such as the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and amygdala, which are tightly interconnected and highly sensitive to stress.

The physical experience of frequent and prolonged stress is like being locked in a state of fight-flight-or-freeze, unable to calm down or reset. Children in this state have trouble paying attention, remembering things and getting organized.

Chronic stress can influence the physical structure and function of brain centers that are essential for learning and performance in school, work and life.

Prefrontal Cortex

The prefrontal cortex plays a role in executive function and self-regulation. Under prolonged exposure to stress, signaling between brain centers can be altered, disrupting the prefrontal cortex as it manages the brain's stress response.

Hippocampus

The hippocampus contributes to learning and memory. It is especially vulnerable to surges of cortisol. When the brain is subjected to prolonged and repeated stress, the hippocampus has difficulty converting working memory into long-term storage of information, thereby interfering with the ability to learn.

Nucleus Accumbens

The nucleus accumbens is associated with motivation, reward and addiction. The experience of persistent, unbuffered stress can dull responsiveness in this area of the brain and lead to greater risk-taking.

The amygdala is essential for emotional regulation and reactivity. It regulates the fear response and sends out distress signals to other parts of the brain. When the amygdala is activated for long periods of time, it can alter signaling to the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, derailing the learning process.

Not all stress is bad − in fact, stress is a necessary and important factor in human development. But chronically high levels of stress, without buffering, derail healthy brain development and impact how children perform in school.

The Antidote to Stress is Trust

Science offers reasons for optimism for schools struggling to educate children facing adversity. Genes are chemical followers − DNA changes in response to the environments and relationships children experience.

Trust is fuel for healthy brain development. When children experience a consistent and supportive connection with a trusted adult, it can alter their brain chemistry. Positive relationships can reduce cortisol, a "stress hormone," and increase oxytocin, a "love hormone." But trust doesn't just happen, it has to be intentionally built. For some children, school may be the only place where they receive this kind of support. When children are in a safe, calm, supportive environment, they can learn the skills and mindsets that are requisite for success in school and in life. By understanding and addressing the impact of adversity on learning, we can put all children on a path toward healthy development and academic achievement.

The Science of Adversity

Dr. Pamela Cantor explains the science of adversity and how we can use this information to design better learning environments.

Building Blocks for Learning

Turnaround for Children's Building Blocks for Learning is a framework for the development of skills children need for success in school and beyond.

How Brains are Built: The Core Story of Brain Development

Developed by the Alberta Family Wellness Initiative

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There is a connection between adversity, stress and academic performance. Children often endure stress from adverse experiences, such as exposure to violence, loss of a loved one, racial discrimination and homelessness. Unfortunately, most schools aren't designed or equipped to address the impact of stress on learning.

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Student-Led Conferences: Resources for Educators

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Whether you already do student-led conferences or are interested in making a shift, this list includes a variety of go-to examples, guides, tips, and forms to help launch or improve these meetings.

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She also teaches a class at NYU called " Can Exercise Change your Brain?" To tap into the brain-boosting effects of movement, she begins each class with an hourlong workout session, followed by a 90-minute lecture and discussion. She has been measuring outcomes of this hybrid teaching method in quantitative and qualitative ways. "One student told me, 'In my other 9 a.m. classes, I am hugging my Starbucks cup. In this class, I don't even need to take notes because I remember what is said.'"

She says exercise is the most transformative thing that you can do for your brain, and she is on a mission to help her students and the public understand the "life-changing," mood-boosting, cognitive-enhancing effects of physical activity.
The Cognitive Benefits of Exercise
Suzuki encourages people to think about the brain like a muscle. Exercise strengthens both the prefrontal cortex (which is involved in executive functioning) and the hippocampus (which plays a key role in memory and learning). In this way, exercise supports our ability to think creatively, make decisions, focus and retrieve key information. In her research, Suzuki found a single workout can improve a student's ability to focus on a task for up to two hours.

Exercise stimulates the growth of new neurons, Suzuki explains, in a process called neurogenesis. In addition, it increases the neurochemical BDNF, which acts as a fertilizer, strengthening neurons and making them less susceptible to breaking down. Physical activity also increases levels of serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine and endorphins that support emotional well-being, motivation and response to stress. As we age, exercise has a protective effect on the brain, says Suzuki, making it less susceptible to neurodegenerative diseases and normal cognitive decline. With exercise, "you are making synaptic connections, and you are making more synapses grow. Movement will help your brain today and protect you against neurological decay in the future."
The Case for Movement in School
Recess has cascading benefits for children, says Suzuki. "It really has to do with what we know about how the brain works and how we can rejuvenate brain activity - particularly focus, attention and mood. When you cut down recess, you are removing time that kids can run around. And when they run around, their brains are getting a bubble bath of good neurochemicals, neurotransmitters and endorphins. These help memory and mood. A simple burst of exercise helps students focus better - to filter out what they do and do not need to pay attention to in class."

She argues that movement breaks in K-12 classrooms support the deep kind of learning that they should be striving for.

"Adults need this, too," says Suzuki, including teachers. "Even though it takes time from your workday, it will give you back time. You will be more productive if you take that time off. Even if it's just a walk up and down the stairs or a walk around the block. That is a surefire way to make your work more productive. It's how humans were built. We were not built to sit in front of a screen all day long. Our bodies and brains work better with regular movement. It's better than coffee."

Adding more movement to the school day is an attainable goal, says Suzuki. She points to a program called The Daily Mile , an initiative that started six years ago at an elementary school in Scotland. The head of school, Elaine Wyllie, "realized that students weren't looking healthy," says Suzuki, "so she asked teachers to take their students for a 15-minute walk or run every day." More than 8,000 schools in 65 countries - including half of all schools in Scotland - have now adopted this program. The website includes guidelines and tips for making the program accessible to all students with the aim of helping them become "fitter, healthier, and more able to concentrate in the classroom."
Reframing Exercise as Movement
Suzuki recognizes that "exercise can be a four-letter word" for some people - something that feels unpleasant or impractical, given the demands of life. So she has begun to talk about it as simply "movement" in her talks and workshops. One of her favorite "brain hacks" is taking a mundane task and making it more physical - such as "vacuuming like Mrs. Doubtfire."

"The thing is, there are so many ways to move your body," says Suzuki. "It's hard to get someone who does not exercise to move regularly. Once you get over the hump, you can start to be much more mindful and see and feel the immediate effects of exercise - you are literally changing your brain."

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How Movement and Exercise Help Kids Learn | KQED

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Exercising not only helps the body but it helps the brain. Schools are incorporating movement into the school day with activities like "The Daily Mile" to get kids active and prepared to learn.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Carol Dweck's work on mindsets is a well-known example of how our beliefs about our own learning affect our success. So if you're already teaching these mindsets to your students, keep doing it! But teachers who want to go even deeper into how thoughts affect actions might consider teaching students about optimism.

Teaching Optimism

Amy Lyon, the teacher in the grit video above, created a yearlong grit curriculum based on Martin Seligman's book The Optimistic Child. Pointing to years of research, Seligman argues that optimism is a skill that can be taught by changing how we view the setbacks we encounter in life. He also notes that parents and teachers must model and teach these skills, because children learn either pessimism or optimism from the adults in their lives.

To teach optimism, Lyon instructs students to become aware of their thoughts through a tool called a " grit pie." The pie itself represents a student's obstacle, and each slice represents a realistic cause of the problem. Students analyze whether their thoughts about the problem are permanent ("I stink at math and will never get good at it") or temporary ("I was distracted by my friends"), and whether they blame themselves ("I didn't ask for help when I was confused by my math assignment") or others ("the teacher doesn't like me") for the problem. Ideally, students' thoughts are temporary, and they take at least some personal responsibility for the problem -- both of which make positive change much easier.

Working with Emotions

Teach students how to work with their emotions. Just changing their thoughts is sometimes not enough for students, particularly if they tend to get anxious, appear depressed, or come from a traumatic home environment. For example, when a student with a permanent belief of failure faces an obstacle, emotions such as fear, despair or anger may arise so quickly that there's no time for changing his or her thinking to fend off the emotion. Thus, the student has been emotionally hijacked and needs to calm the emotions first and foremost.

To help these students, educators should first teach them to recognize and label emotional responses so that they become aware when their emotions are spinning out of control, followed by methods for calming difficult emotions. Research has shown that deep breathing and mindfulness practice are both very effective methods for regulating emotions.

Once students have calmed down, educators can help them "cognitively reappraise" the situation -- as taught in Seligman's book -- in order to change the thoughts and beliefs that caused the negative emotion.

Regulating Difficult Emotions

Emotion researchers have found cognitive reappraisal to be the ideal method for regulating difficult emotions. The other way people regulate their emotions is through suppression -- and teachers need to be aware of students who might be doing this, gritty or not. Emotion suppression means just that: pushing away rather than dealing with difficult thoughts and emotions. Long-term suppression can lead to increased negative emotions, anxiety and depression, as well as fewer close relationships and social support. Researchers have also found that emotional suppression is higher among adolescents than adults.

People who appear to have high levels of grit may actually be using emotion suppression to get through the tough obstacles, particularly if attaining goals is seen as a way to survive ("I have to get into an Ivy League college, otherwise my parents will think I'm a bad person") rather than thrive.

Building Resilience

Helping students cultivate positive emotions will also increase their ability to bounce back from obstacles and the negative emotions that often ensue. For example, researchers have found that highly resilient children use humor as a way to deal with stressful situations. Humor not only fosters positive emotions, it also connects us to others, thereby helping us to maintain positive social support networks -- which we all need when going for those long-term goals.

Sharing positive events with each other can also give students a boost in positive emotions. If students dwell on or savor a positive event, then they are more likely to recall that event -- along with the associated positive emotions -- in difficult times. Savoring has been found to not only give us a boost in well-being, but also to broaden our thinking, making us better problem-solvers.

Deepening Self-Awareness

Perhaps one of the unseen benefits of teaching these "grit skills" is that students will also gain a better understanding of who they are as human beings. And hopefully along the way, they will develop more empathy and compassion for those around them who may be struggling to reach a goal -- making everyone a winner in the end.

More Resources for Teaching Grit

Get the embed code, links to downloadable video files, and more resources for Edutopia's grit overview video, " Teaching Grit Cultivates Resilience and Perseverance," embedded above, or read a one-sheet overview of Amy Lyon's grit curriculum.
Editor's Note: This is the second of two parts. The previous post is "Teaching Grit: Social and Emotional Truth."

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Teaching Grit: How to Help Students Overcome Inner Obstacles | Edutopia

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Carol Dweck's work on mindsets is a well-known example of how our beliefs about our own learning affect our success. So if you're already teaching these mindsets to your students, keep doing it! But teachers who want to go even deeper into how thoughts affect actions might consider teaching students about optimism.

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Movement

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Physical activity that amplifies learning can have a powerful effect on retention and engagement-it's also fun.

Allison Shelley for the Alliance for Excellent Education

When researchers at Texas A&M University gave standing desks to 34 high school students, they discovered that after consistent use, standing while learning delivered a significant boost to students' executive functioning skills-the sorts of cognitive skills that allow kids to manage their time, understand and memorize information, and organize thoughts in writing. Even small amounts of movement, this emerging research revealed, can deliver a positive impact on learning: Neurocognitive testing of the standing students, the pilot study notes, showed a 7 to 14 percent improvement in their cognitive performance, a noteworthy impact for such a simple intervention.

Infusing classrooms with physical activity-or at least the option of some movement, at student discretion-isn't just good for kids' bodies, it's also a powerful tool for improving learning and focus and reducing classroom management issues. And yet, from kindergarten through high school "students spend most of their academic lives at a desk," says educator Brad Johnson for The Washington Post, an arrangement that is meant to increase their focus and academic productivity, but can actually create kids who are "bored, off-task, disruptive or otherwise disengaged."

There are many smart, innovative ways to build movement into lessons and the research increasingly supports getting kids moving in schools to promote better physical health, provide the types of breaks that reset our cognitive processes so that we can learn anew, and even link our physical bodies to our cognitive insights to encode learning more deeply. From intentionally aligning curriculum with movement to improve retention, to planning frequent and active brain breaks to clear working memory, here are more than a dozen ways educators and researchers are pairing learning with movement.

INTEGRATING MOVEMENT IN THE CURRICULUM

Incorporating gross and fine motor activities across many subject areas makes a lot of sense, particularly to teach foundational concepts. In math classes, for instance, you can create chalk grids on the playground and have children walk sloped lines, stopping to discuss and walk the line's "rise" and "run," or you can use hand and arm gestures to teach a broader range of mathematical concepts like tangents and cosines. Here are a few more ways educators are injecting movement into lessons.

In Science, Becoming a Liquid: Science teacher and instructional coach JaShan Wilson turned social distancing requirements into an opportunity for her students to "use their own bodies to model movements, test phenomena, and engage with the curriculum."

For lessons on matter and particle movement, for example, she asks students to "act like solids, liquids, or gases," and then "switch it up as in Simon Says until all students sped up, slowed down, or vibrated in order to represent how matter moves." For a unit on energy, Wilson's students examine the transfer of energy by making wave movements with their arms. "The more energy they apply, the higher the amplitude," Wilson notes. Engaging students in these "human labs," as Wilson calls them, delivered impressive academic results: Her students did better on formative assessments and "continued to utilize the movements and reference the activities, which showed how they connected the concepts to them permanently."

Playing Basketball Math: In a six-week study involving 757 Copenhagen elementary school students, researchers had half the students do math while playing basketball. The other half studied math in class as usual, and played basketball solely as a regular gym activity.

The kids who played while doing math did tasks like "counting how many times they could sink a basket from three meters away versus at a one-meter distance," and then added up the numbers, says Linn Damsgaard, one of the study's authors. Among the students who played basketball while doing math, the researchers reported a 6 percent boost in math mastery; a 16 percent increase in intrinsic motivation; and a 14 percent improvement in "perceived autonomy," or self-determination, compared to peers learning in the classroom.

Student Thespians: When researchers asked 8-year-olds to mimic the words they were learning in another language by using their hands and bodies to act out the word's meaning-by spreading their arms and pretending to fly while they learned the German word for airplane, for example-the students were 73 percent more likely to recall them, even two months later.

In ELA and social study classes, having kids partake in skits may feel like it's inviting chaos, but the body will often remember what the mind forgets-and getting students to act out historical events or scenes from works of literature can help them remember the information, grasp the basic elements of drama, or provide them with a new opportunity to listen to the sounds and rhythms of written and spoken language.

Drawing It Out: Even indifferent or unpracticed artists benefit by drawing what they've learned, a 2018 study concluded, resulting in retention rates that were double the rates of when kids wrote or read.

When a student draws a concept, they "must elaborate on its meaning and semantic features," the researchers explain, while engaging "in the actual hand movements needed for drawing"-a rich mixture of cognitive and physiological activities that encodes learning more deeply and is a "reliable, replicable means of boosting performance."

The drawing doesn't have to be expert-level: even stick figures or crude shapes accompanied by annotations will do, and data visualizations work similarly to hand-drawn pictures. You can assess learning by allowing kids to try one-pagers that demonstrate their understanding of a topic through art; incorporate more graphs and statistical modeling into math and science classes; have students draw models of solar systems or cells in science classes; or let students create travel journals to document any learning journey graphically.

ACTIVE BRAIN BREAKS

Research shows that when students take brief, active breaks throughout the day, it increases productivity, creativity, and social skills. "When we take a brain break, it refreshes our thinking and helps us discover another solution to a problem or see a situation through a different lens," writes Lori Desautels, an assistant professor at the Butler University College of Education. "The brain break actually helps to incubate and process new information," says Desautels.

So plan for frequent breaks (we've included a few ideas to get you started) and keep them active and social-a brisk walk around the perimeter of the classroom, a quick stretch, an energizing freeze dance.

Brain breaks for younger students: Try wiggle breaks where kids stand and wiggle each arm and leg in succession or opposite sides, where kids blink one eye while snapping fingers on the opposite side and then reverse the exercise. For energizing breath, have students pant like dogs with their mouths open and tongues out for 30 seconds, hands on the belly, then breathe briskly for another 30 seconds with mouths closed. Easier still: invite kids to jump in place like they're on a trampoline; or keep it really simple with a quick crab walk around the room.

Brain breaks for older students: Try a wave, starting at one end of the room with students standing and raising their arms; or have them get out of their chairs for a whole-body stretch or for a brief walk around the room. They can also pass a ball around for a quick game of catch, practice a few yoga poses like tree pose or warrior II, or very simply, ask them to hop on one foot, then switch to the other foot for a minute or two.

MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT MOVEMENT WHILE LEARNING

Doodling, Fidgeting, and More: There's often confusion about movement that is not directly related to learning. While drawing a plant cell or creating a pictorial representation of a scene from a novel will deepen retention and result in more durable learning, when students doodle during lessons-by drawing elaborate cartoons while an unrelated lesson is in progress, for example-the research, and the cognitive science, suggests that learning is compromised.

In a 2019 study during which students were asked to doodle-which the researchers defined as "drawing that is semantically unrelated to to-be-remembered information"-while they learned, they showed "poorer free recall for words encoded while free-form doodling compared to words that were drawn or written."

Multitasking divides our attention, a finite cognitive resource, and makes us less proficient at both tasks. But there's a wrinkle here, too: There is some evidence that activities that require very little attention, like fidgeting or listening to soft background music (but probably not loud or attention-gobbling music), don't divide our focus to the same degree. Being tolerant of a certain amount of fidgeting or a pair of headphones is an important accommodation for students who might otherwise need to get out of their seats entirely, or might struggle with focused, demanding tasks like homework. In the end, the more distracting any task is to the lesson, the less likely learning is to stick.

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More Than a Dozen Ways to Build Movement Into Learning

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Physical activity that amplifies learning can have a powerful effect on retention and engagement-it's also fun.

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A raging pandemic, gun violence, climate change - as an educational psychologist, I've seen firsthand how the troubling events of today are taking a toll on our children.

"It's hard to stop thinking about bad stuff," an 11-year-old told me recently. "Sometimes I worry about waking up."

Without the right tools to handle adversity, hopelessness can set in and kids' overall well-being can decline. Hope is what energizes them to stay mentally strong during tough times, and it's what sets them apart from those who give up easily.

Research shows that hopefulness can dramatically reduce childhood anxiety and depression. Hopeful kids have an inner sense of control. They view challenges and obstacles as temporary and able to be overcome, so they are more likely to thrive and help others.

Yet despite its immense power, hope is largely excluded from our parenting agendas. The good news? Hope is teachable. One of the best ways to increase this strength is by equipping children with skills to handle life's inevitable bumps.

Here are nine science-backed ways to help kids maintain hope - especially during tough times:

1. Stop negativity in the moment.

Ungrounded pessimism eats away at hope, which is why it's important to help kids catch negativity before it becomes a habit. Develop a private code to signal "that's a negative comment," like pulling on your ear. Then encourage them to interrupt negative thoughts.

Creating a nickname for their pessimistic voice ("Mr. Negative Nelly") can help kids control it. When your kid utters even an ounce of optimism ("I'm getting better at this."), salute it ("Yes, I can tell you've been practicing!").

2. Use hopeful mantras.

Words have great power. Help your child develop an upbeat mantra ("I got this!," "There's always tomorrow," or "I'll be okay")to use during tough times. Then teach them to use the phrase to reduce pessimism.

You can also have your kid set their positive mantra as a phone screensaver by using quote creation platforms like Canva. Don't forget to adopt one for yourself. Say it until your voice becomes your child's inner voice.

I always said, "I have what it takes!" to my kids, and now they still say it as adults.

3. Teach brainstorming.

Hopeful kids don't avoid problems. They take it head on because they've learned problems can be solved.

Explain to your child: "The trick to getting unstuck is to 'spark your brain' for solutions." Then teach brainstorming. One trick is to use the S.T.A.N.D. acronym to help kids recall the steps:

Slow down so you can think.

Tell your problem.

Ask: "What else can I do?"

Name everything you could do to solve it without judgements.

Decide the best choice and do it.

4. Share hopeful news.

Hopeful kids hear hopeful stories. Violent media can create a view of the world as completely mean, scary dangerous. Uplifting news keeps children's hope alive.

Look for inspiring news stories to share with your kids from time to time. Institute a bedtime review of the good parts about each person's day to help your kids find the bright side of life.

And remind them of their own triumphs over struggles: "Remember when you had trouble making friends? Now you have great buddies!"

5. Ask 'what if?'

Pessimistic kids often think of "gloomy probabilities," which dims hope. But hopeful kids learn to assess accurately. When your child shares a doubt, pose "what-if" type of questions to think through possible outcomes more realistically.

You might ask: "What might happen if you tried - or didn't try - that? What is the worst thing that could happen? How likely is that to happen? What's the most likely outcome?"

These questions help kids weigh if potential outcomes really are as bad as they imagined. That knowledge can be the path forward.

6. Celebrate small gains.

Repeated failure increases hopelessness, but recognizing even a small success boosts hope. Redefine "success" as a gain: a small improvement over past performance due to effort. Then help your child identify personal gains.

For example, "Last time, you got nine words correct. Today you got 10! That's a gain!" Or, "Yesterday you hit one run; today you got two. That's a gain!"

7. Boost assertiveness.

Kids who feel hopeless find it difficult to self-advocate. Learning assertiveness, which is the mid-point between passivity and aggression, increases hopefulness and agency.

Body language matters, too. Teach the basics of confident body language: "Holding your head high helps you appear confident. Always look the person in the eye."

Brainstorm comebacks your child can use to stand up for herself: "Not cool." "That's not right." "I don't want to do that." Practice these skills until your child can defend themselves.

8. Create gratitude rituals.

Hopeful kids are grateful. One study found that people who keep gratitude journals feel more hopeful about their lives in just 10 weeks.

Hold a meal-time tradition in which each family member reveals one thing they grateful for that happened that day. Institute a bedtime ritual where everyone names someone they're grateful for and why.Orlog your children's appreciations in a family journal to recall the good parts of their lives.

9. Embrace service.

As misfortunes increase, hopelessness can set in. Showing children that they have power to make differences in other's lives inspires hope and builds self-efficacy.

Hopeful kids have caring adults who model hopefulness.Start a family charity box where kids add gently-used toys, clothes and games. Deliver it to a needy family so they see the impact of kindness.

Find causes tailored to your children's passion and support their efforts. Projects should be driven by their own concerns, not designed to look good on resumes. Follow their lead!
is an educational psychologist, parenting expert, and author of "Thrivers: The Surprising Reasons Why Some Kids Struggle and Others Shine" and "UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About Me World." She lives in Palm Springs, California, with her husband, and is the mother of three sons. Follow her on , and .

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Child psychologist: The No. 1 skill that sets mentally strong kids apart from 'those who give up'-and how parents can teach it

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A raging pandemic, gun violence, climate change - as an educational psychologist, I've seen firsthand how the troubling events of today are taking a toll on our children. "It's hard to stop thinking about bad stuff," an 11-year-old told me recently. "Sometimes I worry about waking up."

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Throughout my years teaching middle school, I have had the experience of seeing many "work refusals". These are the situations when kids, for a variety of reasons, just refuse to start the work you give them. They might shut down and rest their head on their desk or lash out in anger, shouting about how they just will not complete your assignment. This can be extremely frustrating for educators, especially when teaching a well-designed lesson that you thought would go so well! Let me say that sometimes our lessons themselves can have little or no impact on whether or not a student refuses to work. There are quite often bigger challenges at play that we'll delve into. Quite honestly, even with a special education background, my college and training did not really prepare me for what to do when students refuse to work. These are skills and strategies I had to develop on the ground running while working with young adults. It's an area I'm especially passionate about because all kids deserve to learn and feel good about themselves. It's always important to remember that kids who are refusing are reaching out for help in some way, and you CAN be the one to help them.

Let me say that we ALL have bad days here and there! If a student puts their head down during a lesson and won't finish an assignment because of a headache, it doesn't mean you need to sound the alarm. This article specifically focuses on the students who repeatedly refuse to complete work and need specific targeted strategies to help them overcome these challenges.

What does work refusal look like? Really, it can be different for every student. Some students put their heads down and don't pick them up, despite encouragement and prompting. Other students will look you straight in the eyes and say, "I'm NOT doing it!" while they are clearly expecting a response from you! Other kids might just ignore your directions completely and continue doing what they want to do, whether that is coloring, reading, or any other activity they are engaged in. All of these behaviors are work refusals because they are avoiding doing the tasks that the adult is expecting.

What are the reasons for work refusal? If a student is outwardly refusing to do work in the classroom, there is always a reason. Quite often, we don't know the individual reasons. Some students have had a history of trauma. Again, we may or may not know about the potential trauma. Other students might be dealing with social or emotional challenges at home or in their personal life. Some examples might include a family divorce, a new baby at home, the death of a family member, and feelings of loneliness with a parent working increased hours. Those truly are just a few small examples. Sometimes, when the challenges in a child's life become so difficult for them, they can have a need to control parts of their life that they can control (like doing work in school or not). Some learners might be diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder, while others aren't. Other times, a child or teen may truly be bored and not interested in the topics. Regardless of the actual reason, it's important to take a step back and recognize that the child or young adult is struggling with SOMETHING, whether or not we can see it. Thinking in this way encourages educators to be solution-focused, which is what really matters anyway.

Important note: This entire article is intended to be a bank or toolbox of strategies for teachers to consider when kids are struggling. I know that classroom teachers cannot do it all, and they shouldn't be expected to. Schools need to support educators in these tough situations, and that includes support from admin and other support staff. Additionally, the biggest changes are made when the teachers, families, and the student work together. Please know that if you are dealing with these very challenging classroom situations, I want to have your back, not put more on your plate.

Strategies are meant as supports. They're interventions and techniques you can put in place to try and work towards your goal of helping the student get back on track. However, strategies are not a magic wand. They might take time to work or some won't work for your particular learner. And even the most perfect classroom management and support strategies won't fix every problem or challenge. With all that said, strategies can make a difference for your struggling learner. When you're not sure what direction to go, they're worth a try. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, so it is about finding what works for you and your learners. With all that said, I hope you can find some of these strategies and ideas helpful.
Here are some simple do's and don'ts for kids who refuse to do work: DON'T:

Don't just punish. If a child or young adult is struggling with some social or emotional challenges at the moment, a punishment is only going to push them away further. Your punishment will appear as harsh, mean, and uncaring. I know that educators do not intend for punishments to feel that way, but for many students, they do, including those with trauma in their past. This isn't to say you should "let the student get away" with any behavior. Instead, you can use logical consequences, which I explain below.

Don't send the student out of the room. I can't stress this enough! As an educator, I know this is sometimes a preferred option because it deals with the situation swiftly. It does not fix the problem, though. In fact, it will most likely make it worse in the long-term. The student might feel anger and resentment towards you. The message you are sending is that you can't deal with the situation and you need to send the student out to another teacher or the principal. If a student is just sitting at their desk and refusing to work, it should not be a reason to send them out of class. Kids and young adults are getting much more education being in your room and hearing the discussions than being in the principal's office.

Don't get in a power struggle. No one ever wins in a power struggle! So much energy is wasted is wasted and even if the student eventually complies, it will be filled with resentment. Read up on more ways to avoid power struggles.

Don't just assume the child is lazy. So many times, it is often actually easier for the child to comply and do their work and refuse. So, it's clear that there is something else in play. Reframe your thinking to remember that the child is struggling and needs your support.

Don't act out of frustration or anger. When you start to feel frustrated due to a child's behavior, remember this phrase: "He's not giving me a hard time, he's having a hard time." There is no shame in taking a deep breath and walking away from a situation. As adults, it's important we are calm and collected so we can make the best choices in each situation. It's okay to feel frustrated with a situation, just don't act on that frustration.

Don't use threats. You might be tempted to say things like, "If you don't do your work, I'm going to call your parents," or "Finish this or you can't go to gym." Sometimes, these threats can only make a student dig their heels in deeper and you might regret what you've said later on. Instead, be mindful about what you say and make sure your consequences fit the crime.

Don't embarrass the student. Again, publicly calling the student out might result in a power struggle or escalating the situation. Instead, consider ways to privately support the student to help both of you get what you need.

Do:

Keep teaching. Just because a student doesn't lift their pencil up, doesn't mean they're not listening and learning. Continue teaching, talking, and even involving that student if they want to participate. Remember that the ultimate goal is to educate the student, not force them to work. If they are in the classroom, keep teaching them!

Give wait time. When a student refuses work at first, sometimes all they need is a little wait time. It's okay to let them have their head down or keep their arms crossed. Give some time and wait to see if they come around within 5 minutes or so.

Ignore the small behaviors. If the student crumples up the paper, breaks their pencil, or scribbles all over it, avoid the impulse to tell the student they shouldn't do that or give any further instructions. When things like this happen, the student is either agitated or attention-seeking. One intervention that will help in this instance is just giving space.

Be reflective. Consider what you could be doing that might be triggering the student to refuse to work. For example, are you using a harsh tone? Did you embarrass the student by calling them out for something right before? Sometimes, there isn't anything apparent, but it's always worth considering first!

Focus on the relationship. For many kids, relationship is everything. Put the work aside for a bit. Spend time with your student during lunch, talk with them after class, and really just get to know them. Teach them about you as a person, too! Once a relationship is built, many times your students will have a much easier time working for you because they know you care. This isn't a quick process, but it's always important and worth it. Read up on more ways to build relationships with kids and young adults.

Consider learning challenges. Sometimes students refuse work due to social and emotional challenges, but other times it might be because they think the work is just too hard for them. Consider if the student needs interventions with reading, writing, or math. Sometimes learners might even need direction instruction with executive functioning skills to help them get started and work through challenges. If you are a regular educator, consider discussing the student with the special education teacher or interventionist to get some ideas and strategies.

Meet with the student privately. It's important that this is seen as supportive and not punitive. Talk to the student, ask them what's going on, and problem-solve about how you could help. You might say, "I noticed your morning work isn't being finished, what is going on with that?" When meeting with a student who is struggling to complete work, the most important thing is to just listen! Try to avoid interjecting your own thoughts about what's happening or giving your point of view. Let the student talk and sometimes you might be amazed at what you learn. Perhaps the student shares that they hate where they sit because someone keeps talking to them, or that they haven't been getting any sleep at night due to a crying baby. Be open-minded, listen, and be prepared to problem-solve with the student to help them.

Use logical consequences (and consider them ahead of time). Logical consequences are outcomes from behavior that make sense. For example, if a student is refusing to finish their morning work, a logical consequence would be using some break time later in the day to finish at least 5 problems or sending it home as homework to be done later.

Discuss those consequences with the student. Consequences shouldn't be a surprise to your student. Let them know ahead of time in a positive way. For example, you might say to the whole class, "Everyone needs to finish their work so we can finish watching the rest of the movie."

Use de-escalation strategies to help calm the situation. In the moment, it can quickly become a power struggle when a student outwardly tells you they are not doing the work. It is critical to know how to de-escalate a situation. My favorite strategy has always been saying, "Let's talk about this later." It gives you the perfect way out of a heated situation with a student while letting other students around know you're not ignoring the behavior, you're just dealing with it later. Read up on more de-escalation strategies and use this free printable de-escalation strategy worksheet.

Give choices. For students who struggle with work completion, consider giving limited choices for assignments. Limiting the number to two is usually best so that it's not overwhelming, but it still gives control and choice. You might say, "Would you rather write about this prompt in your journal or draw a scene from the text and write a sentence about it?"

Consider reducing work. Another one of my favorite ways to give choice is to allow the student to choose which 10 problems they will finish. Similarly, you might ask the student to complete only 1 of the 3 essay questions. Sometimes educators have argued that this is making it too easy on the student. Of course, the ultimate goal is to get the student back to completing all the work, without a doubt. However, when a student is outright refusing to do work, completing just one item over none is a success. We all have to start somewhere.

Use student interests. Find out topics the student enjoys doing and learning about. That might be anything: soccer, dirt bikes, drawing, animals, dance, or even a certain television show. The topics and ideas are endless. Then, use bits of those topics in your instruction to hook the learner and help them feel more interested.

Provide accommodations. Giving accommodations doesn't necessarily make an assignment easier, it just gives more options for how the student approaches the task. Allow a student struggling with reading to listen to audio books. If a student isn't writing, allow them access to a laptop. Give out a calculator to a student who gets fatigued with math problems (provided the math skill isn't calculations themselves). Give a word bank, provide multiple choices, let the student use manipulatives, and so on.

Take turns. In line with accommodations, one simple strategy to try (when you can) is to take turns writing and completing problems with the student. For example, you can complete the first problem and write it down on the student's paper. It helps to think aloud while you're solving the problem, as this models the behaviors you want to see. Then, have the student complete the second problem. Next, you would complete the third and so on. This is a more collaborative approach that sometimes eases kids and teens into working and finishing their assignments.

Think about trends. Is the work refusal only happening during math? Or maybe during partner work? Maybe it's only in the morning or in the afternoon? Think about these trends and really delving into the data can help inform your judgements about what's really going on.

Plan breaks. All kids and teens need a break sometimes. Consider adding a preferred activity right after the assignment you want your student to complete. Another option is to schedule meaningful brain breaks.

Provide different writing utensils. This idea seems crazy, but sometimes it works! Give options for writing such as gel pens or colored pencils instead of just a plain old pencil. Sometimes, the freshness of a new tool can help kids get over that road block of starting. It's worth a try.

Consider interventions for task initiation. Our skills for task initiation are like the motor that starts us up. When kids and young adults lack these skills to get started, it can be extremely frustrating for everyone involved. Sometimes, kids don't actually know HOW to start a challenging task or assignment. It's important to consider if these skills are lacking when a child or young adult isn't completing work, because they can be taught. Read up more on this blog post focused on interventions for task initiation skills.

Create an incentive plan, if needed. Sometimes educators are opposed to incentives plans, and I agree they shouldn't always be a first strategy. However, there is a time when they can a struggling student work towards their goals. You might develop a contract that outlines what the student is responsible for and what incentives the student will get by completing work. A contract sets the tone that you will stick to your word so you expect that the student makes an effort to do the same. Find out what the student would like to work for, remembering that each individual student is motivated by different things (I've had some students who want silent drawing time and others who want to help the custodian, for example). My favorite way to find this out is by using a reward inventory. You can visit here to see more about my reward inventories, behavior plans, and contracts.

Collaborate with families. It's important to note that the first time you call the family shouldn't be to mention that the student isn't working. I'm a huge believer in always calling to share something positive first. With that said, it is important to share concerns about students who are struggling to work in class. Be mindful of how you communicate this with families, too. Rather than saying the child is "refusing to work," share that they are "struggling with getting started even on assignments that are at their level." Collaborate to discuss if anything is going on outside of home with the child and if there are any other strategies you as the educator can try. Often, parents are more than willing to talk with their child and sometimes (definitely not always) this even fixes the issue from the start.

Focus on your own self-care. This is definitely not stressed enough in the world of education. Working with students who are refusing to work can be emotionally draining. Take time to focus on yourself when you can. You can't pour from an empty cup.

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What To Do When a Student Refuses to Work

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Throughout my years teaching middle school, I have had the experience of seeing many "work refusals". These are the situations when kids, for a variety of reasons, just refuse to start the work you give them.

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Early this spring, school gates around the world slammed shut. By early April, an astonishing 1.5 billion young people were staying home as part of broader shutdowns to protect people from the novel coronavirus. The drastic measures worked in many places, dramatically slowing the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

However, as weeks turned into months, pediatricians and educators began to voice concern that school closures were doing more harm than good, especially as evidence mounted that children rarely develop severe symptoms from COVID-19. ( An inflammatory condition first recognized in April, which seems to follow infection in some children, appears uncommon and generally treatable, although scientists continue to study the virus' effect on youngsters.)

Continued closures risk "scarring the life chances of a generation of young people," according to an open letter published last month and signed by more than 1500 members of the United Kingdom's Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH). Virtual education is often a pale shadow of the real thing and left many parents juggling jobs and childcare. Lower-income children who depend on school meals were going hungry. And there were hints that children were suffering increased abuse, now that school staff could no longer spot and report early signs of it. It was time, a growing chorus said, to bring children back to school.

By early June, more than 20 countries had done just that. (Some others, including Taiwan, Nicaragua, and Sweden, never closed their schools.) It was a vast, uncontrolled experiment.

Some schools imposed strict limits on contact between children, while others let them play freely. Some required masks, while others made them optional. Some closed temporarily if just one student was diagnosed with COVID-19; others stayed open even when multiple children or staff were affected, sending only ill people and direct contacts into quarantine.

Data about the outcomes are scarce. "I just find it so frustrating," says Kathryn Edwards, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine who is advising the Nashville school system, which serves more than 86,000 students, on how to reopen. Her research assistant spent 30 hours hunting for data-for example on whether younger students are less adept at spreading the virus than older ones, and whether outbreaks followed reopenings-and found little that addressed the risk of contagion in schools.

When Science looked at reopening strategies from South Africa to Finland to Israel, some encouraging patterns emerged. Together, they suggest a combination of keeping student groups small and requiring masks and some social distancing helps keep schools and communities safe, and that younger children rarely spread the virus to one another or bring it home. But opening safely, experts agree, isn't just about the adjustments a school makes. It's also about how much virus is circulating in the community, which affects the likelihood that students and staff will bring COVID-19 into their classrooms.

"Outbreaks in schools are inevitable," says Otto Helve, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare. "But there is good news." So far, with some changes to schools' daily routines, he says, the benefits of attending school seem to outweigh the risks-at least where community infection rates are low and officials are standing by to identify and isolate cases and close contacts.

How likely are children to catch and transmit the virus?

Several studies have found that overall, people under age 18 are between one-third and one-half as likely as adults to contract the virus, and the risk appears lowest for the youngest children. The reason remains the subject of intense study. But the town of Crépy-en-Valois, home to 15,000 people on the northern outskirts of Paris, provides some confirmation that younger age reduces risk of infection-and transmission.

When two high school teachers developed minor respiratory symptoms in early February, no one suspected COVID-19. It was cold and flu season, and health officials still assumed the novel coronavirus was mostly confined to China. It wasn't until 25 February, after one of their contacts was hospitalized in Paris, that the teachers realized they had been infected with SARS-CoV-2. For at least 12 days before the start of winter break on 14 February, and before France instituted precautionary measures, the virus had been spreading freely at the school.

Arnaud Fontanet, an epidemiologist at the Pasteur Institute, and his colleagues started an investigation in Crépy-en-Valois in late March to see whether they could piece together the virus' reach in the town and its schools. In the high school, antibody testing showed that 38% of pupils, 43% of teachers, and 59% of nonteaching staff had been infected. (By then, several people associated with the school had been hospitalized with COVID-19 complications.) In six elementary schools, they found a total of three children who had caught the virus, likely from family members, and then attended school while infected. But, as far as the researchers could tell, those younger children didn't pass the virus on to any close contacts.

"It's still a bit speculative," says Fontanet, who shared results from the high school on 23 April and from the elementary schools on 29 June, both on the preprint server medRxiv. But high school students "have to be very careful. They have mild disease, but they are contagious." Children younger than 11 or 12, on the other hand, "probably don't transmit very well. They are close to each other in schools, but that is not enough" to fuel spread. At the same time, scientists note that children have more contacts than adults, especially at school, which could offset the lower odds they will spread the pathogen.

Other outbreaks also suggest that elementary school pupils pose a smaller threat than older students. Among the worst schoolwide outbreaks was at Gymnasium Rehavia, a middle and high school in Jerusalem, where 153 students and 25 staff were infected in late May and early June. An outbreak at a New Zealand high school before that country's shutdown infected 96 people, including students, teachers, staff, and parents. In contrast, a neighboring elementary school saw few cases.

But the picture is still blurry. Another Israeli outbreak was in an elementary school in Jaffa, with 33 students and five staff members affected. Across the globe, an elementary school classroom in Trois-Rivières, Canada, had nine of 11 students infected after one contracted the virus in the community.

Other data come from day care centers: In many countries, they stayed open for children of essential workers, and outbreaks appeared rare. Two flares in Canadian day cares-one in Toronto, and one outside of Montreal-led to temporary closures. In Texas, where overall cases have skyrocketed, at least 894 preschool staff and 441 children across 883 facilities have tested positive, according to news reports. That's up from 210 total cases just a few weeks ago.

Tracing transmission through schools, one student at a time-as Fontanet and his colleagues did-should help elucidate whether the virus tracks differently in children of different ages. Another clue about age-based spread came from Crépy-en-Valois's timeline of new infections. Among high school students and staff, new infections dropped off sharply once winter break started. But in the elementary schools, the (already low) rate of new cases held steady. Fontanet says that pattern suggests that while high schoolers were catching the virus at school, the younger pupils caught it from family members and not their classmates.

Should children play together?

The scenes hardly resemble typical school: Preschool children instructed to spend recess playing alone inside a chalk square. Eight-year-olds told not to speak to their friends. Middle schoolers reminded to steer clear of classmates when entering or leaving the building.

As schools reopened, many embraced physical distancing for students to prevent viral spread. But although the strategy is effective, it is leaving more and more scientists, pediatricians, and parents deeply uncomfortable. They hunger for a compromise that protects communities from COVID-19 while supporting the mental health of young people. "There has to be a level of risk that we're willing to take if a child's in school," says Kate Zinszer, an epidemiologist at the University of Montreal.

Schools are "where our children run around, play and laugh and argue with each other. They need to return to that sort of a healthy normality as soon as possible," Russell Viner, RCPCH's president said in a statement last month.

From the start, some countries bet on strands of research suggesting young children are unlikely to spread the virus: schools in the Netherlands cut class sizes in half but didn't enforce distancing among students under age 12 when they reopened in April. Other schools adopted a "pod" model as a compromise. Denmark, the first country in Europe to reopen schools, assigned children to small groups that could congregate at recess. It also found creative ways to give those groups as much space and fresh air as possible, even teaching classes in a graveyard. Some classes in Belgium met in churches to keep students spread out. Finland has kept normal class sizes, but prevents classes from mixing with one another.

As spring wore on, many other countries began rethinking distancing in schools. The Canadian province of Quebec, which reopened many elementary schools in May with strict distancing, has announced fall plans that allow children to socialize freely in groups of six; each group must stay 1 meter away from other groups of students and 2 meters away from teachers. Although French preschoolers were photographed sitting inside their own recess squares in May, day cares there have now abandoned all distancing rules for children ages 5 and under. Older students are advised to stay at least 1 meter away from others while inside. But outside they can play freely with others in their class. The Netherlands recently announced that anyone under age 17 does not need to distance.

The change is driven not just by pediatricians' advice but also by practicalities: A full school building leaves little room for distancing. In Israel, pressure to return everyone to school after a partial reopening on 3 May was intense. Two weeks later, classrooms welcomed back all students, housing their usual 30 to 40 pupils. Distancing in class was impossible, says Efrat Aflalo of Israel's Ministry of Health. So the country embraced another protective strategy: masks.

Should kids wear masks?

Masks likely blunt spread at school, but children-even more than adults-find them uncomfortable to wear for hours and may lack the self-discipline to wear them without touching their faces or freeing their noses. Does discomfort override a potential public health benefit?

"For me, masks are part of the equation" for slowing the spread of COVID-19 in schools, especially when distancing is difficult, says Susan Coffin, an infectious disease physician at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "Respiratory droplets are a major mode of [virus] transmission," she says, and wearing a mask places an obstacle in those droplets' path.

In China, South Korea, Japan, and Vietnam-where masks are already widely accepted and worn by many during flu season-schools require them for almost all students and their teachers. China allows students to remove masks only for lunch, when children are separated by glass or plastic partitions. Israel requires masks for children older than age 7 outside the classroom, and for children in fourth grade and above all day-and they comply, says Aflalo, who has 8- and 11-year-old boys. On the bus ride to school, "all the kids are sitting with masks on," she says. "They don't take them off. They listen to the orders."

Elsewhere, masks are less central. In some schools in Germany, students wear them in hallways or bathrooms, but can remove them when seated at their (distantly spaced) desks. Austria reopened with this approach, but abandoned masks for students a few weeks later, when officials observed little spread within schools. In Canada, Denmark, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Sweden, mask wearing was optional for both students and staff.

Not all countries have the luxury of instituting a mask policy driven by science and comfort. Benin requires masks in public spaces, but because the cost can be prohibitive for families, schools do not turn maskless students away. Students in Ghana returned to school in May wearing masks-if they had them. South Africa, which faces a rising COVID-19 caseload, is racing to provide free masks to all students who need them.

For Aflalo, the potential value of masks was underscored after a record-setting heat wave struck Israel in mid-May. As temperatures rose to 40°C, masks became intolerable, and with the health ministry's blessing, students and teachers largely put them aside for almost a week.

For 2 weeks-the typical COVID-19 incubation period-things seemed fine. Aflalo left to go camping in the desert with her family. But then, a crisis: While on vacation, "I started getting calls about the Gymnasium," says Aflalo, referring to Gymnasium Rehavia, the school in Jerusalem with the large outbreak. Aflalo can't say for sure that the outbreak was fueled by a lack of masks, but she believes the timing is suggestive.

What should schools do when someone tests positive?

The short answer: No one knows. That's largely because of a lack of data about how many silent cases might be brewing when an illness or two comes to light. "How do we best deal with infection?" Edwards wonders. "Do we just close the classroom" or shutter the whole school?

Some schools have favored isolating only close contacts. In Germany, for example, classmates and teachers of an infected student are sent home for 2 weeks, but other classes continue. Until summer break, Quebec generally did the same; at least 53 students and teachers tested positive after many schools reopened in May, according to news reports, but officials believed many of those infections were contracted in the community.

Elsewhere, officials are more cautious. Taiwan, which has largely suppressed the virus, kept schools open after one case but said it would close them for two or more, a situation it hasn't yet faced. In Israel, schools closed for a single case, and close contacts of every infected individual were tested and quarantined, Aflalo says. By mid-June, 503 students and 167 staff had been infected, and 355 schools had closed temporarily. (That number is a small fraction of the 5000 schools across Israel.)

Widespread testing in schools, including of children without symptoms, could help officials choose the most effective policy. The U.K. government recently began a study of as many schools as it can recruit across England. The project will test students and staff at preschools, primary schools, and secondary schools several times over at least 6 months for both the virus and antibodies to it, in an effort to map transmission patterns and viral prevalence. In Berlin, researchers from Charité University Hospital launched a study in 24 schools on 15 June -2 weeks before summer break-that will test a cohort of 20 to 40 pupils and five to 10 staff members from each school every 3 months for at least 1 year. The researchers will look for both active infections and antibodies, to map the extent of silent infections and the threat they pose to students and staff. A similar study started this week in 138 preschools and elementary schools across the state of Bavaria.

Do schools spread the virus to the wider community?

Because children so rarely develop severe symptoms, experts have cautioned that open schools might pose a much greater risk to teachers, family members, and the wider community than to students themselves. Many teachers and other school staff are understandably nervous about returning to the classroom. In surveys of U.S. school districts, as many as one-third of staff say they prefer to stay away. Science could find few reports of deaths or serious illnesses from COVID-19 among school staff, but information is sparse. Several teachers have died of COVID-19 complications in Sweden, where schools did not modify class sizes or make other substantive adjustments.

Early data from European countries suggest the risk to the wider community is small. At least when local infection rates are low, opening schools with some precautions does not seem to cause a significant jump in infections elsewhere.

It's hard to be sure, because in most places, schools reopened in concert with other aspects of public life. But in Denmark, nationwide case numbers continued to decline after day care centers and elementary schools opened on 15 April, and middle and high schools followed in May. In the Netherlands, new cases stayed flat and then dropped after elementary schools opened part-time on 11 May and high schools opened on 2 June. In Finland, Belgium, and Austria, too, officials say they found no evidence of increased spread of the novel coronavirus after schools reopened.

In a broader study of COVID-19 clusters worldwide, epidemiologist Gwen Knight at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and her colleagues collected data before most school closings took effect. If schools were a major driver of viral spread, she says, "We would have expected to find more clusters linked to schools. That's not what we found." Still, she adds, without widespread testing of young people, who often don't have symptoms, it's hard to know for sure what role schools might play.

At the same time, open schools can change the overall balance of who becomes infected by adding cases among children. In Germany, the proportion of all new infections that were in children under age 19 ticked upward from about 10% in early May, when schools reopened, to nearly 20% in late June. But wider testing and a decline in cases among the elderly could also explain the increase. In Israel, infections among children increased steadily after schools opened. That paralleled a rise in cases nationwide, but it's not clear whether the country's rising caseload contributed to the increase within schools or vice versa.

"We try to focus the epidemiologic research and find the source but it's hard," Aflalo says. "We cannot say right now this is because of this or that."

What lies ahead?

In much of the world, schools that closed in March remained closed through the summer break, and autumn will see a wave of reopenings. For millions of especially vulnerable children, however, the break may continue indefinitely. Many low-income countries lack the resources to shrink class sizes or provide everyone with masks and so are hesitant to reopen in the midst of a pandemic. In June, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said schools will likely stay shut until the danger of COVID-19 has passed. Similarly, officials in the Philippines said in-person schooling will not resume until there is a vaccine to protect against COVID-19.

In other places, ranging from Mexico to Afghanistan to the United States, planning for fall 2020 is underway. In the United States, school districts are releasing a patchwork of plans, which often include hybrid models that alternate distance learning with small in-person classes. Whether those plans sufficiently protect children, staff, and communities from COVID-19 will depend on how case numbers look as opening day approaches. This reality was thrown into stark relief late last month, when Arizona's governor announced he would delay the state's school reopening by at least 2 weeks, to 17 August, because of a surge in cases.

The experiment will continue. Yet scientists lament that as before, it may not generate the details they crave about infection patterns and paths of transmission. "There just isn't really a culture of research" in schools, Edwards says. Gathering data from schoolchildren comes with layers of complexity beyond those of traditional pediatric research. In addition to seeking consent from parents and children, it often requires buy-in from teachers and school administrators who are already overwhelmed by their new reality. Integrating research-the only sure way to gauge the success of their varied strategies-may be too much to ask.
*Update, 8 July, 12:45 p.m.: This story was updated to further emphasize that the degree of viral spread in the community may impact school reopenings.

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School openings across globe suggest ways to keep coronavirus at bay, despite outbreaks

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Early this spring, school gates around the world slammed shut. By early April, an astonishing 1.5 billion young people were staying home as part of broader shutdowns to protect people from the novel coronavirus. The drastic measures worked in many places, dramatically slowing the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

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CRT

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This school year, I have the privilege of working shoulder to shoulder with teachers who are rolling up their sleeves and asking hard questions about how they can better serve their under-performing students who are disproportionately English learners, poor students, and students of color. They are working to incorporate culturally responsive practices into their classrooms.

I believe culturally responsive teaching (CRT) is a powerful method for accelerating student learning. But truth be told, most educators are not really sure what it is or what it looks like. For some, it seems mysterious. A number of leaders discount it because it seems too "touchy feely" or only focused on raising students' self-esteem, when they need to raise achievement levels. But CRT is so much more than that. It's the reason why I wroteCulturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain. ( Brief podcast on CRT)

Two of the biggest challenges I see teachers struggle with when first embracing CRT, is understanding the role culture actually plays in instruction and how to operationalize culturally responsive practices. They worry that they have to learn 19 different cultures -- everyone's individual customs, holidays, foods, and language. This simply isn't true. Here are four other big ideas about culturally responsive teaching to keep in mind:

1. Culturally responsive teaching isn't the same as multicultural education or social justice education. Too often we use the terms culturally responsive teaching and multicultural education interchangeably, when they're different things. They are related, but only culturally responsive teaching focuses on building students' learning power. It's important to remember that CRT isn't about diversity training, but about helping students reach deeper levels of understanding.

2. Culturally responsive teaching builds students' brain power by Improving information processing skills using cultural learning tools.This isn't an aspect of CRT we talk about a lot. Instead, educators like to focus on the affective elements. Keep in mind one way that the achievement gap manifests itself is by creating dependent learners who find it hard to do critical thinking or independent learning. When we focus on using culture as a cognitive scaffold, then we're able to leverage students' neural pathways that make learning easier.

3. Culturally responsive teaching is grounded in social and cognitive neuroscience. Neuroscience is giving us new findings every day that support why culturally responsive practices work. For example, social neuroscience reminds us that relationships are the on-ramp to learning, meaning if a student doesn't feel heard or seen, then it leads to increased stress. Stress hormones like cortisol impair the brain's executive function. So in order to create a learning environment conducive to all students learning, we need to lower stress hormones by building those relationships.

4. Culturally responsive teaching requires teachers to recognize the cultural orientation we call "collectivism."Teachers are often confused about how culture plays a role in culturally responsive teaching. They think they have to mention race, ethnicity, or cultural artifacts like ethnic food, music, or literature all the time for every different group. Instead, a key starting point to making cultural responsiveness manageable is to organize instructional activities around collectivist cultural principles -- group harmony and interdependence. Vygotsky talks about this as "socio-cultural learning" and highlights that it is necessary to move students into their zone of proximal development.

Here's another important point to make: Culturally responsive teaching isn't a program or set of strategies. First and foremost, it is a mindset. That means that it's equally important to do the ongoing "inside-out" work to build your social-emotional capacity to work across social, linguistic, racial, and/or economic difference with students and their families. Too often I hear educators say that they are "color-blind" or don't understand the socio-political issues that lead to inequities in education -- like disproportionate discipline outcomes for boys of color or low achievement data for English learners, poor students, and students of color in general.

We have to make it our personal business to build our emotional stamina to address our own blind spots and biases. One of the nation's leading implicit bias scholars, Patricia Devine of the University of Wisconsin, compares implicit bias to habits that, with intention and practice, can be broken. Her research has found that three conditions need to be in place for individuals to successfully "de-bias":

1. Intention: You have to acknowledge that you harbor unconscious biases and are motivated to change.

2. Attention: You have to pay attention to your triggers and know when stereotypical responses or assumptions are activated.

3. Time: You have to make time to practice new strategies designed to "break" your automatic associations that link a negative judgment to behavior that is culturally different from yours.

"De-biasing" requires a level of metacognition. In this case, you're not thinking about your thinking, but thinking about your unconscious reacting. Remember, it isn't about getting rid of our biases, it's about rewiring our brains to not respond unconsciously to the negative dominant narratives about the learning capacity of poor students, students of color, and English learners. We have to tame our amygdala, our brain's fight or flight defense mechanism, and take advantage of neuroplasticity - our brain's ability to change itself and respond differently to emotionally charged situations, like talking about race, culture, and inequity.

At the end of professional development sessions with teachers, I usually share this quote from Atul Gawande, author of the Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right: "Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try." Operationalizing CRT may seem overwhelming, but start with something small but high leverage, and grow your comfort and skill level. We can do this!

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Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain

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This school year, I have the privilege of working shoulder to shoulder with teachers who are rolling up their sleeves and asking hard questions about how they can better serve their under-performing students who are disproportionately English learners, poor students, and students of color.

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For years, the field of reading education has been engaged in thinking about best practices. The term "best practice" is generally used to describe those instructional approaches and techniques that improve children's reading development. In short, these practices have acquired evidence over time that if used with fidelity, children are likely to become proficient in reading. The National Reading Panel Report (2000), now over a decade old, was perhaps the most ambitious effort to synthesize this literature in reading, highlighting key best practices in the field.

Best practices, as most of us recognize, however, are not necessarily easy to implement in day-to-day instruction. Consider for a moment the best practice of explicit phonics instruction. Effective implementation of this best practice can get complicated pretty quickly on several levels: It requires teachers to know a good deal about the sound structure of our language, about students' abilities to segment and blend a word's phonemes beyond the first sound. It also requires access to high-quality instructional materials and the ability to differentiate instruction to those children who may need it. Finally, it demands good pacing and classroom organization carefully calibrated to maximize the use of instructional time. If any these requirements break down, the best practice may no longer become best practice. Consequently, another key feature of best practice is that it needs to be implemented well with considerable intention, deliberate practice, and reflection for teachers to be successful at it.

Drawing on current research and professional wisdom, we identify a number of best practices seen from our own research perspective. Certainly, they are not all inclusive. Rather, our efforts here are to highlight a set of practices that have amassed a significant body of work to demonstrate their usefulness in improving children's motivation for learning to read, proficiency in reading, and their likelihood to become lifelong readers and writers.

Children need explicit instruction in vocabulary development

As most reading professionals recognize, vocabulary plays a fundamental role in learning to read. As learners begin to read, they map the printed vocabulary encountered in texts onto the oral language they bring to the task. Understanding text, therefore, depends on being able to translate letter-sound correspondences into known words and comprehensible concepts (Kamil, 2004). Consequently, word knowledge (e.g., oral language) seems to occupy an important middle ground in learning to read. It makes a critical contribution to beginning readers' transition from oral to written forms and is crucial to the comprehension processes of a skilled reader (Beck & McKeown, 2007). Numerous studies (Stahl & Nagy, 2006) have shown that the size of a student's word knowledge is strongly related to reading proficiency both in the primary and later grades (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997).

Vocabulary, or the labels that we use, are merely the tip of the iceberg. Rather, these words relate to a network of concepts that children develop early on. For example, teaching the word kiwi and identifying as a "kind of fruit" helps the child begin to develop an understanding of the category in which it belongs. Categories are essential to concept building (Neuman, Newman, & Dwyer, 2011; Neuman & Wright, 2013). They enable children to build knowledge networks-connections between concepts that are meaningful and enduring in their longer-term memory and are primary in comprehension development. They become the background knowledge that we know needs to be activated when children are trying to make sense of new ideas. Teaching words in meaningful semantic clusters enhances children's reading development.

Children need to develop knowledge through text

Early in our years in the reading profession, we used to hear the common phrase, "I don't care what the child reads, as long as he or she reads." But now we know that this is a bit of a misnomer. We do care what children read. Having children engage in books of high quality introduces them to new words, ideas, and events outside of their daily experience. Even in the very early years, children gain a tremendous storehouse of knowledge through their interactions with books.

Related to the Common Core State Standards, efforts to increase children's exposure to information texts has now taken center stage. Studies suggest that the information genre may elicit more cognitively demanding teaching interactions around vocabulary than narrative. Pellegrini and his colleagues (1990), for example, reported significantly more utterances of high cognitive demand during expository texts reading (16%) compared with reading storybook texts (4%). Similarly, children have been reported to use a greater numbers of initiations, book-relevant responses to questions, and text-external response (e.g., text to life) with expository texts than storybook reading. Therefore, given the substantial differences in the accumulation of words among low- and middle-income children's vocabulary before school entry, information books could serve as a potential resource for promoting vocabulary development.

Although we applaud the attention to information books, it would be wrong to discount the enormous amount of information that children acquire through narrative and storybooks as well. Conveyed through rich characters, events, and plots sequences, these stories can often convey information in ways that spark children's imagination and thought processes not possible through information texts. Therefore, it is important to consider multiple genre and how these different genres may contribute to children's knowledge and desire to learn.

Rereading helps children to reinforce, deepen, and consolidate learning from reading

More rigorous English language arts standards worldwide are revitalizing the longstanding but too often overlooked instructional technique of rereading. An integral part of the directed reading lesson, rereading typically occurred toward the end of the lesson for the purpose of extending comprehension of content. Students were guided to reread excerpts for new purposes, such as investigating a concept, generalizing, and thinking critically or creatively, after reading and discussion. When Ms. Wilson says, for example, "Reread the section on eating disorders and, based on the facts, decide which one is most dangerous," she sets a new purpose different from that established in the before-reading phase-read to learn facts about eating disorders.

Today's version of rereading is focused on intensive reading or close reading, which involves multiple readings for purposes of text analysis during and after reading (Shanahan, 2012). This is no cursory return to the text for a different purpose, but rather a careful consideration of how the text works to communicate concepts, principles, themes, arguments, and so forth. Students reread to develop an aggressive, probing, analytical approach to what the text says and how it says it-the function of details, for example, or logical order and relationships in text organization. When Mr. Madrid asks his third graders to first reread to identify topic sentences in a set of related paragraphs, then to examine how supporting details clarify the topic within and across them, next to search for any inconsistencies in the information, and finally to discuss how the paragraphs are ordered to build a chain of reasoning (temporal order, spatial order, or some other system), he is engaging them in close reading.

Two primary sources of evidence support the instructional technique of rereading as intensive reading. One is the research base, which shows the benefits of rereading for increasing comprehension. Research shows, for example, that rereading improves meta-comprehension accuracy, that is, the ability to monitor and assess one's own comprehension in learning new material - a critical strategy when reading to learn complex material (Rawson, Dunlosky, & Thiede, 2000). The other is expert opinion based on scholarly thought and work. This is well illustrated in the classic text, How to Read a Book, by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren (1972; first published in 1940), in which the authors explain how to be a demanding reader who rereads to "x-ray" a text and determine the author's message. How to Read a Book is a teacher's manual no teacher should be without when implementing rereading as close reading in best practice.

Children's motivation to read is enhanced through digital texts

Make no mistake about it, the transition from paper textbooks to digital textbooks is at full throttle. It is unstoppable and will advance at a swift pace into the immediate future (Colaner, 2012). Know this from the start: A digital textbook is not the static version of a print book. Rather, as currently defined, it is "an interactive set of learning content and tools accessed via a laptop, tablet or other advanced device" ( The Digital Textbook Playbook, 2013, p. 5). A digital textbook is lightweight (literally), Internet connected, and personalized. It enables collaboration and provides instantaneous feedback to student and teacher. It changes how students read.

Research evidence is mounting that digital textbooks give students a reading edge. Studies report that reading in a digital learning environment is an incentive in younger and lower performing students and that feedback in e-books and apps plays a powerful role for staying engaged and motivated (Grinshaw, Dungworth, McKnight, & Morris, 2007; Zucker, Moody, & McKenna, 2009). Digital features like animation, hotspots, and audio facilitate comprehension and aid recall of story plots and content information (Shamir & Korat, 2009; Verhallen, Bus, & de Jong, 2006). Most promising are built-in tutors or virtual assistants that focus attention and provide on-the-spot teaching of reading skills, such as decoding and word meanings (Smeets & Bus, 2013).

Using digital textbooks in reading instruction, therefore, is no longer an if-no-maybe proposition. It is a best practice that can personalize student learning, increase relevant instructional time, and support differentiation to meet students' specific needs. Digital textbooks provide teachers with opportunities to apply proven practices (the best ones) more often with all students that in turn increase student opportunities to engage in meaningful and appropriate learning experiences.

Because teachers have access to timely data (embedded in digital textbooks), the ability to connect students with the content and activities that meet their individual learning styles and needs, they can personalize learning for more students at any given time and ensure that all students are reaching their full learning potential. That's revolutionary!

Children need to pay attention to syntax to strengthen comprehension

Grammar is back! Attention to syntax or sentence structure has not been a high-priority best practice for many years, although parsing sentences as an aid to comprehension has a long history in reading instruction. To read complex, challenging texts, students must become familiar with increasingly complex sentences of written language. They need to cultivate a syntactic awareness of sentence structures used in the more formal language of books. Written text requires more words than talk; it uses more conventions; it is more precise; it is more abstract. The wording of writing is learned through reading, even as its comprehension depends on the oral language the reader brings to the task (Adams, 2011).

Research reveals the strong link between students' syntactic awareness and their reading achievement. Better readers, in brief, demonstrate higher syntactic awareness than poorer readers (Tunmer & Bowey, 1984) and also possess more grammar knowledge that supports comprehension than their less skilled peers (Waltzman & Cairns, 2000).

Reviving the close inspection of sentences is a new priority in reading instruction - reading punctuation, locating core parts and modifiers, keeping track of pronouns, reading for sentence meaning, and the like. Consider this rather dense sentence: "Since many lakes and waterways in this country are unfit for recreational or practical use, the federal commission responsible for them recently drafted critically needed water pollution control measures, which may, if they become law, force major polluters to clean up some of the mess they have made" (Niles, Fitzgerald, & Tuinman, 1977, p. 159). To comprehend its full meaning, students need to (a) keep track of when measures were drafted, by whom, and what must happen for them to be effective and (b) track the referents for the pronouns them and they or run the risk of confusing the "what" (lakes and waterways) and "who" (polluters) at the heart of the sentence's meaning.

The even denser sentence that follows further makes the point about the need to directly instruct students in how to read a sentence for meaning. "His eyes were black and piercing, their sharpness, the rapidity and keenness with which they darted from one object to another, taking in apparently everything with a few lightning-like glances, signaling cunning, remorselessness, and selfishness to an extreme degree" (Anderson, 2013, p. 91). Here the punctuation (many commas) along with the unusual word order makes the sentence difficult to understand and demands readers to parse it to visualize those black and piercing eyes.

Drawing students' attention to the sentence structures and conventions of written language and illuminating differences between speech and writing helps them to grasp the elaborated structures of written language and learn from reading. Teaching students how to parse sentences for meaning is not a new instructional technique, but doing so more deliberately with greater intensity and frequency definitely is, thus affirming its enduring worth in best practice.

Final words

In this column, we have attempted to highlight a number of best practices in reading that either are or should be implemented in the classroom. Clearly they reflect our own biases and research perspectives. Kathy, in most recent years, has worked closely with teachers in professional development to bring e-books and technology to the classroom, recognizing the enormous potential that these books can have on children's motivation to read. Susan has focused on vocabulary development and its linkage to conceptual development and comprehension. Both of these areas, as you will surely recognize, are well represented in our preceding list of best practices.

Our goal in writing this column, however, is not to create a static list of best practices. Rather, we wish to engage you in the reading community to consider best practices, and how we may promote their uses, with high fidelity in classroom instruction. We see this list as dynamic, ever growing, and based on powerful evidence of children's achievement as we continue to grapple and to improve reading instruction for all in the 21st century.

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Best Practices in Reading: A 21st Century Skill Update

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For years, the field of reading education has been engaged in thinking about best practices. Explicit instruction in vocabulary, rereading and using digital textbooks to motivate children's reading are among some of these updated best practices. Those in the reading community are urged to consider best practices, and how we may promote their uses, with high fidelity in classroom instruction.

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How To Fix A Talkative Class - Smart Classroom Management

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Unwanted talking is near the top of the list of teacher frustrations. Although not considered severe misbehavior, it can nonetheless severely disrupt learning. It can hijack listening, shatter concentration, and cause other students to join in as well.

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The first day of school. Do you remember any of your first days from when you were a child? The eager expectations of meeting new friends, getting to know your new teacher, finding your new desk. Students encounter a lot of new things that first day of school and our job as a teacher is to help them wade through the waters of a day of many firsts.

One of the most important things we can do on the first day is to teach students how we want them to get along with one another and with you, the teacher. Teach them how you want them to interact inside and outside the classroom. Teach them that school is a safe environment where we truly care about each student.

Cooperative learning activities provide a perfect opportunity to show students we care about them. These activities also show students how they can interact with each other and help students get to know one another.

Before I get into depth with each activity, one of the key pieces of these activities that usually gets left out is the reflection piece. After the activity, no matter what grade you teach, have students reflect on their experience during the activity. How did they respond to other students? What did they do that helped others / hurt others? What would they have done differently? These can be done within a community circle or in a writing journal. Either way, don't forget about the power of reflection.

Here are several cooperative learning activities that I use within the first week of school. I use different ones with different grade levels, depending on their skill.

Interview

The interview is pretty simple. For younger students, use pictures, for older students, you can brainstorm a list of questions and they can choose which ones they write down. The basic idea is that two students will be paired together and they will interview each other. The student who did the interviewing will report out about the student who was interviewed. This reporting out can take place over the course of a week or so. My students can't sit still to hear about all 20+ students. I tend to do the interviewing on one day and the reporting out over a course of days.

Find Someone Who

This is similar to an interview, in that students are asking questions, but in this version, students ask only one question to one student. Again, determine the questions based on students' age level. Instead of questions, you can also put attributes, which is how the game is originally supposed to be played. Either way, the idea is that students are talking to multiple students in the class.

For my second graders, I create a grid, usually 4 x 3 or so and write down 12 questions or attributes, one in each box. Students find another student, ask one question, then have the student sign his or her name in that box.

Spider Web

This one is so much fun! You will need a ball of string or yarn, any color will do. Have students sit in a circle, either on the carpet or in chairs. This game can also be played outside.

Start with yourself. Say your name and one thing about yourself. Then choose another student who is across the circle and roll or hand the ball to that student. That student says his name and one thing about himself. Play continues until all students have gotten a turn and there is a web of string crisscrossing the circle.

Reflect on how each person is part of the web, which represents the classroom, that you are all holding a piece of the classroom and without that piece, the classroom wouldn't be complete. When you are finished with the reflection, have one student let go of their string to demonstrate what happens if one person isn't included in the web. It collapses. We don't want our web (or classroom) to collapse!

You can make the game more simple where students just choose the next student or more complicated, where students have to tell one thing about themselves, like their favorite food or something. Either way, it's a fun game that shows the inclusion of all students.

Graffiti

This is one of my favorite cooperative learning activities, especially for older students. In this activity, I create six pieces of chart paper with one statement on each piece of paper. I group students and give each student a marker. Students rotate through the pieces of chart paper responding to the prompt on the paper. Each student has to write something since each student is holding a marker. At the beginning of the year, I make the statements more low-key, but as the year progresses, I increase the complexity of the statements, even using academic questions to review content.

Here are some suggestions for topics at the beginning of the year:

Favorite moment

What I wonder about

What I want to be when I grow up and why

Things that scare me

Things that get me excited

What I like about school

What I dislike about school

Things people do that annoy me

Things that people do that I like

I feel sad when

This blog post has 67 Questions you can ask students at the beginning of the year or throughout the year.

Squiggly Line Drawing

The squiggly line drawing is an individual activity that can be turned into a cooperative learning activity during the reflection piece. Basically, you'd take a piece of writing paper with a space to draw at the top. Draw a line in the top space that has a curve to it and photocopy that page for each student in your class.

Students spend some time drawing a picture incorporating that curved line and then write about their picture below.

During the reflection time, students can partner up and share their picture and writing with a partner, or you can sit in a circle and share out within the circle whole group. The beauty of this activity is that it provides students with some down time during a busy first day.

Community Building Puzzle

I have one more cooperative learning idea for the first week of school, even the first day of school! Every year, I start the day with this puzzle piece. I place it on student's desks with a box of crayons. As students enter the room and I talk with parents, the students find a desk, sit down and start creating their puzzle piece. We use the pieces later in the day or week to complete the puzzle.
Click to find out more about the Community Building Puzzle.
One of my favorite books for cooperative learning activities is Reaching All by Creating Tribes Learning Communitie s. The book is much more than cooperative learning activities, but those have been the best takeaway from the book for me.

Another good book is Keys to the Classroom. It, again, is much more than cooperative learning activities but has a few good ones in there, too.

One last piece of advice: Don't leave the cooperative learning activities at the beginning of the year. Do them throughout the year as you need to refocus students on how to get along in the classroom and how to think about each other. I have found that I can't do enough of them in my classroom and I'm always looking for more!

* Some of the links above contain affiliate links.

More Back-to-School Ideas

Would you like MORE back-to-school ideas that you can use in your classroom this year? Check out theses ideas.

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Five Cooperative Learning Activities to do on the First Day of School

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The first day of school. Do you remember any of your first days from when you were a child? The eager expectations of meeting new friends, getting to know your new teacher, finding your new desk.

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Keeping Morning Meeting Greetings Fresh and Fun

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After doing many Morning Meetings, teachers often wonder how to keep the sense of comfortable routine while also varying the meetings enough to keep students (and adults) interested and engaged. Greetings can be especially important because they set the tone for the whole meeting-and the whole day.