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Executive Function: Skills for Life and Learning
Executive Function: Skills for Life and Learning
How are Executive Functions Related to Reading?
How are Executive Functions Related to Reading?
When reading we use the formation of letter-sound connections to bond the spellings, pronunciations, and meanings of specific words in our memory (Ehri, 2014). Executive function skills that include planning, organization, cognitive flexibility, inhibition, working memory, and social understanding all help to facilitate these links! (Perfetti & Stafura, 2014).
How are Executive Functions Developed in our Instruction?
How are Executive Functions Developed in our Instruction?
Planning
Planning
The ability to implement multi-step tasks, in proper order, to reach a goal.
When reading, set a goal:
Preview: Looking through the book, what do I see to help me get there?
Focus: Should I pay more attention to some parts and slow down for others?
Connect: What do I already know about this topic that will help me reach my goal?
Organization
Organization
The ability to recognize order, impose order, or systems to manage information or objects.
In reading instruction we use:
Concept Maps
Language Organization
Causal Connections
Scrambled Stories
Explicit Instruction in Text Organization
Cognitive Flexibility
Cognitive Flexibility
The ability to consider multiple bits of information and actively switch between them.
In reading instruction we:
Use multiple classification tasks (i.e. sorting activities)
Ask multiple-feature questions (i.e, "I'm thinking of a read food that starts with /b/")
Working Memory
Working Memory
The ability to hold information in mind while completing a task.
In reading instruction we use:
Sentence Completion Tasks
Letters/Numbers Task (i.e. "I'm going to say some letters and you repeat them")
Memory Games
Inhibition
Inhibition
The ability to wait, stop and think, and restrain habitual responses; self-control.
In reading instruction we teach inhibition through resolving ambiguous meanings:
Homonyms and homophones (bear/bare, deer/dear)
Idioms and other figures of speech (Hold your tongue)
Ambiguous sentences (Let's eat Grandma. vs Let's eat, Grandma)
Books with multiple meanings (Amelia Bedelia, riddles books)
Social Understanding
Social Understanding
The ability to understand internal mental states: thoughts, feelings, intentions, beliefs, desires.
In reading we:
Use texts to understand multiple perspectives
Analyze mental and emotional state vocabulary
What Can We Do at Home?
What Can We Do at Home?
Below you will find suggestions to help improve the development of executive function and self-regulation skills when reading together at home.
Learn to stop and make predictions.
For example, while looking at the book cover, "What do you think this story is about?" At a moment of suspense, "How do you think they will find the treasure?"
Look at the pictures and tell a new story.
This promotes creativity, sequencing of events, and communication skills.
Change the story.
Work together to change the story by imagining "what if?" together.
Form opinions
Help your child have an opinion about the story. Start with something simple, such as a favorite part of the story, then move to complex opinions or judgments, such as "What made Sister Bear a good friend?"
Find something you don't know.
Ask questions about things you don't know while reading, then encourage finding the answers. "I wonder what kiwi plants look like, let's find out!"
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