MyStudyHall.com

Robert Marzano and John Hattie are two well-respected authorities on successful evidence-based strategies that produce the best student results. MyStudyHall has implemented into its content the eight strategies upon which Marzano and Hattie agree:  

Offer A Clear Focus 

Because teacher clarity influences student achievement, LAR’s goals are clearly stated and shared with students at the beginning of each ELA Unit and each Grammar Lesson.  Often, questions are posed for students to get them engaged in thinking about what they have learned in the past and what they will be learning in the future. Students are frequently challenged to continue their mastery of the topic by helping them draw on their past successes. 

Offer Overt Instruction 

LAR explicitly teaches students what they need to learn and why it helps them in the present and future to learn the content.  Practical application is explained to students through the audio clips that appear frequently. The audio clips have been produced by a classroom teacher who speaks to the students in conversational English and leads them through the content on the page as they read along with her.  The content focuses on explicit, direct instruction that teaches carefully sequenced material; and students have frequent built-in, cumulative practice. 

Get the Students To Engage with the Content

Students who utilize LAR become actively engaged with the lesson because of linking their prior knowledge with the new concepts. This is done through starting with common things with which they identify and/or with all sorts of graphics, special effects, sports, pictures, art, travel, and other memorabilia. The audio clips frequently lay out faulty assumptions about grammar/usage and then help students to figure out why they are faulty.  Students are led to summarize main concepts which leads them into a deeper thought level of understanding.  Frequent questions are asked in the lessons and in the audio clips to engage students and to make them think. 

Give Feedback 

If LAR is utilized on an interactive virtual learning platform, students can see the answers to their Practice Quizzes and Level Quizzes almost immediately. This continual feedback helps them to develop pride in their progress and challenges them to learn at a deeper level.  

Multiple Exposures

The Grammar Modules on LAR are both vertically and horizontally aligned. The ELA Units are horizontally aligned within the Units themselves. The constant repetition of past concepts, terminology, and vocabulary words helps students to build on the next concepts. The textual content, the frequent Practice Quizzes, the Level Quizzes, and the Final Tests all afford students multiple exposures to help them develop long-term memory. 

Have Students Apply Their Knowledge 

Much guided practice is included in LAR through the audio clips, the frequent charts, acrostics, mnemonics, problem-solving questions, the rising academic level of the textual content, the Practice Quizzes, the Level Quizzes, and the Final Tests. These continually require students to apply what they have learned to authentic examples and practical situations.  

Get Students Working Together

Students enjoy working through the interactive units/modules that utilize high-interest content that they can later discuss with one another or with their families. The international flavor of many of the ELA units makes it fun for students to investigate further the places discussed.  High-interest excerpts from time-honored classics are read aloud or are found in the lessons, and this entices students to want to read the entire books.  Teachers could easily develop ways to utilize the various lessons and units to formulate fun memory games students could play with one another. 

Build Students’ Self-Efficacy 

One of the most important aspects of LAR is to help build students’ confidence based on their personal success. Those who wrote LAR know that students learn better if they feel successful and that they do better if they are able to learn one concept well before advancing to the next one. This takes place in LAR because of the way the units and modules increase in depth and complexity as the student moves forward.  As an interactive website, LAR allows students to progress at their own rate; but the past concepts are continually woven into the text of the succeeding units and modules.

The Instructional Strategies In This Site Use Scientific Brain Research

LAR utilizes many techniques to help students learn the content. This is done by breaking the concepts down into smaller/targeted concepts, utilizing color coding, charts, mnemonics, graphics, audio clips, easy-to-grasp written and/or auditory explanations that students can internalize with ease; font size for emphasis; practice quizzes for students to self-check for understanding; level quizzes that progress from surface knowledge  --> to connecting several concepts --> to applying the content to practical examples. 

These learning techniques are especially beneficial for students who are English Language Learners (ELL), Limited English Proficient (LEP), English As Second Language (ESL), Special Education (SPED), and/or Sect. 504 students.

RTI (Response to Intervention) can easily occur in LAR’s online learning by having students go back to previous ELAR Units and/or Grammar Modules to refresh their memories over concepts not yet mastered.  

Grammar

Grammar modules 1, 2, and 3 are designed for middle school and high school students​. The grammar modules must be taught in the order written.

Why Learn Grammar, English Language Arts, and Reading?

You may be wondering why you should spend your valuable time learning English grammar.  The ultimate reason is that no matter where you go or what you do, you need to communicate with other people.  If you do not know the basic rules of the English language, you will not be able to communicate effectively, either verbally or in writing. While learning to communicate with other people is the ultimate goal, there are several other reasons why you need to learn the basic skills of language.

• Making better grades in school

• Improving your chances of getting into the college or trade school of your choice

• Obtaining a desired job or position

• Improving the image that you present to other people as well as the image that you have of yourself

Knowing correct English is a gift that you can give to yourself.  These modules offer you an opportunity to learn correct English, but only you can decide to seize this important opportunity.