Drilling down to basics means we figure out the most basic skill deficit and fix that.
There are many students struggling in schools. According to the NAEP only about 40% of students are reading on grade level in 4th or 8th grade. That means that students are overwhelmingly working below where they should be. This impacts their success both in school and after.
It is important that we drill down to the most basic skill deficits and start there for remediation.
Click the photo to learn about how to effectively close achievement gaps.
Why do we need to focus on basics?
My kids got all of these Lego sets for Christmas. My 7 year old is great at building these sets. Most of the time he dives right in and follows the directions straight through and is able to build these truly impressive things. Because he loves building so much, he also got another building set.
For some reason, when my son opened this set up, he started trying to build from the middle of the directions. He skipped over all the basic steps, then got really REALLY frustrated when the pieces he was putting together didn’t go together right or broke apart.
When I asked him why he started in the middle he said that he thought all of those steps were too easy. He already knew how to put all of it together.
It was shocking to him that he couldn’t skip over those basic skills to get to the fun stuff, the stuff he thought was going to be the best part. He was super frustrated with me when I made him take all of the pieces apart and start over at the beginning.
But you know what?
Because he had the foundations of the project he was working on, the whole thing came together so much easier and in a lot less time than I had hoped. Because I was really hoping it would take longer so I could finish my coffee in peace….HA! Not Today Mommy!
That whole pre-coffee frustrating experience came to mind when I sat down to do this blog post.
It is just like us when we start working on skill deficits with our students.
We look at our students who are struggling and try to just make it work right now. This may work in the short term, but the minute we add another more advanced level to their learning, it all falls apart again. That is because we put a band aid on the problem instead of fixing the root of the problem which is the foundational skill deficit.
Just like when my son couldn’t put together this complicated car because he didn’t have the basic pieces put together, our students can’t build good solid understanding if they don’t have basic skills. When we keep trying to fix the grade level struggles, we prevent students from making real progress. We are taking time that could be used fixing the basic skill deficits and using it instead to try to help kids who are already behind to keep up.
That process of focusing on the grade level, rather than the student’s skill level, is why interventions are like pulling teeth for our students and the teachers. Those groups, especially in the older grades, are almost torture. The kids know that what progress they are making is at a snail’s pace, and the teachers are fighting a losing battle with time.
If we want to see exponential progress for our students, progress that impacts the entire subject area, we have to get down to the most basic skill deficit.
For example, in math, students who struggle with basic fact fluency struggle with almost everything else…word problems, equations, money calculations, application problems, all the way up to algebra and geometry. When we improve a student’s basic math fact fluency, their grades in their grade level math class almost immediately improve. That change doesn’t happen when we focus on the grade level information when there are basic skill deficits. The same is true for reading.
When students are taught about prefix and suffixes, their vocabulary improves, as does their comprehension and their writing almost immediately. That time is well spent working on those basic skill deficits, when we look at the student as a whole.
I’ve had many teachers and parents tell me that there is no way that their student will get that basic skill, so we have to move on.
I respectfully disagree.
I’ve taught hundreds of students how to read and do basic math.
I have yet to find a student with average IQ that couldn’t learn the skill….just students who we hadn’t presented the skill in a way that they understood yet. By changing up how I presented or had them practice the skill, all of my students have eventually gotten it.
Sometimes you hit on that one thing that makes it click for a student. Most of the time it takes trying one way, then revamping it and trying something else. But, as long as we keep trying, the students will make progress. That is something that I believe and have believed since I began teaching decades ago.
I truly believe that the only difference between a student who can and a student who can’t is their exposure to the skill in a way that the student can understand and internalize.
The further from our learning mode that the student is, the more difficult it is to teach the skill deficits.
I always encourage teachers who are very different in their styles to team up and share students. My style works for some students, but my friend teaches it a different way that makes it click for others.
We all have those poor teachers in our buildings who are just really good with behaviors. Admin PILE the behaviors in their rooms. I don’t think this is the answer, but the concept isn’t completely off.
I am really good with behaviors in my classroom, up to a certain point. Balance the behaviors so I can help several students while still getting to teach IS a good idea. Maybe allow me to teach some of my colleagues how to work with behaviors more effectively. That way we can share the wealth.
We need to do the same thing with academics. We could think outside the box and have students who aren’t making progress with one teaching style get some exposure with a different styles. See if that helps.
The one thing that we need to stop doing is wasting student time just working on grade level material. Students need to conquer basic skill deficits if they are going to actually close achievement gaps.
So, let’s get down to basics!