Upcoming GLR Webinars - Grade-Level Reading · 2019-06-14 · – Remembering rules – Resisting impulsive responses – Managing emotional reactions, including motivation and boredom

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Upcoming GLR WebinarsJune Funder Roundtable (featuring Iowa panel):Investing In the Long Game For System Change: The Role of Local and Regional Philanthropy In Supporting Advocacy For Children’s Healthy DevelopmentTuesday, June 18, 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PST

Save the Date — Science Matters!Tuesday, September 10, 3 p.m. ET/12 p.m. PST

Health Webinar with Attendance WorksTuesday, September 17

Welcome! Please Stand By

gradelevelreading.net / @readingby3rd / #GLReading

The Science of How Children Learn to Read and Learn Numeracy

Identifying the Missing Ingredients

June 11, 2019


About Science Matters! Series

The Science Matters! webinar series will promote capacity building, network building and road testing of community-built models around early learning and parent success. Funders and their local teams will:

• gain new knowledge and insights about the science of brain development and early learning;

• increase their level of urgency to promote and support early brain development in ways that take the research to action; and

• prepare to act, lead and invest in a suite of tools, programs and strategies to ensure that parents are equipped with the knowledge, confidence and supports to be successful in their essential roles as brain builders.

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Webinar Series Approach

• Bring together 2–3 members of your local coalition to co-view the presentation

• Engage the webinar speakers in Q & A

• Following the webinar, engage in a discussion with your teams to identify at least one idea you would be willing to explore and test

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Ellen GalinskyChief Science Officer, Bezos Family FoundationCo-Sponsor, GLR Science Matters! Series


Dr. Deborah LeongExecutive Director & Co-developer, Tools of the Mind

Dr. Susan LevineRebecca Anne Boylan Professor in Education and Society, University of Chicago

Dr. Philip David ZelazoNancy M. And John E. Lindahl ProfessorInstitute of Child Development, University of Minnesota


What do we know about how children learn reading and math?

Learning to read changes the architecture of the brain Dr. Deborah Leong

Learning to Read is NOT the same as Learning to Talk• To read, our brains connect and repurpose important

systems within it of visual, auditory and linguistic information in order to recognize symbols & their meaning

• It took 2,000 years for humans to develop written systems to represent spoken language with an alphabet

Symbol to SoundAnalysis-Recognition

(slower processing)

Visual Word Recognition(quick processing)

Oral Language/articulationComprehension at word, sentence, paragraph, etc. level

The Reading Brain

Arithmetic Network: Widespread, Bilateral Fronto-Parietal Regions

Peters & DeSmedt, 2018

Dr. Susan Levine

Early math is more than number

• Number and numerical relations• Spatial relations and measurement (bigger,

smaller, wider narrower)• Patterns

Why early math is important• Children arrive at school with wide

variations in math knowledge. (e.g., Ginsburg & Rusell, 1981; Klibanoff, Levine, Huttenlocher, Vasilyeva, & Hedges, 2006; Lee & Burkam, 2002)

• Mathematical knowledge at start of school related to children’s long term academic achievement. (e.g., Denton & West, 2002; Duncan et al., 2007)

• Math knowledge foundational for broad STEM achievement, a sector where job growth is predicted to increase.

How do young children learn math?

• Early math talk, play, and everyday activities • All adults engage in math thinking and can

readily share this thinking with children, increasing their math interest and knowledge

• A child at the high-end of the range hears 60 times as many number words as a child at the low-end (a year).

Number words a child hears in a year:93,000 vs. 1,500

Quality matters, too!• Counting objects is better than rote counting• Combining labeling of set sizes with counting is

important (“There are 3 ducks, 1-2-3”)

Math ability is plastic: Related to opportunities to learn

Levine et al., 2010; Gunderson, Levine & Huttenlocher, 2011


What are executive function skills? Why do they matter?

How do EF skills apply to learning to read and math?

Executive Function• A set of neurocognitive skills involved in the goal-

directed, intentional control of thought, emotion, motivation, and action—goal-directed regulation of other brain functions

• Necessary for using knowledge in service of goals

Prefrontal Cortex: Orchestrates & modulates function of other brain regions

Dr. Philip David Zelazo

• EF skills as 3 ways of using attention–– Flexibly, Selectively, & Sustained over time

– (1) Cognitive flexibility• Shifting task sets or perspectives

– (2) Inhibitory control• Ignoring distractions, suppressing responses

– (3) Working memory • Holding info in mind and working with it

• EF skills invoked when we notice problem, go off autopilot• Depend on (and require) reflection:

– pausing, considering options and goals, monitoring

Zelazo & Müller (2002)

“Hot” vs. “Cool” EF• Cool EF

– Assessed via abstract, decontextualized problems

– Control processes required for affectively neutral problems

• Hot EF– Needed for problems w/ affective or

motivational significance (meaningful consequences)

– Flexible reappraisal of whether to approach/withdraw concrete stimulus

Why does EF Predict Key Outcomes? • EF skills essential for learning in classroom

environment– Paying attention, avoiding distractions– Remembering rules– Resisting impulsive responses– Managing emotional reactions, including motivation

and boredom• Allow for more reflective approach to learning,

deeper info processing (Marcovitch et al., 2008)

Children with Better EF…• Learn more efficiently (e.g., Benson et al., 2013)

• Show > gains in math, K-1st grade (Hassinger-Das et al., 2014)

• Children with poor EF skills– Learn less effectively (cool EF)– More likely to be disruptive (hot EF)


What do we know about teaching early math, literacy, and EF skills?

Early Math and EF are related• Executive functioning important for early math

• ”Amy has six cookies and ate two. How many cookies did she have before she ate some?”

• Inhibitory control helps kids not answer ”four”.• Early math can build executive functions

• Calculation problems require holding multiple pieces of information in mind (working memory)

• When given problems like 5 + 2, using “counting on” (6-7) rather than “counting all” exercises inhibitory control

Joswick, Clements, Sarama, Banse, & Day-Hess, 2019

Actionable evidence about math learning• Play, everyday activities, and math talk build math

skills• Math attitudes important:

– Growth mindset: Importance of praising effort rather than math ability

– Stereotypes and math anxiety interfere with math learning by using up valuable working memory resources

• Important (and possible) to stem the intergenerational transmission of low math achievement and negative math attitudes

Berkowitz et al., 2015; Gunderson et al., 2019; Schaeffer et al., 2019

Bialystok & Martin, 2002

Dog Dog

Children read “Cat”

Inhibitory Control and Reading

The boys’ arrows were nearly gone so they sat down on the grass and stopped hunting. Over at the edge of the woods, they saw Henry making a bow to a small girl who was coming down the road. She had tears in her dress and tears in her eyes. Does were standing at the edge of the lake, making an excellent target.

The HuntersWorking Memory and Reading

Tools of the Mind 2014 ©

Developing Executive Functions, Cognitive Self-Regulation & Reading Skills at the same time

Make Believe Play


What are assumptions that don’t stand up to research scrutiny?

Neuroplasticity and Experience• Like other skills, EF skills are modified by experience• The brain is an inherently adaptive organ: We grow our

brains in particular ways by using them in particular ways

• When we activate brain networks, they adapt– Synaptic pruning and myelination

• True across lifespan, but periods of relative plasticity associated with rapid behavioral change (early childhood, transition to adolescence)

Focus on Developing Executive Functionsthrough Make-Believe Play

Mature Make Believe Play:– Deep engagement– Planned in advance– Roles with rules– Scenarios that change and adapt– Symbolic props – Language used to plan the play– Children voluntarily self-regulate,

accept regulation from peers and ‘other-regulate’

Make Believe Play is the first time children voluntarily regulate themselves

Embed executive functions practice in learning tasks.


Given what we know, how do we support and equip parents, teachers and caregivers?

Learning How to Learn

• Thinking first rather than reacting• Using a strategy• Reflecting on your answer and checking

yourself• Setting learning goals • Accepting and giving feedback to others—

Intellectual equity and the community of learners

Kindergarten Children Plan their Play and their Learning

Plan Dramatization (Play) Plan Learning


What advice do you have for local funders working in GLR communities?

The INSTITUTE OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT

Take Home Messages• Children learn EF skills by using them (learn by doing)

• Providing children who are “at risk” with opportunities to practice EF skills (PreK-12) and reflect on them may reduce the achievement gap– Practice paying attention, thinking flexibly, keeping information in mind– Practice reflection (pausing, considering options and goals)

• Funders can support programs that cultivate EF skills as a foundational set of learning skills (vs. simply introducing more academic content earlier)

• Comprehensive approach that supports self-regulation more broadly (e.g., stress reduction) and supports the use of EF skills in context of problem solving in general (e.g., math, reading, science, social interactions)


Resources


Questions & Discussion


Webinar Survey


Upcoming GLR Webinars

June Funder Roundtable (featuring Iowa panel):Investing In the Long Game For System Change: The Role of Local and Regional Philanthropy In Supporting Advocacy For Children’s Healthy DevelopmentTuesday, June 18, 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PST

Save the Date — Science Matters!Tuesday, September 10, 3 p.m. ET/12 p.m. PST

Health Webinar with Attendance WorksTuesday, September 17

Documents

Upcoming GLR Webinars - Grade-Level Reading · 2019-06-14 · – Remembering rules – Resisting impulsive responses – Managing emotional reactions, including motivation and boredom