Raising kind, capable, competent, appropriately confident, and happy human beings is a complicated and noble endeavor. Future thinking and planning with goals in mind is how successful people operate. This discipline leads to achievement, college readiness, and lifelong learning.

There’s a reason that preK-12 schools and school districts engage in curriculum mapping and backwards design. There’s a reason that countries have National Standards and graduation requirements. Essential questions and mastery objectives should drive instructional planning, and we must constantly ask ourselves these questions:

1. What do we what our students to know and be able to do?
2. How will we know if they’ve learned it?
3. What will we do if they already know it?
4. What will we do if they didn’t learn it?

College Readiness: A GPS For Planning Purposes

It’s reasonable for parents to think about college and career readiness at the outset of schooling. It’s certainly a popular practice for independent schools to showcase their high school and college admissions when families engage in the admissions process at very early ages. For most of our clients, college placement is the yardstick for success. While Faya and I would rather families not focus on entry to any one particular college when a student is on deck for a Preschool, Lower School, or Middle School placement, it’s certainly reasonable to use college readiness as a GPS for planning purposes. If a successful college experience is the desired destination, then we have to work backwards to scaffold that success.

Investing in early childhood education and mastery of core academic skills in the primary grades is a critical component of eventual college readiness. As an Elementary Educator and Curriculum and Instruction expert with nearly 30 years of teaching experience, I’ve seen the pendulum swing wildly too many times. Schools and school systems can often be too quick and impatient to usher in or out specific curricula and programs. Parents can get unnecessarily caught up in chasing technology and speculating about future careers. Today’s AI thrust is a great example of that. But what never seems to change is the necessity to be able to read, write, and do math in addition to mastering related process skills, executive function skills, and social skills that are directly tied to any and all content and school achievement.

Because of diminished attention, academic stamina, critical thinking, imagination, self-directed play and social skills, we see the pendulum working once again to center itself as evidenced by push back on screen time and access to mobile phones during the school day. As part of our work with families, Faya and I regularly observe classroom instruction, and we’re more worried than ever about the use of screens and videos to both present new instruction and babysit children during the school day. Animated math videos, for example, should not replace teachers presenting new concepts and guiding the use of concrete manipulatives and/or pictorial representations. And useless videos of animated mice running through mazes or other nonsense should not be an acceptable way to kill 10 minutes of classroom time. Every instructional minute is precious, and transitions are just as important, thus classroom management should be as tight as possible to maximize every instructional opportunity.

Benchmarking Is Not A Dirty Word

Benchmarking is not a dirty word, and data is absolutely useful for teachers and parents with regard to instructional planning and supporting learning both at school and at home. There’s no excuse to avoid precisely defining how a student is performing. We have plenty of ways to measure student performance, and it can be done compassionately, holistically, and through a variety of assessment types. Formative assessments and summative assessments work in tandem. They should be tied to clear mastery objectives that define what a student should know and be able to do at the end of an instructional sequence. National and international standards serve as a guideline, and national norms are the basis for all kinds of assessments that families in public and private schools make use of, including neuropsychological evaluations, MAP testing, state testing, and the SAT and ACT.

From early ages, we can precisely pinpoint all kinds of important metrics for targeting instruction relative to grade level and developmental expectations on a quarter-by-quarter basis of each school year. Families with children in Lower School regularly engage us to complete reading, writing, and math diagnostic work in order to look more carefully at alpha reading levels, developmental stages of spelling, mastery of grade level sight words, written output and progress with related writing traits, number sense and operations, place value understanding, fractions (e.g. common fractions, decimal fractions, and percentages), science process skills (e.g. observing, measuring, classifying, inferring, predicting, and communicating), and more. These foundational skills are critical for more advanced learning to come and eventual college readiness.

Hearing that you have a “good reader” or an “okay reader” is not particularly useful. There’s no reason to accept such ambiguous feedback, and lacking precision with regard to the status of student performance stands to hinder progress for any student regardless of where that student falls on the continuum. From remediation to acceleration, appropriately challenging instruction should be the expectation, and there’s no reason to poke around in the dark. We have the tools to be specific and targeted, and our talented faculty can help you to assess, plan, and then deliver whatever instruction may be most appropriate.

Programs Don’t Guarantee Student Success

Curricula might include off-the-shelf programs like Singapore Math, The Writing Revolution, or Wilson Fundations, but these programs shouldn’t become a limitation on creative instructional planning or defining a great school. Packaged programs can make teaching “easier” because the curriculum mapping is done for schools and all of the ancillary resources are neatly organized, but programs don’t guarantee student success. Teachers should work in close partnership with parents and families, and teachers should work in close partnership with their colleagues internally.

Programs are a means to an end, but think of programs like brands. A school that uses Singapore Math isn’t necessarily doing things better than a school that uses Bridges. Russian Math as an extracurricular activity is equally a branding matter; perhaps it’s so popular because it promotes problem-solving, critical thinking, and logical reasoning and is perceived as being more rigorous and accelerated than many school-based program choices.

The selection of any program requires internal cohesion, effective instructional coaching and professional development, and skillful teachers constantly making important decisions for each individual student. Skillful teaching is at the heart of everything, and it’s both an art and a science. Skillful teachers have an impressive palette of instructional strategies, classroom management strategies, and curricula resources to draw from, and they make thoughtful and intentional choices constantly in response to their students’ needs.

The “proof” for student achievement should be demonstrated by a body of work driven by measurable and specific objectives. A school that subscribes to The Writing Revolution, for example, should be able to showcase effective writing that demonstrates progress from the sentence level to the paragraph level to the multi-paragraph level across narrative, expository, and persuasive writing opportunities as students age up. Moreover, regular mini lessons and modeling connected to each important writing trait should be evident. These writing traits include: ideas, organization, conventions, word choice, sentence fluency, and voice. A clear progression should be evident from grades 1-5. Ask yourself these questions:

• Do I regularly see clear expectations for writing in response to reading as a measure of both factual and inferential comprehension?
• Do I regularly see clear rubrics tied to specific writing traits in order to facilitate self-assessment?
• Do I regularly see evidence of sustained opportunities to engage in narrative, expository, and persuasive writing?
• Does my child create original stories with a beginning, middle, and end?
• Does my child engage in pre-writing strategies to brainstorm and map out their ideas?
• Do I see my first or second grader writing coherent and complete sentences that demonstrate critical thinking and comprehension of fiction and non fiction texts?
• Do I see my third grader independently writing a complete paragraph in the fall that conveys a thoughtful beginning, middle and end with embedded text evidence? By the spring, can my third grader expand their thinking to a coherent 3-paragraph response?
• Is my fourth grader able to nimbly move between a 1-paragraph, 3-paragraph, and 5-paragraph response by April?
• Does my fourth grader consistently identify and justify the main idea of a non fiction text or theme from a fiction text and summarize that text effectively?
• Does my fifth grader write with enhanced sophistication with regard to varied sentence structures, use of rhetorical patterns, integration of text evidence and related analysis?

Just saying that a program is in place isn’t good enough. Whether it’s a writing program, a reading program, or a math program, parents deserve to see proof of instructional sequences and outcomes through a body of work with clear feedback. There are many ways to achieve this expectation, and that’s what makes comparing and contrasting schools such exciting work!

“Activity-mania” Has No Place In Our Classrooms

In my undergraduate teaching methodology classes many moons ago, one of the first important lessons I learned was that “Activity-mania” has no place in our classrooms. A fun activity should not drive an instructional decision. Mastery objectives and the needs of each student should drive instructional planning. Engaging activities support instruction, but clarity of mission is key. Why are we doing what we’re doing? What do we mean for our students to be learning? How will we know if they’ve achieved mastery? And what will we do if it doesn’t seem to be working for an individual student?

Kids love learning facts, and they have an incredible capacity to absorb new information. They feel good when they can do things competently and independently, and they delight in asking questions, debating answers, and knowing the “why”. We should be extremely cautious about the use of AI, dictation, calculators, and screen time in elementary classrooms. While there can be a place for innovative and purposeful technology use in our lower schools, we’re sure that our younger learners benefit from a focus on foundational and traditional skills that serve as the building blocks for more advanced learning and technology use to come in later grades and school divisions with eye toward college readiness. Technology will continue to evolve as it always has, and future careers will continue to evolve, too. But let’s not get caught up in activity-mania and career chasing for our 3-, 4-, 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, 9-, and 10-year old children.

Our elementary-aged students need to spend more time sustaining their attention and effort with full books and longer texts that span both fiction and non fiction genres. They need more time in a writers workshop model to explore all three writing purposes: narrative, expository, and persuasive writing. They need more time to analyze and critique the author’s craft with explicit teacher guidance in order to develop necessary critical thinking skills and adopt tactics that professional writers demonstrate. They need explicit handwriting instruction for both print and cursive with an expectation to produce legible writing that is celebrated as a published, final draft. As children age up into the intermediate elementary grades, they need systematic typing practice using a standard keyboard and an expectation of effective touch typing using the home keys. Math facts for all four operations still need to be memorized with the goal of automaticity (3 seconds for accurately providing the answer). Math journaling remains important for demonstrating problem solving and effectively communicating the process, sequence, and selected strategy. This may not all be as glamorous as coding robots, but it’s what’s going to lead to readiness for each next grade level to come and, eventually, college readiness.

Academic Content: A Vehicle For Developing Executive Functions

Executive function skill building cannot be separated from the content itself. Tight classroom management implemented by highly qualified and skillful teachers contributes to developing and enhancing executive function skills on a daily basis starting in preschool and continuing at every grade level. Clarity of mission, purposeful engagement, structured scheduling, thoughtful organization of materials, encouraging persistence with academic challenges, negotiation of social experiences, and modeling effective use of the classroom environment all contribute to the incremental and daily development of critical and integrated executive function skills. These skills include but are not limited to setting goals, prioritizing, sequencing, visualizing and planning with the end in mind, and regulating attention and emotions.

Little kids, big kids, and adults all share the ongoing responsibility and challenges associated with effective executive functions. This skill development starts from the very beginning, and it cannot be siloed; instruction and academic content is the vehicle for developing executive functions with meaningful context and purpose. For example, little kids taking responsibility for bringing materials back and forth from school to home serves an important purpose. Taking responsibility for writing down assignments, engaging concretely with calendaring and sub tasking, and following multi-step instructions both verbally and in writing all contribute to developmentally appropriate and incremental executive function skill building.

Over-reliance on adults chips away at opportunities for young learners to take on important responsibilities and agency for their own learning and success. And when children don’t have sufficient opportunities to develop and flex their agency, they miss out on developing the confidence and skills that ultimately lead to their success, satisfaction, and happiness as well as college readiness. Holding children accountable is good for them. Providing explicit and constructive feedback is good for them. And modeling the structures, strategies, and management skills that we intend for them to demonstrate with increasing independence as they age up is good for them and critically important.

A Marathon Experience: The Path To College Starts In Preschool

From PreK-2s, PreK-3s, and PreK-4s to K-5, we have 9 school years leading to middle school. Grades 6-8 gives us three more school years with more wiggle room for mistakes. Then students enter “prime time” as the high school journey unfolds. Altogether, that’s 16 school years before college begins. Because of birthday cutoffs, some students benefit from an extra year of preschool, and some students take advantage of a 5th year of high school by reclassifying or opting into a Post-Graduate year. It really is a marathon that ought to be paced out carefully and strategically to ensure college readiness.

The path to college does indeed start in preschool. It’s a topic that makes many early childhood educators and elementary educators uncomfortable, but it really shouldn’t. College frenzy at the kindergarten level isn’t the point. But as Elementary Educators who became College Counselors many years ago, it’s clear to us that it’s all connected. Sit with a high school sophomore, junior or senior engaged in standardized test preparation, college research, and essay writing who lacks the foundational skills described above that should have been in place by the end of fifth grade and we can assure you that it’s a slippery slope and an unnecessarily stressful experience. The stress and unhappiness that many teenagers experience is rooted in lacking academic skills and executive function skills that should have been addressed in early grades.

Building a house requires a strong foundation, and you need a competent architect, too. For our clients with ambitious goals seeking highly competitive pathways, the investment in Preschool and Lower School is mission critical, deserves your full attention, and is far more manageable than any intensive repair work during prime time high school years. Our happiest students are those whose confidence is built on real skills and accomplishments that have been racked up incrementally from early ages. Let’s work together to ensure our youngest learners have the smoothest and most joyful schooling journey possible. Inevitably there will be challenging moments, but haven’t we all overcome challenges in order to achieve our own success, independence, and happiness? That’s part of the journey and the only way forward.

Our talented faculty of Early Childhood Educators, Elementary Educators, Upper School Faculty, Professors, Learning Specialists, and Subject Matter Experts would be delighted to assist your family with any short-term tutoring and targeted skill building needs in addition to the full range of test preparation, executive function coaching, and independent study needs that may be meaningful for your students with an eye toward kindergarten readiness, middle school readiness, high school readiness, or college readiness. We welcome a conversation with you to further discuss any educational planning matter.

Warm regards,
Brad Hoffman and Faya Hoffman
Co-Founders and School Concierges, My Learning Springboard