Think Small

Most physicians recommend exercising 3 hours a week. What does this look like? There seems to be a consensus among doctors and personal trainers not to do your 3 hours all in one day. The results of exercising 3 hours a week in one session does not produce the same fitness level as 6 days a week exercising a half an hour per session.

The same principle is true for your student when it comes to helping them reach that “well learned state.”

Let’s say you want your student to learn their addition or multiplication facts. You ask them to practice their “facts” an hour to an hour and a half a week. How should they go about this? In last week’s post, I suggested you teach content in small but meaningful parts. Addition or multiplication facts aren’t very meaningful really. They’re simply facts that once learned speed up doing arithmetic. Knowing that “meaning” isn’t going to be of much help here, you need to leverage the principle of breaking down the content into “small parts.” I suggest spreading the practice sessions over several days, spending maybe 10 minutes each session. Practicing any longer and this activity will likely become tedious and boring.

Here are some more ideas in keeping with teaching content in small parts.

• Don’t simply ask them to work on the ones they don’t know. That assignment is too ambiguous and will be overwhelming, especially for beginners.

• Don’t ask them to learn several sets at a time as in “memorize your 4’s, 5’s, and 6’s this week. That’s too ambitious .

• Do have your student work on just a few facts at a time. If you ask them to learn their 7’s this week, have them work on memorizing 3 or 4 facts at a time. Definitely not all 12 at once.

Teach content in small but meaningful parts.

That’s the tip of the week!

Curt Bumcrot, MRE

March 1^st marks the  beginning of the spring testing season. To get your student ready to do their best, we recommend purchasing either the One Hour Practice Test or Achieving Peak Performance, both available as instant downloads or mailed-to-you copies. Go to  https://www.basicskills.net/product-category/practice-tests/ to read product descriptions and to make your purchase.