The Wonder Years

Over the years, I taught and tutored students in grades 1^st through college. There are high points in teaching every grade, but it is the elementary students I miss the most. It is just so fulfilling and fun to work with this age group as they discover the world around them! Their innate curiosity and eagerness to learn make teaching them an adventure filled with AHA moments and new discoveries. Their unique perspective on the world, unburdened by preconceived notions or biases, leads to observations and insights that will keep you thinking and, in live, online classes, on your toes!

As every homeschooler of this age cohort knows, however, it’s not all fun and games. It is easy to worry as you work to understand how your children learn. We worry if we are adequately meeting their needs where they are strong, and we worry if we are providing the right kind of scaffolding where they struggle. This is complicated if your child is neurodiverse. Compounding this is that at the same time they are learning to read and write, they are also learning how to handle their big emotions and frustrations when things don’t go exactly as planned. And yet, this is the age I miss the most. They are genuinely adorable, and it is special to be there when someone learns something for the first time.

Your Educational Philosophy

One thing that is challenging about teaching these early grades is that it is often your first foray into teaching. I encourage you to really give some thought to your educational philosophy. This passage resonates with me as a reason to do some big-picture thinking about what you want for your children’s learning. I think this is especially important when working with young learners, as they are exposed to more formal learning for the first time.

Vygotsky (1978), writing about the importance of the sociocultural context of learning and providing models, stated, “Children grow into the intellectual life of those around them.” This is one of our favorite quotes because it provides a powerful metaphor for what it means to educate. With what kind of intellectual life are we surrounding our students? Is it hardy, inspiring, and complex? How are we fostering the growth of their intellectual life? What are our students learning about learning in our classrooms? How are we engaging them in the processes of thinking, learning, problem solving, designing, debating, and citizenship? How can we move beyond merely imparting knowledge and passing along tips for how to achieve high marks on external exams so that we are preparing students, not for tests, but for life? ~ The Power of Making Thinking Visible, Ron Ritchhart and Mark Church, p. 24

The book is targeted at traditional school educators; however, there is an educational philosophy in this passage that is useful in any educational setting. Homeschooling is a perfect educational setting for developing a personal philosophy based on the intellectual life you want for your children. I encourage you, as your child’s primary educator, to take the time to reflect on what you hope for your child’s “intellectual life.”

Ask yourself:

• Ritchhart and Church used the adjectives hardy, inspiring, and complex. What adjectives do you want to use to describe your child’s intellectual life?
• How will you cultivate your philosophy and shape your child’s learning to reflect your chosen adjectives? This is no small task. I recommend you take the time and thought needed for this. Make it personal. It is great to get input from other sources, but as the person crafting your children’s intellectual life, you want it to be true to you and what you hope for your children.
• What are your children learning about learning? How are you mentoring your children to become skilled learners?
• How are you creating a culture of thinking? A culture of thinking refers to an environment where curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge are encouraged and valued. In such a culture, we encourage children to ask questions and engage in deep thinking.
• How are you mentoring (apprenticing) your children in the process of thinking, learning, problem solving, designing, debating, and citizenship? You might align these with certain disciplines, or you might choose to teach these as their own subject and then weave them into other subjects.
• How is your child’s learning preparing them for life? When I went through this exercise, I focused on the importance of being a “well-learned” adult. This is personal, of course. But I used well-learned instead of well-educated because I feel well-educated does not put as much focus on the process of learning and the skills needed to be a strong lifelong learner.

When answering these questions, it is important to take neuroscience and neuropsychology into account.

What Brain Science Tells Us

A young child’s inquisitiveness and desire to learn are understandable when you consider the anatomy and physiology of the human brain. According to Ronald McKay, PhD, of the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, what makes the brain so powerful is that it is sort of hard-wired and sort of not hardwired. The brain is hard-wired to learn in the sense that the basic architecture is there, ready to be used for learning. The brain is not hardwired in the sense that it is flexible, making it profoundly adaptable in the context of learning, which occurs based on what it is exposed to.

That makes the early years of education important, as the quality and content of that education are engaged in shaping the brain’s architecture. As children learn, synapses form. According to Roberto Malinow, MD, PhD, synapses are the sites of communication between nerve cells. It is through nerve cells that the brain communicates. This communication mediates our actions, thoughts, and learning. Synapses are relevant when discussing learning because when you learn something, it’s because synapses have been modified. The communication between nerve cells holding learning in the form of memories has been modified, and it will stay modified unless synaptic pruning occurs.

Research shows that the brains of elementary-aged children are highly adaptable and capable of forming new neural connections. This underscores the importance of early education in shaping cognitive abilities. During these early years of education, children’s brains undergo significant growth and change, laying the foundation for their future learning abilities and creating sites where knowledge is accumulated and built upon. This is a time when children are rapidly acquiring new knowledge and skills, and their thinking is becoming more complex. Synapses are forming, and the architecture of the brain is shaping itself to hold learning. Based on changing anatomy and the effect this has on physiology, it is not surprising that studies show that when intentional instruction is structured, scaffolded, and targeted for the learner, learning outcomes are greatly enhanced throughout a person’s life (How People Learn, p. 103–104).

• Synapse – The site of communication between nerve cells
• Synaptic Pruning – a natural process as a part of brain maturation where the brain removes synapses that do not communicate with others.
• Myelination – sheaths are laid down to protect synapses that are not pruned.

Before You Can Lose It, You Have to Have It 

In the context of middle school learners, researchers adhere to the “use it or lose it” principle. Meaning, starting in early adolescence, synapses and connections that are used survive and flourish, and those that are not used are pruned. This has significant implications for the importance of learning in the elementary grades and how learning in the early years has long-lasting effects on future learning. In the “Use it or lose it model,” learning must be present to be used.

I find the analogy of a messy room helpful for understanding this. Starting in the late elementary grades, the brain begins a process called synaptic pruning, where synapses and connections that are unused are pruned. The synapses and connections that are well-used are not pruned. They are strengthened in a process called myelination. It is as if the brain is a childhood bedroom that is getting its first major cleaning. Toys and games that are not used are thrown away. Those that are well used are kept and strengthened.

If your child doesn’t play with Legos anymore, the Legos are gone. If they do still play with Legos, the Legos are kept and made better than new. But what if your child was never exposed to toys that teach design and engineering skills, like Legos? The implication is that as the architecture of the brain restructures around the skills and information that are well-used, design and engineering skills are not a part of this because they are not present.

Play and Unstructured Learning Are Important

In the homeschool community, especially in the early elementary years, it is common to see people advocate for a focus on play and unstructured learning. Both are certainly important as essential aspects of a child’s development. They can be educational and intellectually stimulating, creating synapses and connections. Play provides opportunities for social, emotional, and cognitive growth. It also often involves solving problems, which is valuable for developing critical thinking skills. Unstructured learning fosters a child’s creative thinking. Because unstructured learning is self-directed, it can create a high level of interest in the act of learning. The issue is that play and unstructured learning are chaotic when it comes to the acquisition of knowledge and skills. Without some planning and structure, it is easy for there to be holes in a person’s education.

Structured learning is an education system with defined paths for learning, objectives, and a formal hierarchy. A basic way of thinking of this is, “In order to learn C, first you need to learn A, and then B.”

Structured Learning

Play is important, and so is structured learning. The science explaining how people learn does not support an either/or position like the one that is pervasive in the homeschool community. If you provide your child with formal academics in kindergarten through fourth grade, you are not ruining their childhood or making them hate learning.

What you are doing is supporting the development of their brain as a learner. You are aiding them in acquiring knowledge and information that will form a solid foundation for their knowledge base. Structured learning intentionally ensures that students are exposed to fundamental concepts and skills in a logical sequence. This foundation is essential for more advanced learning in later years. You are also making a value statement about your feelings and relationship with the acquisition of knowledge.

Guiding Literalists to Learn Abstract Concepts

Children ages 6 to 10 are literalists who interpret language and concepts in concrete ways. That is not to say they are not capable of abstract learning. However, there is a range, with some elementary-aged children being extreme literalists who require thoughtful and intensive support to engage in abstract learning.

Abstract learning is the ability to understand and use concepts that are not concrete. For example, the concept of “number” is abstract, as is the concept of “letter” and the sounds associated with them because they are not something that can be seen or touched. Other abstract concepts include things like “love,” “justice,” and “freedom.”

Their developing brain is the reason for this. The prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain involved in higher-order thinking skills, plays a key role in abstract learning. The prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until early adulthood, but it does begin to develop in early childhood. Your child’s ability to think abstractly correlates with the development of their prefrontal cortex. Children learn abstract concepts by building on their concrete experiences. If this is an area where your child needs more work, use concrete examples and hands-on activities to help children understand abstract concepts.

There is solid evidence that genetics is a factor in the ease with which a person learns to read. As an aside, I come from a family of early readers. My paternal grandfather, my father, my son, and I all just started reading at the age of three. Family lore has it that we taught ourselves to read at three. The genetics of reading are even more interesting than that when you think in terms of evolutionary biology and the human brain. For most of human history, reading would not have been an important skill. It was not until the mid- to late 1800s that literacy became more common. Understanding and producing spoken language is how our ancestors communicated. It would have been important. From the standpoint of evolutionary biology, it is not surprising that humans acquire sophisticated spoken-language skills with ease. Decoding written language and connecting that with speech, on the other hand… it is a testament to the profound abilities of the human brain that we can read.

Learning to Read and Reading to Learn

The acquisition of reading skills is a complex cognitive process that involves multiple brain regions and is associated with structural changes in the brain. If you do not provide structured learning for any other discipline, I urge you to do it for reading. If the goal of reading is to understand what is being read, reading can be considered THE foundational skill almost every other subject relies on. Research that spans decades indicates “a strong scientific consensus around the importance of phonics instruction in the initial stages of learning to read.”

Spoken Language

The first step in learning to read is to understand and produce spoken words. Language is incredibly complex. It is important that young children have an intuitive understanding of it before being asked to decode alphabetic symbols.

Learning to Read

Reading involves decoding written symbols (letters) and associating them with the sounds of spoken language. Children typically begin with basic phonics, learning letter-sound correspondences and blending sounds like s + h is sh and c + h is ch to form words. As they progress, children develop sight-word recognition and reading fluency. Next, they work on reading comprehension, which focuses on understanding simple and short texts.

The acquisition of these skills is associated with extensive changes in regions of the brain. Processing phonological information activates one area of the left hemisphere. Recognizing and reading common words (sight words) involves a different area. Along with changes and activation of the brain’s architecture, continued work on reading results in the brain strengthening synapses that connect different parts of the brain. This enhances the efficiency of communication between regions of the brain involved in reading.