Work on skill building three to five days a week for a minimum of 30 minutes a day in elementary school, 60 minutes in middle school. and up to 90 minutes in high school. Kids must buy into the program and give focused attention for it to work. Anything less than intense, attention-focused, feedback-driven practice on meaningful skills and learning projects will not get the job done and is not using the brain's capacity. K-2 students are more likely than older students to benefit from strategies to improve reading, and middle and high school students benefit more from math strategies. One-on-one tutoring for low-achieving or at-risk students has very strong positive effects on student achievement in reading. Use intense phonics instruction with high-interest reading material over the long term. Students need letter knowledge, word memory, and phoneme practice. Use research-based program such as Orton-Gillingham, Lexia, FastForward, or Read 180. If you have no funding for reading, there are low-cost options such as Alpha- Phonics or Study Dog.
Hope
Years ago a multimillionaire named Eugene Lang made a graduating speech to the sixth graders at an underperforming primary school in the Bronx. Inspired by the hopeless faces he saw in the audience, he tore up his rah-rah speech and made a pledge that he would pay for the college education of any of these kids who graduated from high school (which was six years away). The parents and the students at this high-poverty school were shocked and struggled with the explosive meaning of that statement. Hope is a powerful thing for both parents and kids. These children, many of whom had never dreamed of going to college, suddenly had a date with destiny. Lang was serious, and years later he made good on his promise. Years later, 61 of those 63 kids went to college. In fact, that sixth-grade class went on to have the highest high school graduation rate ever for a class from that primary school. This true story speaks to the power of hope. At your school, here are five ways you can boost hope: l. Tell stories of past successful graduates. 2. Give positive affirmations to students every day 3. Build their personal and academic assets, including study and memory skills. 4. Teach them how to set and reach goals-then celebrate them. 5. Give students positive, compelling visions of their potential future.
Hope is positive expectancy. It improves brain chemicals, which increases mood and persistence, which improves results. Even if you do everything else right, if students don't think you believe in them, you'll lose ground. Most of these kids have had enough negatives. They need real, persistent hope. Hope shifts the paradigm from you teaching to the students being engaged partners in the process. You need to maintain optimism for many reasons, just one of which is that it has powerful positive effects on behaviors. When kids are hopeful, they try harder, they stay at it longer, and they are more likely to reach their goals.