Courses like gym, music, visual arts, and robotics all have two things in common. They are hands-on and involve a lot of movement.
For students with ADD, ADHD, and other learning differences, middle and high school ELA classrooms can be nearly inaccessible, and their reading and writing test scores reflect this inequity. According to a 2013 report from the American Institute of Research, only 5 percent of 8th and 12th grade students with disabilities scored proficient on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) writing test.
I don't think it's a coincidence that as students move from primary school to secondary school, their learning becomes less hands-on and less inclusive of movement. Yet, for many of our learners with special needs, hands-on learning and opportunities for movement breaks are key to their success in school.
To close the gap for students with learning differences and make our classrooms accessible to all students, we must ensure that multimodal learning doesn't stop when students leave elementary school.
Improving Attention, Engagement, and Retention
Students with ADD and ADHD struggle to maintain attentiveness and recall information, especially from short-term memory. But frequent and strategic movement breaks allow learners with ADD, ADHD, and similar learning challenges to maintain attention and improve working memory.
Educators may hesitate to embrace unstructured movement in secondary classrooms for fear that the room will devolve into chaos, and that kids will make bad choices and behave poorly, notes Emily Wright, middle years program coordinator at the Metropolitan Learning Center of Global and International Studies in Bloomfield, Conn. "The misconception is that movement leads to less learning," Wright says. "That makes me extremely sad because movement is beneficial in so many ways."
Movement has a significant impact on improving working memory and attentiveness. Cross-lateral movement activates the cerebellum—the part of the brain that deals with memory, attention, and spatial perception. In turn, several studies (cited in Eric Jensen's 2000 article, "Moving with the Brain in Mind") make the case that spatial perception plays a particular role in our ability to read, organize, do abstract math, and reproduce patterns.
Hands-on, movement-based learning represents a shift in the traditional style of learning in an ELA classroom, but from my experience, it is a shift that benefits all learners—not just those who struggle. Rather than create a separate set of lessons, consider how you can weave multimodal learning into the instructional methods of your classroom.
Activating Prior Knowledge
Prior knowledge is a key component to successful reading comprehension. To use higher-order thinking skills, such as connecting and evaluating, students need to be able to access past experiences. Doing so is a consistent struggle among students with learning challenges.
The go-to background-knowledge activator in secondary ELA classes is a KWL chart, which asks students to consider what they already know, what they want to know, and (after reading) what they've learned about a topic. These charts can be effective, but they cater to visual learners. A more hands-on approach to activating prior knowledge is the 4-Corners Activity, in which students move to prelabeled corners of the room depending on their answers to a set of connections/beliefs questions.
"Find Somebody Who …" is another movement-based activity that can prepare students for new texts. Although this Bingo-style activity is usually used to build community at the beginning of the school year, teachers can also leverage it to activate prior knowledge on themes and topics. For example, students may have to "Find somebody who …" has characteristics similar to the main character in your next text, or who has faced a challenge similar to what your class will be reading about, or who has been to a place the class will read about. This activity allows students to share and learn from the experiences of their peers.
Modeling Content and Skills
Rote visual information provided in lists or tables lacks crucial details for tactile learners, explains Michael Grinder, instructional coach and author of several classroom management books, including Righting the Educational Conveyor Belt.
In his tutorial for kinesthetic learners, Grinder explains that an anchor chart might provide a list of grammatical contractions and their associated word pairs, but comes up short in explaining how "does not" becomes "doesn't." Similarly, knowing that one quarter can be translated to 0.25 does not help tactile learners understand how a fraction converts to a decimal. Instead, Grinder says, hands-on learners need to see and manipulate the transformation with block letters or individual parts representing a whole amount.
Traditionally, the five-paragraph essay is taught with graphic organizers and model texts, both of which are geared toward visual learners. A hands-on spin on this approach is to live-model or demonstrate the process. Teachers can use a laptop and a projector to model specific brainstorming, writing, editing, and revising skills. Teachers can also use think-alouds to explain why they make changes in their writing or why they choose certain words over others.
Another strategy is to pair vocabulary input with manipulatives and artifacts. When planning for direct instruction of vocabulary, consider bringing in (or asking students to bring in!) models and artifacts that relate to upcoming words. For example, in my specialized instruction reading class, I let students see and touch honey on the comb. It was a sticky mess, but my students were able to make multisensory connections to the word honeycomb. In a later assessment, 100 percent of students were able to recall "honeycomb," and almost all students were able to explain the concept of a compound word.
Moving and Reviewing
After teachers model content and new skills, students will require multiple opportunities to practice and review these skills. Content and skills review is key to reinforcing new information. It also allows teachers to provide feedback for students to fine-tune their skills.
Jigsaw reading allows students to master one particular chunk of text, and then share their findings with other students in the class. This activity works well with nonfiction texts, as the chunked reading does not interfere with a sequence of events. To differentiate, use NewsELA to access different lexiles of the same text.
Station-rotation, also called "centers," are another way to get students moving and reviewing. Students should spend no more than 10–15 minutes at each station and should have clearly stated expectations for the work done at each station—whether that's working in groups, pairs, or independently. Even including just one hands-on station, where students can create, collaborate, and discuss, builds efficacy and engagement for hands-on learners.
Gallery walks are a more free-form version of station-rotations. During gallery walks, stations are typically posted on chart paper and students may have more freedom to move at their own pace. Gallery walks can act as a great substitute for linear study guides. Post text-dependent questions on chart paper and allow students to move from station to station. Wright uses this strategy with her 8th grade students and notices that, "To shift from one idea to another on a piece of paper is really hard and complex. The physical shift [as they interact with content around the room] helps them mentally shift as well."
Beyond Written Assessments
Writing is the most common means for assessing reading comprehension, but for students who struggle with composition, an overreliance on written assessments can mask understanding. Here are four ways of differentiating assessments to allow students to demonstrate learning in multiple modes.
Conferencing with students on key reading skills, such as comprehension, character analysis, theme analysis, and citing text evidence, allows students who struggle with writing to show you their grasp of a text. Too often, good readers are inhibited by their inability to write precisely. This is especially true for English language learners or students who receive occupational therapy. You can also differentiate conferencing assessments by offering some students a preview of your questions and allowing them to bring their class notes to the session.
Socratic seminars and debates can also be meaningful assessments. They allow students to be assessed at multiple points, such as preseminar work or debate prep research. If you're finding that students get to their turn in the seminar and have nothing to add, consider differentiating with a "Fishbowl" Socratic seminar, and encourage struggling speakers or readers to share their ideas first.
You might also consider allowing students to run study guide sessions or teach the class. This form of assessment can be used in lieu of, or in addition to, paper-based tests. You may decide that for one student, the test will make up only 30 percent of his or her grade, but how that student leads the class through a study session is 70 percent of the grade.
Moving Toward Equity
Although activities and movement in the classroom are likely to engage all learners, for struggling students, hands-on learning is more than just "fun." It's an equalizer. For my middle school reading intervention students, hands-on learning opportunities get them to the "aha" moments where concepts like main idea and detail, sequence of events, and cause and effect really click. Students who tend to easily disengage and become disruptive, are instead focused, confident, and higher performing.
Strategically designing lessons that incorporate hands-on learning in our English language arts classrooms will ultimately level the playing field and help our most vulnerable students become ready for college.
