One of the most complicated executive functioning skills is planning. Planning includes time management, sustained attention, emotional control, working memory, and persistence. This is a skill we have to specifically target in everyday teaching from very early on. Don’t wait till the high school years!
What about academics? Planning is embedded into academic success. Many of my students master most of the spelling rules, grammar, and sentence structure after intensive training. After all, they get stuck on writing a piece like expository and persuasive writing. These types of writing require some level of planning.
In many cases, I have focused on supporting my students in the prewriting stage with a visual organizer.
Once students become more competent with these visual organizers, we should start fading out verbal prompts and let them use the tools all by themselves.
Another strategy we can utilize is “think aloud”. This is a great way to bring ideas out and model to put together in a meaningful chunk.
3 differentiated worksheets include the one with the filling-in-the-blank format, visual organizers, and drawing and writing. If a student can’t come up with the contents at all, fill in the blank or word bank would be a good place to start. Utilizing different types of visual organizers depending on the type of your writing can be next. Lastly, more competent writers can visualize the topic by drawing and writing about the picture.
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