I often find that teachers struggle to build mastery with their kids because we are falling into the old trap of believing that novelty beats routine and practice.
The problem with always trying something new – going to Facebook, Pinterest, or Teachers Pay Teachers and trying to find the latest, greatest way to teach whatever lesson – is that the skill work gets buried! Kids are just not going to pick up the skill we’re trying to teach them.
If I’m trying to teach kids how to find the main idea in what they’re reading, I can dress up that main idea instruction in a hundred novel, new, exciting ways, but if they don’t come out of that lesson knowing how to find the main idea, then I’ve just made that instruction the shiny penny, and the skill itself gets buried.
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