Remember being in a meeting and though you thought you were really focused, you could only remember the beginning and end? Our brains need information presented in small chunks and this is especially important to remember when planning lessons. A child’s attention spans typically matches his/her age in minutes. This means that a 7 year old child can typically attend to something for around 7 minutes. With that in mind, it’s important that we teach/reinforce, and provide guided practice within this time frame. Phew! The link below will take you to a short article and a mini-lesson template that will help us keep our mini-lessons brief and meaningful.
This is absolutely beautiful and true.