Date
15 May 2024

Support students’ processing and organisational skills

Suggestion for implementing the strategy 'Helpful classroom strategies years 1-8'

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Support organisational skills

Support organisational skills

Suggestions for supporting students’ organisational and processing skills.

  • Label key areas of the classroom and resources with visual and text labels.
  • Use charts, visual calendars, colour-coded schedules, visible timers and visual cues to increase the predictability of regular activities, transitions between environments and activities, and changes in discussion topics.
  • Make graphic organisers and flowcharts available to support breaking tasks into chunks, and thinking and planning in all curriculum areas.
  • Highlight patterns, critical features, big ideas and relationships using visuals, mind maps, 3D manipulatives, outlines, flowcharts and real objects.
  • Give students multiple opportunities to engage with new ideas in a range of contexts.
  • Pace content delivery. Give students time to process and integrate information from multiple sources - displays, interpreters, written instructions, the teacher.

Prevent fatigue

Prevent fatigue

Listening for long periods can be hard work.

Keep teacher talk from the front of the room to a minimum and support it with visual materials.

Read about tiredness in deaf children.

7503 [Student-listening.jpg]

Source: Ministry of Education | Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga

Source:
Ministry of Education | Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga

Support thinking and pattern recognition

Support thinking and pattern recognition

Use tools and approaches to help students to recognise patterns, critical features, big ideas and relationships.
  • Use visuals — graphics, photos, cartoons, pictures — to support text and talk when explaining anything.
  • Offer 3D virtual and physical models and real objects to help students identify critical features.
  • Use mind maps, flowcharts, and outlines to help students unpack big ideas and relationships.
  • Give students multiple opportunities to engage with new ideas and concepts.
  • Provide extra time for students to think and process before they need to respond in a discussion.
  • Use mindmaps to brainstorm ideas.
  • Support group and class discussions with visual annotations to prompt later recall of key ideas.
  • Make thinking tools and approaches available across all curriculum areas.

Support independence with visuals

Support independence with visuals

Make step-by-step exemplars of common tasks.

Make these available to all students.

7075 [Teacher-and-student-discussing-visual-timetable.jpg]

Source: Ministry of Education | Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga

Source:
Ministry of Education | Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga

Useful resources

Useful resources

Website

Time Timer (visual timer for visual people!)

For many students being able to see a visual representation of time passing can really support their time management. This video explains how time timer works.

Publisher: Time Timer

Visit website

Website

Free graphic organiser templates

Free graphic organiser templates in pdf format.

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Visit website

Next steps

More suggestions for implementing the strategy “Helpful classroom strategies years 1-8”:

Return to the guide “Deaf or hard of hearing students and learning”

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