In this Knowledge Matters Campaign article, Daniel Willingham explores the factors that lead to critical thinking skills, noting that background, or domain knowledge, plays a key factor. Willingham notes, “background knowledge is absolutely integral to effectively deploying important cognitive processes,” suggesting that facts that are […]
In this column for American Educator, cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham defines critical thinking and provides strategies for fostering thinking in the everyday classroom. Willingham defines critical thinking in three ways stating it must be: novel, self-directed and effective and that it is the third attribute […]
In this Occasional Paper Series from Education Future Frontier, cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham takes a deep dive into the science behind teaching critical thinking and offers strategies such as understanding the domain knowledge required for understanding, creating conditions for transferable skills, and understanding the structure […]
In this lesson, students delve into how media constructs reality through the lens of TV families, paralleling them with their real-life counterparts—personal and peer families. The session commences with a survey of students’ beloved family-oriented TV shows and their allures. Organized in groups, students opt […]
This tailored instructional content guides educators in facilitating a lesson where students confront the challenges of discerning genuine from false online information. Through structured steps, students learn to verify online content and then creatively synthesize their understanding by designing a poster that underscores the importance […]
This tailored instructional content guides educators in facilitating a lesson where students discuss children’s television programming and its portrayal of gender roles. Through discussions, students identify unfavourable aspects in these portrayals and craft their TV characters that challenge these negative representations. The lesson draws from […]
Curious about how sounds are represented in print? Not sure about what the most common spelling is for a phoneme? This handout provides the most frequent spellings for the vowel phonemes in English.
Wanting to up your read aloud game? This lesson plan from Dr. Stephanie Stollar will support you in maximizing vocabulary and comprehension in your read alouds.
Do you only have a few minutes to explain the basics of reading science? Dr. Stephanie Stollar developed this outline for a 3-Minute Introduction to the Science of Reading, ideal for school council meetings or parent nights!
Use these materials to introduce parents and caregivers in your community to the science of reading so they can learn along with you. Watch the presentation, then grab the files and make it your own!
Dr. Stephanie Stollar developed a free set of presentation slides outlining basic findings in the science of reading. Slides, speaker notes, and handouts are provided.
Contrary to popular belief, students should not be taught to memorize irregular words by sight. In most irregular words, only one or two letters do not conform to their usual sound correspondence. This means that most irregular words are at least partially decodable. This is […]
