When I was an academic, I used to teach several masters courses. Each year, there would always be a few teachers taking my courses who were sceptical about what research could offer them. I’m happy to report that in all cases, by the end of the semester they had changed their tune and had realised that while research can’t tell us everything we want or need to know about education, it can provide useful leads and principles to follow, as well as affirming particular strategies or approaches that might already be in use.
While I don’t generally need too much convincing to engage with research, I still delight when I find research findings aligning with what’s playing out in practice. Recently, I’ve experienced exactly this with the science of learning research. While I regularly write about the science of learning (for example here and here), I’m also currently living the principles derived from it when I do a short, daily speech language therapy session with my son. Here’s what I’ve found.
For me, this plays out in multiple ways. Firstly, it’s important to keep the session short. This likely is as much about cognitive load as it is about developmental stage, but it also reflects the second important aspect of cognitive load, and that is making sure we don’t try to cover too much in a single session. Indeed, last week wasn’t that successful and reflecting on why that was, I wondered if I might have been a bit too ambitious. Having scaled back what we were focusing on this week, things are progressing, ironically, more quickly. Thirdly, I chunk the content, using short, targeted activities. And finally, I try to remove extraneous load. That means not using activities that require dexterous fine motor skills when what we’re really focusing on is speech (but also making dedicated time during our sessions to focus on fine motor skills).
Retrieval practice not only ensures we focus on mastering each speech sound, but also plays an important role in demonstrating that sometimes it takes time to master a new skill and that resilience and perseverance are essential for achieving success. We also return to skills and content we’ve previously covered at different intervals, which helps to reinforce the learning and act as a positive boost by tangibly demonstrating the progress he’s making.
