How to encourage practice?
- This topic has 3 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated July 28, 20263:35 pm by Emily.
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A question I received via email:
While we are here, do you use this system for review? This is what I struggle with my LE kids the most. They don’t often want to go back and review old lessons but I know they need to. Do you struggle with this? I have thought about making them some system where they have to choose problems from the drawers to review each week— maybe posting the drawers in the classroom for review! What do you think?
Thanks again!
To ensure variety and repetition of lessons we had a policy that the child must “practice their most recent lesson” (often, it was “practice your most recent lesson first”)
So if I saw a child still hadn’t grasped, say addition, I’d give another lesson, then they’d be on the hook to practice.
I never required that they do “one language and one math” etc. It was just “practice your most recent lesson” and I made sure I was giving a balance.
Giving them checklists always ended up just being more work for me and I didn’t find them very effective anyway.For practice/follow-up (thinking specifically about math), to make it still their own choices we would decide with ~space and time~ (use a cool sci-fi voice, that’s always a hit.)
Space= Fill up a sheet of paper with practice. Use big paper, small paper, colored paper, grid paper, a booklet. Whatever. Sometimes challenge them to fit as many as they can within that space. etc.
Time= Practice for 15 minutes each day, do a total of 1 hour of practice before our next conference. Race yourself to see how many problems you can do in 30 mins. etc.
I nearly always set due dates and let them pick the dates.Work Journals of course played a big part in all this and we’d review at our weekly conference.
I love this idea of space and time! I’m starting a new elementary program and wondering how to get started with 1st-year students and their work journal. Have you ever waited to have them start? Just keep it simple with “practice your most recent lesson”? I’m new to lower (I did upper for 5 years!) so I’ve been reading up on how to support them in the responsibility of work.
Work Journals were often phased in, by the end of the first week everyone had *some kind* of work journal but it can vary. Part of the first week of school bootstrapping is getting work journals and lessons spun up.
I’ll try to explain.
Phase 1: Focus on choosing work.
This helps students remember lessons and choose what to do next, it doesn’t help them record yet (isolate the difficulty!). Students stick with this until I think they’re ready to begin recording work.
- This was a folder with three prongs (example). In the prongs I held a single page of baseball playing binder card sleeves (example). These have 9 card-sized pockets.
- The top left pocket of the card sleeve would be labelled “Practiced”
- I precut a bunch of slips of paper to card size (2.5″ x 3.5″)
- After a lesson, I would doodle a picture of the lesson and write the exact name of the lesson below. So, after Golden Bead addition, I would draw some beads with a plus symbol and write “Gold Bead Addition” below. This card would go in a pocket of the card sleeve.
- Now, when a child is deciding what to do next, he can open his folder and see pictures of everything he ought to practice (all recent lessons!). After practice the card would be moved to the top left pocket labelled “practiced.”
- The folder pockets themselves would hold pages of work. So if the follow-up work was to draw a picture, the page for that would be stored in this folder until Friday conference.
- At the Friday conference, discard any cards that are no longer relevant. Friday is also when folks took home finished work.
Phase 2: Ready to record
This phase is flexible and is the transition to full work journal record keeping. They stay with this until the training wheels are ready to come off. Could be a few weeks or a few months.
- You put some blank lined pages behind the card sleeve. Keep the card sleeve
- Each day (with help if needed), the date is put on the top of a new page.
- The child then writes what was chosen in order throughout the day. I will accept a very wide range of attempts here. Writing a single letter, a single word, drawing a picture. The important thing is that something is recorded and it’s in vaguely a list format.
- At some point, have the child include start times. This will depend on their time keeping abilities.
- At some point, begin including due dates (see below).
- If you need to write for them, that’s fine.
Phase 3: Regular Work Journal
Now using a composition notebook or other bound book. You can use the “handwriting paper” or wide ruled. I like to have both in stock.
At the Friday conference, I would have the child write out Monday through Friday for the next week, each day getting a new page. Then, just below we would record due dates and follow up work. Throughout the week, after each lesson, follow up work was put on the day we agreed upon. Some people don’t like using the Work Journal as a planner, but I find it indispensable. By pre-filing the dates for the upcoming week and adding follow-up work and due dates as they’re created, it ensures big projects don’t pile up, expectations are clear, practice is balanced, and no one has to rely on memory.
The rest of the page was a record of what they actually did that day. Lessons are marked with a capital ”L” in a box [L] to make sure they stand out. Highlighters are sometimes used so that they can always easily find their “most recent lesson”
Conferences are used to reset every week. We renegotiate any unfinished assignments. Conferences are what keep this whole ship sailing.
Exemplar:
Monday July 27, 2026
DUE: One page of division problems with the Racks and Tubes [Sometimes the word DUE was highlighted for extra attention]
*DUE: Drawing of geometric solids [This item was due at a previous time but unfinished. At the conference we gave it this new due date, and we marked it with a star]
❏ Practice: Poetry memorization [Practice had a checkbox, when done, it gets checked off]
8:15 Penmanship
[L] 8:30 Sun and earth lesson [Follow up work for this lesson would be directly written on the day it is due. I negotiate with each child what the work is and when it is due. Let’s say it’s a poster for next Monday. We’d turn to next Monday and write “Due: Sun and Earth Poster.” Once this is written they can leave the lesson. No one leaves a lesson without follow up work of some kind.]
9:00 Racks and Tubes division.
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I’d love to hear how others do this, because it seems every class is a bit different!
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