Executive functions are brain-based skills that help students start productive actions and stop unproductive actions in order to reach their goals and stay connected to others. If your student struggles with these skills, Student Success can help.
During 8 sessions, your high school student will learn ways to improve important executive functioning skills needed for success: Organization, Time and Priority Management, Planning and Starting Tasks, Persistence, Sustained Attention, Working Memory, and Self-Monitoring.
Students are provided a reference manual, and all students who complete Student Success have exclusive on-line access to forms, updates, & new downloadable tools.
SESSION OBJECTIVES
Through direct instruction and hands-on practice, your student will learn how to use active and research-based tools and strategies to improve his or her executive functioning and associated learning difficulties. During each session, your student develops skills to solve problems and begin to take control of his or her future!
Session One – Setting Goals for Success
During our first session, students learn about their strengths and the executive functioning skills that can hamper their success in school. They learn that although they did not cause their executive functioning difficulties, they can develop skills to overcome their challenges.
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Introduction to Student Success
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Identifying your strengths, values, & motivations
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Understanding your executive functioning needs
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How you can learn to improve your executive functions
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Setting goals for your success
Session Two – Organization
Organization is the ability to set up and keep up systems to keep track of and find important papers and materials when needed.
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Organization tools for finding your stuff when you really need it!
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Organization tools for active note-taking
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Setting up an organized study area at home
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Staying organized
Session Three – Time and Priority Management
Time management involves estimating how much time is available and then figuring out how to best allocate that time in order to complete tasks in a timely manner. Prioritizing involves figuring out what tasks are important to complete.
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Improving time awareness
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Getting up and out the door each day with limited parental persuasion
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Practical alternatives to the school planner or assignment book
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Prioritizing: quickly figuring out what to do when
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How to get your homework done well and still have time to what you want to do!
Session Four – Planning, Starting, and Completing Tasks
These three executive skills are important for completing academic tasks and achieving goals: (1) Planning involves the ability to break tasks into steps in order to complete assignments and reach goals, (2) Task initiation is the ability to start an activity on time without procrastinating, and (3) Persistence involves following through to complete a task or goal, and not getting sidetracked by other activities.
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Planning, starting, and completing projects with less stress
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Planning, prioritizing, and preparing for tests
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Dealing with the leading causes of procrastination and poor persistence
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How to use your values to overcome procrastination
Sessions Five and Six: Sustained Attention
Sustained attention is the ability to stay focused to complete a task in spite of distractions, poor mental energy, or boredom. Weak sustained attention can especially hamper a student’s ability to stay focused while completing reading assignments and preparing written work. During these two sessions, students develop active learning skills using actual textbooks and writing assignments.
Session Five – Active Reading
Active reading involves taking an active approach to reading textbooks, novels, & short stories in order to sustain attention and not fall asleep!
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Reading for details
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Reading for cause and effect
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Reading to compare and contrast
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Reading for inference
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Understanding literary devices: allegory, allusion, etal.
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An easier way to annotate!
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Monitoring your comprehension
Session Six– Active Writing Skills
Active writing involves developing the skills needed to attend to the details and descriptors needed to communicate in writing.
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Writing colorful, descriptive sentences your teachers will love
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Writing better paragraphs
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Six steps to writing reports
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Monitoring your writing
Session Seven – Active Working Memory and Test Taking Skills
Working memory is the brain’s “scratch pad.” It allows us to hold information in our mind, and then use that information to complete complex tasks. This skill is important for attending to and recalling multiple steps for math, routine tasks, and other activities.
Working memory is also important for getting information into and out of long-term memory. As a result, some students can recall the information while studying at home, but they struggles to remember it during the test. These tools and tips are
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Learning how to not forget
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Thinking about your memory
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Proven memory tools, techniques, and tricks
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Making associations, clustering, and chunking
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Using acrostics and acronyms
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Making memorizing an experience: elaborating, teaching, and talking it out
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Active test-taking strategies
Session Eight – Self-Monitoring and Problem Solving
Self-monitoring involves thinking about one’s thinking and actions, self-evaluating, problem solving, and self-correcting in order to stop unproductive behaviors and stay the course to reaching your goals.
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Developing and using self-monitoring checklists
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Learning how to use all you have learned to solve problems in the future.
Learn More
To learn more about executive functioning, Student Success, and the research behind what we do, click the following links.
Executive Functioning Article
How Student Success Works
Research Behind What We Do
(c) 2019, Monte W. Davenport, Ph.D.
