Executive functioning skills are the abilities that help us accomplish daily tasks. For students, this includes seemingly simple tasks like following a schedule, finding a homework assignment to turn it in, and gathering necessary materials for a class. While these examples feel like simple and easy tasks for many of us, they are actually often […]
The 7 Best Times to Teach Executive Functioning Skills
All educators would likely agree that executive functioning skills are critical to student academic and social success. These are the skills that help learners plan for assignments, stay organized, use self-control to make good choices, use flexible thinking to solve problems, and persevere through challenges. The issue is usually when and how to make time […]
Strategies to Build Working Memory
Think of working memory like a mental sketch pad; a place to store information for short periods of time while we’re working through a task. Kids, teens, and adults use this skill on a daily basis to completely basic and complex tasks. For students, these tasks range from completing simple mental math in our heads […]
10 Executive Functioning Skills: The Ultimate Guide
What are executive functioning skills? Executive functioning skills are the important processes in our brain that help us finish tasks and meet our goals. If it sounds like we use them for everything we do, that’d be right – we do! It’s important to mention, though, that executive functioning skills are a huge umbrella. There […]
Helping Kids and Teens Who Struggle with Executive Functioning Skills
What are executive functioning skills and how can I support struggling learners? These are questions that many educators and parents have, and for good reason. Executive functioning skills are the processes in our brains that help us accomplish daily tasks. They include our abilities to organize materials, prioritize work, stay focused during activities, and persevere […]
25+ Everyday Ways to Build Executive Functioning Skills
Executive functioning skills are the complicated processes in our brains that help us accomplish everyday tasks. For kids and teens, these tasks might be things like starting morning work after entering the classroom, working through a long-term project, bringing the correct materials to class, and raising a hand to share thought in class. For many […]
How to Integrate Executive Functioning Skills into the Classroom
If we want learners to develop strong executive functioning skills, it is critical to integrate them into the daily classroom. Integrating executive functioning skills into classroom instruction just makes sense. In short, this means taking important skills like organization, planning, and self-control, and practicing them right alongside average daily tasks. At first it might seem […]
30+ Digital Executive Functioning Tools & Activities
Planning, organization, time management, attention, and self-control: These are just a few executive functioning skills that all kids and teens should learn. With such a focus on remote learning, I’ve put together a list with some digital tools and supports to help learners strengthen their executive functioning skills. It’s worth mentioning that these resources can […]
12 Reasons to Teach Executive Functioning Skills Explicitly
Executive functioning skills are some of the most foundational elements for academic and social success. They are the skills that help us to plan, stay organized, pay attention to important information, use strategies to get us back on track when we veer off course, be flexible when things don’t go our way, and persevere through […]
10+ Phrases to Avoid Saying to Learners with Executive Functioning Challenges
Kids and teens who struggle with executive functioning challenges go through a lot every day. From trying to focus in class, remembering to turn homework in, and working through daily challenges that pop up, it can be stressful. Executive functioning challenges are real. What are executive functioning challenges? Executive functioning skills are the life skills […]
