Executive Function Strategies for your Elementary Classroom

Focusing on the development of Executive Function Skills in the primary grades, could be the hidden treasure! Could it actually make learning easier for them? Yes! Yes! Yes!

You see, developing the control center of the brain, which allows you to plan, organize, shift your focus, and execute tasks might just be the answer!

We teach strategies for every other standard that we teach…why not teach strategies for developing our frontal lobe…the muscle that will control all the ways that our students need to function.

I’ve put together a list of strategies that I’ve used in my own classroom. Many I’ve learned from brilliant partners in teaching, SLP’s, and throughout the research that I’ve done.

Strategies for the development of Executive Function Skills.

Morning Routine 

Have a clear morning routine for your students.  No matter what grade you teach, you need to have a morning routine posted on the wall where everyone can see it.   One way to show a process is by using a flow chart.  Flow charts provide a visual to remind students of a process.   The pictures below are examples of Morning Flow Charts that can be used in any grade level.  You can find copies to print at the back of this book or you can make your own on chart paper with your class.  

On the first day of school it should be your goal to show them exactly how to do this routine. 

Use the 3 M’s (Model, Monitor, and Measure Success) to teach this process.

Start with modeling the routine for your students.  Model it the right way more than once.  Model it with a missing step (be goofy, make it fun).  Ask the students to tell you what you did wrong.  Model it right again!  

Let the kids give it a try.  This is where you get to monitor their understanding and progress.  I personally like having one group try it at a time so that the class can help me monitor.  Then you can talk about what each group did right and how it could be better the next day! 

This will take much repetition and a lot of time.  It will feel like you are wasting so much of your first day!  But I promise you, if you take the time at the beginning to get the strategy right, you will be making the rest of your mornings so much easier and productive.  This daily practice will create good habits and promote development of the organizing, planning, focus, and working memory!  

As you measure their success, you will see that there may be some students who continue to struggle with this many steps.  It’s ok! 

I have used a velcro strip on the students desk to provide them their own list.  You can find a sheet of picture or word cards in the appendix.  You simply have them laminated, cut them apart, and have the student move them onto the strip of velcro each morning.  As they complete each step they tear it off the velcro strip and put it away. 

This will help your students gain confidence each time they complete a step in the morning routine while developing the planning and organizing part of their brain.

Daily Visual Schedule

“Is it lunchtime yet?”  “When will I see my mom?”  “When is it time to go home?”  These are constant questions from students in elementary school.  They have no concept of time.  They do not usually know how to tell time or feel how much time passes when they start their school career. Elementary age kids cannot understand what a given amount of time feels like.  Each day you can show your students what their day is going to look like by using a visual schedule.  They will see what needs to be accomplished  before lunch and again after lunch.  They will learn to understand what time feels like when they’ve made it through the tasks of the day several times using a visual schedule of their day.  

In the younger grades you can use your visual schedule to break your day up into smaller chunks (at the beginning of the day and after lunch).  This just breaks the day into shorter segments for them.  Another great strategy is to use a pocket chart so that you can flip over the card that shows the tasks you have completed.  Flipping over the cards will help students with shifting their attention to the next task and give them a sense of time management.  Understanding how time feels as it passes will develop and strengthen their executive function skills, leading them to becoming better time managers. 

Agenda/Planner

Making a plan for your day keeps you focused and helps students to communicate with their parents about their day.  One great daily practice is keeping a planner or student agenda.  The purpose of this is to write down what you plan to accomplish throughout the day and to give it a time frame.  This helps to hold us accountable for getting everything done in the amount of time given.  It also gives our brain a head start on planning, organizing, and focusing.  It gives the student a preview of the day.  It also gives parents a snapshot of their child’s school day.

Each day when your students arrive, they write down (copy from the board) the daily plan.  This will help your students’ brain to plan and organize their day.  One strategy is to  have the students circle the items that will be homework.  This will keep them organized at home and keep parents informed.  Another great idea is to invite the parents to write down any commitments that their child may have in the evenings.  This will help the student make a plan for getting homework done based on the activities they will be attending in the evening.  

This daily practice of planning out their day will become a habit that will  lead your students to successful planning as they transition into middle school, high school, and on into their adult life.  To this day, I make a list of what needs to be accomplished each day.  I check off my list as I go.  I need this daily strategy to keep me focused on my daily tasks.  Your students will be more likely to adopt this good habit because you chose to introduce it and develop their executive function skills.

Wipe Off Analog Clocks

The use of an analog clock provides a visual for students as well as creates a better sense for time management.  All classrooms should have an analog clock.  Although students do not typically learn to tell time until 1st grade, using an analog clock in preschool and kindergarten to show the amount of time to work will create a better general understanding of time. Students in the beginning years of school should know what an analog clock it is and see that it tracks time.  As you utilize it as a visual in primary classrooms, the student will become more familiar with clocks in general.  This familiarity will  make learning to read the clock easier to master when the time comes.  The students may even figure it all out on their own based on how you use it as a visual to show time.  

The analog clock can easily be used as a visual for time management.   Sarah Ward’s Time Tracker Program is an amazing tool. You can read all about it here.

I’ve used what I learned from Sarah Ward, and created tools that can be easily implemented in your home or classroom. I used this method everyday during our Writer’s Workshop time.

 Let’s take a look at how to use a wipe off marker and an analog clock to keep time in your daily lessons.  If you tell your class that they have 15 min to do a writing activity, you show them what that looks like on the Wipe Off Analog Clock.  You simply point to your clock and tell them what time it is.  Write the word “Start” where the minute hand is and “Stop” when the time you give them is up.  So in this example, it is 3:00 and the students have 15 minutes to complete their journal page. 

1. Using a wipe off marker, you shade in the first 5 minutes and tell the class to use the first 5 minutes to draw their picture.  
2. Then, shade in the next 5 minutes and tell the class they should use the next 5 minutes to write their sentence. 
3. Finally, shade in the last 5 minutes and tell them to use this time to check their work, make corrections, add details to their drawings, etc. It is always a good idea to give them a 1 or 2 minute warning before their time is us.

There are a couple ways to do this.  First, if you are able to take your analog clock down from the wall, you can simply draw on it with a wipe off marker.  This is the best way, because the students can see the minute hand moving toward the mark you made to indicate their stopping time.  If you do not have an analog clock in your classroom ask your principal if there is an option for purchasing one for your classrooms, they are fairly inexpensive.  You can also print off a generic analog clock, have it laminated or put it in a plastic sleeve.  This will enable you to draw on it with a wipe off marker.  You will find a copy of a generic analog clock on my freebies page for your own classroom use.  This is also a great tool to provide for parents to use at home.

Students do not need to know how to tell time to use this method.  The students will benefit from seeing the amount of time they have to complete something and the amount of time that has passed.  Essentially you are teaching them to manage their task based on the amount of time they have to complete it.  This my friends is executive functioning!  

Plan-Tran-Execute

Oh how I love transitions!  There are many great transitioning tactics!  Plan-Tran-Execute is a strategy that is used to help students pre-plan what they are about to do and execute it without being distracted. 

Preplanning is very difficult for young children and even for a lot of adults.  A lot happens between pre-planning and execution.  There are many distractions that can prevent you from ever executing what you had planned. 

Have you ever made a “to do list” and then when you actually got started with your day, you changed it or didn’t even pay attention to it because something distracted you?  I think we’ve all experienced that.  

Picture your own classroom.  Let’s say you tell your students that they are going to get out their silent reading books and find a comfy spot to read.  Then you transition and many students do not follow your directions.  If you look closely, one  student may have stopped to blow their nose and noticed a candy wrapper in the trash and his brain ventured off to think about where it came from and how he could get some candy.  Another student noticed that her friend didn’t hear your instructions so she stopped to help her out and they started discussing where they would sit at lunch.  All while other students were also distracted by something that occurred between the pre-planning and execution.  

Does that description sound familiar?  Well, it wasn’t actually that they weren’t listening or that they didn’t want to follow your directions.  They weren’t being defiant, they just got side tracked.  You see, a lot happens between the planning phase and the execution phase.  

“Plan-Tran-Execute” is a process for giving the instructions, transitioning, and executing that will help students to focus on the task and be less likely to get side tracked or forget. The first time you use this strategy you will have to teach them how it works.  Students need to understand why they are taking the time to do this. You are giving that brain muscle a workout to strengthen the part of the brain that will help them plan, transition from one thing to the next, and get the task done!    This will look different in each grade level, but no matter how old they are you can still follow these simple steps:

1. Instruct/Repeat-  Give your instructions and have your students repeat them aloud.

Teacher – “Ok, boys and girls you are going to clean off your desk, turn in your paper, and get your silent reading book out.  Repeat after me: clean desk, turn in paper, silent reading.” 

Students- “clean desk, turn in paper, silent reading”

2. Visualizing Task– Tell your students to picture how that will look.  Go over the instructions again and have the students look to where they are going to do each step of the directions.  They can even point to the place each step will happen.
3. Repeat and Point–  Then you repeat each step as a class while pointing to the location or making some sort of motion for remembering the action.
4. Execute– This is the action part of the process.  When you are confident that your class knows what their job is, you send them off to do it.  I like to send them off using this call and response strategy:

Teacher- “plan-tran…”

Student (shout usually)- “Execute

And off they go! 

Self-Advocating Mini-Lessons

Teaching a student when and how to advocate for themself is vital.  They need to know that it is ok to ask questions.  Kids need to be taught strategies for doing so, especially in the early elementary years.  My brilliant Speech/Language Pathologist friend, Kathy, taught my class the following self advocating mini-lessons that teach students how to help their brain to understand what to do if they are not quite sure of what is expected.  Remember to us the 3M method (model, monitor, measure success)

• Please Repeat-Teach your class to ask you to repeat the instructions.  If they didn’t hear you or got distracted, it’s ok.  It happens to all of us.  Teach them to raise their hand and say “could you please repeat”!  Use a motion for memory when you teach this: hold your two hands in “thumbs up” position and rotate your arms in a circle to show a repeat like motion (all while saying “please repeat”.  You can use this when you can’t hear or understand a student too!  Modeling the use of a strategy is a great way to keep it consistent and show that we all need to self-advocate!  It may feel silly to teach this, but it will show them the importance of asking for help.  It will let those students who aren’t quite sure know that it is ok (actually expected) to ask for help.  We want our students to feel confident in asking for help!
• Please Explain- This is the same concept as above. Just asking to explain rather than repeat.  This should be used when a student knows what you said but needs it explained in a different way.  Applaud them publicly when they self-advocate.  This will show others that it is a good thing to do.  
• Using clues from peers- Sometime students just lose track of what they are doing.  We can teach our students to use clues from around the room to solve this problem.  Practice using clues by giving your students a scenario and have them consider where they could look for the answer. They can refer to anchor charts in the class or observations of what their peers are doing.  You could ask them, “ What if you are not sure how to spell a word.  Where are there clues in the room that could help you?”  Then your students can point to your world wall or ther charts that are visible to them.  Another important type of clue in the classroom is within your peers.  You might say to your students,  “If you get distracted and aren’t sure what you are supposed to be doing, what clue could help you?”  The other students!  Believe it or not in early elementary grades they need to be taught to look around and see what others are doing.  This could help them to remember where they should be and/or what  they should be doing too!  

Listening Skills Mini-Lessons

Yes, you have to teach your students how to be a good listener!  Executive Function plays a big role in being a good listener.  Your brain must be able to hear what the person is saying, understand it, organize the thoughts, make connections, and control your impulse to interject or become distracted.  Executive Function Skills allow you to focus attention and know when to shift your attention.   I have listed a couple of must do mini-lessons and daily activities that promote being a good listener:

• Good Listening Position- Sounds funny, but it’s true.  If you are not currently teaching your class what it looks like to be a good listener, start NOW!  There is nothing more respectful than a person that can look at you while you’re speaking and engage in the conversation by showing you that they care enough to listen.  Students are so used to multi-tasking, which I call one-way listening!  One way listening is when a student can hear your voice and may or may not comprehend what you said enough to actually do something with it.  The reason it’s one way, is because the speaker has no clue if they are listening at all.  I know that there have been times when you have been giving instructions while your students are putting things away, moving around the room, or even on their computers or other form of technology.  They may hear you…but they are not being a good listener.  Showing the speaker that you can stop, look, and listen is a form of respect that they will need in order to live a successful life.    

A good listener has attentive eyes and listening ears.  A good listener is not moving around or participating in other actions.  Teach your students to be aware of how their body is positioned when their brain is focusing best on listening.  This may look different depending on the grade level. 

They will need to practice this because it does not come naturally to young kids.  Even in the upper elementary grades this should be taught, modeled, and practiced.  Have them practice so that they can form the habit of being an attentive listener. This is not only important while in your class for the purpose of knowing what to do. 

It’s a life skill.  We are the teachers in their life for 6 hours everyday.  We are with them when they are working, playing, and learning.  We can be their difference by teaching our students this life lesson!  

Guidelines for being a good listener:

• Face the speaker.  Teach them to stop what they are doing and turn their whole body to face the speaker.
• Make eye contact.  Show them and practice with them what good eye contact feels like.  You might even mention that sometimes a good listener will nod or smile or make different expressions to show they are listening to what is being said.
• Don’t interrupt or do something that will be a distraction for others.

• News Flash This is a daily practice that the kids love!  News Flash teaches your students to listen good enough to report out.  News Flash works great at the beginning of your day.  You simply take 5-10 minutes for a couple of your students to share a “News Flash”.  This can be anything that is on their mind that they want to share with the class.  I like to give a microphone to the speaker.  Speaker 1 might say, “We went out for ice cream last night!” and then they will hand off the microphone to somebody else.  The next person will say, “Johnny, went out for ice cream last night!  I am going to visit my grandma today after school.”  Then they pass the microphone and it continues on.  Just before the microphone is passed for the last time, the student passing it will say, “Emily will be our last News Flash for today.”  Then after Emily is done sharing, she can call on three friends to ask her questions about the topic she shared.  The students asking the question may need to be reminded that they must ask a question, not share a connection.   News Flash  teaches the students to focus enough to listen and understand, shift their attention, change positions to face the speaker, and control their impulses to interrupt.  It takes no more than 10 minutes and it develops skills that are so important!  
• Listen and Design– You simply describe something that you are visualizing in your mind.  As you describe it, you ask the students to try to picture it in their mind too.  Then you give them time to draw what you described and share it with the class.  They love this!They are great for days when you know you will be having a substitute teacher or if you just have extra time to fill.  
• Mind Movies-  Teach the kids to create a movie in their mind as you read to the class.  The students then draw or explain their mind movie.  It’s a really fun way to teach homophones too.  You give them a homophone verbally “see/sea”.  You tell them to form a mind movie using the word “see/sea”.  Then you have them draw and label their picture.  When they show their quick sketch to the class you can discuss the difference between “see/sea”.  This helps their brain to focus and remember in order to complete a task.  The students love making mind movies!

Organizing materials

Raise your hand if you’ve ever witnessed a teacher dump a kids desk out on the floor.   Ugh…I cringe!  These kids are NOT being bad or lazy!  All this does is shame them for having under developed organization skills. 

Many kids develop these skills naturally, while others need to be taught how.  The expectations need to be taught through the 3M’s (model, monitor, measure success).  Show your students exactly how their supplies should be organized, you may even have to do it for some students.    Every supply has a home.  This also goes for lockers and desks. 

Some kids will need you to do it for them and monitor it consistently. 

You can measure their success by doing consistent quick checks.  At the end of each week take time to reorganize materials so that you can start the next week organized and ready to learn.  Celebrate when you find students that are successfully keeping their materials organized. 

Executive Function Skills are required for organizing.  As you work with your students and hold them accountable to your expectations they will strengthen and continue to develop these skills necessary for organizing.

Directed Drawings and Crafts

Directed Drawings are one strategy that requires attentive listening, focus, and the ability to follow step by step instructions!  Directed Drawings give the students’ brain a work out that they can handle.   During a directed drawing there is step by step modeling from the teacher.  You monitor each step as they work, and they must stay on task to keep up with the directions.  Then creativity is offered  in the end when they paint, color, or design their drawing.  Don’t leave directed drawings for art class.  It is helping to develop executive function skills and is also a fun way to celebrate the seasons or holidays.  In my class we did a Directed Drawing for each month or holiday.

Step-by-Step Crafts

Letter Crafts are a quick 10 minute activity that students love!  In Kindergarten we used each letter of the alphabet.  In other grades you can choose any skill: shapes, fractions, nouns, etc.  You simply provide the small pieces, give step-by-step directions (verbally or written), and give your students 10 minutes to complete the task.  Following step-by-step instructions helps to develop executive functions skills.  Depending on the grade level you can do these types of activities as teacher directed or allow students to follow directions independently.  

Checklists

Checklists help students to stay on task and track their own progress.  It helps their brain to focus and shift focus as they move through their own list.  There are a couple ways to use checklists in class.

• Individualized lists: There are times that you will need to make a different list for different students.  There are even times when you have a certain student that will always need a checklist on their desk.  You can laminate a checklist and use a wipe off marker so that you aren’t using a new paper each time a list is required.  There is a printable checklist in the back of this book.
• Whole Class Checklist- When students are working on several different things you can write a simple checklist on the board.  The student simply works through the list.  It is beneficial to make the list in order of priority to get done.
• Center Checklists-Keeping a checklist at each center will help keep your students focused on the task at hand.  It could be a list of picture or written tasks that need to be completed at each center.  If you allow your students to do free choice centers, you may also use a checklist to help them remember which centers they have already visited.

You must know your students and understand their developmental needs before making a checklist.  If they are a kindergarten student with weak executive function skills you may just give them one task at a time.  The more developed their executive function skills are, the more items they can handle on a checklist.  

Group Roles

This is a strategy that I learned while teaching inclusion with students on Speech/Language IEPs.  Group roles develop executive function strategies by assigning a task to a group, while each student in the group is responsible for a different role.  This strategy involves assigning the following roles to students: 

• Leader-Gives directions, leads the group, reads through directions for group tasks.
• Secretary- Controls the step-by-step directions, check’s off the list as they complete the tasks given by the teacher, and reviews the list before turning it in.
• Supplier- Passes out the supplies and makes sure they are put away correctly  Also may collect papers and other materials that need to be turned in.
• Time Keeper- keeps track of the timer, gives 2 minute warnings when time is almost up.  
• Working Partners- these are the workers, with no specific managerial job to focus on..  

You can rotate group roles each week or you can just save them for when you are assigning group projects.  It is important that the students learn the responsibilities of each group role and consistently have an opportunity to conduct each role.  Each role will strengthen executive function skills in a different way.  

Controlling Your Emotions

Inhibitory Control is difficult for young kids.  When they are mad or sad it can ruin their day.  They act out and cannot always understand why.  They may get overwhelmed easily and shut down. 

It is important that we teach our students to be able to identify how they are feeling and to help them think of strategies that will help them to control their emotions. 

Executive Function Skills give you the ability to make a decision no matter how you are feeling.   When these skills are developed students can more easily determine their actions based on their feelings.  They are also more likely to bounce back when their executive function skills are developed.  

You can help your students understand and control their emotions by teaching a series of lessons about emotions.  Many school counselors have specific curriculums for this. 

Executive Function Skills enable a student to function even though they may be feeling sad or mad or nervous.  They enable a student to control how they are feeling. 

Social Emotional Lessons help students to understand the emotions of others in relation to them.  Both types of lessons will help your students and are so very important in the learning process. 

The more emotionally  healthy a student is and the better equipped they are to understand emotions, the better they will handle the stressors in life that will get in the way of their learning and success.

In elementary grades it is important for students to be taught the following skills:

• Identify emotions: A student can understand how they are feeling and express how they feel.  You can teach them to read facial cues on posters or in books to help them understand how to identify emotions.  Many curriculums refer to colors as feeling colors (I feel red (angry or mad) today) (I feel yellow (nervous or anxious) today.
• Expressing how they feel: Take time to practice sharing how you feel.  Give them scenarios from stories or pictures.  Have them express how the situation makes them feel.  Reassure them that the way they feel is ok and real.  
• Identify triggers for emotions:  Brainstorm triggers for different emotions.  What makes you feel happy, sad, angry, nervous.  Have your students identify the way they feel on a given day and have them explain what caused them to feel that way.  They can practice by saying, “I feel ____________ because ___________.  
• Reactions to emotions:  Share with the students different strategies for responding to how they feel.  Brainstorm ways to get yourself back to happy.  Some students may say playing with their favorite toy or stuffed animal will make them happy, some may say snack, a hug, or alone time.  It may seem so simple, but when a child’s frontal lobe is still developing, they really do not have the skills to think in this way.  When emotions arise, teach the students to think about what makes them happy.  They can draw it, write about it, or take time alone.  We can train them to self-advocate by teaching them to say, “I feel mad when you take my pencil, next time please ask first.”
• Grace: Teach your class what it looks like to show grace!  This is something that even we adults struggle with.  When a child messes up or feels sad, give them grace.  When you mess up or feel sad, give yourself grace.  Model this daily!  Talk about it as a class.  Be honest about how hard it is sometimes to show grace to yourself and to others.  This is a lesson that will take them so far in life!  Take the time to teach grace!

Grace= understanding and/or forgiveness

Teaching executive function skills in the regular education classrooms in elementary school might just be the most important skill you teach! 

Without executive function skills students are more likely to be distracted, unorganized, lack ability to initiate a task, and be impulsive.  We can avoid all of this by gaining an awareness that many students will not develop these skills unless they are modeled, monitored, and measured. 

You will, of course, have students that naturally have a strength in the area of executive function skills.   You can use these students as helpers and role models as you develop these skills in your class.  Executive function skills are self-management skills.  If we develop these skills before diving into academic rigor, our students will be better equipped to achieve success!

For more ideas on Executive Functions Strategies to use in your classroom, feel free to click here to see my Executive Function Board on Pinterest!