In this post I describe the fifth of what I consider to be the five most important traits needed for success in school. By giving attention to these high-leverage behaviors and nurturing their development over time, teachers and parents can empower children to maximize their amazing potential.

Of course, no two children are alike, and not all high-achieving students will display the traits I am about to describe in the same way. Some of the following details may not be true of every successful student. My goal, then, is not to paint a picture of a single, rigid "type" that all children must emulate. Rather, it's to share the specific behaviors that, in my experience, have the greatest impact on a child's success. Focusing on these behaviors gives teachers and parents the greatest bang for our buck in our efforts to help children become better students.

  E - Engage in Energetic Listening
Successful students are attentive listeners. Many kids listen closely when their teachers present lessons or give important directions, yet they tend to tune out when their classmates are sharing information and asking and answering questions. Successful students listen closely to everyone; they don’t miss a thing. You can see it in the posture they take during instructional lessons and in the eye contact they consistently make with the speaker. They want to absorb as much information as much as possible during lessons and discussions, and they participate frequently. Furthermore, they involve themselves in the conversation, enthusiastically and confidently.

The trait of energetic listening is tightly connected to many of the other traits featured in this blog series. For example, one of the main reasons these children listen so well is because they hold themselves to such high standards with their learning and have such a strong desire to understand the content they encounter. These high standards also explain why successful students ask for help so freely when they don't initially understand something presented during a lesson. By listening well during instructional lessons, these students are prepared for the independent practice that usually follows the lessons. Showing drive and determination as a listener enables kids to show drive and determination as independent workers. Listening well during lessons, working with drive and determination during independent work time, asking for help whenever it's needed, and maintaining high personal standards along the way is a recipe for unparalleled success.

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In this post I describe the fourth of what I consider to be the five most important traits needed for success in school. By giving attention to these high-leverage behaviors and nurturing their development over time, teachers and parents can empower children to maximize their amazing potential.

Of course, no two children are alike, and not all high-achieving students will display the traits I am about to describe in the same way. Some of the following details may not be true of every successful student. My goal, then, is not to paint a picture of a single, rigid "type" that all children must emulate. Rather, it's to share the specific behaviors that, in my experience, have the greatest impact on a child's success. Focusing on these behaviors gives teachers and parents the greatest bang for our buck in our efforts to help children become better students.

  V - Venture Toward Important Purposes
Successful students have a strong understanding of why they're in school and why it's important to work hard and do well academically. They know that doing well in school matters, both now and in the future. These kids understand the link between today's successes and tomorrow's opportunities. They think about such things as what type of careers they might want to pursue and what areas they might want to study in college. Understanding the multiple purposes of doing well in school increases students' intrinsic motivation to learn, leads to higher levels of maturity, and positively impacts the other four traits featured in this blog series.

As I describe in the First Month of School, I believe that one of our highest priorities in the classroom at the beginning of each school year is to establish a sense of purpose with our students to help every one of them develop this type of strong understanding. We invest time to write a class mission statement that identifies the reasons why it's important to come to school each day and work hard, and we review that statement at least once a week to ensure that these critical ideas remain in the hearts and minds of our students. Later in the year, we provide children with the opportunity to write their own personal mission statements so they can further develop an understanding of why it's important to commit themselves to education. We also use tools such as The Tower of Opportunity to help our students make daily connections between what they study in school and the life roles that we all fulfill throughout our lives. As often as possible, we point out and discuss why we are studying class content. The better children understand the purposes of their learning, the more motivated and successful they will be.

In this post I describe the third of what I consider to be the five most important traits needed for success in school. By giving attention to these high-leverage behaviors and nurturing their development over time, teachers and parents can empower children to maximize their amazing potential.

Of course, no two children are alike, and not all high-achieving students will display the traits I am about to describe in the same way. Some of the following details may not be true of every successful student. My goal, then, is not to paint a picture of a single, rigid "type" that all children must emulate. Rather, it's to share the specific behaviors that, in my experience, have the greatest impact on a child's success. Focusing on these behaviors gives teachers and parents the greatest bang for our buck in our efforts to help children become better students.

  I - Immediately Ask for Help When They Need It
In my previous post I described how successful students hold themselves to impressively high personal standards with regard to their work, effort, and behavior. These high personal standards also come into play when students encounter new material during instructional lessons and while reading. These children expect to understand academic content, and when they don't, it's as if an alarm bell goes off in their heads, and they immediately raise their hands to ask questions and gain clarity.

There are, of course, many reasons why children choose not to notify the teacher when they are confused. In my experience, I have found that the three most common reasons are that 1) kids may be shy, 2) they may be worried that their classmates will judge them, or 3) they may not be engaged enough in the lesson to identify what they "get" and don't yet get. Early in the school year, it's important to build with our students the type of classroom culture where everyone feels comfortable asking questions and seeking clarity without fear of embarrassment. As teachers, we model this for our students by openly admitting when there's something we don't understand and sharing times when we've needed to ask for help. If some kids are too shy to raise their hand in front of the whole class, then they definitely need to signal our attention during independent work time or some other time when they can interact with us one-on-one, away from the spotlight that's a part of whole-class lessons.

I believe that this trait may be the single most powerful differentiator between highly successful students and those who have yet to achieve consistent academic success. Everyone gets stuck at one point or another during class lessons, yet I find that it's almost always the most successful students who ask the vast majority of the questions. Not only do these kids ask the most questions, but also they ask the most specific ones. Their understanding of class concepts is usually very solid, and their need to achieve full understanding is so strong that they will ask questions to clarify highly specific points and close even the smallest gaps between their current understanding and full understanding. At the same time, children whose understanding is far less developed tend to be the least likely to raise their hands. I find this fascinating, and it's something that teachers need to address until everyone is comfortable asking for help freely. Successful students advocate for themselves.
 

In this post I describe the second of what I consider to be the five most important traits needed for success in school. By giving attention to these high-leverage behaviors and nurturing their development over time, teachers and parents can empower children to maximize their amazing potential.

Of course, no two children are alike, and not all high-achieving students will display the traits I am about to describe in the same way. Some of the following details may not be true of every successful student. My goal, then, is not to paint a picture of a single, rigid "type" that all children must emulate. Rather, it's to share the specific behaviors that, in my experience, have the greatest impact on a child's success. Focusing on these behaviors gives teachers and parents the greatest bang for our buck in our efforts to help children become better students.

 R- Reach for the Stars
One morning last year, my students were creating bar graphs and other types of charts and tables to display the results of our Winter Enthusiasm Survey. After working for a very short time, one child raised her hand, and I was worried that she had rushed through the activity just to get done. Instead, she told me that she wasn't happy with how the paper looked and asked if she could start over. That action exemplifies the trait featured in this post.

Successful students hold themselves to impressively high personal standards with regard to their work, effort, and behavior. They care deeply about their schoolwork and don’t rush through it. Their goal isn't simply to finish. They take uncommon pride in what they do and only want to turn in work that represents their very best effort, even if it means putting in extra time. These kids believe that this extra time and effort are worth it. It's wonderful when parents and teachers hold high expectations for children, but the breakthrough moment occurs when these expectations are no longer adult expectations; they become a child's own personal standards. There is a well-known quote that says: "Every piece of work is a self-portrait of the person who did it." Highly successful students live this quote, and their daily actions show that they are committed to doing their very best each day and won't settle for anything less.

One critical area where a child's commitment to maintaining high personal standards can be clearly seen involves how well they pay attention to detail. Reading directions carefully, answering every part of multi-step math questions, and proofreading written work aren't typically the most interesting tasks students encounter, but how well they are done often determines the difference between quality work and work that cannot yet be considered quality work. Highly successful students understand the importance of paying attention to detail and do so consistently and independently, without needing adult reminders.

In this post I describe the first of what I consider to be the five most important traits needed for success in school. By giving attention to these high-leverage behaviors and nurturing their development over time, teachers and parents can empower children to maximize their amazing potential.

Of course, no two children are alike, and not all high-achieving students will display the traits I am about to describe in the same way. Some of the following details may not be true of every successful student. My goal, then, is not to paint a picture of a single, rigid "type" that all children must emulate. Rather, it's to share the specific behaviors that, in my experience, have the greatest impact on a child's success. Focusing on these behaviors gives teachers and parents the greatest bang for our buck in our efforts to help children become better students.

D - Demonstrate Drive & Determination
Being a highly successful student begins with a commitment to education. Before becoming successful, children need to decide that doing well in school matters and that they are willing to do what it takes on a daily basis to live up to that commitment. Children display this commitment by working hard throughout the day. They don't repeatedly start and stop while completing a piece of work; they don't need teacher reminders to get their work done. They invest themselves completely in the task at hand and use their time well. It's easy to spot students who work with drive and determination. You can see it in their posture and how they carry themselves in the classroom and while doing homework. You can see it in the enthusiasm, energy, and passion they put into their work. Children who demonstrate drive and determination take responsibility for their learning and show strong self-discipline. When these children encounter difficulties, they don't quit or become distracted. Instead, they enjoy and embrace difficult challenges and persevere until the end.
 

For most of my career, two powerful sets of habits have guided the work I do with my students. Together, the Habits of Mind and Habits of Character show children the specific traits and behaviors needed to become better thinkers, better students, and better people. These 22 habits empower children to maximize their considerable potential, and I simply cannot imagine myself teaching in a classroom without using these ideas as daily reference points.

Recently, I have noticed that a few of the behaviors included in this larger list seem to have particular power in explaining why some students consistently achieve success in school and why others haven’t yet been able to do so. Of course, factors that lie outside the control of teachers and schools most certainly impact how well children perform in the classroom, but the good news is that there are a small number of “high-leverage” behaviors that all children can learn and that all teachers can nurture and develop. With time, effort, and consistent attention paid to these five areas, every child can become a highly successful student and experience the greater confidence, higher self-esteem, and greater learning gains that result from this success.

I describe my quest to help children develop these behaviors as “The Drive for 5.” Over the next few weeks, I will be writing a series of blog posts that describe each of these traits. It is my hope that by giving attention to these high-leverage behaviors, we can empower all of our students to be successful in school and beyond.

 

Because novelty is such a powerful learning catalyst, I'm always on the lookout for unique (even off-the-wall) objects, images, and ideas that have the potential to capture student attention and help important learning "stick" in their minds.

Typically, I will choose the instructional objective or larger life lesson first and then search for a novel way to convey it to children. That's how it worked when I created the "Tower of Opportunity" to express the idea that education is the key that opens doors and when I came up with the movement, song, and story activities that would later comprise the book Rock It!.

Sometimes, though, the order is reversed. That was the case a few Sundays ago when I was watching an NFL football game and saw a fan in the stands holding up the "D-fence" sign shown in the accompanying image. For years, crowds have been chanting "Defense" to give their team an edge, and this was the first time I had ever seen an actual team-specific sign that fans could wear on one hand while they were chanting.

I knew I had to have one. My plan was to bring the sign to class to share it with my students and have it on display for the rest of the year as a consistent reference point. What was the sign going to refer to? I had no idea. So, I started thinking of a way that the sign could help me communicate something important to my kids, and after a while, I came up with the following. As you read, imagine I'm talking to a group of children.

"When I was your age, I loved to play sports. One of my favorites was basketball, and I would spend hours outside practicing my shooting. Like most kids, my friends and I loved playing offense. We loved to shoot the ball and score. Even though we knew defense was important, it wasn't as much fun as playing offense, and we didn't devote the same time and effort to improving our defense as we did to our offense. As we got older, we realized that for our teams to be successful, we needed to give equal attention to defense. Moving our feet, boxing out for rebounds, and other aspects of defense, no matter how small, aren't glamorous, yet they are necessary ingredients for success.

The same idea holds true with baseball and football, in which hitting home runs and scoring touchdowns are fun and exciting, yet they represent only a small part of the game. Success requires a serious, ongoing commitment to the little things. The fans in the stands may not notice these little things, and they certainly aren't likely to show up on TV highlight shows. But they matter. 

The same is true with being a great student. In Writing Workshop, for example, you may love to come up with story ideas and love to draft. You may not feel the same way about revising or editing, but if you want to be a successful writer, you need to give these areas equal attention. Sometimes, these tasks may not be fun, and they may feel like a grind, but committing to doing them with a high level of effort and with attention to detail is necessary. These habits will stay with you and help you become successful in whatever you choose to do when you get older.

Starting today, every time you see the sign I'm about to unveil, let it remind you of the effort we need to bring to the little things, the small tasks that may not be your favorite but that are so important for your success, in school and in life."

 

Recently, my school held its annual picture day. Traditionally, each class begins its turn by lining up in the auditorium to take individual snapshots and then heads outside to the risers to take the group photo. Usually, I line up first for the individual pictures so I can be available to lead the transition outside to the risers and minimize any behavior that arises due to the fact that the early finishers need to wait a while for the rest of their classmates. I forgot to do that this year, and I ended up sixth or seventh in line. After I took my individual photo, I noticed that the kids who preceded me were not in the auditorium, and I was a bit worried that they had made their way outside unsupervised and were fooling around.

When I walked outside, I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. Six kids were already in line in order from tallest to shortest, ready for the group photo. Two of them had decided to take charge, one boy and one girl. Each time a new student exited the auditorium, these volunteers helped that person find his/her place in line. 

It turns out that I wasn't the first adult who noticed this. A parent whose child was in my class last year and who was assisting on picture day approached the two and asked what they were doing. The girl replied that a part of our class mission statement talks about leadership, and they decided to show leadership when their teacher wasn't there.

We had written our mission statement during the first full week of school and had reviewed it every Friday as part of our morning routine. To see these kids internalize and act on the ideas we had included in the mission statement independently was incredible. When we returned to class after taking our class picture, I shared this story with the whole group so that the students who were not there to witness it could understand how powerful it is when we take an abstract idea from our mission statement and apply it without being asked or prompted.

Enter today to win 4 e-book copies of Chase for Home, the latest installment in the Chase Manning Mystery Series for kids 8-12 and the sequel to the award-winning Chase Against Time. To enter, visit my "Teaching the Whole Child" Facebook page and complete the simple steps shown below. (The steps should take you no more than a minute.) The giveaway ends Sunday, December 21st. That evening, I will randomly select a winner, who will be able to enjoy one copy of the e-book and share the other three with family and friends.

1) “Like” my “Teaching the Whole Child” Facebook page.

2) Click the “Join My List” button to subscribe at www.stevereifman.com.

3) Enter the giveaway by leaving a comment under the giveaway announcement with the words “Count me in.”