Pennington Publishing Blog

Perhaps no other educational practice cries out for mastery of executive function and study skills more so than independent work. How can we provide meaningful, independent practice for students without constant teacher supervision?

The 56 executive function and study skills in Targeted Independent Practice | Executive Function and Study Skills lessons will help your students learn what every student should know via independent practice. The easy-to-follow lesson format of 1. Personal Assessment 2. Study Skill Tips and 3. Reflection is ideal for self-guided learning. No prep. Minimal correction. Maximum assessment-based learning. Easy classroom management. Perfect for independent work during small groups, ideal for sub plans, a quick go-to for rainy days, nothing better for early finishers.

Table of Contents

Motivation

1. How to Get Motivated
   2. How to Prevent Procrastination
   3. How to Set Goals
   4. How to Develop a Positive Mental Attitude

Organization and Time Management 

5. How to Create a Home Study Environment
   6. How to Get Organized for Homework
   7. How to Complete a Daily Review
   8. How to Manage Time for Homework

Reading Strategies and Skills

9. How to Choose Books for Independent Reading
   10. How to Develop Good Reading Habits
   11. How to Improve Oral Reading Fluency
   12. How to Improve Silent Reading Fluency
   13. How to Read Interactively
   14. How to Improve Reading Comprehension
   15. How to Make Inferences
   16. How to Use Marginal Annotations
   17. How to Read Non–Fiction Textbooks
   18. How to Identify the Main Idea
   19. How to Complete a Close Reading for Narrative Text
   20. How to Complete a Close Reading for Expository Text
   21. How to Use Context Clues

Research 

22. How to Quote and Cite Textual Evidence
    23. How to Identify Bias and Errors in Reasoning
    24. How to Research Safely and Evaluate Internet Sources

Memorization Strategies

25. How to Memorize with the Grouping Strategy
    26. How to Memorize with the Association Strategy
    27. How to Memorize with the Linking Strategy
    28. How to Memorize with the Catch Words Strategy
    29. How to Memorize with the Catch Sentence Strategy
    30. How to Memorize with the Location Strategy

Essay Writing 

31. How to Dissect a Writing Prompt
    32. How to Write a Thesis Statement
    33. How to Avoid Errors in Writing Style
    34. How to Follow Essay Writing Rules
    35. How to Write an Essay Introduction
    36. How to Write Essay Body Paragraphs
    37. How to Write an Essay Conclusion
    38. How to Write in Complex Sentences

Listening and Note–taking 

39. How to Practice Active Listening
    40. How to Take Notes
    41. How to Organize Cornell Notes
    42. How to Organize Formal Outline Notes

Grammar, Spelling, and Mechanics Study Skills

43. How to Identify and Use the Parts of Speech
    44. How to Use Grammatical Sentence Openers for Sentence Variety
    45. How to Use Precise Verb Tenses
    46. How to Eliminate the “to be” Verbs
    47. How to Spell by the Rules
    48. How to Apply the Syllable Rules
    49. How to Punctuate Properly
    50. How to Capitalize Correctly
    51. How to Avoid Non-Standard Usage

Test Preparation and Test–taking

52. How to Prepare for Tests
    53. How to Use Objective Test–taking Strategies
    54. How to Use Matching Test–taking Strategies
    55. How to Use Fill–in–the–Blank Test–taking Strategies
    56. How to Use Multiple Choice Test–taking Strategies

Diagnostic Self-Assessment and Mastery Matrix

Executive Function and Study Skills are particularly well-suited to diagnostic differentiation and independent practice. Not all students need practice on collective nouns or capitalization of titles. Some do; but some don’t. Targeted worksheets with formative assessments make sense. Why not take a look at the full affordable program to see if this is what you need to get max results in your classes. Grades 4 on up.

Targeted Independent Practice

My Targeted Independent Practice series supports teachers with quality assessment-based independent learning. Each program includes 1. A comprehensive diagnostic assessment to determine student needs 2. Targeted worksheets corresponding to the specific diagnostic test components 3. Formative assessments to determine mastery. View each program in its entirety.

*** Reading Fluency and Comprehension

*** Spelling

*** Phonics

*** Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics

*** Literacy Knowledge

*** Executive Function and Study Skills

Not sure if your students need interventions? Download the free Targeted Independent Practice Diagnostic Assessments and let the data inform your instructional decision-making.

Grammar/Mechanics executive function skills, organizational skills, study skills, test preparation, time management

Few common teacher instructional practices have generated more pejorative comments than targeted worksheets for independent practice. For example, for many teachers, the adjectival phrase, “drill and kill,” must precede the noun, “worksheets.” And teachers who use such worksheets are often labeled as “lazy, traditional, ignorant of educational research, and/or weak in behavioral management skills.” Especially guilty of malpractice are those who use workbooks, filled to the brim with worksheets.

However, the dirty little secret is that may of us teachers do use targeted worksheets for independent practice during small group reading or ELA instruction. It may be time for us to come out of the closet, as Dr. Tim Shanahan has done in his August 31, 2024 Shanahan on Literacy blog, titled “Seatwork that Makes Sense for Reading.” Tim admits, “Like most professors, I have long looked askance at worksheets and their role in reading instruction (though I had relied upon them as a teacher).”

Now when teachers read an article from the Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chi­cago and lead researcher on the National Reading Panel, we expect Tim to cite the relevant research on the topic i.e., independent practice worksheets.

However, Tim comments, “Except there is no body of research on seatwork (just one study as far as I can tell—and, though helpful, it doesn’t even attempt to describe appropriate instruction in any kind of specific detail).”

The study Dr. Shanahan refers to (Amendum, et al., 2024) “…was a correlational study, which identified how time was spent in classrooms and its relationship to learning to read. It found that the most effective teachers were using a combination of authentic texts and worksheets, etc. Unlike in some past studies, there was no particular benefit to using one type of material over another — in other words, they did see some learning gains due to use of seatwork activities” (Shanahan’s Comments).

So from Tim’s review of this one relevant study and his informed opinion, this noted researcher and former teacher concludes, “Good teachers often use a mix of direct instruction along with some practice sheets.”

Now of course, Tim’s conclusions, which I whole-heartedly share, beg too many questions to fully answer here; however, if we agree that direct, explicit, whole-class instruction is our priority, but some small group work is necessary to differentiate instruction, it makes sense that the independent worksheets and/or activities we use in our classrooms during small group instruction need to be carefully designed to maximize learning.

My view is that independent practice should be targeted to specific, diagnostically assessed literacy deficits. And worksheet practice should conclude with formative assessment to determine mastery of the practiced concept or skill.

Targeted Independent Practice

My Targeted Independent Practice series supports teachers with quality assessment-based independent learning. Each program includes 1. A comprehensive diagnostic assessment to determine student needs 2. Targeted worksheets corresponding to the specific diagnostic test components 3. Formative assessments to determine mastery. View each program in its entirety.

*** Reading Fluency and Comprehension

*** Spelling

*** Phonics

*** Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics

*** Literacy Knowledge

*** Executive Function and Study Skills

Not sure if your students need interventions? Download the free Targeted Independent Practice Diagnostic Assessments and let the data inform your instructional decision-making.

Study Skills executive function skills, free diagnostic assessments, reading worksheets, small group worksheets, study skills, targeted worksheets

If you googled Executive Function Skills to get this article, you know that this is a trending educational topic. As educators, parents, and students, we’ve learned a lot about learning during the pandemic. Researchers, too, have hopped aboard this train with grant money conducting the ride, and the recent research base validating the importance of executive functioning skills is impressive.

Now, as I write this article in August of 2022, I can’t help thinking about two popular idiomatic expressions: “A horse by any other name is still a horse” and “What goes around, comes around.” Come to think of it, these expressions are not really that popular anymore, but I’m not familiar with their contemporary replacements.

Somewhat surprisingly, googling study skills still produces plenty of search results and you may even have found this article by entering this phrase. However, the updated “horse by any other name” is executive function skills.

Now, technically the two terms are a Venn diagram with some differences, but with a much larger overlap of similar components. Both study skills and executive function skills share the same characteristics: active self-regulatory processes which play substantial roles in learning.

Additionally, the older collection of study skills, which seemed destined to fade into oblivion due to instructional time constraints or had been narrowed down to last-minute test prep in many schools, has now been re-branded into a similar, but expanded version of itself.

“What comes around” are the same old, with some new, study skills, but with quite a different look. Executive function skills now are trending.

The research about executive function (EF) skills is particularly impressive in reading development. Researchers Nell Duke and Kelly Cartwright (2021) summarize this body of recent research:

Several EF skills contribute directly to reading: cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, working memory, planning, and attentional control… EF skills also contribute to reading ability indirectly, through both word recognition and language comprehension processes… EF is so important to reading that there is reason to believe that for some students, limited EF skills are the primary cause of reading difficulty.

As a reading specialist, I might not be quite as effusive in extolling the merits and critical importance of EF skills on reading development; however, they certainly play a role, especially with respect to reading intervention (e.g., Melby-Lervåg & Hulme).

In sum, the recent research does seem to indicate that the old study skills are still essential. So, thank you for teaching them to our students.

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The author, Mark Pennington’s Essential Study Skills is a wonderful collection of teacher or student-guided 20-minute lessons (the perfect substitute lesson plans) to teach what some seem to believe are common sense skills, or things other teachers must have already taught.

Essential Study Skills

Grammar/Mechanics executive function skills, memory skills, pragmatics, study skills, substitute lesson plans, test prep