Cognitive skills - Teaching Expertise

Are advances in brain sciences useful to the field of education? Dr Jodi Tommerdahl looks at whether breakthroughs in our knowledge of how the human brain works can provide insight into how children learn, particularly in the area of SEN, and, if so, what’s taking so long?

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This resource will help you implement an effective approach to support pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN) - specifically profound or complex needs

Philip Adey, one of the original proponents of CASE (cognitive acceleration through science education), reviews developments in the approach and critically examines its use in schools read more

In the first of two articles, Jenni Whitehead explores present understanding and research on how abuse experienced in childhood affects the child’s developing brain function and how this in turn affects learning

Lev S. Vygotsky is the subject of Steve Mynard's article on the psychology of child development

Steve Mynard opens a series of articles on educational thinkers who have influenced our approaches to early education. read more

Visual discrimination is the ability to recognise similarities and differences between visual images. The activities listed here can help develop visual discrimination skills and can be used in lessons to benefit all children

Visual memory is the ability to recall information that has been presented visually. The activities listed here can help develop visual memory and can be incorporated into a lesson for the benefit of all pupils

Auditory memory is the ability to recall information that has been given orally. The activities listed here can help develop auditory memory and can be incorporated into lessons for the benefit of all pupils

Semantic knowledge is the ability to understand narrative. This includes the ability to understand the meanings of words in different contexts, as well as a knowledge of the meaning of relationships between words. The activities listed here will help develop semantic knowledge

Auditory discrimination is the ability to detect similarities and differences when listening to sounds. The activities listed here can be used to strengthen auditory discrimination skills and can be incorporated into a lesson to benefit all children

Listening is the ability to attend to sounds across a range of stimuli. Use these activities to help pupils with listening and attention difficulties

Word finding is the ability to access vocabulary from the long-term memory. These activities can help develop word finding skills and can be used in lessons for the benefit of all pupils

Visual comprehension is the ability to listen to information that has been given orally, then remember it, understand it and use the information across a range of tasks. These activities can help develop skills in this area, and can be incorporated into lessons for the benefit of all pupils

As teachers with a new class, we tend to get a good idea pretty quickly about which students are going to do well in our classes, which ones are going to struggle, and which ones are not even going to try. read more