Middle School Verbal And Mathmetical Skills
What middle school lessons are meant to teach verbal-linguistic skills?
In middle school, verbal and linguistic skills are taught almost in every class where we encourage learners to interact with each other, to learn new vocabulary. Of course we have literature and reading lessons continuing in middle school, and middle school is typically when children start reading classic literature and textbooks that are a little more challenging linguistically and verbally.
How can I tell if my middle school-age child is having trouble with verbal-linguistic skills?
Middle school children who are having trouble with verbal and linguistic skills begin to complain that they don't understand the material that they're reading. Often they'll say that, “Yes, I listened to the teacher, but I didn't understand what he or she was talking about.” This can also show itself at home as well, when we've given the child a specific set of verbal instructions or we've related a story in some way to them, and the don't understand or they don't remember what we've told them.
How can I help my middle school-age child learn "verbal-linguistic skills"?
Beside modeling good expressive language for our middle school children, to improve their verbal-linguistic skills, we can also ask many questions of our children. Questions such as: Have you ever heard that expression before? When we're watching television, we can ask our children to explain to us what's going on. Did they follow the dialog? We can help them with their verbal-linguistic skills by helping to explain to them, re-phrasing things to our children that they may not understand and generally being verbally interactive with our children.
What middle school lessons are meant to teach logical-mathematical skills?
Logical mathematical skills are taught in middle schools, primarily in math classes, of course. Middle school is the age where children begin to take algebra, which is very abstract reasoning in mathematical and logical skills. When children are asked to analyze literature and history, they use logical mathematical skills to make predictions, to explain reasons and rationales for decision making, and what the outcomes could have been. The ability to hypothesize alternative endings to a story, or talk about alternative ways that problems could have been solved in history, are also very beneficial to helping children develop logical skills.
How can I tell if my middle school-age child is having trouble with logical-mathematical skills?
We'll often become aware that a middle school-age child is struggling with logical and mathematical skills because we get the report from school that the performance is not up to par in math class, etc. If children are struggling at home with normal problem-solving the may have problems with logical mathematical skills. Examples of problem-solving include: how to get something plugged in, how to get things turned on, how to reboot the computer, how to solve a problem of finding something that's been misplaced and looking in the logical places (retracing their steps, for example.) If a child could not complete these, it would be indicative of difficulties with logical and mathematical concepts.
How can I help my middle school-age child learn logical-mathematical skills?
One of the best ways that we can teach logical and mathematical skills to middle school children is a process which we call "thinking aloud." That is modeling the problem solving behavior, showing the child how we solve the problem. A lot of parents talk to their children and they elaborate on the a way of thinking - such as process of elimination - that helps to solve a logical problem. As the parent is helping the child work through a problem, such as a technical problem with a computer or possibly charging up their cell phone, the parent can model for the child by thinking aloud: "It may be this or it may be that, I'm going to try this strategy because..." and we can hopefully foster that type of logical thinking in our children.