THE PRIMARY LEARNER

PRIMARY LEARNING

• It is important to develop the Foundations of Learning for each child.
• Student Profiles are essential in helping all students learn.

FOUNDATIONS OF LEARNING

• Belonging: Being connected to others results in children recognizing their responsibilities to the others.
• Well-being: Developing a sense of physical, emotional, and intellectual mastery and competence will lead to a better sense of self, autonomy, and self regulation.

FOUNDATIONS OF LEARNING CONTINUED

• Engagement: Children who are engaged through play, inquiry, and exploration want to understand the world around them in increasingly more complex ways.
• Expression: By giving a child a voice, we develop a sense of connection, language and social skills, and cognitive activity.

Foundations of Learning Summary

It is essential that we develop these four Foundations of Learning early, and continue to cultivate them. As educations, when we do this, students rise to achieve their potential, provided we take their individual and class profiles into consideration. If we do not consider the individual learner, then we will not be successful in developing all four of the Foundations of Learning.

STUDENT PROFILES

• Essential for improving teaching practices.
• Focuses on students strengths, and not just weakness.
• It provides a structure to devise instructional strategies, helps monitor progress, and develop next steps to help the child move forward in their learning.

STUDENT PROFILES CONTINUED

• Academic, Behavioural, Cognitive, Emotional, Social, and Physical characteristics of the child are important to consider when developing a profile.
• Class profiles are essential in developing varied programming that targets the learning characteristics of all students.

Student Profiles Summary

By addressing the strengths and needs of all students in the classroom, you create an engaged learner who feels like they belong, who has a voice, and they feel good about themselves. It is also vital that we involve students in helping them understand their strengths and needs. I recommend the following links from our readings as a place to start:

http://openingpaths.org/blog/2014/01/learning-profile-cards/
http://openingpaths.org/blog/2014/07/slp-quick-surveys/