How to teach primary school children

Asking Questions
Asking questions can be tricky to teach, so I start working on this skill on the second day of Kindergarten. Yes, I’m serious! I use a Student of the Day routine and model asking the “Student of the Day” questions about his or her favorite food, toys, games, TV shows, etc. After a couple of days, the kids are ready to ask their own questions, and they are excited to do so!
When I ask students to apply this skill to an academic context, I teach them the concept of “thick” and “thin” questions. Thin questions can be answered easily, with a briefer response. Thicker questions, on the other hand, may require us to look multiple places in a text, and there may not be one right answer. For lessons on how to teach questioning, click here.
Inferring
Inferring sounds like it would be difficult to teach little ones, but in reality, kids make inferences all the time. For example, if you show your students a photo of a child who has a thermometer in her mouth and looks sad, the vast majority of your students will immediately understand that the child is sick.
I like to teach inferring using photos, and then move on to texts. I also think it’s important to teach students how to infer for a specific reason, rather than to infer “in general.” For example, we can teach students to “infer how a character is feeling by paying attention to what they do and say.” For ideas on teaching inferring and a detective activity, click here.
Determining Importance
This, I think, is a difficult skill to teach little ones! I try to give students practice with this on a consistent basis throughout the year (and across subject areas), by asking questions like:

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  If you could tell a friend only two facts about this topic, what would you share with them?
  
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  What was the most important thing you learned today?
  
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  What was the most important step in the science experiment we did? Why?
  
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  What was the most important thing you did over winter break? Why?