The Power Of Pre-teaching

Differentiation can be a thorny subject amongst teachers, SLT and inspectors. There is not enough of it, it's not really matched to the abilities of the pupils, we shouldn't be doing any at all. This post is not about a rationale for differentiation, more about a technique that I have found useful to support the less able.

By pre-teaching I mean teaching a one or a groups of children the concept to be taught in an upcoming lesson before they encounter it in said lesson. This may be done just before the lesson, say during assembly time or it may be done the day before. This will depend on the concept and the children who are involved.

Essentially, the idea is that it gives children who are not as confident with the subject matter a bit of a headstart when the lesson happens for the rest of the class. It is different from flipped learning in that the concept is taught before the lesson rather than the children being exposed to the concept through a video or other resource that they access themselves.

I have seen it work wonders for children's confidence. Only last week, a Year 5 pupil who struggles with an aspect of grammar was taught the concept half an hour before the lesson started in a small group situation with the class teacher. When this child was faced with the work in the lesson itself, he literally and mentally rolled his sleeves up and powered on with it.

Obviously, pre-teaching can't be done all the time but it does offer another way of helping those children who may find it difficult to master certain concepts. If nothing else, it should give them the confidence to approach the lesson feeling that they have a chance to succeed.