Principles of Stretching! 1. Start where the child is at! a. Start in the child’s comfort zone. b. Where the child feels safe. 2. Keep it simple. a. Start with small steps. b. Steps that will be easily master with support (just right challenge). 3. Build Gradually a. Build one step at a time. b. Adding great challenges, just outside child’s comfort zones. 4. Maximize success. a. Provide support to maximize success. b. When snags arise, backup and make steps smaller. These four steps to successful stretching are good for setting up new learning, as well as troubleshooting when teaching breaks down. If you start in child’s comfort zone, he can feel safe. New learning often fails because we immediately throw the child into too much, with not enough support, and the child does not feel competent tackling the uncertainty. Repeated failure results in “panic” in new situations. So, make sure you start in the child’s comfort zone where they already feel competent, before adding new learning. Once the child is feeling comfortable, then add a little new learning (challenge). Keep it small, and within the child’s capabilities of mastering. “Keep it simple” is adding enough new learning to stretch the child’s abilities, while not overwhelming him by eliciting his “fight or flight” response. As long as you are continually stretching, you can stretch just a little at a time and learning can move forward smoothly. While stretching it is important to provide “guided support” as needed to help the child experience mastery. I prefer “doing it together”, side by side, with the parent assisting and supporting the child. As the child becomes more competent you give them a bigger role. By doing with you, task performance anxiety is decreased and the child learns to feel competent“trusting” following your lead. This solidifies the mentoring relationship. If the child starts to struggle, more than likely you made the new step too large, or didn’t provide enough support. When progress stops or the child resists, back up to the last successful step and break the new challenge down into simpler steps. Remember the mentor needs to take responsibility for the breakdown, not the child. When in doubt, go back and evaluate all four of these principles to see where the breakdown in progress occurred.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 18:55:44 +0000
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