Executive Function Strategies for Cognitive Flexibility

Cognitive flexibility helps students 

• Interpret information in multiple ways,
• Change approaches,
• Select a new strategy if the first one is not working.

Strategies

• Use perspective-taking to increase reading comprehension.
• Self-monitoring and checking can help students learn self-regulation.
• Students need to know
  • What types of errors to look for,
  • How to check for these errors,
  • Exactly how to correct the errors.
  • To help learn these skills, executive functioning processes should be taught from pre-K through 3rd grade.
  • Example strategies:
    • COPS - check work for Capitalization, Organization, Punctuation, and Sentence structure.
    • SQ3R - Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review is a strategy for studying from a text book.

• Give students opportunities to
  • Initiate their own learning,
  • Lead the planning process before starting a task,
  • Engage in a group.

• The teacher should model executive functioning skills as a co-learner alongside the student.

Adapted from:

Meltzer, L., Sales Pollica, L., Barzillai, M., (2007). Executive Function in the Classroom in Executive Function in Education: From Theory to Practice, Lynn Meltzer Ed. New York: Guilford Press.