As a new school year approaches, parents begin working through familiar back-to-school lists. Backpack? Check. Notebooks and pencils? Check. New shoes and school clothes? Check. Lunchbox, folders, and classroom supplies? Check.
These items can help students arrive prepared for the first day. But there is another set of tools students use throughout the school year that cannot be purchased in the school-supply aisle: cognitive skills.
Cognitive skills are the core brain skills used to think, learn, read, remember, reason, pay attention, and solve problems. They influence how students take in information, process what they are learning, and apply it during classroom activities and homework.
The Brain Skills Behind Learning
School requires students to use several cognitive skills at the same time. For example, a student may need to:
- Pay attention while the teacher explains a new concept
- Remember a series of instructions
- Process information quickly enough to keep up
- Use reasoning to solve a problem
- Recall previously learned material
- Ignore distractions and remain focused on an assignment
When one or more of these skills are not performing as strongly as expected, learning may feel harder or take longer. A student may understand the material but struggle to remember it later. Another student may know how to complete an assignment but lose focus before finishing. Some students may need considerably more time to read directions, organize information, or complete homework. These struggles are not necessarily signs that a student lacks intelligence or effort. In some cases, they may point to cognitive skills that need strengthening.
Attention
Attention allows students to remain focused on important information while filtering out distractions. Students rely on attention when listening to classroom instructions, reading independently, working through assignments, and moving between different tasks. Attention is a cognitive skill that can be trained.
Memory
Students use both short-term and long-term memory throughout the school day. Short-term memory helps them hold information temporarily while working with it. Long-term memory helps them store and retrieve information they have already learned. Memory skills may be involved when a student follows multiple directions, remembers vocabulary words, recalls math facts, or prepares for a test.
Processing Speed
Processing speed affects how efficiently a student takes in information, understands it, and responds. A student with slower processing speed may understand the lesson but require additional time to complete assignments, answer questions, or organize a response. Processing speed is not the same as intelligence. It reflects how quickly the brain handles information.
Logic and Reasoning
Logic and reasoning help students understand relationships, identify patterns, solve unfamiliar problems, and draw conclusions. These skills are used across subjects, from solving math problems to interpreting a reading passage or organizing an essay.
Auditory and Visual Processing
Auditory processing helps the brain understand and work with information that is heard. It can play an important role in listening, reading, spelling, and following verbal directions. Visual processing helps students understand and interpret information they see. This skill may be used when reading, reviewing charts, recognizing patterns, or organizing written work.
School Supplies Support the Student. Brain Skills Support Learning.
Notebooks, technology, planners, and classroom materials all serve an important purpose. But those tools cannot replace the cognitive skills students use to learn from the information placed in front of them.
A planner may help organize assignments, but a student still needs attention and memory to follow the plan. A textbook provides the lesson, but the student still needs processing and reasoning skills to understand it.
Extra practice may reinforce information, but the student still relies on cognitive skills to store and retrieve what was learned. That is why school readiness involves more than purchasing supplies. It also involves understanding how a student learns and whether any foundational skills may need additional attention.
What Is One-on-One Brain Training?
LearningRx Milwaukee-Brookfield provides personalized, one-on-one brain training for children, teens, and adults. Clients work directly with a brain trainer through challenging mental exercises that target cognitive skills such as:
- Attention
- Short-term memory
- Long-term memory
- Processing speed
- Logic and reasoning
- Auditory processing
- Visual processing
Training is customized according to the learner’s cognitive profile and individual areas for growth. Unlike tutoring, which generally focuses on teaching or reteaching academic content, brain training targets the underlying cognitive skills used to learn and work with that content. Tutoring and brain training can both be valuable, but they address different needs.
Begin with a Cognitive Skills Assessment
A cognitive skills assessment can provide a detailed look at how a learner is performing across several core thinking and learning skills. The results may help families better understand why certain school tasks feel more difficult and identify areas that may benefit from targeted training.
As you finish purchasing the notebooks, folders, and other supplies for the coming year, consider one more question: Does your child have the cognitive skills they need to approach learning effectively?
LearningRx Milwaukee-Brookfield can help you take a closer look.