Lesson 5

Teachers interact with their students for several hours, every day, Monday through Friday.  That interaction is important for the obvious, teaching whichever lessons pertain to the age group you are working with at any given time.  But the videos share that there are additional skills that kids are picking up during the social interaction that is taking place during each school day.  The language video made it very clear that children will build bigger, better, more complex language if they are hearing language at a higher level.  Teachers might be tempted to speak in the most basic language, to make certain that their instructions are understood.  After viewing the video, it is clear that this would be a big mistake.  The research indicates that children have both larger vocabulary and more advanced language structure when they are spoken to in a more complex manner.
So, as a teacher, you are tasked with challenging your students by speaking to them at the next higher level - as compared to where there are currently, at the very least.
There were a lot of tips in the reading video as well.  The use of word games and rhyming can be influential in developing skills.  I found news that was actually a bit disturbing to me in the resources tab.  According to a recent study (by Scholastic) the percentage of kids that read for fun is plummeting.  This number, however, the resource page implied, could be affected if the kids are exposed to more reading time at school.  For whatever reason, reading time at school had a link to kids then reading at home for fun.  So lesson three (after speaking at a higher level, playing word games) is to program some reading into the day.  The video cited reading as one of the best ways to improve language skills.
So for teachers, there is one more thing to remember when teaching - but it is easy - speak to kids at the level that you want them to climb up to, not the level that they are currently occupying.  And, if you have a spare minute or two - put a book in front of them.