Ruby Payne’s
Chapter 8
Instruction and Improving
Achievement
Book’s Purpose
• “To improve achievement of students from
poverty. Low achievement is closely
correlated with lack of resources, and
numerous studies have documented the
correlation between low socioeconomic status
and low achievement.”
Notions of Intelligence
• Traditionally thought that intelligence was
inherited.
• In the book, The Bell Curve it is noted that
individuals in poverty have on the average an
IQ nine points lower than individuals in the
middle class.
• This might be a credible argument if IQ tests
really measure ability. In reality, IQ tests
measure acquired information.
An IQ Test
• What is gray tape and what is it used for?
• What does dissed mean?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of
moving often?
• What is the main kind of work that a bondsman
does?
• What is a roach?
• How are a pawnshop and a convenience store
alike? How are they different?
IQ Tests
• IQ tests were designed to predict success in
school. They do not predict ability or basic
intelligence.
• Since IQ tests truly assess acquired
knowledge, if your parents are educated,
chances are you will have a higher acquired
knowledge base.
• Rather than using IQ tests, it is better to focus
on teaching and learning.
A Focus on Learning Structures
• Teaching is what occurs outside the head.
• Learning is what occurs inside the head.
• In order to learn, an individual must have
certain cognitive skills and must have a
structure inside his/her head to accept the
learning—a file cabinet or a piece of software.
Cognitive Strategies
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Fundamental ways of processing information.
The infrastructure of the mind.
More basic than concepts.
Subsets of Cognitive Strategies are Concepts,
Skills, and Content.
• Concepts store info and allow for retrieval.
• Skills (reading, writing, computing, etc.) comprise
the processing of content.
• Content is the “what” of learning.
Traditional Schooling
• Traditionally, schools have believed that
cognitive strategies are in place. If we didn’t
find those strategies, we would test and place
the student in a special program. Historically,
we have believed that cognitive strategies
were non-remediable. Historically, we have
focused on concept development in K or K-1.
We have focused on skills development in
grades 2-5. We focused on content in 6-12.
Didn’t Work!!
• Increasingly, students, mostly from poverty,
are coming to school without concepts, but
more importantly they are coming to school
without cognitive strategies.
• We simply cannot assign all poor students to
special education classes.
Cognitive Strategies
• Authored by Reuven Feuerstein, from Israel.
• Studied under Jean Piaget.
• Disagreed with Piaget in that Feuerstein believed
that between the environmental stimulus and the
response should be mediation.
• For example, a parent might say, “Don’t cross the
street.” (a stimulus). “You could get hit by a car.”
(assigning meaning). “So, if you must cross the
street, look both ways.” (identification of a
strategy)
Why Mediation is So Important
If an individual depends upon a random,
episodic story structure for memory patterns,
lives in an unpredictable environment, and
has not developed the ability to plan, then…
Mediation
• If an individual cannot plan, he/she cannot
predict.
• If an individual cannot predict, he/she cannot
identify cause/effect.
• If an individual cannot identify cause/effect,
he/she cannot identify consequence.
• If an individual cannot identify consequence,
he/she cannot control impulsivity.
• If an individual cannot control impulsivity, he/she
has an inclination toward criminal behavior.
Identifying Missing Links
• Feuerstein identified the missing links that occur
when mediation has not occurred.
• Missing Links:
– Mediated Focusing: Ability to focus attention and see
objects in detail.
– Mediated scheduling: Based on routine. Ability to
schedule and plan ahead. Ability to represent the
future abstractly and therefore set goals.
– Mediation of positive anticipation: Ability to control
the present for a happy representation of the future.
Missing Links continued
– Mediation of inhibition and control: Ability to defer
gratification, think before acting, and control
impulsiveness.
– Mediated representation of the future: Ability to
construe imaginatively a future scenario based on
facts.
– Mediation of verbal stimulation: Use of precise
language for defining and categorizing the
environment.
– Mediated precision: Ability to precisely define
situations, things, people, etc. and use that precise
thinking for problem-solving.
Cognitive Issues
• Blurred, sweeping perceptions and the lack of a
systematic method of exploration mean students
have no consistent or predictable way to get
information.
• Impaired verbal tools mean they do not have the
vocabulary to deal with cognitive tasks.
• Impaired temporal orientation is the inability to
organize and measure in time.
• Impaired observations of constancies
• Lack of precision and accuracy in data-gathering
Cognitive Strategies of Support
• Input Strategies that teachers must help build
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Use planning behaviors
Focus perception on specific stimulus
Control Impulsivity
Explore data systematically
Use appropriate and accurate labels
Organize space with staple systems of reference
Orient data in time
Identify constancies across variations
Gather precise and accurate data
Consider two sources of info at once
Organize data (parts of a whole)
Visually transport data
Cognitive Strategies of Support
• Elaboration (use of data) Strategies that will support student
growth
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Identify and define the problem
Select relevant clues
Compare data
Select appropriate categories of time
Summarize data
Project relationships of data
Use logical data
Test hypotheses
Build inferences
Make a plan using data
Use appropriate labels
Use data systematically
Cognitive Strategies of Support
• Output (Communication of the data)
Strategies
– Communicate clearly the labels and process
– Visually transport data correctly
– Use precise and accurate language
– Control impulsive behavior
Teacher Lesson Planning
• The student would
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Use planning behaviors
Control impulsivity
Use evaluative behaviors
Explore data systematically
Use specific language
Regardless of the content, if the lesson requires than in some
way students do these five things, cognitive strategies
would be strengthened.
Use of Eye Movement
• Bandler and Grinder (1979) work on non-verbal cues
and cognitive processing
• Criminologists use these techniques, also.
• Think of the human face as a clock.
• The face has three zones.
• When the gaze is in the top zone, the individual is
processing visual info.
• When eyes in the middle zone, the person is
processing auditory info (with one exception)
• When eyes are in the bottom zone, the individual is
either talking to himself or processing feelings.
Use of Instructional Interventions
• Graphic Organizers, p. 100, 101
• Identifying methods of having a systematic approach to the
data/text.
• Establishing goal-setting and self-talk.
• Teaching conceptual frameworks as part of content.
• Using a kinesthetic approach
• Using rubrics
• Teaching the structure of language.
• Teaching students to make questions.
• Sorting relevant from irrelevant cues.
• Teaching mental models
What the Research says
• Insistence (schools have often excelled in insisting)
• Expectations (been in place since the mid-1970s)
• Supports in place (not fuzzy, feel-good notion of
support. Instead, teachers need to offer supports
like girders to a bridge). Support like cognitive
strategies, appropriate relationships, coping
strategies, goal-setting opportunities, and
appropriate instruction.
VDOE perspective on working with
children from poverty
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Offer developmental pre-school programs
Supplemental reading programs
Reducing class size
School-wide projects in prevention and
support
• These four responses could allow for
relationships, support, insistence, and
developmental and cognitive strategies.
Conclusion
• As we adapt and flex our instruction to meet
the needs of students from poverty, cognitive
strategies and support need to be integrated
with insistence and expectations.