"I don't know."

So often when we teachers ask younger aged students a question using random selection, they are unprepared to answer. BUT they WANT to answer and they KNOW they are supposed to say something, so we hear "I don't know." all the time. Well friends, I attended a fabulous training on ELPS this summer. The presenter had some great takes on how to assist students in finding an answer. One of the ways we can help students be able to answer our questions is by teaching them ways to solve the problem of not knowing the answer.

We give the students the words to use to seek clarification on WHAT I want to hear. 

The first step is to teach the students that they do not get to say "I don't know." 

The second step is to teach the students that it is OKAY to need more time to think about the answer! When a student chooses this option as the teacher, we need to help them by taking a second to get the attention off of that student and have everyone in the class think about the answer, but go back to the first questionee after the allotted time. 

Third step is to teach the students that they might know the answer, but just don't understand the question or vocabulary in the question. So one way to figure out the answer, is to ask the teacher to repeat the question or say it in a different way. 

Fourth step is to teach the students to use their resources, books, anchor charts, the teacher! The students should know that they are not going to go research this online or in the library. This should be as simple as pointing an anchor chart. If the student can remember that there is an anchor chart on what you are asking or remember the page in the book that you are discussing they should be able to use this question to seek clarification and come to a conclusion. 

This is just the tip of iceberg on implementing the ELPS to help our ELL/ESL students and the rest of our class right along with them. I think we all need to be creating problem solvers, not "I don't know."ers! 

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