Pre-Studying: giving children time and space to learn for themselves

So, this week I have been trying something new. 
At my school, we use the Maths No Problem scheme. For those of you who haven’t come across it, this is a Singapore Maths scheme that uses equipment, textbooks and workbooks. The lessons start with an ‘In Focus’ task, in which the children discuss approaches to a problem and then share their ideas. 

To prepare for this, I have recently started giving the children ten minutes with the textbook at the end of each day. They ‘pre-study’ the lesson. They just take some time to look at it. They think about it. They can discuss it with their partner. Many of them flick back to the previous day’s lesson and begin to make links between their learning. Today, one pair even asked me if they could grab the equipment to start to make tenths and hundredths. 

Only a few days in, this is already proving to be a very useful ten minutes. When I start the Maths lesson the next day, many of the children already have ideas or questions about the topic. They have begun to think about the Maths involved. 

It is also encouraging independence. The children are learning to be less reliant. They are using study skills and reading skills along with the visuals in the book. I think that as we go on, I will be able to accelerate through some of the lessons, allowing more time for using the Maths Journals, which are used for deepening understanding, explaining different methods and reasoning. 

My tips on how to implement this

(...so far! I'm sure that I'll have far more to add to this once I've been doing it for a while!)

1. Teach them how to do it. Talk to them about reading it, visualising the equipment we use, linking it to what they have learnt before.
2. Encourage them to be as independent from you as possible. I say 'from you': I would encourage them to discuss what they are reading. I feel that an important part of this is allowing them time to work through it without a teacher. 
3. Allow a bit of freedom. You can't ask them to be independent and then impose a bunch of rules on them! Let them learn in their own way: take notes in a notebook, doodle on a whiteboard, whatever they like. 

Plans to expand! 

So, obviously time is an issue here, but I'd like to roll this out across more of the curriculum. My plan is to give them some notes to study before some topics. We have LearnPads, so I'm going to put some presentations, notes and maybe even video clips (we have headphones!) on there about grammar topics, Science units etc. It's very similar to what we did for revision before the exams, but kind of in reverse. I think it might have a bigger impact than revising, but we'll see.

If you've done anything like this, please do comment and let me know any ideas or tips! Thanks! 
Don't forget to comment and share if you like this or have anything to add (or if you spot one of my frequent typos!).