I've got skills, they're multiplying...

Above is a short video on basic addition skills for children. During the video it goes through a sequence of simple addition problems, presenting the mathematical sentence as well as pictures symbolizing the sentence. I choose this video because it has to do with the topic of automated basic skills.

Automated basic skills is defined as "skills that are applied without conscious thought" (Woolfolk, 2014, p. 343). This regards the skills such as tying your shoe laces or write the letters of the alphabet. Once you have mastered the skill, there is little thought put into the process on a day to day basis. It was interesting to read about this topic because of the demographic I work with. I work with preschool aged children, and the skills I dismiss as everyday activities are difficult for the students. For example, one student of mine has just learned how to tie her shoelaces last week. She is still in the cognitive phase of this process of mastering the skill. The cognitive phase relies heavily on "declarative knowledge and general problem solving strategies to accomplish our goal" (Woolfolk, 2014, p. 343). I can tell my student is in this phase of the process because her concentration is on only tying her friends shoes when she is performing the action. Many trial and errors have occurred during the past week or so.  This is the step of the learning process where teachers play a key role. The teacher has the ability to help encourage the cognitive process. Due to many trial and errors occurring during this step, the teacher's role is to make a learning experience out of each misstep. An example is mathematics involves learning the numbers both physically on paper and abstractly in their minds before being able to add two numbers together to make a number sentence.

The second portion of the process of automated basic skills is the associated skill where "the individual steps of a procedure are combined or clunked into larger units" (Woolfolk, 2014, p. 343). This step involved the steps become smooth transitions for the next one. An example of this is writing letters. Writing the letter "A" involved three lines; once the student starts the first angled line its cues the next two lines directly after. You would not write the first line of the "A", move onto another letter, and then come back to finish the "A".

The final portion of this process is called the autonomous stage. This stage is where the skill can be accomplished without much thought or attention (Woolfolk, 2014). Adults are in this stage of the process when it comes to tying our shoes or performing simple mathematical problems. For younger children this stage may not come easily. In my class I have half the students going to kindergarten and half the students staying for another year in our head start program. Even within the kindergarten group, some of my students have not mastered writing their name and yet some can write their name without a visual guide. As the teacher I am able to help the students who still need the help problem solving while observing the students developing automated basic skills. In order to assist your students in developing these skills your lesson plans must reflect the different stages of this development. If the content being taught is new, the focus should be on the cognitive stage since the students have no prior knowledge. If the content is prior knowledge, then the students might be able to work independently on the tasks being assigned. All in all the teacher needs to be aware of where her students are in the process of automated basic skills in order to benefit from the instruction.