The Power of the Purposeful Pause
Taking breaks, or a purposeful pause, while learning new things can enhance focus and concentration, provide time for processing new information and improve retention.
Zinc Ignition
We created Ignition because we often hear from middle and high school teachers that they need more resources for teaching reading comprehension. Striving readers need to be able to read grade level texts—and all readers should be prepared to access college-level texts. We've identified four key skills that have the biggest impact on reading comprehension:
Use Your Senses: tapping into sensory words and phrases
Make It Real: connecting real examples to abstract ideas
Pronouns: tracking pronouns to their antecedents to stay connected to the writer's point
Navigators: following the signals and layers authors create to make meaning
For increased retention and internalization of these key skills, Zinc recommends purposeful pauses. Ignition’s new 2-week program allows students to make their way through passages and questions, working with increasingly difficult texts. Students receive extra instruction and practice if they reach a skill that challenges them. A built-in and purposeful pause between week one and week two supports students in exercising those skills over time but for those “fast flyers,” Ignition offers Power Up activities for additional practice.
Vocabulary Sets
Purposeful pauses are effective with vocabulary growth as well. Zinc recommends assigning vocabulary games with spaced repetition for larger, unit-long vocabulary word sets. With Zinc’s spaced repetition, students learn and review each word during six exposures over a two-month period. Each exposure consists of two or more gameplay modes (Image, Sentence, Synonym, or Definition). To facilitate long-term memory, the time between each exposure increases as students progress.
During spaced repetition, a student must wait the designated length of time between exposures. They will be notified on their Zinc homepage when the next exposure is available. The chart below shows the length of time between each of the six exposures.
What do you think?
Try out Zinc Vocabulary here. Reach out to us at partnerships@zinclearninglabs.com to share your thoughts on the Purposeful Pause, Zinc Vocabulary, and Spaced Repetition.
