About this activity
Sixteen questions about classroom directions, asked rather than performed: write your name at the top, skip a line, then copy the first three sentences — what comes second; do the odd-numbered problems only — which problems do you do; put your paper in the blue tray, not the red one — where does it go. Asking about a direction rather than following it isolates the comprehension from the doing.
How to use it in a session
Do not let the student act it out. The whole design is that they answer a question about the direction, which requires holding the sequence in mind rather than executing it, and it is closer to what a written instruction demands. The odd-numbered item is the one worth extra time, since it needs both the vocabulary and the arithmetic. Twelve minutes covers the sixteen.
What to listen for
Watch the order words. Questions asking what comes second or what you do first are answered incorrectly by students who understood the whole direction, because before and after reverse the order of mention. Notice the not exception — the blue tray, not the red one — which students consistently answer with the negated item, since it was the last thing they heard.
Carrying it home
Reading an instruction aloud and asking what comes first, rather than watching the child do it, is a thirty-second check that reveals more than watching does.
Questions
- What grades is this for?
- Third through fifth, matched to classroom directions at that level.
- Is it free?
- Yes, all sixteen items play with no account.
- How is this different from the three-step directions board?
- That one asks the student to perform the direction. This asks them to answer a question about it, which removes the doing and tests comprehension of order and exception words directly.