No reading skill – from decoding and fluency to comprehension – can be successful without the use of executive functioning skills. When older readers struggle, weak executive functioning skills are often to blame.

What we know about executive functioning

Executive functioning (EF) has gained attention over the last few decades as its effect on learning becomes more well-known.

Research supports these points:

• A person is probably born with a potential EF level, but experiences – or lack of – form the outcome.
• EF was considered a “frontal lobe” issue, but more research shows a wider complexity of neurological interactions within the EF skills.
• EF is less about content knowledge and more about reasoning with that knowledge.
• EF plays both a direct and indirect role in the classroom, from behavior to flexibility in thinking.
• The relation of EF to reading and math performance / ability is well-established.
• Effects of low EF include deficits in reading comprehension, fluency, and knowledge of letters and sounds, among others.
• Improving EF through classroom-based activities is believed to improve academic achievement.

Do you need research to support executive functioning information? If so, this page with linked studies is part of our Easy Guide to Executive Functioning.

Executive Functioning Categories

There are various theories with lists of individual skills classified as executive functioning components, but they all fit within these three broader categories:

Cognitive Flexibility

Working Memory

Inhibitory Control

The interplay of the broad categories and some of their associated skills with the success attributes for children with learning disabilities are detailed on this page from our Easy Guide to Executive Functioning. To read more about success attributes, click here.

EF and Reading

Research is clear that executive functioning difficulties equate to reading (and math) difficulties. Here are some examples of how EF skills apply to reading.

There is an ongoing debate about whether executive functioning skills can be taught. Because EF is based on neurological structure, there may be a genetic limit to the amount a student can “learn” in this area. However, we know that executive function is closely related to reading ability, so the more we can teach reading-specific executive functioning skills, the better for both!

A word of caution: The following are ways to support these skills with the students you teach, and while they are divided into the three categories, certainly our neurological processes are not as cut-and-dry. Executive functioning inherently relies on the interplay of these three, and so should our instruction. Many of you already employ these strategies, but knowing how they support executive functioning may boost the intentionality in your instruction – or you may choose to share these with classroom teachers! All of them and more can be found in the Easy Guide to Executive Functioning in our Freebie Library Join our newsletter for access.

Determining what your students need

A more formal checklist can be downloaded from ADDitude, but listening to students can help you know, too:

Build Executive Functioning Skills

Inhibitory Control

Attend to the information

Activities that support inhibitory control help students focus. While one of our favorite ways to do this is to conduct Focus and Memory Stations, there are other ways to help students develop this skill with reading:

• Before instruction, provide students a clear idea about the purpose of the lesson.
• Use graphic organizers, like these plot lines or those that separate main ideas from details and to separate need to know from nice to know information. Scaffold the use of these to help students also become more flexible with their thinking. (Without the scaffold, this becomes just another worksheet to complete.)
• Help students understand genre structures. Read this blog for more information on nonfiction text structures.​
• Promote engagement with text with tools like Think Marks and / or by stopping to illustrate portions of text.
• Use highlighters to identify examples of a concept being taught, such as syllable types, vocabulary words, or punctuation.
• Use note-taking strategies, like this triple-note strategy to support working memory, too.
• Set goals for reading growth and track progress toward those goals. There are many different goal-setting forms, but our students always look forward to goal-setting with our PrinGoals!
• Break instruction and practice down into manageable chunks by providing brain breaks when possible.

Working Memory

Remember the information

While inhibitory control seems to have the greatest impact on reading ability (as one must focus on the text), working memory is such a closely related idea that many researchers put them together in a “control and memory” category. Here are a few ways to support this in your reading classroom:

• Repetition is important for building memory. Build into lessons a review of prior information and layer appropriately.
• For building memory in single word decoding, use of color helps! These syllable pages are an example of that.
• Chunk the text and use annotation marks (Think Marks), outlines, and / or illustrations as students read to help track information. Use the information in a retell after finishing the text. This prepares the memory for summarizing the important parts of a story in proper sequence.
• Have students read through notes each day. Even a few minutes of review adds up for students.
• Use mnemonics, acronyms, or songs to help students hold onto information in the brain. Encourage students to do this, too.
• The mind remembers unique situations more than routine ones. Activities that build in enjoyable review does that. Here’s an example of one.
• Play games that review information in an engaging way, like this one.
• For students with reading disabilities, such as dyslexia, providing a choice for an answer instead of open-ended questioning promotes success as accessing memory is difficult.

Read more ways to support working memory – including Teeny-Tiny Quizzes – in the Easy Guide to Executive Functioning. It’s available in our Freebie Library, so be sure to join our newsletter for access to our freebies!

Cognitive Flexibility

Manipulate the information

• Incorporate jokes, riddles, and puns into your instruction. Playing with words and language is an enjoyable way to support this skill!
• Study multiple-meaning words, using context clues to determine meaning.
• Play with stresses on words (put the emPHAsis on the wrong SYLlable) to see what it sounds like and to switch from some nouns to verbs (especially those with an -ate ending, such as estimate).
• Apply background knowledge and previous learning to new information and skills.
• In text, identify main ideas vs. details and need to know vs. nice to know as students move through text, as opposed to finding all of one category, then all of another. Three-column notes are well-suited for this.
• When writing, use graphic organizers to prepare main ideas vs. details, etc.
• Model composition that shifts from writing main ideas to supporting details.
• Incorporate reading response activities that use text evidence or refer back to the text.
• Rewrite texts from an alternate point of view – either another character or another register (such as turning a story into a set of text messages).
• Switching activities between reviews and following instructions, as in this activity, helps reinforce memory and flexibility.

Resources for Executive Functioning Skills

Still want to know more? As EF gains attention, more resources are becoming available. Here are some of our favorites!

Don’t forget to download the Easy Guide to Executive Functioning from our Freebie Library for 19 pages of information and resources!

Tell us…

​How do you support executive functioning with your students?

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