Smart but Scattered: The Revolutionary "Executive Skills" Approach to Helping Kids Reach Their Potential

I was surprised by the amount of charts/checklists throughout the text, as this is not what I was expecting. I had never thought of “thinking” and “doing” as two separate dimensions of executive skills, but I think the text did a nice job in helping me decipher the difference between the two. As a child, I’m sure I thought proper time management, for example, was an overwhelming cognition skill; however, as a parent and a teacher, it has become a necessity for my success. Parents (and teachers) forget we were once children and get too caught up in the now, which seriously puts our children at an immediate disadvantage. I like that the text forced me to step away from my role as mom and put myself in my child’s world.
I think show more the text did a nice job of pointing out many areas that I feel my own children and my students could use: guidance, strengthening, and motivation. As a parent, I found myself tabbing a few pages that I would like to discuss or try with my children; but as a high school teacher, I was often a little disappointed. I would get into a target area, completely relate to the text, but then not find much advice that I felt could really work in a highschool classroom of all boys. I do, however, certainly believe there are many skills mentioned throughout Dawson’s text, such as verbal scaffolding, incentives, goals, and personal interaction, that are extremely important both in school and at home. show less

I was surprised by the amount of charts/checklists throughout the text, as this is not what I was expecting. I had never thought of “thinking” and “doing” as two separate dimensions of executive skills, but I think the text did a nice job in helping me decipher the difference between the two. As a child, I’m sure I thought proper time management, for example, was an overwhelming cognition skill; however, as a parent and a teacher, it has become a necessity for my success. Parents (and teachers) forget we were once children and get too caught up in the now, which seriously puts our children at an immediate disadvantage. I like that the text forced me to step away from my role as mom and put myself in my child’s world.
I think show more the text did a nice job of pointing out many areas that I feel my own children and my students could use: guidance, strengthening, and motivation. As a parent, I found myself tabbing a few pages that I would like to discuss or try with my children; but as a high school teacher, I was often a little disappointed. I would get into a target area, completely relate to the text, but then not find much advice that I felt could really work in a highschool classroom of all boys. I do, however, certainly believe there are many skills mentioned throughout Dawson’s text, such as verbal scaffolding, incentives, goals, and personal interaction, that are extremely important both in school and at home. ( )
vote | flagKMClark | Jul 15, 2014 |
The new buzzword/term in special education is "executive function." This book does a good job explaining it and how to deal with it with kids ages 0-12 years old. ( ) show less

This book was required by another course I'm taking. Many of the topics discussed seemed almost too obvious, but the way the text described things in depth made the information much easier to comprehend. I appreciated the many checklists the text included. I actually plan to use some of the checklists in my classroom this upcoming school year. Many of the lists I enjoyed are for students organizing their homework and classwork assignments.

This book provides very practical help for parents dealing with a child who is lacking in executive function, such as children with ADHD.

detailed & academic, but illustrates the spectrum of parenting skills--imilar techniques and methods are used at different ages

good homework tips

9/10

The new buzzword/term in special education is "executive function." This book does a good job explaining it and how to deal with it with kids ages 0-12 years old.

seems like this would be very helpful to some people.