How To Use Teacher Worksheets To Reinforce Instruction: Guiding Independent Learning

Printable teacher worksheets are truly an invaluable tool for the classroom for a number of reasons. Not only do these printable teacher worksheets supplement what you are teaching, but they also offer a means for tracking how well your students are learning and understanding the subject matter that you are teaching on. This article focuses on how one can use printable teacher worksheets in order to reinforce instruction by guiding independent learning and making classroom learning more productive.

1 - Printable teacher worksheets personalize the learning process in the classroom.

Students learn best when they are given a chance to interact with your teaching material, and to explore it. Making use of these teacher worksheets is a great way to supplement the curriculum in your classroom in order to better reinforce the information that you are teaching. Because there are thousands of printable teacher worksheets available online, there is no reason why you cannot find one for any lesson that you teach.

2 - Printable teacher worksheets can save significant money for the school.

Schools can save a lot of money by purchasing subscriptions to worksheet sites, or making use of free online printable teacher worksheet resources. Because schools are drastically under funded, making use of printable worksheets can be an effective means of offering the students new ways to learn without increasing the under-funding even further.

3 - Printable teacher worksheets can allow parents to participate as well.

If you do not want to give printable worksheets out in class, you can always provide a list of worksheet resources to the parents in case they want to become involved in the education of their children. A child who is struggling in a particular subject can benefit from the extra-curricular tutoring, and this method is much cheaper than purchasing expensive workbooks.

4 - Printable teacher worksheets provide for excellent test-preparation.

Using these printable worksheets can help students practice for quizzes and tests, allowing them to become more confident about the material before test day. These printable worksheets also tend to provide an excellent tool for teachers to gauge where their students are on a particular subject. Using worksheets may also be beneficial for students preparing for standardized testing.

5 - Printable worksheets allow students to interact with each other, and to help each other learn.

Rather than assigning individual worksheets, you can put students in groups of two to four, and allow them to finish the worksheets together. This will help to develop the communication and teamwork skills of your students.

6 - Printable worksheets work well for subjects that need to be memorized.

Printable worksheets are especially useful for memorizing topics like multiplication tables, because students can practice them on the worksheets while they learn how to memorize them. This does not work for all subjects, but when it comes to learning through memorization, it can be useful. You may also consider printable worksheets for students who are learning geography, as the best way to learn the locations of the states is to practice filling in a blank US map worksheet.

7 - Printable worksheets provide a way for students to keep their work as reference material.

This may not be important for everyone, as kindergarteners probably do not care about keeping their number and alphabet worksheets. Older children on the other hand, will find these worksheets useful, especially when it comes to test preparation. For example, in preparation for a geography test, students may go over their map worksheets. In preparation for a math test, students may go over their multiplication table worksheets. Not only will these printable worksheets come in handy now, but your students may keep them for future years as good, easy to follow reference material is often hard to come by otherwise.

8 - Printable teacher worksheets provide a great way to expand upon your lessons.

For example, after you teach your students all of the Spanish words for members of the family, you can ask them to complete a family tree worksheet completely in Spanish. Connecting your Spanish lesson to their own family will create a strong connection that outweighs the impact that simply memorizing the words would have. After you teach the material you have planned, use relevant printable worksheets so that your students can take the lessons a step further by applying them to their lives, or otherwise driving the concept home.

9 - Printable teacher worksheets can be used to effective drive home important concepts.

By putting the concepts that you are teaching into practice, you can allow your students to show you whether or not they actually comprehend what you are teaching. If a student is learning mathematical fractions, for example, then you can give them first hand experience of the lesson by allowing them to apply what they are learning in the classroom. Worksheets also provide a great tool for teachers to use if they want to evaluate comprehension and progress of each of their students individually.

10 - Printable teacher worksheets provide a lot of repetition, which may be one of the greatest qualities that they offer.

Without a good amount of repetition, students will not be given the opportunity that they need to internalize the concepts that they are being shown. They may learn and even understand these concepts for a day or two, but they will have difficulty carrying that understanding through the remainder of the year. Comprehension-based repetition is the absolute best way for students to remember the lessons they are encountering. Printable worksheets, for this very reason, are an extremely invaluable resource for teachers because they provide a myriad of educational tools to allow students understand and retain the concepts that they are learning.

Any teacher or school looking to supplement the curriculum with inexpensive or free teaching aids should look into the great qualities that printable teacher worksheets possess. Armed with relevant printable worksheets, a teacher can stretch out a lesson, drive concepts home and really increase the capabilities of his or her students through the promotion of independent and group learning.