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School curriculums often focus on teaching students subject specific content such as math, science, and literature, but a newly released research study shows the importance of other soft skills such as emotional control, attentional control, and planning and prioritizing which together are often called Executive Functioning. Teachers are already overloaded with expectations of content that students need to learn before they finish the school year, and may be reticent to add even more learning objectives, but this recent study shows that focusing on executive functioning skills may significantly speed up the learning in other areas. If teachers can teach students how to be better learners themselves, there will be less pressure for teachers to hold students’ hands the entire year and so students will have the maturity to make self-initiated progress.
A Study on the Importance of Executive Functioning
The study was conducted in The Netherlands on a group of 120 Dutch children aged 4-5. They gave the students tasks to complete which measured various skills. The focus of the study was on the correlation between executive functioning skills and language skills. The results of the study showed that students who scored higher in executive functioning such as planning, organizing, and regulating their behaviors were also much better at language based tasks. Specifically, the language task the students were better at was recognizing and understanding passive voice sentences. Passive voice is where the subject and object of the sentence are switched, in other words: “The mouse ate the cheese”, which is in active voice, vs “The cheese was eaten by the mouse” which is in passive voice. Passive voice sentences can often be more difficult for young students to understand due to their flipped nature.
The question that remained unanswered was whether this was correlation or causation. The children with better executive functioning skills scored better on receptive language tests, but it may actually go deeper than just a simple one way relationship. When students are able to focus better and control themselves better, they are more able to pay attention to tasks, score better on tests and learn more. This improved language ability in turn makes it much easier to pay attention as they can focus for longer and prioritize listening over other distractors.
According to the researchers themselves, “Our study suggests a virtuous spiral during a child’s development in which executive function can help develop more language skills, which can in turn help develop executive function, and so on,” (Thothathiri, et al.)
This makes sense as it is much easier to pay attention to something when you understand what is going on. When a student is able to pay attention more, they are then able to learn more. If a student is struggling to control their emotions, is disorganized in their thinking, or can not prioritize what is most important, they will struggle to pay attention and learn. If they are struggling to understand what the teacher is saying, this will make them less able to prioritize, plan, and control their emotions. The relationship is cyclical.
The Importance of Executive Functioning in the Classroom
While it might seem silly at first to take time away from learning critical skills like grammar, syntax, and phonemes to talk about our emotions or help students learn how to sit still and pay attention, this study shows how important it is to take a holistic approach when considering students’ needs in the classroom. Teachers can teach content until they are blue in the face, but if students are not able to listen, retain, and put their learning into practice in an organized way, they will quickly forget as the teacher’s lesson goes in one ear and out the other.
There are several ways schools can implement these changes and add executive functioning into their curriculum. Similar to how learning support teachers can help students with special needs through push-in or pull-out methods, the same approaches can be taken here. Either a separate class can be added where students learn about emotional regulation, prioritizing and planning, attentional control, self-monitoring, and other executive functioning skills or they can be seamlessly added into the already existing classrooms either through visitations from outside teachers or professional development opportunities for existing teachers.
It is important to note that these benefits from focusing on executive functioning were in students who had no diagnosed learning differences or disabilities. This is not some special education niche education practice, but something that absolutely all students will benefit from. Regardless of our mental proficiencies and deficiencies, all of us could benefit from learning to control our emotions, plan our lives better, and understand our own emotions and reactions. Not only will this change in curriculum make our students better language learners, but they will also become better humans who are better able to cope with the hectic world and the challenges of modern life.
Conclusion
Whether schools decide to dedicate an entire class period to these skills or teachers find ways to embed these mindfulness practices into their curriculum alongside the subject specific content, the important thing is that we do not dismiss these skills as “taking away” from “more important” things, but see them as training our students minds like going to the gym. With a stronger mind, they will be more capable of learning in absolutely every facet of their life that includes language, which is basically everything. Learning how to listen, how to control yourself, and how to pay attention is a vital skill for absolutely every subject.
Not only is it vital for every subject, but also it is important that this not be seen as something for elementary school and something that students should have learned by middle or high school. Even fully grown adults often struggle to self-regulate, pay attention over long periods of time, and plan and prioritize tasks appropriately. Students of all ages need these skills added into their curriculum, and it will be up to each school and teacher to decide how best to implement these practices so that they get buy-in from students and teachers alike.
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References
Thothathiri, M., Kidd, E. and Rowland, C. (2025) ‘The role of executive function in the processing and acquisition of Syntax’, Royal Society Open Science, 12(3). doi:10.1098/rsos.201497.
