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THE EFFECTIVENESS OF JIGSAW PUZZLES |
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| These 1st graders liked to balance the puzzles. |
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* A third grade teacher was telling me about some sluggish students who needed some motivation in their reading group. I loaned him two of my puzzles and suggested that he make room for them on his back tables. He did and reported to me about the big change in that group. As students mastered that morning’s skill, he let them go to the puzzle table
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| A 1st grader used our puzzles as models to draw from. |
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* A special ed. child was main-streamed, or included, into my class. She barely knew half of the letter sounds when she came, but after one year, and the help of puzzle therapy, she became one of the best concentrators in the room. She could sit alone for up to 30-minutes working in her reading workbook. Even when there was noise and activity in the room, she would get page after page correct. If she did make a mistake, I could tell her to go back and reread two pages in order to find it, and she would.
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| Working a puzzle after finishing an assignment. |
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* A third grade boy, sluggish and wise cracking, was also invited into my class to practice reading with my children. He continued to slug along and even I began to feel discouraged until I realized that he never got to work puzzles. He really came to life when he was assured that after he turned in a neat paper; he’d get to work one. He did require some intense handwriting lessons but he paid attention and practiced everything he was taught. Now, he’s a different fellow.
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A Long But Insightful Story
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This is told in detail because it provided a turning point in my career. We need skills to feel accomplished and have confidence. Working jigsaw puzzles is an absorbing, relaxing, and interesting way for a child to gain confidence because they are non-threatening, once a few strategies are learned.
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Puzzles in My Classroom
After the end of his first retail season, my husband gave me 20 puzzles to use in my first grade classroom. The children were so captivated by them that I began to use them as part of a reward/incentive program that I had developed. Where they would soon get tired of painting, one of the rewards, they never got tired of the puzzles and worked very hard in order to get time with one! The first day the puzzles were in the classroom, a child who I’d never seen focus on anything longer than 10 seconds held one in his hands, staring at it as he gently wiggled the pieces back and forth for more than half an hour. I was tempted more than a few times to ask him to put it down and attend to some task, but on second thought, I just left him alone because it appeared that he was in some sort of therapy.
After a few years of letting students borrow them for the summer, the supply dwindled and my husband needed our current supply to use at art shows, so I bought some regular children’s puzzles of 24, 60, and 100 pieces and used them. At first, I assumed that the children knew how to work them,as they were all excited as I put them out on tables. However, it wasn’t long before I realized that, although some were able to do quite well, most had no strategy at all. This is when I realized that I needed to give solid instruction to the class; but even after two lessons many still didn’t really understand well enough to feel the satisfaction derived from full involvement. So I began again by teaching small groups of six.
RETEACHING STILL NECESSARY
I thought that all of the students did very well after our small group lessons, but several were still not getting it, and felt frustrated. These children also had something else in common: They had poor concentration skills, and their reading and writing skills were not up with the rest of the class. So while the class worked on an assignment with my assistant and a parent volunteer, I worked for more than an hour with these children and reviewed the procedures, then watched to see if I could determine the area that needed strengthening. Again, I was certain that they were on their way and put that behind me. I didn’t think it was that important to keep overseeing the puzzle making.
Then, about eight weeks from the end of school, I was walking around observing the class at their activities. As I approached the puzzle table, I watched as one of those same children picked up random pieces, tried to jam them together, then threw them down, picked up two more, and did the same thing. I could see that he still didn’t have a strategy. The other child, who had had extra lessons, was doing about the same, and they were still the same two children still having difficulty with reading and writing.
My Valuable Assistant and Parent Volunteer
I called my assistant and parent volunteer to observe with me and then assigned each of them to sit with these students for several hours each day for four days, and do nothing else but work puzzles, talking about strategy as needed and observing as they worked. Both students got really fast and good at the stratigies. A few days after that, we noticed that one of them was showing great improvement with his independent writing. He even looked different. He was also enjoying reading and had confidence in his ability. We were so amazed at his sudden development that over the next few weeks it was often in our passing conversation. We were so happy. Again, I have to say that it didn’t occur to me until a few weeks later that this all happened after his intense puzzle therapy.
The other child was not showing the same improvement in reading and writing, although her mother told me that she had gained a lot more enthusiasm about school. I attributed that to the fact that she, on her own, started a girl’s singing group. They sparked a lot of other creativity in the room and then, on their own, toured the school giving performances at their recess time. Finally, on the last day of school, in the last hour; while the rest of the class was reading, writing and drawing at their leisure; I worked alone with her. For the first time, on her own, she was able to remember letter sounds while sounding the words out and remembering that while writing there needed to be spaces between the words. I should mention that, besides being retained in her first year of first grade, since the second week of our school year she had had individual tutoring at least one hour per day. She also had small group attention the rest of the morning, as well as time with the resource teacher for some months in the afternoon. So she had had some type of learning disability that was not effectivly addressed. I believe that the puzzle strategy, which included repetitive motion, was what finally helped her. I am also sure that the singing activity had something to do with her improvement, and as time goes on I give credit to all of the arts.
The following year my assistant taught puzzle strategy in groups of two during the first week of school; this was the first time that my whole class read earlier and better than any other year.
We used some cute 40 and 60 piece Arthur Puzzles from the bookstore for under $5 each. On Fridays we had contests. Students chose their partners and tables competed with each other. I had 10 or more such puzzles in the room which ensured that there would be one puzzle per table. Sometimes I paired students for learning and social reasons. This was a good time to observe and study to see who was using their strategies. Part of my coaching technique is to compare the puzzle making to playing kick ball, or some other thing that the student is good at so that they can see the connection.
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Please Leave Feedback or Comments about Your Experiences With Puzzles |
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