The Hook.

If "the hook" is the musical phrase that grabs you from the outset, can we find "hooks" that inform instruction in our classrooms? Perhaps catch a student with an opening statement or question that ignites a flame, the same way a listener of music is caught and feels the hook in a musical piece? A way to present a task or new idea so that a student is looking "around the corner" for what is coming next?

I began a 1st grade word study unit (on the "ack" phonogram) by sitting on our carpet circle with the children, smiling, crouching smaller and whispering, "Good morning, word detectives! Today we are going to look for clues..." They looked up. No one could stand to miss what was to come next. It was a catchy phrase and it stood out. I saw the energy grow as they wondered what was next, and how they'd take on the work of detectives.

But perhaps it was the whisper, or the close circle? Non-verbal cues. Maybe like a great hook, we don't need lyrics.

To take the analogical connection even further, what if "the hook" is the probing (or detective work!) that a great teacher or parent can do with a child, to find what it is within that child, that you can support or accommodate, in trying to find the hook for say early literacy? The hooking process is a fluid one, requiring detailed and nuanced changes to even possibly ever consider breaking through. We chip away at it, we change the environment and the hook is contextual, but it can be found through great teaching!