Have you ever given a class of kindergarten through third graders a set of directions, watched them walk back to their seats, and then seen half of them sit there completely lost? It’s not that they weren’t listening! It could be that their working memory, one of six executive functions still developing in young children, simply couldn’t hold it all. As a mom of kids with learning differences and a teacher who has seen this play out countless times, I know how frustrating this can be for both teachers and students.
In this episode, Dr. Sarah Oberle, a primary educator and cognitive science expert, breaks down the six executive functions and shares practical executive function strategies that kindergarten through third-grade teachers can use today to reduce cognitive overload. From rethinking how you give directions to reconsidering what’s on your classroom walls, Sarah’s insights will change how you think about student behavior and learning. Whether you’re driving to school, grading papers, or unwinding after a long day, this episode is for you. Sarah is the author of Executive Functions for Every K-3 Classroom: Promoting Self-Regulation for a Strong Start by Mitch Weathers and Sarah Oberle (Corwin, 2026)
This is a helpful show for teachers of kindergarten through third grade.
Here is a visual overview of the key ideas from this episode created from the transcript using Google Notebook LM. Then, I downloaded and edited it with Canva.
Dr. Sarah Oberle is a seasoned educator with extensive experience in primary education. She holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership with a specialization in Cognitive Science, bringing together deep expertise in both teaching and learning. Passionate about bridging research and practice, Dr. Oberle focuses on translating insights from the science of learning into accessible, practical strategies that enhance classroom instruction and student success.
An active member of several educational boards and committees, she works alongside educators and policymakers to promote evidence-informed decision-making and meaningful, sustainable improvement in education. Beyond her classroom experience, Dr. Oberle has designed and led professional learning programs that empower teachers to apply knowledge of how learning happens to their own practice.
She lives in Chester County, Pennsylvania, with her husband and two daughters.
Books by Dr. Sarah Oberle:
Dr. Sarah Oberle also appears on an extended episode on Cool Cat Teacher Talk! Check out her episode for an even deeper conversation and other information for elementary schools:
The 10 Minute Teacher is one of two shows hosted by Vicki Davis. For longer, in-depth conversations with multiple educators, check out Cool Cat Teacher Talk.
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This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain.
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Vicki Davis: Today’s show is sponsored by Class Composer. If your elementary school is still creating class lists with blue and pink paper cards or sticky notes, Class Composer offers a streamlined solution for making well-informed student placement decisions in less time. Learn more at classcomposer.com.
Vicki Davis: Today, I’m so excited to welcome Dr. Sarah Oberle. She is a seasoned primary educator and cognitive science expert. She focuses on turning the science of learning into practical, classroom-ready strategies. Sarah was introduced to me by a previous guest, Blake Harvard, and I’m so glad that he connected us because her work on executive functioning in elementary school is so timely. She has a book called Executive Functions for Every K-3 Classroom that’s coming out in 2026. Sarah, help us understand — what is executive functioning and why would we care about that for our youngest kids?
Dr. Sarah Oberle: First of all, thank you for having me. Executive functioning really is a set of cognitive processes that we all have. And in a nutshell, they are responsible for any type of self-control that we use to meet any kind of goal. And when I say goal, that could be anything from getting everything that you wanted to bring in the car with you to getting dressed in the morning. If you’re a student, it might be keeping your belongings organized. We rely on our executive functions to help us work through all the tasks during the day that need some self-control to successfully work through.
There are six cognitive processes that fall under the executive function umbrella. They are split into two groups. So the first group is the core executive functions, and they are the first to develop. Those three are working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility. Those tend to develop from toddler through early elementary. After those develop successfully, the higher-order executive functions start to develop, and those three are problem solving, reasoning, and planning. So depending on what grade you teach, you’re going to be focused on different areas of executive functioning.
For teachers, everything that we do is dependent on our students’ ability to use their executive functions — anything from organization to paying attention to self-control in terms of not putting your hands on someone or not calling out, controlling your impulses. All of that is what our students need to then be academically successful. If they are unable to focus, to listen, to avoid distraction and temptation, it doesn’t really matter how well we teach them or how much they know — they are going to be unable to demonstrate that in the way that we are looking for.
That’s why executive functions are so important for teachers to understand, at least at a surface level, because there are things that we can tweak in our own instruction, in our classroom environment, in our behavior management — things that we can do to mitigate or offload any of the undue stress that we might be putting on our students’ executive functions.
Vicki Davis: As a mom who has kids with learning differences, largely working memory issues, I think sometimes we as teachers forget that long, multi-part instructions are just not necessarily something a younger child can do. You might have one or two that can, but is that really helpful? So can we break these down? Let’s start with working memory. What are things that teachers can do to help — or not overtax it — for a younger child? Where do you start with that?
Dr. Sarah Oberle: Understanding the basics of working memory is really helpful because you start to be able to peel back the layers of all the hidden jobs that our students are given, which taxes their working memory. It’s not just remembering directions. It’s not just the content that you have to remember to do the assignment. It’s all of that wrapped together, and our working memory is very limited. It is limited in how much it can hold at one time and for how long it can maintain information.
So we’re talking about being very succinct and brief with our directions and understanding that the longer we are expecting our students to maintain that information — so in other words, if you’re giving them instructions for an independent activity and expecting them to go off and do it, and then you get distracted and a minute goes by — some of those directions that they’re trying to hold have started to fade. You want to think about giving directions just before your students are going off to do work.
If you’re unable to do that, find ways to provide visual reminders. I teach first grade. A lot of my students are non-readers, so sometimes that means pictures. Sometimes it means signals. Sometimes I’ll allow my students to draw something or make their own notations that work for them to offload working memory. So we want to think about, when we’re teaching, how much are we expecting our students to process at any one time and for how long.
That’s why it’s so important to have brief bursts of instruction and then review, or break down your assignments and assessments so that students aren’t maintaining information unnecessarily. We really want them to be using their working memory to complete the task. We want to get those administrative-type things off of their minds so that whatever they have available, they can use for the actual learning activity.
Vicki Davis: I know that when some children I’ve worked with become readers, we would make little checklists of “these are the things you need to check before you turn in the paper.” Have you put your name on the paper? Have you checked this? Have you checked that? Because remembering the procedures but then also completing the task — I think your point is just so important for all of us teachers to remember. I’ve given 10 minutes worth of instruction and I’m thinking, how can kids remember it? I can’t remember it! Now, you also talk about inhibition. How do you help kids there?
Dr. Sarah Oberle: So when we think about inhibition, we’re thinking about preventing ourselves from doing something that’s disruptive or that is going to prevent us from reaching our goal, whatever that is. In the context of school, particularly younger students, we’re thinking about not shouting out, not running across the room, not pushing or hitting or even touching. Particularly the little ones, they do all kinds of things. The ability to control that — however, inhibition is also essential for attention.
If I need to focus on something, I also at the same time need to filter out anything else that my senses are perceiving or anything else that is on my mind. So if I’m hearing recess outside, I need to be able to prevent myself from starting to daydream about recess and think about who I want to play with and what I want to do, and keep my attention on whatever my teacher is saying or keep my attention on my work. If I’m upset about something, I need to be able to set that aside and not think about that.
But it’s also your environment too. If my two friends next to me are whispering to each other, I’m really trying not to listen to them, but it’s so tempting. But I’m supposed to be writing sentences or whatever it is.
When we as teachers understand the demand that’s being put on inhibitory processes, we can do things like remove distractions as much as we possibly can, keep materials away until our students need them, and think about our seating. I have tables in my classroom — many of us have tables. You want your students to be turned around and looking at you. If you’re giving them the choice, you are really making it harder for them. Just being aware of that process and the work that our students’ minds have to do is helpful in just our minute-to-minute decision-making in the classroom.
Vicki Davis: I’ve often heard — do elementary teachers really understand the cognitive load that filling up every single square inch of wall in the classroom does? You know, I always thought, hey, the more decoration, the better, but that’s not necessarily the case, is it?
Dr. Sarah Oberle: I’m glad you brought that up. And I have always felt like I want my classroom to look inviting and cozy and warm. We still can have that, because I think if I tell any teacher that they have to completely minimize their decor and their posters and their lights or whatever cool things they have out now, they’re going to probably not listen to anything I have to say. So I always say, no one is saying that your room has to be sterile, but you can be strategic about where you put things.
Anything novel or exciting — we are reflexively drawn to. So if you’re driving and there’s something new on the side of the road, your attention pulls you to it because your brain wants to alert you to that. For our students, the same thing. So if you’re hanging student crafts or their work or whatever, put it in a place that doesn’t compete for their visual field. Put it in a different spot, a different wall.
If you’ve got a really cute decoration, great. Put it in a place where it is not going to force their inhibitory processes to work overtime, trying to say, “Okay, I’m not gonna look at that, I’m gonna look at this,” or “I’m gonna think about this and not that.” And even acoustically, some teachers want to play music — play music, that’s fine, play instrumental music.
Dr. Sarah Oberle: Because any kind of music with language, we cannot help but try to listen — even if it’s not in our own language, we are reflexively built to try to decipher that. So now we are creating another barrier for our students or another job for their executive functions.
Vicki Davis: Our last one — cognitive flexibility. What’s that?
Dr. Sarah Oberle: Cognitive flexibility is your ability to adapt to things that are unexpected, your ability to understand other people’s perspectives, to understand why someone else would have a different perspective, and then to consider what their perspective is. If you think about toddlers and how easily they get upset about the smallest things, it makes a lot of sense because they really haven’t developed this process where they can just kind of say, “You know what, I really wanted my sandwich cut like this and you cut it like that, and that’s okay.” Instead, it kind of rocks their world in the moment because “I wanted it this way, you didn’t do it,” and now they’re very upset.
The way that this manifests in my context in early elementary is schedule changes. Some of the kids will have a hard time — like, “That’s not the way that we do it,” or there’s a fire drill and suddenly we’re thrown off, and they have a hard time adjusting back to whatever we were working on in the moment. Socially, cognitive flexibility is super important because you can imagine if you’re trying to play with someone, or if you’re older and you’re just trying to get together with a friend, they’re not always going to want to do what you want to do. And you have to understand that and be okay with that to maintain these expected behaviors in social situations. If you are rigid in your thinking, if you have a hard time conceding to anyone else, that’s going to put a strain on your ability to form those friendships, to get along with your peers.
Vicki Davis: So how do you help with cognitive flexibility?
Dr. Sarah Oberle: There are a couple of different ways you can think about this. One thing you can do is talk about the fact that people have different perspectives and that it is okay. You can front-load the idea that even if this is not an issue for you now, this may happen. You may be in a situation where you want to go on the swings and your friend doesn’t. And what can you do about this? Just anticipating some of these scenarios that might come up and talking about the fact that, “Let’s think about if that happens — what can we do, and what might not be helpful for us to do.”
In addition to that, talking about things like, “I’m going to be out tomorrow, there’s going to be a substitute. Is everything going to be okay? Of course it is. Here’s what’s going to happen.” We can’t prepare them for everything, but we can prepare them for the feeling of being surprised, of having to deal with a change, of having to adapt, of feeling like, “You know what, I don’t get why this person wants to do that — that’s not what I want to do.” So the best we can do is say there are changes in life. You’re not always going to have what you want or get your way, and we need to start to sit with the idea that that’s okay.
Vicki Davis: Dr. Sarah Oberle, thanks for coming on the show and thanks for talking about executive functioning. I’ve learned a lot to even apply in my high school classroom. So thank you.
Vicki Davis: As you prepare for a successful school year, remember — balanced classes are the foundation of a school’s success. But relying on an antiquated paper-based process puts that foundation at risk every year. Class Composer helps you save time and make better informed decisions to ensure your students are placed into well-balanced classes. The program is very user-friendly and makes it easy to visualize all the factors you care about when creating classes. I haven’t seen anything else that meets this need in a way that teachers and administrators love. You’ll be glad you tried Class Composer. Just go to classcomposer.com and sign up for your free trial. That’s classcomposer.com. C-L-A-S-S-C-O-M-P-O-S-E-R.com. Thank you, Class Composer, for sponsoring today’s show.
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