As middle school teachers, we know there’s a time when our students will shift from our classrooms to high school ones. We’re always looking for ways to help them make that transition successfully. This post will share how you can prepare middle school students for high school by ensuring they know seven essential skills.
Beyond subject-specific academic skills, there are skills that middle school students need to succeed in high school. These soft skills can be included in middle school lessons throughout your school year. As the adage goes, practice makes perfect, so don’t hesitate to focus on these skills repeatedly throughout middle school.
7 Skills To Prepare Middle School Students For High School
Many skills can prepare middle school students for high school. A good starting point for skills is to consider teaching skills that you already assessed in the classroom since these are skills students will continue to develop and have assessed in high school.
These usual suspects of responsibility, organization, independent work, collaboration, initiative, and self-regulation are ones students will continue to explore and expand in high school. However, there are additional skills that can complement these learning skills.
Communication Skills
A skill that proves useful no matter the circumstance is the ability to communicate effectively. Not only can this skill prepare middle school students for high school, but it also prepares them for post-secondary and beyond. As a result, it’s ideal to practice this skill as often as possible.
This can be done through group discussions of any kind. Consider using an Article of the Week approach and having students discuss the content of each week’s reading. Want more structure than a general class discussion? Try using debates in your class. Have students read this article about homework and let them form their opinions.
A final option is to get students to complete presentations to either small groups or the whole class. Consider scaffolding your presentation assignments in terms of audience size to help students build up their public speaking skills. Once they practice and gain some added confidence, they’re more likely to present willingly and effectively to a larger group.
Oral Presentations Resources
This first Oral Presentation Bundle can help your students practice their communication skills through four assignments: Current Events News Assignment, Hot Topics Debate Assignment, Book Talks, and the thrilling Rant Writing Unit.
You can also use this second Oral Presentation Bundle, which will give your middle school students even more opportunities to practice and enhance their oral presentation skills. With four engaging assignments, such as Good News, Product Pitch, Book Unboxing, and Spoken Word, your students will gain confidence and further develop their communication skills.
Incorporating regular opportunities for oral presentations and structured discussions in the classroom can transform students’ communication abilities. By regularly giving students time to practice their public speaking skills, you’ll prepare middle school students for high school, help them gain confidence, and master essential skills that will benefit them beyond academics.
You might also want to incorporate communication skills such as email writing into your lessons. You can learn more about how to do this in the classroom in this blog post: 7 Reasons To Teach Email Writing Skills in Middle School.
Collaboration Skills
Getting students to communicate effectively is a gateway to helping them be great in group settings, which is not only beneficial to real-life scenarios but will also prepare middle school students for high school.
Students can learn how to delegate tasks, compromise, and resolve conflict. Any group activity can be used to teach these skills. If your students get along and everything is amazing, you can use scenarios that introduce more difficulties and ask students to problem-solve those.
For example, scenarios might include
- someone not doing their part in the group
- someone taking over the whole task
- indecision about moving forward or choosing a topic/next step/etc.
Make sure to focus on how collaboration works from the perspectives of a leader or participant role.
Another way to help students work on their collaboration skills is through digital escape rooms. Partner students up with different students and have them work together to solve each challenge.
If you’re looking for ways to create groups in your classroom, check out this post: 7 Creative Ways To Make Partners and Groups in the Classroom.
Self-Directed Learning and Study Skills
When students get to high school, there are certainly supports in place to help with their success, but being more self-directed in order to complete work and study for evaluations can be invaluable.
To work on these skills in middle school, you might start with project-based learning. It can be scaffolded like in these Article of the Week Differentiated Lessons or this My Life in Logos Paragraph Writing Assignment, so students know the process that can lead to successful completion. Later in the year, students can complete another project and work even more independently with the teacher there as a source of immediate support.
The bonus of these skills is that they apply across many subjects and are not solely ELA skills.
Once students complete these projects or any multi-step process work, they can complete a self-assessment reflection. Pick key skills that students can reflect on, such as their ability to work independently.
Ask questions such as:
- What helped you to work effectively?
- What obstacles did you encounter?
- How did you overcome it/them?
These acts of reflection can chart students’ progress from September to June. This information is also helpful for teachers at evaluation time and/or to share with parents in meetings; plus, it’s a great way to help prepare middle school students for high school and the work they must complete.
If it is report card time, have students work on their reflection skills with these resources: Ontario Learning Skills Comments or Student Led Conferences. The Ontario Learning Skills Comments resource contains both print and digital student reflection material. You can then directly use students’ comments and add them to their report cards. If permitted by your administrator, use the student-led conference format instead of the traditional parent-teacher conference. It gives students more responsibility for explaining their academic and learning skills achievements.
Study skills are also an important thing for middle school students to learn in order to prepare for high school. In this blog post, Helping Reluctant Students Prepare for Tests, teachers can find test prep strategies.
Time Management
Time management is an important life-long skill to practice whenever possible to prepare middle school students for high school. This can include the supervised use of or encouragement to use a planner or agenda for tracking tasks and due dates.
However, you can incorporate time management into your classroom in more ways.
Start by teaching students about various time management techniques such as the Eisenhower Matrix or the Pomodoro Method. The former helps students prioritize tasks in order of importance, and the latter teaches students to set a timer to work on tasks for a set amount of time.
Model this skill each week by helping students prioritize their personal and academic tasks. Start by having students make a list of things they need to get done this week. Then crowdsource on the whiteboard what school tasks they have to do for all their classes. Model thinking out loud the thought process for getting these tasks done. Share with students how you assign importance to each task. Also, give them strategies like completing quick tasks right when they get home from school.
Getting organized is a great start to working on time management skills. You can get tips on teaching students organization skills in this post: How To Teach Students Organization Skills.
The final element of time management is goal setting for short- and long-term projects.
Have students set their goals for what they want to accomplish at the beginning of class. This can be done daily. Give students a sticky note, and they can record their goals for the period. Have students place the sticky note in the corner of their workspace so it’s a visual reminder and in a place for a quick review for the teacher.
Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence might seem a little out of place on the list of ways to prepare middle school students for high school; however, it’s key to personal development, influencing students’ success in many environments.
Being empathetic and self-aware is important. Students need to know themselves or continue getting to know themselves as they mature through middle and high school. Teaching this skill can be challenging, but there are ways you can do it both directly and peripherally. Check out this blog post, Incorporating Key Social Emotional Learning Techniques into Middle School Lessons, to learn more about this topic.
To teach emotional intelligence directly, focus on career exploration activities. Researching potential careers, such as in this Career Exploration and Research Project, is useful to list possibilities and rule out other options. You can use this project at the end of the year as a final engaging unit before summer.
For even more career lessons, check out these posts:
- Middle School Career Exploration
- Fun Activities For Exploring The Trades
- 5 Reasons To Use Guided Career Exploration With Middle School Students
You can also teach emotional intelligence peripherally through flexible seating options and classroom management tools. More interaction with more students through flexible seating options, such as this set of choice cards, will help students get to know more people (and get to know themselves better, as well).
In addition, make sure that students are aware of their role as digital citizens and can craft emails and resumes appropriately.
This blog post, Engaging Middle School Digital Citizenship Lessons, will give you middle school digital citizenship lesson ideas to help your students know online safety and best practices for online spaces. These lessons include digital citizenship, fake news, smartphone addiction and app privacy, email etiquette, and more.
You can also use this Cover Letter and Resume Writing Unit with students to boost their confidence when it comes time to find a job. Students will examine cover letters and resumes to “hire” for various positions before they learn how to write and format their own cover letter, resume and brag sheet. This unit will help students gain valuable insights into what makes a compelling application.
Learn more about the importance of teaching students how to write cover letters and resumes in this blog post: The Benefits of Teaching Resume Writing in Middle School. You can also check out this blog post, Real-World Skills That Can Be Taught in ELA Class, for more real-world skills that will boost students’ emotional intelligence and teach them real-world skills.
Lastly, don’t shy away from using picture books to teach students empathy and cultural awareness. Picture books aren’t just for elementary school students. They can contain big topics that are essential for student learning, presented in a bite-sized and easy-to-understand way. Learn more in this blog post, Using Picture Books in the Middle School Classroom.
Ensure you promote diversity in your classroom through the material you teach and the books available to your students. Not only will this help students to learn more about other cultures, people, and places, but it will help them develop the empathy needed for the real world.
Adaptability and Flexibility
Surprisingly, exploring adaptability and flexibility to help middle school students prepare for high school can be fun! Challenges such as escape rooms or any lesson that can introduce a twist (something that requires students to adjust a plan) are a go-to option.
Digital escape rooms can fit any time of year and be tied to the curriculum. Whether using one for back to school, before the winter break, or to reinforce science concepts, these are always a hit with students and a great way to prepare middle school students for high school.
Grab the Digital Escape Room Bundle #1 or Digital Escape Room Bundle #2, which have options that can be used throughout the school year. These are designed for middle school students to help reinforce their critical thinking and literacy skills.
These engaging and customizable digital escape rooms transform your classroom into an exciting adventure hub. Watch your students immerse themselves in fun-filled challenges as they collaborate with their peers to solve them.
Another way to teach adaptability and flexibility in the middle school classroom is by incorporating real-world scenarios. Help students make text connections between what they are reading and the real world through reading non-fiction articles or reading fictional texts that relate to real-world events. You can learn more about how to teach students to make text connections in this post: Teaching Non-Fiction and Real World Connections.
Encourage students to work together and collaborate so that they can see how their peers learn and work. Then, have them reflect on what worked well during their collaboration and what could be improved. You can do this by teaching short stories in groups, as shared in this post, Four Easy Approaches to Using Short Stories in Groups in Middle School.
Or you can have students listen to a podcast and reflect on what they listened to in a group setting. Learn more about using podcasts in this post, Using Podcasts to Improve Student Listening Skills. If you’re looking for ideas on putting groups together in your middle school classroom, check out this post: 7 Creative Ways To Make Partners and Groups in the Classroom.
Another way to teach students to adapt is to get them out of their seats. Use lessons that incorporate QR codes or smaller chunks of material that can be hung up around the classroom or the school so students have to get up and move. Or, take the class outside when the weather is nice, or to the library or gym. Make sure you are using a mix of digital and paper activities so students aren’t only using computers during the day or only writing or reading from a textbook.
Periodically changing things up in the classroom will keep students from getting into a rut of predictability, and look forward to seeing what’s going to happen in class that day.
Critical Thinking
The final skill on this list of ways to prepare middle school students for high school is one that you likely already embed in all kinds of lessons across all sorts of subjects in your middle school classroom.
Urging students to question assumptions and analyze information is a skill to hone time and again. Bringing current events into your classroom is a great way to do this.
- As a class, read a newspaper article and have students brainstorm questions about the content.
- Read high-interest non-fiction articles and have students work on asking questions and finding key information in each text. Use an article of the week approach with this set with 44 high-interest nonfiction articles and 41 graphic organizers for the whole school year.
- Make teaching critical thinking more formal by having students complete an assignment that brings the outside world into your classroom. This Current Events Assignment helps students stay informed about current events happening in our world. In this no-prep activity, students examine online or print news sources to report on a current event for their class. Learn more about incorporating current events into your lessons here: 6 Fascinating Ideas For Teaching Current Events.
- Use the Socratic Seminar teaching strategy to provide students with an open-ended questioning style that encourages student-directed and student-led discussions. Learn more here: Socratic Seminar Teaching Strategy.
- Teach critical thinking and problem-solving through writing. Students will develop their problem-solving and planning skills with narrative writing by brainstorming and organizing a narrative. They will have to think critically to troubleshoot structural issues or inconsistencies, weak storylines, lack of descriptive language, or other issues.
- Use this unit on Fake News to help students think critically about the media they consume daily and help them learn how to spot and understand bias. Learn more here: Why Teach Fake News in the Middle School ELA Classroom?
- Do your students know how to craft an argument? This Argumentative Writing Unit will have students think critically as they learn argumentative essay writing, including thesis statements, reliable sources, evidence types, formatting, and more.
- Don’t have students just read a text in class; have them analyze the text and think critically about possible outcomes in the story or come up with alternative choices and their possible outcomes. Encourage students to compare texts and go beyond surface reading to find themes and messages.
By focusing on these seven key skills, you’ll help prepare middle school students for high school, equipping them with academic knowledge and essential life skills. Integrating these skills into everyday lessons will help students build independence, resilience, and adaptability to succeed. Preparing students for this next stage is a team effort, and your dedication will help them succeed in high school and beyond.
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