The Secret Rhythm of the School Year: Matching Executive Function Support to Monthly Needs
As parents and educators, we've all experienced the frustration of watching a child start the school year with fresh notebooks, organized binders, and enthusiasm, only to find them drowning in a sea of crumpled papers and missed assignments by spring.
If this sounds familiar, licensed educational psychologist Michelle Porjes has a revolutionary insight that might transform your approach to supporting executive functioning skills.
In a recent episode of the Diverse Thinking Different Learning podcast, Porjes introduced her guidebook "Navigating the Yearly Calendar: Executive Functioning Month by Month," which presents a brilliantly simple yet powerful concept: What if we matched executive functioning support to the natural rhythm of the academic year?
The Problem with Our Current Approach
Most approaches to executive functioning treat these skills as a static set of abilities that should be developed simultaneously and consistently. Parents and educators often try to address organization, time management, task initiation, planning, and emotional regulation all at once—leading to overwhelm for both adults and children.
The result? Abandoned systems, frustrated children, and defeated parents.
Porjes offers a completely different perspective. The school year has a natural flow, with different months presenting unique executive functioning challenges. By aligning our support to these rhythms, we can make skill development more manageable and effective.
The Monthly Executive Function Roadmap
Here's how Porjes's month-by-month approach works throughout the school year:
August/September: Setting Foundations
Primary EF Focus: Organization and system creation
Key Challenges: Establishing routines after summer freedom
Strategic Support: Creating personalized organizational systems for materials, setting up homework stations, and establishing after-school routines
October/November: The First Push
Primary EF Focus: Sustained attention and study skills
Key Challenges: First major tests and projects emerge
Strategic Support: Introducing study strategies, breaking down assignments, and implementing weekend check-in routines
December: The Pre-Break Crush
Primary EF Focus: Project planning and completion
Key Challenges: Managing end-of-term projects before the holiday break
Strategic Support: Creating project timelines, implementing backwards planning, and preparing for the transition to break
January/February: The Reset
Primary EF Focus: Self-monitoring and refreshing systems
Key Challenges: Returning to school routines after break
Strategic Support: Evaluating what worked in the fall, adjusting systems, and developing self-check strategies
March/April: The Spring Slump
Primary EF Focus: Motivation and persistence
Key Challenges: Waning motivation, increasing academic demands
Strategic Support: Implementing reward systems, refreshing organizational tools, breaking down end-of-year projects
May/June: Reflection and Preparation
Primary EF Focus: Self-reflection and summer planning
Key Challenges: Maintaining focus through the end of the year
Strategic Support: Reviewing growth, celebrating successes, and planning for skill maintenance over summer
Practical Strategies for RIGHT NOW: March/April Edition
Since we're currently in the March/April period of the school year, let's look at specific strategies Porjes recommends for this challenging time:
1. Address the Motivation Dip
The "spring slump" is real. Students are tired of school routines, can see summer on the horizon, but still face significant academic demands. Porjes suggests:
Implementation Intention: Help students create "if-then" plans that anticipate motivation challenges (e.g., "If I don't feel like starting my homework, then I'll set a timer for just 10 minutes")
Motivation Board: Create a visual reminder of goals and reasons for persisting
Choice Integration: Where possible, incorporate student choice into remaining projects to boost engagement
2. Refresh Organizational Systems
By this point in the year, even the best organizational systems have likely deteriorated. Rather than getting frustrated, use this as a natural opportunity to:
Conduct a 15-Minute Reset: Schedule a daily 15-minute organization reset with your child
Purge and Reorganize: Help them sort through backpacks and binders, discarding what's no longer needed
Supply Refresh: Replace worn or lost school supplies to give a motivational boost
3. Manage End-of-Year Project Overwhelm
As final projects and assessments pile up, students need concrete tools to manage these demands:
Visual Timeline: Create a visual calendar showing all remaining major assignments and tests
Project Breakdown: Break remaining projects into 30-minute work chunks
Brain Dump: Have students write down all their worries and tasks on paper, then help organize them by priority
4. Build in Celebration and Reflection
Instead of focusing solely on what's left to do, Porjes emphasizes the importance of acknowledging progress:
Progress Portfolio: Create a collection of work from the beginning of the year to now, highlighting growth
Milestone Celebrations: Establish small rewards for completing chunks of large projects
Strength Spotting: Help students identify which executive skills have improved most this year
Beyond the One-Size-Fits-All Approach
What makes Porjes's approach so powerful is its recognition that executive functioning development isn't linear or uniform. Different children struggle with different aspects of executive functioning at different times of the year.
"Some students start strong but falter in sustaining effort, while others struggle with initial organization but excel at project completion," Porjes explains in her guidebook. "The monthly approach allows for customization based on individual strengths and challenges."
This customization is particularly valuable for students with ADHD, learning differences, or other neurodevelopmental conditions that impact executive functioning. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by addressing all executive functioning deficits simultaneously, the month-by-month approach creates manageable focus areas.
The Parent as Executive Function Coach
Another valuable aspect of Porjes's approach is how it positions parents as coaches rather than managers of their children's executive functioning.
As students move through the school year, parents gradually shift more responsibility to them, using the monthly focus areas as natural transition points. By June, the goal is for students to have developed greater independence in managing their own executive functioning needs.
This progressive transfer of responsibility honors the developmental nature of executive skills. The prefrontal cortex, which houses most executive functions, continues developing into early adulthood. The monthly approach respects this development by building skills progressively throughout the year.
Starting Where You Are
Perhaps the most encouraging aspect of Porjes's monthly approach is that you can begin implementing it at any point in the school year. You don't need to wait until September to start fresh.
If you're reading this in March or April, begin with the spring strategies. If it's closer to the end of the year, focus on reflection and summer planning. The cyclical nature of the school year means you'll have another opportunity to implement earlier strategies when the next academic year begins.
The Bigger Picture: Life Skills Beyond Academics
While Porjes's guidebook focuses on the academic year, the executive functioning skills it helps develop extend far beyond school success. Time management, organization, planning, and emotional regulation are life skills that benefit children well into adulthood.
By teaching these skills in the context of the school year's natural rhythm, we make them more accessible and applicable. Students learn not just academic content but how to manage themselves—perhaps the most valuable education of all.
The next time you find yourself frustrated by your child's executive functioning challenges, consider whether you're trying to swim against the current of the school year's natural rhythm. Instead, try aligning your support with the month-specific needs that Porjes outlines.
The result might be not just better organizational skills but a child who understands how to work with their own natural rhythms—a lesson that will serve them for a lifetime.
