The benefits of Cross Curriculum learning

The hope of Cross Curriculum teaching
Cross curriculum teaching is an effective way to adapt the literal, interpretive, and critical thinking skills which develop as a result of reading. Children can be set Learning ?Quests? which cross curriculum boundaries this allows them to build their skills naturally.
In Britain there are different levels in the schools; in England KS1 - KS2 ? KS3 and in Scotland the curriculum for excellence. Recently all of these levels have been revised to increase the mix of cross curriculum learning. The general thinking is that using methods that mix subjects in a natural way brings significant learning benefits.
Achieving Cross Curriculum teaching can be hard. Much of the information available for KS1 - KS2 ? KS3 and the curriculum for excellence is based on the older systems. These systems tended to categorise the material into clearly bounded subjects. So whilst it's possible to find plenty of material that relates to numeracy it's hard to find material that brings together numeracy and literacy.
To achieve cross curriculum teaching teachers often create teaching Trails or Quests. These are generally subject based and are able to cross curriculum boundaries in a natural way. With the push at KS2 and Curriculum for Excellence this method is likely to become more common.
Since there is a lack of literature available to allow the building of these trails teachers are now turning to computer based learning. Unfortunately this is often a hard. Although the internet is a great source of information it is often badly written and not suitable for children. Worse still is the dependence of many sites on advertising. All too often a child will access a site and be faced with good subject literature but highly inappropriate adverts.
Recently there have been some new sites that have joined the ranks of educational suppliers that are starting to offer the type of material needed by teachers. Sites like Learning Huddle offer schools lots of subject information but in a controlled manner. The lack of advertising and strong topic information ensure that teachers don't have to spend many hours researching only to find they end the night with little to show.
So when teachers are now considering what to do for KS1 - KS2 ? KS3 and the curriculum for excellence they are now often turning away from the more traditional books and looking to computer based learning. The added benefit of this approach is the motivation that children seem to feel when they are involved with computers and the internet. There is a significant amount of subjective evidence that shows that children can be stimulated to learn when the material comes from a computer.

It seems unlikely that books and written material will disappear from schools. However there is definitely a push towards using the internet and computers in general to source material. So the needs of the revised KS1 - KS2 ? KS3 and the curriculum for excellence guidance for UK teachers may be met more and more in this way. In particular it is likely that much of this will be through the use of using topic literature. By combining the various methods and approaches to learning, the pupils can expect to gain much more valuable material out of learning time.

This article was written by Learning Huddle an educational website providing great cross curriculum material for KS1 - KS2 - KS3 and Curriculum for Excellence including worksheets and flashcards. LearningHuddle topics for schools

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