This is The Reading Instruction Show. I am your
host, as always, the genial one, Dr. Andy Johnson.
Topic of today's podcast is direct and explicit
instruction to teach skills in reading. Let's
see if we can learn something today. Now the
terms direct and explicit instruction is often
used to sell products or to persuade state legislators
to make bad decisions. So let's unpack direct
instruction. What is it? Direct instruction is
a structured form of teaching where students
receive information directly from the teacher.
Sometimes called the Elements of Effective Skills
instruction, It's been around for years. Siegfried
Engelmann has said to have quote invented unquote
direct instruction in the early 1960s. He was
working in advertising analyzing the type of
input needed to maintain viewer retention. He
applied what he learned there to the design of
instructional programs and techniques for teaching
children. In the late 70s, Madeline Hunter repackaged
direct instruction and put it in the form of
a lesson plan consisting of seven elements. Anticipatory
set, purpose, input, modeling, check for understanding,
guided practice, closure. She described it as
a scientific method for teaching. Sound familiar?
If it were followed explicitly, It was said the
teacher was guaranteed to be successful and all
students would learn. Imagine that. Well, every
few years someone claims to have discovered direct
instruction and repackages it into a commercial
product or service. However, here's the thing.
All good teachers use direct instruction in some
form to teach necessary skills. You don't need
special training or expensive products to do
it. It comes in a variety of forms. So this podcast,
I'm going to identify the basic elements of direct
instruction. And these can be used to effectively
teach a skill of any kind in any area. Remember
when I was coaching wrestling, I was using direct
instruction. A purpose. starts with the first
one, a clearly defined purpose. This is usually
put in the form of a statement or a single sentence
that states exactly what it is you want students
to learn. A clearly stated purpose defines the
learning experience and provides focus for the
lesson. Everything that follows should support
the purpose statement. Direct instruction is
purposeful. And here's the thing, even balanced
literacy teachers, and even whole language practitioners
use very direct and very explicit instruction.
It's not something, it's not something magical
that only structured literacy or science of reading
people use. It's a pedagogical strategy. Everyone
uses direct instruction. Alright, off on a tangent.
Purpose is the first one. The second one is input.
The input is the specific information that students
need to know in order to learn the skill. This
would include a description of the skill, how
to use it, and either modeling the specific steps
or a demonstration with examples. The input should
be well organized with a logical structure to
enhance students' understanding. and using list
or outline form as you're designing the lesson
enables the sequence and structure of the lesson
to be easily seen. This is both during the planning
and the teaching of the lesson. All right, part
of the input is the identification of procedural
components with demonstration. If the skill involves
several steps, like a study skill strategy, The
skill should be introduced along with the specific
steps. And a description should include what
it is, why it's used, and how it's used. Next,
cognitive modeling is used to demonstrate the
skill. Here, the teacher thinks out loud while
going through each step. For example, if I was
teaching a study skill strategy, The input would
be something like this. Boys and girls, we read
informational texts different than stories. We
use special skills called study skill strategies.
Read and pause is one of these strategies. Here
are the steps. Step one, read a paragraph. Step
two, pause. Step three, ask, do I understand?
Step four, review or resume. Now watch me as
I demonstrate. That's the basic essence. to teach
a study skill strategy or a skill, a procedure
broken down into steps. Now what about identify
with examples? Some skills such as letter sounds
or recognizing letter sound patterns don't have
specific steps like the short A vowel sound.
In these cases, the letter sound or letter sound
pattern is introduced along with many examples.
For example, to illustrate, the short A lesson
plan would include many examples of the CVC short
A vowel words, of CVC short A vowel words. Students
would then be able to practice reading them several
times and the input would be something like this.
This is the letter A. It's a vowel. It makes
the A sound as in ha, at, m, an, la, a, fa, an,
a. and specific information with lots of examples.
The third part is guided practice, sometimes
referred to as scaffolded instruction. This is
where the teacher takes the whole class through
each step of the skill several times. The goal
is to provide the support necessary for students
to use the skill independently. So here they
use, apply, or practice the skill several times
as the teacher monitors their performance in
order to assess their level of learning. This
is called formative assessment. Small group activities
can be effective here because they enable the
teacher to see many students simultaneously and
to hear their thinking processes as they discuss
ideas with others. Guided practice is used with
a gradual release of teacher responsibility.
This means that less support is provided each
time the skill is practiced until students can
use the skill independently. And independent
practice. Independent practice is practice of
what students already know or can do. Students
are practicing their learning by using or applying
the new skill. Independent practice should be
used to reinforce the skill that was just taught
as part of input and guided practice. This should
not be used to challenge students or to get a
nice dispersion of scores. If successful, students
should be able to complete independent practice
with 95 -100 % success ratio. Again, this is
practice of what has already been learned. This
is not the place to evaluate their learning.
But how do you know if they've learned, you say?
Well, there are other times and places to assess
learning. That's not our goal here. If guided
practice is done correctly, of course, you already
have a good sense of this. And the last part
is review, revisit, and re -imply. Any skill
does not happen in a single setting. Learners
must encounter new skills in a variety of situations
and settings over time for mastery to occur.
Good teachers revisit skills and review them
and apply them at successively higher levels
over time. They evaluate to document mastery,
not to catch. failure. Direct instruction. It's
used to describe, often, structured literacy,
as if balanced literacy, and as if all teachers
don't use direct instruction. Direct instruction
is a pedagogical strategy to be used for some
purposes. It is not a method. This has been The
Reading Instruction Show. I am your host, Dr.
Andy Johnson.