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- Trying to understand what makes some teachers so effective has captured the attention of educational leaders and researchers for decades.
- Certain attributes seem to characterize teachers who are particularly effective in teaching students with learning difficulties how to be good readers.
- Three critical dimensions describe the instruction that is used by teachers who achieve positive outcomes when teaching reading to persons with learning disabilities: responsive, systematic, and intensive.
- Instruction that is responsive, systematic, and intensive is at the heart of all effective reading instruction.
- Teachers must understand and believe that reading is vitally important to and a high instructional priority for ALL students.
- Teachers who develop effective readers feel that it is imperative that their students become very fluent readers who really enjoy reading!
- Responsive instruction is a way of making instructional decisions in which an individual student's reaction to instruction directly shapes how future instruction is provided to that student.
- Teachers who adhere to the principle of responsive instruction continuously assess student learning, make specific instructional adaptations, and provide elaborated feedback.
- Continuous assessment, a part of responsive instruction, is an assessment in which student performance is monitored to expected performance before, during, and following instruction.
- Instructional accommodation, an element of responsive instruction, involves the use of the information processing characteristics of the learner to make changes in instructional grouping, materials, or teaching behaviors in ways that increase attainment of targeted outcomes.
- Elaborated feedback, an element of responsive instruction, involves analyzing student performance and giving feedback on how to improve performance.
- Systematic instruction is a way of organizing learning so that both the teacher and the student follow and continuously review a dynamic plan related to how new content will be learned and how that new content relates to past and future learning.
- Good teachers understand that effective instruction is dynamic because it must vary along a continuum from explicit instruction to implicit instruction, depending upon the goals and the student's prior knowledge.
- Structured instruction, a way of teaching systematically, involves the chunking of information into smaller segments or steps and teaching it sequentially in such a way that it is connected to past and future learning.
- Connected instruction, a way of teaching systematically, involves helping students understand the relationships between what has been learned, what is being learned, and what will be learned.
- Scaffolded instruction, a way of teaching systematically, involves the teacher using questions, explanations, and student conversations to elicit what the student already knows as the basis for moving from teacher-guided success to student-guided success.
- Informative instruction is a way of teaching systematically in which the teacher ensures that the student understands how s/he is progressing and how s/he can plan and control his/her own learning at each step of the learning process.
- Intensive instruction is a way of directing student attention in which a significant amount of time is spent in teacher-guided interactive learning activities that result in a high degree of goal-directed student engagement.
- Sufficient time, an element of intensive instruction, involves interactive teaching and learning experiences that are sustained until the critical information has been mastered by the student.
- High engagement, an element of intensive instruction, ensures that each instructional moment is maximized through the use of activities that keep the student's attention focused on critical learning outcomes.
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