Your name: Karen Stiff

READ 670/671 Self-Reflection of Explicit Instruction

Lesson ___4 (Fluency lesson)___

In your review, you will be looking for evidence of explicit instruction across the lesson components. Whereas systematic
instruction deals with the DESIGN, or planning for optimal learning opportunities, explicit instruction is the DELIVERY, or
teaching and implementation of the plan. Your focus for this review will be with the delivery of instruction.

Explicit Instruction Discovery

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^^ Not EITHER/OR, but WHEN ^^

Explicit Instruction Discovery

Little or no background knowledge A good deal of background knowledge in the domain

History of Difficulty History of Success

Key Principles of Explicit Instruction

KEY 1 ● Increase allocated time

● Bell to bell teaching
● Start lessons on time
● Teach in groups as much as possible
Optimize ● Be prepared
Learning Time ● Avoid digressions
● Maintain a perky pace
● Decrease transition time
● Use instructional routines

KEY 2 ● 80% correct responses during initial instruction

● 90-95% correct responses during independent practice
● Scaffolds provided, such as
○ Just right materials
○ Carefully sequence instruction
Promote High ○ Break down complex skills into smaller steps
Levels of ○ Increase amount of small group instruction
Success ○ Teach “pre” skills before “target” skills
○ Provide
■ dynamic models of target skill
■ clear presentations
■ guided practice
■ additional supports (hints, prompts, checklists, etc.)
■ worked problems/exemplars
■ Immediate affirmation and corrective feedback
○ Systematically reduce the levels of scaffolding
○ Ensure level of accuracy before independent practice

*high success rates correlated with increased learning outcomes

**low success rates correlated with negative outcomes
***students achieve more in classes in which they spend much of their time being taught directly by the teacher
****small group instruction in gen ed classes; based on need/current functioning

KEY 3 ● Select critical content for instruction

● Teach skills, strategies, and concepts that generalize to other items
● Use instructional procedures that are effective and efficient
● Increase the amount of instruction through grouping of students
● Organize content to promote learning (e.g., graphic organizers)
Optimize the ● Teach the stuff/cut the fluff
Amount of
Content
Covered WELL!
 Explicit Instruction Evaluation Rubric
Lesson 4

4 = Consistently Observed 3 = Frequently Observed 2 = Sometimes Observed 1 = Not Observed

What is Focus on ● Skills Note specific examples: Self Rating:

Taught? Critical Content ● Strategies
● Vocabulary
Focus on critical content (strategy:scooping): “I want 4/4
● Concepts
● Rules to teach you something called phrasing or scooping.
● Facts So, phrasing is where you chunk words together into
meaningful phrases. A phrase is like who, did what,
Sequencing is ● Easier before harder skills where, when, or any additional information you
Logical ● High frequency before
lower frequency skills
might find in the sentence.” (2:34)
● Prerequisites first
● Similar skills separated Sequencing is logical: teacher does ample
modeling, gives student time to practice just one
Broken Down ● Cognitive demands sentence, then student reads passage on their own,
into Smaller ● Processing demands
Units ● Capacity of working
teacher gives support after each reading (3 total) to
memory correct mistakes and give positive praise.
(throughout lesson)

Instead of focusing all aspects of fluency at once,

the lesson is broken down to focus mostly on
pausing/slowing down rate to add meaning
(prosody)--which is where Abbey needs more help.
(throughout lesson)

Lessened cognitive demand by doing all of the

scooping on the passage beforehand, so my student
could focus on reading and not trying to implement
the new skill as well (also, to save lesson time): “I
went ahead and did all the scooping on the passage
that we’re going to read today. So, all the scooping
is already done for you.” (5:57)
Design of Organized and ● Materials are organized Note specific examples: Self Rating:
Instruction Focused ● Focus is clear and goal
related
Focus is clear: “You and I are going to be doing our
Begins with ● Communicate goal to tutee Fluency lesson first. Remember, fluency is what you 4/4
Statement of sound like when you’re reading. It’s how quickly you
Goals read and how your voice sounds when you’re
reading (1:47).”
Provides review ● Plans meaningful ways to
of prior skills and connect new knowledge
knowledge back to previously learned Connections new knowledge to previously learned
knowledge/skills skills: “I want to show you something–Mrs. Ann
Marie showed you something very similar last week,
so it should be a review for you.” (2:25)
Provides ● Demonstrations are clear Demonstrates clearly/step by step how to pause
step-by-step ● Demonstrations are logical between each phrase: “Do you see how this
Design of demonstrations in step-by-step fashion
Instruction sentence is made up of 3 different phrases? So,
Continued when I read each phrase, I do a very slight little
pause where the scoop ends. Listen to my
voice…(go on to model how to read the sentence
with proper pausing).” (4:13)
Use of clear and ● Clear and appropriate Use of clear language to sum up skill after initial
concise language introduction: “So that strategy is called scooping–it’s
language
putting phrases together and pausing at punctuation
marks.”(5:49)
Provide range of ● Examples of target Examples and non-examples of fluent reading
examples and provided provided: “It’s really important as a reader, that you
non-examples ● Non-examples provided, as
appropriate (do it like this,
don’t read too fast, like mydadandIwenttothestore. I
not like this) can’t really understand what you’re saying. You also
don’t want to read too slow, my–dad–and–I, that’s
hard to understand too. You want it to sound like
you are talking to a friend.” (1:58)

Examples and non-examples of scooping fluency

strategy provided: “So, look right here, this
scooping, do you see these lines under the words
 like that? It says, reading words in phrases–that’s
what we want to do. At the bottom, this is the wrong
way, it says, not–one–word–at–a–time. We don’t
want to read like the choppy robot, right? So,
scooping things into phrases makes it easier to
read.” (2:54)

Provide guided ● Scaffolds provided (hints, I give the student feedback/support after each 1
and supported prompts, checklists, just minute of reading. (throughout lesson)
practice right materials, etc.)

Respon- Require frequent ● Teacher versus student talk Note specific examples: Self Rating:
siveness of responses ● Questioning is appropriate Progress monitoring: As the student is reading the
● Student: Teacher mutual
Instruction responsiveness
passage, I am marking her mistakes on my
recording paper, as well as timing her to see how 4/4
Monitor student ● Evidence of progress many words she reads in 1 minute. (8:18)
performance monitoring
closely ● Evidence of Responds with corrective feedback as soon as she
responsiveness to student
success
finishes reading each time: “Okay, while you were
reading you made just a few mistakes that I want to
Provide ● Responds with corrective show you so that we can correct them for next
immediate feedback time…I point out all 3 mistakes. She is able to
affirmation and ● Feedback is appropriate self-correct some of these mistakes on her own
corrective ● Responds specifically
feedback ● Fixes errors now, not later
when asked, but needs explicit help with one.”
(9:32)
Deliver ● Appropriate pacing for We move at a quick pace, spending just a few
instruction at a student need minutes on each reading and quickly discussing
brisk pace ● Accounts for student
success in number of trials
errors to correct for next time. (throughout lesson)

I account for student success in the number of trials

by graphing her wpm at the end, which increased
each reading. “The first time you read 89
words…the second time you did even better, you
read 103 words…and in your very last read, you
read a little bit more, you read 104 words.” (18:33)
 Help students Evidence that student is
organize assimilating new knowledge
knowledge ● Graphic organizers
● Writing
● Other
Explicit
Teachers provide Initial practice (I DO)
Instruction judicious... ● Adequate modeling
● Teacher directed
● Explicit teaching
Distributed practice (WE DO)
● Is the child working at 80%
● Teacher and student do
● Appropriate adjustments
made in response to
student success
● Teacher responds with
appropriate feedback
● Time to practice at various
times after initial
introduction
Cumulative practice (YOU DO)
● Can the child work at
95-100% accuracy
immediately after explicit
instruction
● Evidence of cycling back to
prior skills for maintenance
● Review at appropriate
intervals
Evidence that the student is assimilating new
knowledge: informal observation of listening to her
prosody as she read the passage. (throughout
lesson)
Note specific examples:
Self Rating:
Initial practice/models how to do it (I Do): “I want to
practice with you. These are some sentences that
are going to be in the passage that we’re going to
read together. I want to show you how to do 4/4
scooping, so that maybe you can do this on your
own when you have some reading to do at school. I
go on to model how to scoop under the who (The
father), what did he do (stood beneath her), where
(in the water). I draw lines using an annotate tool to
show where the pauses in phrasing would be. (3:14)
I model how to scoop a second sentence (I Do): I
explicitly tell her that a phrase is divided by a
comma and that we always do a slight pause when
we see punctuation marks like commas in a
sentence. I draw out the scoops and model how to
read this sentence with appropriate
phrasing.”Punctuation ca be an indicator of where
phrases end and where to pause as well” (4:34)
I model how to read a sentence with expression and
then she gives it a try after me (We do): “Do you see
how I put those phrases together? Why don’t you try
that sentence? I’m going to do it one more time for
you to listen… Can you try to say it? (she reads) I
give her positive feedback “Very good, that sounded
great”(5:20) (I could have been more specific in my
feedback here speaking specifically about her
pausing/phrasing instead of just saying a vague
 “very good”)

I model what fluent reading sounds like by reading

the passage aloud to her first (I Do): “I am going to
read it to you first and I’m going to model how to
pause in between the phrases and at the
punctuation marks. So listen to how I read. Follow
along with your eyes as I’m reading.” (6:30)

She reads the passage 3 different times on her own

(You Do). (8:00)

Overall Lesson Reflection: I think explicit instruction is something that I do well as an educator. My
background is Kindergarten helps in this area–I feel as though young children especially need a lot of
explicit modeling and scaffolded, guided practice before they are able to work successfully on their own.
Of course we know, all children benefit from explicit instruction. A downfall I see in this lesson is the
amount of time that I take up with all of my examples/support. I know the fluency lesson is supposed to be
15 minutes total, and I do end up taking a few more minutes (about 17). I felt this was appropriate for our
tutee because I noticed in previous lessons that she was confused and seemed to struggle with
understanding what we were asking of her in regard to fluency. Another thing I would like to work on is
giving very specific praise when giving students feedback. I often say things like, “great job”, “That was
nice”, etc. without specifically saying what reading skill they did well. I would like to shift my praise to say
things like, “you paused at each punctuation mark nicely” and “your voice sounded just like you were
talking: not too fast”.

Total: 16/16

*Information included in this handout excerpted and adapted from this link.