The Reading Teacher's Sourcebook - The Meadows Center for ...

Teacher:That’s right, said.Point to each letter.Teacher:Said is spelled S-A-I-D. Everyone, spell said.Students:S-A-I-D.Still pointing to the word.Teacher:What word?Students:Said.(Carnine, Silbert, Kame’enui, & Tarver, 2004)The teacher may ask individual students to read the word, then ask students to read a list of previouslylearned words, including the word said. The students may now move on to reading sentences or textcontaining the word said.The above scenario is a simple example of explicit instruction. The main idea is this: Teachers shouldnot make students guess or infer what they are supposed to learn. Therefore, it is important to know theobjectives of lessons and to express these objectives simply and clearly to your students.Targeted InstructionTargeted instruction is based on the results of ongoing student assessments. Using information fromassessments, teachers are able to teach students what they need to learn. At the beginning of the year, orwhen a student enters the reading class, the first order of business is assessment. Refer to Part I: AssessingStruggling Readers at the Secondary Level for an in-depth discussion. Assessment is essential to identifyeach student’s strengths and needs. Following the initial assessment, it is important to regularly collectrelevant data to define students’ progress or lack of progress in areas such as fluency, comprehension,and word recognition. This regular observation of students’ learning should guide the teacher’s design ofinstructional objectives and adaptations, and indicate when reteaching is needed.One way to support students’ specific learning needs is through scaffolding. An effective teacherscaffolds to help the student move from what he or she already knows to new learning. With appropriatescaffolding, or support, a student will be able to accomplish tasks that would otherwise be impossible toaccomplish independently. Teaching struggling readers requires that the teacher be constantly aware of“where students are” and “where they need to be.” Instructional support, or scaffolding, is temporary andshould be taken away as soon as a student is able to perform a task without help. Just as a father hangingonto the seat of his daughter’s bike while she is learning to ride will eventually let go and watch her glidedown the street on her own, an effective teacher must know when to support a student and when toencourage independence. Subsequently, once a task is mastered, an effective teacher will raise expectationsand provide necessary support, thus repeating the cycle of scaffolding (Denton & Hocker, 2006).The Reading Teacher’s Sourcebook 55