Effective Teaching Strategies For All Students

(Rosenshine, 2012)
 

Research into what constitutes effective instruction in the initial teaching of literacy and numeracy around the world has consistently found that the most effective teaching programs not only focus on the necessary component skills, but do so with a high degree of explicitness and direct instruction. The aim of this high-quality initial teaching is to maximise the learning experience for all students and to ensure that students have the best opportunity to develop their literacy and numeracy skills with ease.

Explict and direct instructional methods ensure that the necessary skills are taught clearly and directly, not in an embedded or implicit manner. Students are provided with clear learning objectives, are systematically led through the learning process with frequent opportunities to review and incorporate prior learning with step by step teaching of new concepts, and are consistently provided with guided and extensive practice of new skills before moving on to independent practice. In addition, teachers consistently check for understanding, review learning goals and teach to mastery.

The use of high-quality initial teaching ensures that students complete a significant amount of carefully monitored practice and experience success in the early stages of learning. This not only engages our most reluctant of learners, but ensures that resources are not being unneccessarily directed towards higher levels of support for a large numbers of students who failed to learn at the initial point of teaching.