• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Course
    • Teaching Every Reader
  • Subscriber Freebies
  • About
  • Contact
  • Shop
  • Member Login

The Measured Mom

Education resources for parents and teachers

  • Alphabet
  • Reading
    • Structured literacy
    • Printable Books
    • Pre-Reading
    • Phonics
    • Sight Words
    • Comprehension
    • Fluency
    • Vocabulary
  • Writing
    • Grammar
    • Handwriting
    • Spelling
    • Writing in Pre-K
    • Writing in K-3
  • Math
    • Counting
    • Number Recognition
    • Addition & Subtraction
    • Colors, Shapes & Patterns
    • Visual Discrimination
    • Time, Money & Measurement
    • Place Value
    • Graphs
    • Multiplication & Division
    • Fractions
    • Problem Solving
  • Book Lists
    • Letter of the Week
    • Early Childhood Themes
    • Pre-Reading Skills
    • Math Concepts
    • Writing Mentor Texts
    • Versions of Familiar Tales
    • Holidays and Seasonal
    • History
    • Leveled Book Lists
  • Join Membership
Home
  • Shop
  • Blog
    • Alphabet
    • Reading
    • Writing
    • Math
    • Book Lists
  • Podcast
  • Courses
    • Teaching Every Reader
    • Teaching Every Writer
  • Subscriber Freebies
  • About
  • Membership
  • Contact

PSPKK1236 Comments

What is explicit instruction?

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Sharing is caring!

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

How do you teach students with dyslexia? With explicit instruction. But what IS explicit instruction anyway?

What is explicit instruction

In their book, Anita Archer and Charles A. Hughes tell us that explicit instruction is systematic, direct, engaging, and success oriented.

If you have a few minutes, check out this helpful video from Anita Archer.

It feels a little weird to use the word explicit when talking about teaching because of the word’s negative connotation. But rest assured, in this context explicit simply means that our teaching is direct and clear.

Researchers have identified the characteristics of explicit instruction. Archer and Hughes list them in their book.

What IS explicit instruction anyway?

You might notice that the above list doesn’t tell you what to teach, but how to teach.

Explicit instruction is about the art of teaching.

This may frustrate you if you came to this post to learn the specifics of what to teach children with dyslexia, but we can trust Archer and Hughes on this.

Effective and efficient instruction requires that we attend to the details of instruction because the details do make a significant difference in providing quality instruction that promotes growth and success.

Anita Archer & Charles Hughes in Explicit Instruction

Let’s take a look at some practical ways to bring those sixteen elements to life.

Have your lesson materials organized and ready to go.

Admittedly, this was not my forte as a classroom teacher. In fact we often had games such as “let’s find the teacher’s stapler.” I tended to leave things in piles and forget where I’d placed them.

Our time is precious – and we can maximize it by having organized systems for where we keep our materials. (As my dad would say, “A place for everything and everything in its place.”)

Use a timer to keep yourself on track.

This is an excellent strategy when teaching small group phonics lessons. Set a timer for each portion of your lesson so you save time for reading connected text and doing guided writing.

Recommended:

  • How to give small group phonics lessons

Use routines.

As a parent of six kids, routines have saved my sanity. My kids appreciate knowing what to expect, and best of all – I don’t have to tell them what comes next because they know.

If I find myself answering the same questions a million times a day, that should clue me in: I need a routine for this.

Use routines in how you line up, hand in papers, start a lesson, get letter tiles, do word sorts … you name it.

Use the I do, We do, You do model in your lessons.

a. I DO – Demonstrate the skill and describe what is being done. Unless the skill is very simple, you will need to model it multiple times. Even though you are modeling, keep your students involved. One way to do this is by having them chorally repeat words and phrases.

Anita Archer is brilliant at active participation. Watch this quick video … you’ll love it!

b. WE DO – As the authors of Explicit Instruction write, “the purpose of initial practice activities in an explicit lesson is to provide students with opportunities to become successful and confident users of the skill.” Guided practice is provided through the use of prompts.

c. YOU DO – Finally, it’s time to determine whether students can perform the task without your prompting. Provide students with several problems similar to the ones you’ve already presented in the lesson, and ask them to do them on their own.

To conclude the lesson, review what was learned and (if appropriate) assign independent work.

Be creative in how you elicit responses.

It’s so easy to just do as we’ve always done … ask a question, wait for hands to go up, and call on someone.

But there are better ways to engage our students.

a. Have students give choral responses. Ask a question, pause, and then say, “Everyone?” Teach your students that this is their cue to answer in unison.

b. Have students give partner responses.

Assign partners and pause after questions for students to discuss the answer with their partner. If the question is more open-ended, call on students to share what their partner stated.

c. Have students work in small groups.

Place students on teams and give each person a number. Their job is to work together to answer the question, making sure they all agree on the answer. Then call out a number; the student with that number must answer for the group.

d. Bring distracted students back to the lesson.

Instead of calling on someone who’s daydreaming, try one of these suggestions from Explicit Instruction:

  • Move closer to the disctracted student.
  • Give a directive to the whole group. (“I need everyone’s eyes up here.”)
  • Give the students something physical to do. (“Circle the number 1 on your paper.”)

As you can see, there’s a lot to say about explicit instruction. We’ve barely scratched the surface today, but this is enough to get you started.

Remember, explicit instruction is important for everyone, and especially our students with dyslexia.

Stay tuned for then next post in our dyslexia series!

Check out the whole series

 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

Free Reading Printables for Pre-K-3rd Grade

Join our email list and get this sample pack of time-saving resources from our membership site! You'll get phonemic awareness, phonics, and reading comprehension resources ... all free!

Sharing is caring!

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Science of reading, Structured literacy Tagged With: third grade, kindergarten, first grade, second grade

You May Also Enjoy These Episodes:

From balanced to structured literacy: A conversation with Christina Winter The science of reading in kindergarten Should we teach letter names or sounds first?
6 ways to build fluency
A simple template for reading comprehension lessons

Reader Interactions

6 Comments

  1. Kari Lieber

    July 17, 2022 at 11:29 am

    This an an excellent overview of “explicit” instruction. I can’t wait to direct my colleagues and parents to this post when questions come up about the how & why we teach phonics and other reading skills the way we do.

    Reply to this comment
    • Heather Groth, Customer Support

      July 18, 2022 at 12:33 pm

      That is awesome, Kari! We’re glad to be able to help!

      Reply to this comment
  2. jean

    April 26, 2022 at 10:19 am

    LOVE THis!!

    Reply to this comment
    • Heather Groth, Customer Support

      April 27, 2022 at 12:44 pm

      Thank you, Jean!

      Reply to this comment

Trackbacks

  1. Using Repetition and Review - This Reading Mama says:
    April 30, 2022 at 4:27 pm

    […] far in our series, we’ve talked about explicit teaching, multi-sensory teaching, and systematic teaching. Today, let’s explore the idea of using […]

    Reply to this comment
  2. Using Systematic Teaching - This Reading Mama says:
    April 23, 2022 at 6:33 am

    […] structured literacy, we need to not only be explicit and use multi-sensory teaching, but we also need to use systematic […]

    Reply to this comment

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Grade Level Key

  • PS Preschool (ages 2-3 years)
  • PK Pre-K (ages 4-5 years)
  • K Kindergarten
  • 1 1st grade
  • 2 2nd grade
  • 3 3rd grade

Hello, I’m Anna!

Welcome to The Measured Mom. I’m so glad you’re here!

Meet Our Team

Free Reading Printables for Pre-K-3rd Grade

Join our email list and get this sample pack of time-saving resources from our membership site! You'll get phonemic awareness, phonics, and reading comprehension resources ... all free!

Shop these popular reading resources!

Editable Reading Games for Every Season – MEGA PACK!

$24.00

Phonics Books & Games – Complete Set

$49.00

Reading response sheets & Early chapter book lists

$18.00

Shop All Resources

Members get more!

The Measured Mom Plus is the perfect online membership for Pre-K to third grade educators.

Learn More

Love Freebies?

Subscribing to our email newsletter is completely free. And when you do, you'll get access to our library of subscriber freebies! Sign up below to get access to a wonderful variety of math and literacy resources.

Join our online course and get the tools you need to teach every learner in K-2!

Confidently teach every reader in your classroom. Still have time to live your life.

Learn More

Listen and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher

Check out these recent podcast episodes:

  • What does the research say about alphabet instruction? with Dr. Shayne Piasta
  • What is set for variability? A conversation with Dr. Marnie Ginsberg
  • How to help students improve language comprehension – a conversation with Dr. Karen Dudek-Brannan
More Episodes

Check out these FREE email courses...

Get strategies and tools to teach a particular topic with a free 5-day email series! Just click an image to sign up. We recommend signing up for just one at a time.

For Pre-K Educators

How to teach phonological & phonemic awareness

How to teach phonological & phonemic awareness

Learn how to develop this important pre-reading skill with a free 5-day email series!

How to teach preschool math

How to teach preschool math

Learn exactly what to teach your preschoolers in this free 5-day series!

For Kinder & 1st Grade Educators

How to teach kids to sound out words

How to teach kids to sound out words

Learn my top strategies for teaching kids to "sound it out"

How to teach sight words

How to teach sight words

Get strategies and tools for teaching sight words to young learners!

Tips for teaching phonics

Tips for teaching phonics

Sign up for our free 5-day email series to learn what phonics skills to teach and how to structure your phonics lessons!

For 2nd & 3rd Grade Educators

How to build reading fluency

How to build reading fluency

Learn smart strategies for helping your learners become fluent readers with this free 5-day series!

How to build reading comprehension

How to build reading comprehension

Discover the essential reading comprehension strategies for 2nd & 3rd grade and how to teach them!

“Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” –Matthew 6:33

Copyright © 2023 The Measured Mom •  All rights reserved  •  Privacy & Disclosure Statement  •  Site Design by Emily White Designs