We've all encountered new learning -- be it learning to drive to a destination in a new city, teaching your teenager how to parallel park, or learning to play a complicated board game. Learning something new happens in stages, across all ages. When we learn a new skill, we focus every cell of our being in getting it right. After we learn how to do the skill correctly, our pace quickens and becomes more fluid. Once we're able to be both accurate and fluent in the skill, we are able to generalize and adapt to novel settings.

Students within our classrooms are no different. Intervention Central (n.d.) states," When mastering new academic skills or strategies, the student learner typically advances through a predictable series of learning stages. At the start, a student is usually halting and uncertain as he or she tries to use the target skill. With teacher feedback and lots of practice, the student becomes more fluent, accurate, and confident in using the skill. It can be very useful to think of these phases of learning as a hierarchy. The learning hierarchy (Haring, Lovitt, Eaton, & Hansen, 1978) address four key stages within this hierarchy: acquisition, fluency, generalization, and adaptation. When the teacher accurately identifies a student's learning stage, the instructor can select instructional ideas that are more likely to be successful because these strategies match the student's learning needs (https://www.interventioncentral.org)." Not every tool in our instructional toolbelt is suited for every phase of learning; our selection of instructional tools needs to be precise.

Haring, N.G., Lovitt, T.C., Eaton, M.D., & Hansen, C. L. (1978). The fourth R: Research in the classroom. Columbus, OH: Charles E.

Intervention Central (n.d.). The instructional hierarchy: Linking stages of learning to effective instructional techniques. https://www.interventioncentral.org/academic-interventions/general-academic/instructional-hierarchy-linking-stages-learning-effective-in

Merrill Publishing, Co.Hanover Research (2020). Research Brief: Matching Interventions to Student Learning Stages. https:// https://wasa-oly.org/WASA/images/WASA/6.0%20Resources/Hanover/RESEARCH%20BRIEF---MATCHING%20 INTERVENTIONS %20TO%20STUDENT%20LEARNING%20STAGES%20.pdf