Quality Core Instruction

The over-referral of students to programs for students with special needs can best be averted by providing a core quality curriculum.  When a student is not experiencing success in a class or series of classes, first we must examine how well the curriculum provides the following:

Establishing Purpose

• Content, language, and social goals are clearly stated 

• Content goals represent grade-level standards and expectations

• Language goals are focused on oral and written language students can explain the goals in their own words.

Teacher Modeling

• The content is engaging and provokes thoughtful responses from students

• The task to be modeled is directly related to later phases of the lesson and to the established purpose. 

• Using "I" statement, the teacher models his or her thinking aloud while performing a task.

• Teacher modeling examples are planned in advance.

• Modeling includes errors in order to model problem solving strategies.

• Students witness what occurs when problem-solving strategy does no work, including persistence and speculation about why it did not work.

• Students participate in the modeling, especially through student-to-student interaction.

Productive Group Work

• The task requires students to consolidate and extend their learning and not simply to copy what was modeled by the teacher.

• The task is designed so that there is the opportunity for productive failure, allowing students to wrestle with the content and requiring them to listen and negotiate with one another.

• The task is not easily subdivided among group members and then reassembled to complete the final task. 

• Students interact with argumentation, not arguing.

• Students maintain joint attention to the materials that make up task.

Guided Instruction

• The teacher is present and participatory.

• The lesson is directly related to the established purpose and the modeling phase of instruction.

• The teacher uses prompts, cues, and questions as scaffolds to help students find solutions.

• Prompts begin broadly (Look on p.7.  .  .  ") and become more specific as needed ("In this paragraph on p.7 you'll be able t find the answer you are looking for.  .  . ").

• In small-group guided instruction, content, process, and/or product are differentiated to meet the learning goals of students.

Independent Learning 

• The task is designed so that students draw extensively from previously learned material or skills. 

• The task is controlled so that the new concepts students must apply are firmly established.  

adapted from Enhancing RTI: How to ensure Success with Effective Classroom Instruction and Intervention. Fisher, Douglas and Nancy Frey.  

(see also How we Plan and Standards Based Instruction).