Responses to Possible Concerns about Explicit Instruction

The following concerns have been addressed by referring to:

Archer, A., & Hughes, C. (2011). Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching. New York: Guilford Publications. 

A freely available sample of Chapter 1 can be found here: Chapter 1 pp 18 - 21

Concern

1. Students learn best by discovery or inquiry-based learning.

"We believe that a direct and explicit methodology is helpful to all students learning new skills and content, and is absolutely essential for struggling or disadvantaged learners'

"First, we believe that there is no one best way to teach. Instruction should be based on students’ needs and guided by research rather than by a personal philosophy ...the debate about instruction hinges primarily on how students learn and on what degree of structure and support they need to acquire important skills and knowledge. In some ways, instructional approaches can be put on a continuum of how much guidance and scaffolding are considered desirable in teaching new skills to novice learners (in terms of their knowledge about what is being taught) or intermediate learners. Explicit instruction can be placed at one end of this continuum, and constructivist or discovery approaches can be placed at the other end."

What we know about how the brain takes on new information: (working and long-term memory)

"expert problem solvers derive their ability and skills by drawing on their long-term memory of a topic. They know a lot about the topic; they can draw upon this knowledge and use it as they learn to solve problems, and thus are better able to “discover” solutions with minimal guidance or support. By contrast, novice or intermediate learners do not have similar stores of knowledge to draw on, and so they are much less able to learn new information and solve problems."   "The well-documented limitations of working memory—the length of time new, incoming information can be stored (30 seconds or less), as well as its capacity (5–7 “bits” of information)—during problem solving have deleterious effects for novice learners. Because they lack ready access to a well-developed and connected knowledge base in long-term memory, they are left with trying to take in and manipulate complex and novel information within the limited capacity of their short-term memory 

What is required of "discovery/inquiry-based learning" 

".. if a novice learner is given a problem to solve and is expected to examine the problem and discover a solution, but lacks an extensive, well-connected knowledge base on the topic, the limited capacities of working memory will result in so-called “cognitive overload.” 

..."even for students with prior knowledge, high levels of guidance are as effective as unguided instruction."

Concern

2. Explicit teaching is teacher centered and what teachers want, and inquiry based learning is student focused. 

"Proponents of explicit instruction are equally focused on students. They understand, however, that many students struggle with learning when necessary guidance and support are not provided. We contend that appropriate use of explicit elements of instruction is indeed “student-centered,” in that it incorporates what we know about how students learn new material and about the skills they need in order to be successful "

Concern

3. Teaching discrete skills is simplistic; it ignores the whole child - reading is so much more than phonics drills. 

"...in addition to the research supporting the effectiveness of explicit instruction, results reported by the National Reading Panel (2000) indicate that teaching phonemic awareness and phonics (to name a few subskills) does have a positive impact on students’ overall reading ability (being able to read words in print accurately and fluently, as well as demonstrating comprehension)."

We know that teaching skills in isolation is not effective teaching practice. Teaching skills and then providing opportunities to use these skills in the context of overall practise i.e. teaching sentence building strategies and then practise in an actual writing context. 

"...making sure students understand how the pieces (i.e. skills) fit and by bringing the pieces together through contextualized practise and expanded instruction. This helps students begin to broaden their understanding and application of skills in less guided and more exploratory activities."

Concern

4. Repeatedly practicing skills dulls the mind and does not lead to higher-order thinking or creativity. Instead, students should be given more enjoyable problems to solve on their own, whereby they construct their own knowledge. 

"...when used appropriately, routine practice is an extremely powerful instructional tool that not only helps students learn and retain basic skills and facts in a fluent fashion, but has positive outcomes when students attempt higher-order strategies.....the ability to use basic skills in reading or math without having to stop and think about them allows students to allot more of their attention to solving more complex tasks...They must use their working memory to remember ...facts, and thus will have less attention to focus on the problem-solving aspect of the task"

Defending the Science of Learning

Effective Instruction isn’t a matter of chance, but of design.

Carl Hendrick  Jun 08, 2025   https://carlhendrick.substack.com/p/defending-the-science-of-learning

(Professor) Carl Hendrick is British academic who has written this article which addresses many of the common concerns about the Science of Learning.