NICHCY: Evidence for Education -- the Power of Strategy Instruction

Content Mastery
What it looks like for students:
All students, regardless of level of literacy development, engage in the process of learning core curricular content.

What it looks like for teachers:
Teachers promote content mastery by using Content Enhancement Routines, adjusting the routines appropriately for students of differing literacy levels.

Example:
When beginning a history unit on "The American Revolution," the teacher works with students to create a unit organizer highlighting the core content to be covered. Teacher and students refer to the organizer throughout the unit to provide context for newly learned content and to reinforce previously learned material.

Embedded Strategy Instruction
What it looks like for students:
Students are introduced to a range of learning strategies designed to develop literacy skills across an entire curriculum.

What it looks like for teachers:
Teachers first teach a variety of learning strategies directly to students and then embed further strategy instruction when presenting core content. Teachers continue to prompt and model appropriate strategy use and provide opportunities for individual and group practice throughout the year.

Example:
At the start of the school year the teacher explains that being able to paraphrase information about the American Revolution is useful for writing reports, answering questions, and discussing main themes. The teacher then outlines the steps of the Paraphrasing Strategy and models its use for the class. Classroom activities and homework assignments are designed which require students to use paraphrasing strategies, both verbally and in written form. Targeted feedback is given to tailor and encourage strategy use.

Explicit Strategy Instruction Options
What it looks like for students:
Students who struggle with learning and implementing strategies in the regular classroom are presented with more focused and explicit instruction by support personnel.

What it looks like for teachers:
Supplemental instruction by trained support personnel can take place in a variety of settings, including: general education classrooms, pull-out resource room sessions, or after-school tutoring programs.

Example:
The general education teacher may notice that some students are experiencing difficulty paraphrasing core information about the American Revolution. A resource room teacher can then work separately with this group of students to reintroduce and break down the steps of the Paraphrasing Strategy. Students may learn to paraphrase sentence by sentence, or paragraph by paragraph, working daily for 15-20 minutes for several weeks or more until they are able to readily apply the skills across different classroom situations.

For more information on the SIM Model, including research findings and a complete description of the Content Enhancement routines and Learning Strategies Curriculum, visit the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning at:
http://www.ku-crl.org/sim/index.html

(Adapted from the Strategic Instruction Model Content Literacy Continuum: Leveraging research to promote school-wide literacy in secondary schools. The above example describes three of the five levels in the Content Literacy Continuum (CLC) framework. CLC is a valuable tool for evaluating the factors that influence the success of secondary literacy efforts, leveraging the talents of secondary school faculty, and organizing instruction to increase in intensity as the deficits that certain subgroups of students demonstrate become evident. D. Deshler, personal communication, August 28, 2006.)