instructional strategies for struggling students

These tools can help schools leverage familiar instructional strategies in new

ways that support all students and become habits within the school culture.

Civen new, more rigorous con-tent standards and expand-ing student diversity, how canschool leaders leverage limited

resources to guide teachers to effectivelyteach standards-aligned lessons to all learn-ers? We propose that leaders leverage famil-iar instructional strategies but in a new wayto support all students - English learners,students with learning disabilities, giftedstudents, and the mythical "average" stu-dent.

We will start by describing a balanceof teacher-led and student-led instructionwithin an inquiry-based approach to learn-ing. Then we will present a specific set of"doable" instructional strategies that forman integrated approach to "good first teach-ing" and scaffold learning for a variety ofstudents. We end by identifying major strat-egies that district and school leaders can useto ensure that these practices do not fall bythe wayside, but become habits within theschool culture. These suggestions highlightsome key information in our guidebook.Teaching English Learners and Students with

Learning Difficulties in an Inclusive Class-

room: A Guidebook for Teachers (WestEd,

2012).

Toois for aii teachers

Imagine a set of research- or evidence-based instructional strategies and tools thatall teachers could use to help struggling stu-dents learn vocabulary and discourse, con-tent and skills in science classes, or compre-hend complex text in all academic contentareas (Carr &Bertrando, 2012).

Envision two students with learningdisabilities who are learning English intwo secondary schools. The student at oneschool struggles to learn and adapt eachhour to the different ways the differentteachers teach, as well as the different con-tent. The student in the other school focusesonly on the different content, because oneset of strategies is known and habituallyused by all teachers.

The Top 10 set of strategies and tools pre-sented here were selected through a rigorousanalysis of research, are purposefully few innumber and have demonstrated a record of

success for improving student outcomes,especially for English learners and studentswith learning disabilities. It was criticallyimportant that the strategies and tools couldbe integrated to make them easier for teach-ers to use and likely see a synergistic impacton students. These strategies could be calledTier I effective first instruction in the Re-sponse to Intervention (RTI) framework.

While many of these strategies havebeen introduced before, teachers have com-mented that they had not understood howand why a strategy works for different kindsof minds, and no connections among strat-egies were made when they were initiallyexposed to the strategies in pre-servicecourses or in-service workshops.

Framework for a lesson pian

Before presenting the strategies andtools, it is necessary to briefly describe theframework of a lesson plan that is effectivefor teaching a diversified classroom and can

By John Carr and Sharen Bertrando

24 Leadership

be applied to all content areas and grade lev-els. The framework is a balance of teacher-led, whole class instruction and student-led,small group activities involving investiga-tion or experimentation, critical thinking,and a large dose of structured, student-to-student discussion.

A lesson contains cycles of teacher-ledinstruction followed by student-led instruc-tion to avoid language overload for Englishlearners. It also embeds comprehension sup-ports or scaffolds for students with learningdisabilities. Only two or three students areassigned to each group so all are engaged,but there are options for cooperative groupsof four with assigned roles/tasks, or for apair or trio to discuss an idea and then joinanother pair or trio to compare and combinetheir ideas.

The student-led activities give studentsopportunity to practice using languageskills and social discourse, and reinforcea teacher's initial instruction. It is the stu-dent-led activities that enable students tobecome proficient in the new standards thataddress collaboration and communicatinginformation.

The cycles of instruction by teachers andwithin student groups can be made moreconcrete and purposeful by focusing oninquiry-based lessons and using the five Esmodel of engage, explore, explain, elaborateand evaluate (Bybee, 1997; Carr & Bert-rando, 2012).

During the engage stage, the teacher in-troduces the content and language objec-tives, presents the purpose ofthe lesson, andactivates students' prior knowledge aboutand interest in the topic. That is followedby the explore stage, in which the teacherguides student groups as they engage an in-quiry such as reading, researching and test-ing strategies. Student groups then discusswhat they learned during the explain stage.

When misconceptions or missing con-cepts are apparent, the teacher might adjustand return to the explore stage, or switchto a direct instruction mode for strugglingstudents. When students can explain keyconcepts they move to the elaboration stage,which involves more applications, general-izations, or deeper explorations. The evalu-ation stage occurs during the other four

stages; the teacher frequently checks for un-derstanding and adjusts the lesson accord-ingly for certain students.

How can a teacher support students wholearn in diverse ways or need extra guid-ance so they are successful in inquiry-basedlearning? The following top 10 strategies

and tools scaffold the learning experiencefor these students.

Recommended strategies and tools

While the top 10 recommended strate-gies and tools listed here will look familiar,teachers may be unaware of how the strate-gies can be integrated as a unique approachthat is highly effective for English learnersand students with learning disabilities. In-cluded are six strategies to scaffold contentlearning; two tools to build academic vo-cabulary; and two academic discourse toolsto embed new vocabulary in meaningfulcontexts.

Top six scaffoiding strategies

The top six scaffolding strategies shouldbe used frequently, if not daily. The first twoare quintessential and support the otherfour strategies.

• Visuals. A teacher breaks down tradi-tional "teacher talk" into smaller chunksthat are supported by visuals (Hall &Strangeman, 2002). Visuals can includegraphic organizers, real objects, pictures.

manipulatives, illustrations, media clips, orprojections on an interactive whiteboard.For example, a graphic organizer can be usedas an advance organizer to start a lesson; asa way to summarize important, connectedfacts during the lesson; and as alternativenotes to prepare for the summative assess-ment. Visuals are critical to support learningand provide concreteness to transient oraldiscourse, especially for students with learn-ing disabilities and English learners.

• Tiiini<-Pair-Share. Each student is di-rected to individually think for perhaps 15seconds to a minute about a question, infor-mation or a direction posed by the teacher.Then students come together to exchangeideas in pairs or trios. That can be followedby group representatives sharing theirgroup's ideas with the whole class (Erey,Fisher & Everlove, 2009). The sequence canlast from a few to perhaps 20 minutes, de-pending on the topic and age group. Insteadof one or two students frequently answeringa teacher's oral questions with or withoutwait time, all students are engaged in dis-cussing ideas in a nonthreatening context. Itis critical that a teacher strategically assignsstudents to groups to achieve optimal suc-cess for each student.

• Cues. Advance organizers, hints andquestions are types of cues to guide studentsin the right learning trajectory (Dean et al,2012). A teacher starts a lesson with an ad-vance organizer, a brief activity that intro-duces the lesson's objectives and links whatstudents will learn to what was learned inprior lessons, and relates the topic to stu-dents' cultures, interests and personal lives.A teacher might pose questions to identifyany students who are confused, and thenuse additional scaffolding to make the les-son objectives clear to all students. A teachermay at times link the content to be learnedto explicit examples from students' back-ground knowledge.

• Tiiink Aioud. Teachers can use ThinkAlouds by verbalizing their thoughts whilereading to model the thought processes thattake place in comprehending the text. Ateacher can use a Think Aloud coupled with

September/October 2012 25

visual cues (Barrera et ai, 2006) to modelhow to think through a process or problemand then have students demonstrate theirown thinking through Think Alouds witha partner or the teacher. This research-val-idated strategy has been shown to improvecognition because it teaches students to re-read text, read ahead to clarify understand-ing, and look for content clues to make senseof what was read as students monitor theirown understanding ofthe text. Looking forcontent clues is a skill explicitly addressedin the Common Core State Standards forreading comprehension and vocabulary ac-quisition.

• KWL. A KWL chart is a visual, three-column graphic organizer for note-takingor summarizing information during differ-ent phases of a lesson. It is a linguistic tool,whereas other visuals such as pictures arenonlinguistic. The three columns capturestudents' ideas: what students know already,want to learn, and what was learned (Albuset al., 2007). The three parts fit into the en-

gage, explore and explain stages in inquiry-based learning, and a teacher can elicitideas from more students by prefacing each"what" question with Think-Pair-Share.The KWL can help the teacher gain insightsinto the students' background knowledge.It also strategically plans how to connectthe new knowledge to the prior knowledgeof students, check for understanding oftheend ofthe lesson and clarify any miscon-ceptions offered in the "K" stage that wereproven false.

• Summarization. Teachers and studentssummarize chunks of information oftenduring a lesson, not just at the end (Thurlowet ai, 2008 ). Students who need more inten-sive guidance in the skill of summarizationlearn a step-by-step procedure, such as de-leting unimportant text, deleting words thatrepeat information, replacing unknownwith known words, and then finding or cre-ating a topic sentence (Dean et ai, 2012).Some students might be supported withhighlighted, bolded or annotated text, non-

A NEW WAYTO ACHiEVEONLINE COURSES PROVIDECHALLENGE AND FLEXIBILITY

National University Virtual High School(NUVHS) helps students stay on track,

, accelerate their progress, and take\ supplemental coursework to enhance their

academic experience.

• Core courses• Coilege prep ond AP*" courses• Media-rich, instructor-led courses• Part-time or full-time enrollment• Approvals: WASC, UC "a -g " .

College Board, NCAA, and NAIA

NOW ENROLLING

LEARN MORE!Call toll-free 866.366.8847 or visit nuvhs.org

NATIONAL UNIVERSITYVIRTUAL HIGH SCHOOL

AN AFflUATE OF JHi NATIONAL UNIVERSITY SYSTEM

linguistic illustrations, sentence frames or agraphic organizer as a note-taking template.

Top two academic vocabulary tools

• Enhanced Word Walls and the FrayerConcept Organizer are the top two tools thathelp students build academic vocabulary.A Concept Organizer allows multiple waysto define a key word so individual studentscan use one or a combination to understandthe word's meaning. The template can be alarge rectangle divided into four adjoiningrectangles, and the key word or term is ina small oval at the center. In each box, stu-dents define the key word/term in a differ-ent way. An example of four ways is a formaldefinition, characteristics, examples, and a"show what it means" sentence.

A traditional Word Wall contains or-ganized (e.g., alphabetical, word forms) orunorganized lists of words. An enhancedWord Wall contains a much briefer listof key words, often for a unit lesson, withbrief, informal definitions and/or illustra-tions or pictures that serve as cues about aword's meaning in the context ofthe lesson.Word walls should leverage cross-curricu-lar vocabulary. This requires collaborationamong teachers to identify the words andmake explicit how each word has a similaror different meaning in different disciplinesor contexts.

Top two discourse tools

• Sentence Frames and Discussion Sen-tence Starters scaffold students to com-municate ideas orally or in writing. Useful,challenging Sentence Frames require morethan writing one word in the blank space in asentence, and the sentences form paragraphsof complete ideas with details and examples.English learners at the more novice languagedevelopment levels likely need more textprovided in simple sentences. Students atmore proficient levels might only need thebeginning of a sentence and a few functionwords as cues to include details or examples,or to demonstrate a skill such as compareand contrast. The verbs in the CommonCore State Standards indicate the level ofcritical thinking expected of students.

Often an English learner or a studentContinued on page 38

26 Leadership

Top 10 instructional strategies for struggiing studentsContinued from page 26

with an expressive language processingdisability or weakness in social languageskills (Asperger's Syndrome/autism) is un-sure how to start a question or declarativesentence appropriately in a small groupdiscussion. Discussion Sentence Starters(Kinsella, 2007; Carr & Bertrando, 2012)as placards on the wall or in older students'notebooks can help those students expresstheir ideas. Some examples are: "My idea isthat..." and "What I hear you saying is..."The Common Core State Standards in Eng-lish-language arts for speaking and listen-ing target student conversations throughmultiple exchanges within formal and in-formal settings.

How school leaders can create habits

Following are three major leadershipstrategies for making these Top 10 strategiesand tools become school-wide habits and anintegral part of the school culture. Whenthis happens, the need for individualizedinstruction may be dramatically decreasedas more students "get it" during good firstteaching that addresses the diversity of stu-dents.

• Utilize continuous, job-embeddedprofessional development to improve in-structional practices. Provide professionaldevelopment to train teachers how to teacha diversified classroom targeting the new,more rigorous content standards. It takesa long time for teachers to incrementallyreach proficiency and a variety of supportsalong the way. Job-embedded supports suchas coaching and professional learning com-munities must follow any "outside" work-shops and institutes.

• Use data to assist with targeted profes-sional learning. Plan formal accountabilityto start as teachers learn and experimentwith the top 10. Make one goal focus onimplementation, such as increasing useof more strategies more frequently, withgreater fidelity and integration of strategies,and seeking help from a support systemwhen problems arise. Make a second goalfocus on impact, such as improving all stu-

dents' academic achievement as measuredby local assessments at key times duringthe school year. District and school lead-ers conduct classroom observations (walkthroughs) regularly. Leaders use this datato plan how to better support teachers aslearners. Leaders and teachers use studentachievement data to plan how to better sup-port students to become proficient on stan-dards.

• Practice and reflect. Remember that newpractices take time and many repetitions toperfect, progress to routines or habits, and

become deeply ingrained in the school cul-ture. Remember that there are reasons whyteachers once learned and tried some of thetop 10 strategies but reverted back to old hab-its over time; identify why and avoid thoselandmines. H

References

Barrera, M.; Liu, K.; Thurlow, M.; Shyyan,V.; Yan, M. & Chamberlain, S. (2006).Math strategy instruction for studentswith disabilities who are learning English(ELLs with Disabilities Report 15). Min-neapolis: University of Minnesota, Na-tional Center on Education Outcomes.

Bybee, R.W. (1997). Achieving scientific lit-eracy: Erom purposes to practices. Ports-mouth, NH: Heinemann.

Carr, J. & Bertrando, S. (2012). TeachingEnglish learners and students with learn-ing difficulties in an inclusive classroom:A guidebook for teachers. San Francisco:WestEd.

Carr, J.; Carroll, C; Cremer, S.; Gale, M.;Lagunoff, R. & Sexton, U. (2007). Mak-ing mathematics accessible to Englishlearners: A guidebook for teachers. SanFrancisco: WestEd.

Carr, J.; Sexton, U. & Lagunoff, R. (2007,updated edition). Making science acces-sible to English learners: A guidebook forteachers. San Francisco: WestEd. www.wested.org/cs/we/view/rs/849.

Dean, C.B.; Hubbell, E.R.; Pitler, H. &Stone, B.J. (2012). Classroom instructionthat works: Research-based strategies forincreasing student achievement. Alexan-dria, VA: Association for Supervisionand Curriculum Development.

Frayer, D.; Frederick, W.C. & Klausmeier,H.J. (1969). A schema for testing the levelof cognitive mastery. Madison: Wiscon-sin Center for Education Research.

Frey, N.; Fisher, D. & Everlove, S. (2009).Productive group work: How to engagestudents, build teamwork, and promoteunderstanding. Alexandria, VA: Asso-ciation for Supervision and CurriculumDevelopment.

Hall, T. & Strangeman, N. (2002). Craphicorganizers. Wakefield, MA: NationalCenter on Accessing the General Cur-riculum. Retrieved from http://aim.cast.org/learn/historyarchive/background-papers/graphic_organizers.

Kinsella, K. (2007). Language strategies foractive classroom participation. Last ac-cessed 1/11/11 from http://www.sccoe.org/depts/ell/kinsella.asp.

Thurlow, M.; Syyan, V.; Barrera, M. & Liu,K. (2008). Delphi study of instructionalstrategies for English language learnerswith disabilities: Recommendations fromeducators nationwide. (ELLs with Dis-abilities Report 21). Minneapolis: Uni-versity of Minnesota, National Centeron Educational Outcomes.

John Carr is senior research associate at WestEd.

Sharen Bertrando is a special education resource

specialist. Center for Prevention and Eariy

Intervention, WestEd

38 Leadership

Copyright of Leadership is the property of Association of California School Administrators and its content may

not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written

permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.