Explicit and Systematic Literacy Instruction

Explicit Instruction

With explicit instruction, teachers clearly and directly identify the skill, strategy, or concept to be learned and teach in an unambiguous and structured way (Archer & Hughes, 2011). Research shows that students need explicit literacy instruction that is interactive, engaging students in thinking, writing, and discussion. For example, when teaching the diagraph /wh/ students could write sight words that start with wh on their white boards. Teaching reading that engages writing, discussion, and thinking is integrated literacy instruction, another research suggested best practice. In this way, explicit instruction is not passive, it is active. Interaction and a brisk pace keep students focused on the learning at hand. Consider this quote from a research article by Nell Duke and colleagues (2018):

In the effective teachers' classrooms, lessons were briskly paced with a clear focus. Across the grade levels, the effective teachers monitored time carefully and set clear limits for particular tasks and sub-tasks (e.g., planning a piece of writing). The teachers checked on students' progress often and continually refocused students' attention on the literacy tasks. All of this created a climate in which students were compelled to focus, work hard, and complete tasks.

With explicit instruction, it is important for teachers to monitor students' understanding, provide feedback, and gradually release responsibility for learning to students over time. Once students can independently use a strategy or transfer a skill to a different context, then teachers can provide students opportunities for for other types of learning to expand their critical and creative thinking, such as inquiry-based or project-based learning. Watch the video below to hear when to use explicit instruction.

Systematic Instruction

Systematic means that there is an intentional sequence for the scope of the curriculum moving from simpler skills or concepts to more complex. Another way that literacy learning can be systematic is by making intentional decisions about how to break down literacy into discrete parts for learning. Teachers chunk the learning into parts and check for understanding before moving forward. Systematic instruction is carefully planned so that students have the necessary prior knowledge to learn the new. Most importantly, teachers connect the new learning to prior learning and periodically review to monitor students' maintenance of the skill or to deepen understanding of a concept over time. At the same time, literacy learning should be contextualized and integrated as often as possible with opportunities to hear, see, talk, read, write, and think about meaningful, authentic texts. The following video from IES explains the importance of explicit and systematic phonics instruction.