Delivering Instruction - What Do Teachers Need to Know About Delivering Instruction?

Oct 10, 2026

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Instruction for students with disabilities emphasizes an explicit teaching approach that combines modeling and practice with embedded supports. The guidance explains benefits of explicit instruction for reading, writing, and mathematics, contrasting it with discovery-based methods. It outlines how teachers model skills using clear step-by-step explanations and planned examples, then structure guided and independent practice. Teachers should ask and vary questions, elicit frequent responses, provide immediate affirmative or corrective feedback, and maintain a brisk pace while ensuring coordination with general educators.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages6

Reading Time15 min

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Delivering Instruction

Explicit Instruction in Special Education

Delivering Instruction for Students With Disabilities

Access to the General Education Classroom

How to Get Started Delivering Instruction

References

Delivering Instruction What Do Teachers Need to Know About Delivering Instruction? When delivering instruction for students with disabilities, teachers should consider the following threephase cycle for individual, small-group, and whole-group instruction: In this brief, we focus on the DELIVER phase of the three-phase cycle. See the PLAN brief and the REVIEW and INTENSIFY brief for information about the other phases. In special education, teachers should deliver instruction within academics and behavior that is explicit. We define the term “explicit instruction” as a meaningful combination of modeling and practice with embedded supports. Instruction that is explicit may be referred to with other terms, such as systematic instruction (Smith et al., 2016) or direct instruction (Stockard et al., 2018) . Researchers have identified benefits to using this instructional approach within the teaching of reading (Foorman et al., 2016), writing (Graham et al., 2016), and mathematics (Fuchs et al., 2021) . Furthermore, researchers have noted that people learn through modeling and practice—both in and outside the classroom (Kirschner et al., 2006; Rosenshine, 2010) . Researchers also have noted an explicit approach to instruction is an improved teaching method compared with discovery-based approaches (Alfieri et al., 2011), especially when teaching students with disabilities (e.g., Jitendra et al., 2018) . Delivering Instruction for Students With Disabilities Explicit instruction is a combination of modeling and practice. Within both modeling and practice, teachers use several supports. The following diagram provides a general overview (National Center on Intensive Intervention [NCII], n.d. ): In modeling, the teacher models. • Clear explanation. Teachers demonstrate (i.e., model) and verbally explain how to perform a skill. This modeling shows students how to do a skill step-by-step. Modeling is a think-aloud process for solving a problem. • Planned examples. During modeling, an educator carefully plans which examples to use. Teachers may choose to use worked examples or nonexamples within modeling. A teacher may model with one or several examples. During practice, students rehearse what the teacher modeled. Practice is where students learn, so practice is essential (Gersten et al., 2008) . Practice may occur in several formats, as follows. • Guided practice. With guided practice, students practice with the teacher. Everyone is working on the material focused on the same learning goal. Guided practice provides scaffolding for students as they learn new material. Sometimes, guided practice occurs with other peers as students work on material together. • Independent practice. With independent practice, students practice individually with teacher support. This releases the scaffold for students so that they can begin to master the material on their own. Teachers may lean on technology to vary the types of independent practice opportunities. During both modeling and practice, teachers should employ several supports to engage students and check for understanding. These supports provide the opportunities to respond that increase student engagement and correct responses (Common et al., 2020; MacSuga-Gage & Simonsen, 2015) . • Ask questions. Teachers should ask students a mix of high-level (e.g., why or how questions) and low-level (e.g., what or when) questions to check for understanding. • Elicit frequent responses. Teachers should involve the students frequently, often referred to as opportunities to respond (Haydon et al., 2012) . Students should be active participants in the learning during practice and modeling. • Provide feedback. As students respond to questions, teachers need to provide immediate feedback. Some of the feedback may be affirmative, and some may be corrective. If students demonstrate a misconception or error, it is important to provide immediate corrective feedback. • Maintain a brisk

FAQs

What is explicit instruction in special education?

Explicit instruction combines modeling and practice with embedded supports, using modeling to show skills step-by-step and practice for students to rehearse what was modeled.

What supports should teachers use during modeling and practice?

Teachers should provide supports that increase engagement and check for understanding, including ask-and-answer questioning, eliciting frequent responses, giving immediate feedback, and maintaining a brisk instructional pace.

How can teachers coordinate instruction with general education classrooms?

Communication with general educators is key: discuss content and learning strategies, and use the instructional components described here so students with disabilities can learn effectively, even when classrooms use problem-based learning.

Oct 10, 2026

Uploaded by Melati