What are the key features of direct and explicit instruction? Why are these features so vital for the instruction of students with learning or reading disabilities?
Week 4 Discussion: Direct and Explicit Instruction
The function of Explicit and Direct instruction is to teach students, phonological awareness; letter-sound correspondences; and the alphabetic principle (Vaughn & Bos, 2019, p.198). In order to teach these Explicit instruction uses the methodology of phonic analysis, structural analysis, and syllabication to decode unknown words. The key features of Direct and Explicit Instruction are-
- The correspondence between the letter and sound is instructed in a systematic manner. The students are taught to blend the sounds in order to formulate the words and to spell the words they are taught to segment the sounds.
- The instructions provided to the students are done in a scaffolded manner. Through the usage of such a manner of instruction, it is ensured that the instruction has modeling, guidance as well as positive and corrective feedback.
- This kind of instruction provides multiple opportunities for both review and practice in contexts of various kinds. This context could be reading texts, participating in games with word cards, and constructing sentences.
These features are extremely important for the instruction of students with learning or reading disabilities because, through this approach, the instruction is broken down into pieces. The specific steps in which the instructions are broken down aid the students in repeatedly practicing and ultimately grasping their required lesson. The emphasis that explicit instruction provides on phonological awareness, and strategies related to word identification that depends on phonics, onset-rime, and structural analysis, is also beneficial for students with learning disabilities and reading difficulties. Therefore, it is important that explicit instructions are a part of developing a balanced reading approach amongst students with learning disabilities.
Reference
Vaughn, S., & Bos, C. (2019, October 19). Strategies for Teaching Students with Learning and Behavior Problems (10th ed.). Pearson.
