Essentials of Evidence Based Academic Interventions- Takeaways

10 Effective Teaching Principles:
1. Active engagement
2. Build- in success
3. Opportunity to learn
4. Direct instruction
5. Scaffold instruction
6. Address forms of knowledge (declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge)
7. Organizing and activating knowledge
8. Teach stratgically
9. Explicit instruction
10. Teach sameness

"Three elements of instruction can be differentiated: the content (what is to be learned), the process (how it is to be learned), and the product (the way mastery is demonstrated).

"The goal of working toward reading fluency has only a little to do with fluency instruction itself.  Just like decoding accuracy, fluency is a bridge toward comprehension and the desire to read more, which will ultimately enable deeper comprehension.  Fluency, therefore, is a means- just like decoding- to a higher end than itself.  For the end of all our efforts is a child who read accurately enough and fluently enough to understand what she reads and to reach for more."

"...effective fluency interventions include: (a) provision of an explicit model of fluent reading, (b) multiple readings of text with corrective feedback on missed words, and (c) established performance criteria for increasing the difficulty level of the text."

"Students should first become accurate readers before an emphasis is placed on speed of reading."

Recommendations for Increasing Fluency:
-Select interesting passages
-Ensure active engagement
-Have students engage in multiple readings
-Use instructional- level text

"Instruction should not focus on reading faster for the safe of reading faster without giving commensurate attention to comprehension- the ultimate goal of reading instruction."

National Reading Panel Findings Related to Vocabulary
"Vocabulary should be taught directly and indirectly.  Words must be seen multiple times and in multiple contexts, language rich environments foster incidental learning of vocabulary, technology helps develop vocabulary, no one single method works best all of the time for teaching vocabulary."

"...writing may be the most complex task students are asked to perform in school because it requires the integration of so many different skills."