How can school personnel intensify and individualize instruction?

It is critical to maximize a student’s learning time. Teachers can do this by:

• Prioritizing what they want the student to know
• Aligning the instructional content with the student’s needs as determined by data

Systematic instruction is carefully planned and sequenced so that lessons build on one another, moving from simple skills and concepts to more complex ones or from high-frequency skills to low-frequency skills. Systematic instruction involves:

• Breaking complex skills into smaller, more manageable chunks, a method also known as task analysis. View sample task analysis

  Task: adding two two-digit numbers

  Step 1:	Add the numbers in the one’s column.
  Step 2:	If the sum is less than 10, write the number under the one’s column. If the sum is 10 or greater, write the one’s digit under the one’s column and write the ten’s digit on top of the ten’s column.
  Step 3:	Add the numbers in the ten’s column. If applicable, be sure to include the number you carried.
  Step 4:	Write the sum of the numbers under the ten’s column.

• Prioritizing and sequencing tasks from easy to more difficult
• Scaffolding instruction by providing temporary supports (e.g., manipulatives, written prompts or cues)

Explicit (or direct) instruction involves teaching a specific skill or concept in a highly structured manner. It is often used for teaching new skills or teaching students to generalize knowledge to novel settings. During explicit instruction, the teacher:

• Clearly identifies the expectations for learning
• Highlights important details of the concept or skill
• Gives precise instructions
• Models concepts or procedures
• Connects new learning to previously learned material

View step-by-step explanation of explicit instruction

Students receiving intensive intervention often miss or have difficulty with what is being taught because they struggle to process the meaning of the words their teacher is using. Teachers can address this issue by making sure they use precise, simple, and replicable language. They can do this by:

• Using words the student understands and can use
• Keeping instructions and requests short and clear
• Once the student understands a concept, expressing that concept in a consistent manner

For example, Explanation 1 below is too long, too detailed, and repeats the same idea in several ways. On the other hand, Explanation 2 provides a short, clear, and precise description.

Explanation 1: The letter c can make two different sounds. Sometimes it will say /k/. This happens when it is followed by a, o, u, or any consonant except h. In other cases, c makes the /s/ sound, when it comes before e, i, or y.

Explanation 2: C says /k/ in front of a, o, u. It says /s/ in front of e, i and y.

When students have multiple opportunities to respond and explain how they arrived at an answer, the teacher can:

• Monitor student understanding of concepts and procedures
• Offer immediate, corrective feedback to the student in a positive manner

Specific feedback communicates which aspects of a task a student performed correctly and which he or she performed incorrectly. Feedback should be clear, specific, and tied to the student’s actions.

One of the most effective types of feedback is error correction. When a student makes errors, the teacher should:

• Explain why the answer was incorrect
• Model the correct response
• Ask the student to provide a correct response before moving on
• Ask the student to explain his or her process for arriving at the correct answer (i.e., self talk)
• Recheck for correct answers later in the lesson

View an example of how to provide specific feedback with error correction

In order to learn new information, students with disabilities need 10–30 times more practice opportunities than their peers. Teachers can create practice opportunities in the form of:

• Guided practice—With teacher supervision and support, students practice a previously modeled or taught skill.
• Independent practice—Students work either individually or in small groups after they begin to demonstrate mastery of the new skills or content to develop fluency. Teachers should schedule time during class for independent practice to have an opportunity to monitor students and provide additional instruction to those who need it before assigning homework.