Instruction Resources Menu

A positive classroom environment is achieved through deliberate, clear behavioral expectations, strategic use of space and materials, and cultivation of self-awareness as students progress toward their “Personal Best” work. Support engagement and minimize distractions by maintaining proximity, utilizing seating arrangements that facilitate eye contact, and encouraging peer interaction. If well established, the classroom environment functions as an operating system running in the background, allowing focus to shift toward instructional content.

Teacher-Delivered Behavioral Interventions in Grades K-5. A Practice Guide for Educators: This practice guide provides evidence-based classroom behavior strategies for K–5 educators to increase prosocial behavior, reduce disruptive conduct, and build positive learning environments. It offers seven actionable recommendations such as teaching clear expectations, using praise and rewards, increasing student engagement, promoting self-monitoring, and giving behavior feedback. The guide is designed for teachers, paraeducators, and other adults who support student learning.

Effects of Teacher Greetings on Student On-Task Behavior: This study found that when teachers greeted students positively at the classroom door, students showed higher levels of on-task behavior during the first minutes of class, suggesting greetings are a simple and effective classroom management strategy.

Seating Arrangements That Promote Positive Academic and Behavioral Outcomes: A Review of Empirical Research: This research review finds that classroom seating arrangements should match the learning task, with rows generally improving on-task behavior and reducing disruption during independent work, while groups or semicircles better support collaboration, discussion, and questioning.

Examining the Evidence Base for School-Wide Positive Behavior Support: This article reviews research on School-Wide Positive Behavior Support and concludes that it is an evidence-based framework that improves student behavior, school climate, and academic outcomes through tiered prevention and intervention practices.

Considerations of Baseline Classroom Conditions in Conducting Functional Behavior Assessments in School Settings: This article explains that when conducting functional behavior assessments in schools, practitioners should first examine baseline classroom conditions—such as opportunities to respond, curriculum appropriateness, teacher feedback, and transitions—because improving these class-wide practices can reduce disruptive behavior and enhance academic outcomes before individualized interventions are needed.

Executive Functions for Every K-3 Classroom: This book provides practical strategies for K–3 teachers to strengthen students’ executive functioning and self-regulation skills, helping young learners develop the organization, attention, and behavior needed for academic success.

Teach Like a Champion Competence and Trust Part III: Student-Teacher Relationship Building: This text argues that strong student-teacher relationships are built when teachers use effective instructional techniques that help students feel successful, safe, and known, rather than viewing relationship-building as separate from good teaching practice.

Instructional design is the careful planning and organization of lessons to make learning clear, efficient, and successful for students. Lessons should have clear objectives and be sequenced from simple to more complex skills. Teachers model new learning, provide guided practice, and gradually release responsibility to students. Frequent checks for understanding and immediate feedback are used to ensure students are successful. Archer emphasizes that strong instructional design increases engagement, confidence, and long-term learning.

Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning: IES Practice Guide: This practice guide presents evidence-based recommendations for helping students learn more effectively by using instructional strategies such as spaced practice, interleaving, retrieval practice, and effective study routines.

Cognitive Science Approaches in the Classroom: A Review of the Evidence: This report reviews classroom applications of cognitive science, finding that strategies such as spaced practice, retrieval practice, managing cognitive load, and schema-building can improve learning when implemented thoughtfully and adapted to specific contexts.

Top 20 Principles From Psychology for PreK–12 Teaching and Learning: This resource summarizes 20 key principles from psychology that support effective PreK–12 teaching and learning, including motivation, memory, development, classroom management, and assessment practices that improve student success.

The Effectiveness of Direct Instruction Curricula: A Meta-Analysis of a Half Century of Research: This meta-analysis of 50 years of research found that Direct Instruction curricula produce consistently positive and educationally significant effects across subjects such as reading, math, language, and spelling for a wide range of learners.

Ten Instructional Design Efforts to Help Behavior Analysts Take Up the Torch of Direct Instruction: This article outlines ten Direct Instruction design principles that behavior analysts can use to create efficient, systematic teaching that builds generative skills and improves learner outcomes across settings.

Faultless Communication: The Heart and Soul of DI: This article explains that “faultless communication” is the core principle of Direct Instruction, emphasizing the careful design of teaching so learners receive one clear, logical interpretation, reducing confusion and maximizing successful learning outcomes for all students.

Explicit Instruction as the Essential Tool for Executing the Science of Reading: This article explains that explicit instruction is a key evidence-based practice within the science of reading, emphasizing clear modeling, guided practice, feedback, scaffolding, and purposeful practice to help all students—especially struggling readers—learn to read successfully.

Building a More Effective, Equitable, and Compassionate Educational System: The Role of Direct Instruction: This article argues that Direct Instruction can help create a more effective, equitable, and compassionate educational system by using research-based teaching methods that significantly improve academic outcomes for students from all backgrounds.

Features of Direct Instruction: Interactive Lessons: This article explains how Direct Instruction uses interactive lessons with clear teacher-student communication, active responding, scaffolded practice, flexible grouping, and ongoing feedback to maximize student learning and mastery.

Why Unguided Learning Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Discovery Learning, Problem-Based Learning, Experiential Learning, and Inquiry-Based Learning: This article argues that minimally guided approaches such as discovery, inquiry, and problem-based learning are generally less effective and less efficient than explicit, well-guided instruction because they overload novice learners’ cognitive resources and hinder learning.

Five Meanings of Direct Instruction: This article explains five different meanings of “direct instruction,” distinguishing teacher-led teaching, evidence-based effective teaching practices, cognitive strategy instruction, the DISTAR model, and negative misconceptions often associated with the term.

Teach More in Less Time: Introduction to the Special Section on Direct Instruction: This article introduces a special issue on Direct Instruction, highlighting its research base, core design principles, and effectiveness as a systematic teaching approach that helps educators teach more efficiently and improve student outcomes.

Just How Effective Is Direct Instruction?: This article reviews decades of evidence on Direct Instruction, arguing that it is one of the most effective research-based educational approaches for significantly improving student achievement across diverse learners and settings.

Teaching for How Students Learn: Practice Guides: This AERO resource collection provides evidence-based practice guides aligned to a learning and teaching model, helping teachers and school leaders use effective strategies for classroom environment, planning, explicit instruction, scaffolding, review, and student learning outcomes.

Features of Direct Instruction: Content Analysis: This article explains how Direct Instruction uses content analysis to identify generative concepts, rules, and relationships that help students learn more efficiently and apply skills to new situations across subjects such as spelling, math, science, language, and narrative comprehension.

In His Own Words: Siegfried “Zig” Engelmann Talks About What’s Wrong With Education and How to Fix It: This article presents Siegfried “Zig” Engelmann’s perspectives on what is wrong with education and how schools can improve through clear, systematic, and evidence-based teaching methods. It highlights his advocacy for Direct Instruction and the importance of effective teaching to ensure all students can succeed.

What the Most Successful Teachers Do: The Fascinating Story of Barak Rosenshine and His Ten Principles of Instruction: This article summarizes Barak Rosenshine’s Ten Principles of Instruction, explaining how the practices of highly effective teachers—such as review, small-step teaching, questioning, modeling, guided practice, and regular review—improve student learning and retention.

Principles of Instruction: Research-Based Strategies That All Teachers Should Know: This article outlines ten research-based principles of effective teaching—such as review, small-step instruction, questioning, modeling, guided practice, scaffolding, and ongoing review—that help teachers improve student learning and retention.

Putting Students on the Path to Learning: The Case for Fully Guided Instruction: This article argues that decades of cognitive science research show novice learners learn new material more effectively through fully guided, explicit instruction with modeling, practice, and feedback than through discovery or minimally guided approaches.

Clear Teacher Explanations I: Examples & Non-Examples: This resource explains how clear teacher explanations can be strengthened through the use of examples and non-examples, helping students better understand concepts, identify critical features, and avoid common misconceptions.

Instructional delivery is the way teachers actively present and teach content so students remain engaged and successful during lessons. Effective delivery includes clear explanations, concise language, modeling, and frequent opportunities for students to respond. Teachers maintain a brisk pace, check for understanding often, and provide immediate corrective feedback when needed. Archer also emphasizes enthusiasm, active participation, and maintaining student attention throughout instruction. Strong instructional delivery helps students learn efficiently and stay motivated.

Exploring the Foundations of Explicit Instruction: This sample chapter explains the foundations of explicit instruction, describing it as a structured, systematic teaching approach that uses clear modeling, guided practice, active participation, and feedback to improve student learning outcomes.

Opportunities to Respond: A Key Component of Effective Instruction: This article explains that Opportunities to Respond (OTRs) are teacher prompts, questions, or cues that actively engage students by requiring them to respond verbally, physically, or in writing during instruction. The authors describe how increasing OTRs improves student engagement, academic performance, and on-task behavior while reducing disruptive behaviors.

Improving Educational Outcomes in America: Can a Low-Tech, Generic Teaching Practice Make a Difference: This article examines whether a simple, low-cost instructional practice called Active Student Responding (ASR) can improve educational outcomes in American schools. The authors argue that increasing frequent student participation through strategies such as choral responding, guided questioning, and immediate feedback can significantly boost engagement, learning, and behavior, offering an effective alternative to expensive or complex school reform efforts.

Intensive Intervention Practice Guide: Increasing Opportunities to Respond as an Intensive Intervention: This practice guide explains how increasing opportunities to respond can be used as an intensive intervention to improve student engagement, academic performance, and appropriate classroom behavior.

Ten Instructional Design Efforts to Help Behavior Analysts Take Up the Torch of Direct Instruction: This article outlines ten instructional design strategies that help behavior analysts apply principles of Direct Instruction to improve teaching effectiveness and student learning outcomes.

Explicit Instruction: This resource explains how explicit instruction uses clear modeling, guided practice, and structured teaching to help students learn skills effectively and efficiently.

Explicit Instruction: Historical and Contemporary Contexts: This article reviews the history and current use of explicit instruction, highlighting its effectiveness as a structured, evidence-based approach for improving student learning outcomes.

Features of Direct Instruction: Interactive Lessons: This article describes how interactive lessons are a key feature of Direct Instruction, emphasizing active student participation, immediate feedback, and structured teaching to improve learning.

Modelling & Thinking Aloud One Pager: This one-pager explains how modeling and thinking aloud help students learn by demonstrating processes, strategies, and reasoning step-by-step during instruction.

Explicit Instruction: Australian Education Research Organisation: This resource from the Australian Education Research Organisation explains how explicit instruction uses clear explanations, modeling, guided practice, and structured lessons to improve student learning outcomes.

Feedback Practices on Young Students’ Oral Reading: A Systematic Review: This systematic review examines how feedback practices during young students’ oral reading can improve reading accuracy, fluency, and overall literacy development.

Enhancing Engagement Through Active Student Response: This article explains how active student response strategies increase engagement, participation, and learning by involving students directly during instruction.

The Effect of Cold-Calling on Voluntary Participation in a Middle School Science Classroom: This article examines how cold-calling influences student participation in a middle school science classroom, focusing on whether regularly calling on students increases voluntary participation, engagement, and involvement in classroom discussions.

Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) Tried and Tested – Formative Assessment: This AERO resource explains how formative assessment helps teachers gather evidence of student learning during lessons so they can adjust instruction, provide feedback, and improve student progress. It offers practical, evidence-based strategies for checking understanding and using assessment to guide next steps in learning.

5 Research Articles for Amplifying Assessment and Feedback: This resource highlights five research articles focused on improving assessment and feedback practices, showing how effective feedback and evidence-based assessment strategies can enhance student learning, engagement, and achievement.

A School Leader’s Guide to Implementing How Teaching and Learning Happens: This guide supports school leaders in implementing effective teaching and learning practices by translating research into actionable strategies for improving instruction, building staff capacity, and increasing student outcomes.

Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) Practice Guide – Teach Explicitly: This AERO practice guide explains how teachers can use explicit instruction through clear explanations, modeling, guided practice, and manageable learning steps to improve student understanding and achievement. It emphasizes reducing cognitive overload while building knowledge and skills before students work independently.

Ode to Zig (and the Bard): In Support of an Incomplete Logical-Empirical Model of Direct Instruction: This article reflects on the contributions of Zig Engelmann and supports the principles of Direct Instruction, arguing that its evidence-based yet evolving model remains highly valuable for improving teaching and student learning outcomes.

Students receive structured opportunities to apply and strengthen new and old learning. Effective practice begins with guided practice supported by the teacher and gradually moves to independent practice as students gain skill and confidence. Practice should be purposeful, sufficient, and aligned to the lesson objective; while also incorporating retrieval practice so students actively recall previously learned material that is spaced and distributed over time rather than completed in one sitting to strengthen retention and fluency. Teachers monitor student performance, provide feedback, and correct errors during practice so students can successfully retain and apply learning.

Retrieval Practice: This resource library provides free, research-based materials on retrieval practice and other learning strategies, including guides, templates, and classroom tools that help teachers improve student memory, engagement, and long-term learning.

Retrieval Practice and Transfer of Learning: Fostering Students’ Application of Knowledge: This article explores how retrieval practice not only improves memory retention but also supports transfer of learning by helping students apply knowledge and skills in new contexts. The authors explain how recalling information strengthens understanding and promotes deeper, more flexible learning.

Ten Ways to Use Retrieval Practice in the Classroom: This Education Week article outlines ten practical ways teachers can use retrieval practice in the classroom to strengthen memory, increase engagement, and improve long-term learning. It shares classroom strategies such as brain dumps, low-stakes quizzes, discussion prompts, and written recall activities that help students actively retrieve previously learned information.

The Bell Ringer: Most Schools Botch Retrieval Practice: This article features a video discussing how many schools incorrectly implement retrieval practice and offers guidance on using it more effectively. It emphasizes that strong retrieval practice should be purposeful, research-based, and designed to improve long-term retention and understanding.

How to Use Retrieval Practice to Improve Learning: This article explains how teachers and learners can use retrieval practice to improve learning by actively recalling information rather than passively reviewing it. The authors provide practical strategies for using low-stakes quizzes, questioning, and spaced recall to strengthen memory and long-term retention.

Retrieval Practice and Transfer of Learning: Fostering Students’ Application of Knowledge: This article examines how retrieval practice supports transfer of learning by helping students apply knowledge and skills in new situations. It explains that actively recalling information strengthens understanding, promotes flexible thinking, and improves the ability to use learning beyond initial instruction.

Effective Approaches for Scheduling and Formatting Practice: Distributed, Cumulative, and Interleaved Practice: This article examines effective ways to schedule and organize practice, focusing on distributed, cumulative, and interleaved practice. It explains how these approaches improve retention, deepen understanding, and help students apply learning more successfully over time.

Massed Practice in Psychology: Definition, Benefits, and Limitations. NeuroLaunch: This article explains massed practice as learning or studying in concentrated sessions with little spacing between practice opportunities. It discusses potential short-term benefits for immediate performance while noting limitations such as weaker long-term retention and increased cognitive fatigue.

Powerful Teaching: This book explains evidence-based teaching strategies that strengthen learning through retrieval practice, spacing, interleaving, and feedback. It provides practical classroom approaches teachers can use to improve retention, understanding, and long-term student achievement.

How to Use Spaced Retrieval Practice to Boost Learning: This article explains how spaced retrieval practice can boost learning by combining active recall with review spread over time. It highlights how this approach strengthens memory, improves long-term retention, and helps students retain knowledge more effectively.

The Distributed Practice Effect on Classroom Learning: A Meta-Analytic Review of Applied Research: This meta-analytic review examines how distributed practice affects classroom learning across applied research studies. It shows that spacing learning over time improves retention, achievement, and long-term understanding compared with massed practice.

Teaching Exceptional Children: Integrating Practice Opportunities Within Explicit Instruction: This full issue of Teaching Exceptional Children focuses on integrating practice opportunities within explicit instruction to improve student learning. It explores research-based strategies for providing guided, independent, and repeated practice that build accuracy, fluency, retention, and successful skill application.

Scaffolding (We Do, You Do): Explicit Teaching Technique Guide: This guide explains scaffolding as an explicit teaching technique that gradually shifts responsibility from teacher support (“we do”) to independent student practice (“you do”). It highlights how guided practice and gradual release help students build confidence, understanding, and independence.

Why Education Experts Resist Effective Practices (And What It Would Take to Make Education More Like Medicine): This article examines why many education experts resist adopting evidence-based instructional practices, even when research strongly supports them. It argues that education could improve by becoming more like medicine, where decisions are guided by rigorous evidence, ongoing evaluation, and proven methods rather than tradition or ideology.

Assisting Students Struggling with Reading: Response to Intervention: This What Works Clearinghouse practice guide provides evidence-based recommendations for helping students who struggle with reading in the primary grades through Response to Intervention (RTI) and multi-tiered supports. It offers practical strategies for screening students, delivering targeted instruction, monitoring progress, and improving early reading outcomes.

Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding: This What Works Clearinghouse practice guide explains how to teach foundational reading skills in kindergarten through third grade. It provides evidence-based recommendations for developing phonological awareness, phonics, decoding, vocabulary, and fluent reading to support strong reading comprehension.

Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices: This What Works Clearinghouse practice guide provides evidence-based recommendations for improving adolescent literacy in middle and high schools. It offers practical strategies for teaching reading comprehension, vocabulary, writing, and engagement to help older students succeed across content areas.

Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4–9: This What Works Clearinghouse practice guide provides evidence-based recommendations for delivering reading interventions to students in grades 4–9 who experience reading difficulties. It offers practical strategies for improving word reading, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and overall literacy outcomes through targeted instruction.

Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade: This practice guide provides evidence-based recommendations for improving reading comprehension in kindergarten through third grade. It offers practical strategies for teaching vocabulary, text understanding, comprehension monitoring, and discussion skills to build strong early literacy outcomes.

Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to English Learners in Elementary and Middle School: This What Works Clearinghouse practice guide provides evidence-based recommendations for teaching academic content and literacy to English learners in elementary and middle school. It offers practical strategies for building vocabulary, integrating language instruction into content areas, supporting writing development, and providing targeted interventions for students who need additional support.

Using Strive-for-Five Conversations to Strengthen Language Comprehension in Preschool Through Grade One: This resource explains how Strive-for-Five conversations can strengthen language comprehension in preschool through grade one by encouraging extended back-and-forth discussions. It highlights how purposeful talk builds vocabulary, oral language, and early comprehension skills.

Intensifying Reading Interventions by Making Instruction More Explicit: This resource explains how to intensify reading interventions by making instruction more explicit through clear modeling, guided practice, immediate feedback, and carefully sequenced lessons. It highlights how increased instructional clarity and support can improve outcomes for students with persistent reading difficulties.

National Center on Improving Literacy: The National Center on Improving Literacy is a federally funded organization that provides free, evidence-based resources to help families, educators, and schools improve reading outcomes for students, including those with dyslexia and other literacy-related difficulties. Its tools and guides focus on effective instruction, screening, intervention, and family support to strengthen literacy success from preschool through high school.

Text Project: TextProject is a literacy organization that provides research-based resources designed to improve reading achievement, vocabulary, and access to complex texts for students. It offers free instructional materials, decodable and informational texts, and tools that support teachers in building knowledge and reading proficiency.

Reading Universe: Reading Universe is a free online resource that provides research-based tools, lessons, and professional learning to help educators teach reading effectively. It focuses on the science of reading and offers practical support in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and intervention.

The Reading League: The Reading League is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing evidence-aligned reading instruction through professional development, resources, and advocacy. It supports educators with research-based guidance grounded in the science of reading to improve literacy outcomes for all students.

International Dyslexia Association: The International Dyslexia Association is a nonprofit organization that provides research-based resources, advocacy, and professional learning focused on dyslexia and effective reading instruction. It supports educators, families, and professionals with guidance on identification, intervention, and structured literacy practices to improve literacy outcomes.

The Simple View of Reading and Its Broad Types of Reading Difficulties (Hoover, 2023): This article explains the Simple View of Reading, which states that reading comprehension depends on both word recognition and language comprehension. It also describes broad types of reading difficulties that can occur when students struggle in one or both of these areas.

Special Issue: The Science of Reading: Supports, Critiques, and Questions: This special issue examines the science of reading by presenting key supports, critiques, and ongoing questions related to reading research and instruction. It explores evidence-based practices, differing perspectives, and important considerations for improving literacy teaching and student outcomes.

Amplify Science of Reading: The Podcast: Amplify Science of Reading: The Podcast explores research, instructional practices, and current issues related to evidence-based reading instruction. Through expert interviews and practical discussions, it helps educators apply the science of reading to improve literacy outcomes for students.

Comprehension for Emergent Readers: Revisiting the Reading Rope: This article revisits the Reading Rope framework to explain how comprehension develops for emergent readers. It highlights the importance of language, background knowledge, vocabulary, and early decoding skills working together to support beginning reading success.

10 Maxims: What We’ve Learned So Far About How Children Learn to Read: This article presents ten key lessons about how children learn to read, summarizing research on effective literacy development and instruction. It highlights principles such as the importance of phonemic awareness, decoding, language comprehension, and systematic teaching practices.

Teaching Math to Young Children: This What Works Clearinghouse practice guide provides evidence-based recommendations for supporting elementary students who struggle in mathematics. The guide outlines instructional practices such as systematic instruction, mathematical language, visual representations, number lines, word-problem instruction, and timed fluency activities to improve students’ mathematical understanding and achievement.

WWC Toolkit Teaching Math to Young Children: This comprehensive 19-week professional learning resource developed by the Institute of Education Sciences and Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Appalachia helps preschool, prekindergarten, and kindergarten teachers implement evidence-based early mathematics instruction. The toolkit is grounded in the What Works Clearinghouse practice guide Teaching Math to Young Children and provides multimedia learning modules, classroom activities, progress-monitoring tools, and instructional strategies focused on developing young children’s foundational math knowledge and number sense.

Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics Intervention in the Elementary Grades: This What Works Clearinghouse practice guide provides evidence-based recommendations for supporting elementary students who experience difficulty learning mathematics. Developed by an expert panel from the Institute of Education Sciences, the guide outlines instructional practices such as systematic instruction, mathematical language, visual representations, number lines, word-problem instruction, and fluency-building activities to strengthen mathematical understanding and intervention outcomes for students in grades K–6.

WWC Mathematics Intervention Toolkit: This free professional learning toolkit developed by the Institute of Education Sciences and REL Northeast & Islands will help educators implement evidence-based mathematics intervention practices for students in grades 3–6. The toolkit builds on the What Works Clearinghouse practice guide Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics: Intervention in the Elementary Grades and includes six professional learning modules, classroom videos, instructional routines, facilitator guides, participant workbooks, and collaborative PLC activities focused on supporting students who struggle with mathematics.

Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics: Intervention in the Elementary Grades: This practice guide provides evidence-based recommendations for assisting elementary students who struggle with mathematics. It offers practical strategies for building number sense, problem-solving, and computational skills through targeted interventions and explicit instruction.

Teaching Strategies for Improving Algebra Knowledge in Middle and High School Students: This What Works Clearinghouse practice guide provides evidence-based recommendations for improving algebra knowledge in middle and high school students. It highlights instructional strategies such as using worked examples, helping students recognize algebraic structures, and teaching multiple problem-solving methods to strengthen understanding and success in algebra.

Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics: Response to Intervention (RtI) for Elementary and Middle Schools: This practice guide provides evidence-based recommendations for supporting students who struggle with mathematics through Response to Intervention (RtI) in elementary and middle schools. It outlines strategies for screening, progress monitoring, targeted instruction, and intensive interventions to improve math achievement.

Developing Effective Fractions Instruction for Kindergarten Through 8th Grade: This practice guide provides evidence-based recommendations for developing effective fractions instruction for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. It highlights strategies for building conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and problem-solving skills with fractions across grade levels.

Improving Mathematical Problem Solving in Grades 4 Through 8: This practice guide provides evidence-based recommendations for improving mathematical problem solving in grades 4 through 8. It offers strategies for teaching students to analyze problems, use effective solution methods, represent mathematical thinking, and justify their reasoning.

What Is Teaching Mathematics to Young Children? A Theoretical Perspective and Case Study: This article examines what effective mathematics teaching for young children looks like through a theoretical perspective and case study example. It explores how developmentally appropriate instruction, rich interactions, and purposeful learning experiences can build early mathematical understanding.

STEM: Australian Education Research Organisation: This resource from the Australian Education Research Organisation explains effective approaches to STEM education that build students’ knowledge, problem-solving, and engagement across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It provides research-based guidance for strengthening STEM teaching and learning in schools.

Getting Math Instruction Right: Strategies for Improving Achievement in Canada, Dr. Anna Stokke: This resource by Dr. Anna Stokke outlines evidence-based strategies for improving mathematics achievement in Canada through effective instruction. It emphasizes clear explanations, explicit teaching, practice, and strong curriculum design to build student understanding and success in mathematics.

The Science of Mathematics and How to Apply It: This analysis paper examines the science of mathematics learning and how research can be applied to classroom practice. It highlights evidence-based strategies such as explicit instruction, worked examples, practice, feedback, and cumulative review to improve student understanding and achievement.

Guided Practice in Maths: This event resource explains how guided practice in mathematics helps students build understanding through supported problem solving before working independently. It highlights the role of teacher feedback, scaffolding, and gradual release in strengthening math learning and confidence.

Toni Hatten-Roberts – Science of Maths and the Importance of Fluency: This event resource explores the science of mathematics and the importance of fluency, emphasizing how quick and accurate recall of math facts supports higher-level learning. It highlights how evidence-based teaching practices can reduce cognitive load and strengthen long-term mathematics achievement.

Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively: This What Works Clearinghouse practice guide provides evidence-based recommendations for helping students in grades 6–12 become effective writers. It highlights strategies such as explicitly teaching writing processes, integrating reading and writing, and using assessment and feedback to improve student writing outcomes.

Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers: This practice guide provides evidence-based recommendations for teaching elementary students to be effective writers. It highlights strategies such as teaching the writing process, sentence construction, planning, revising, and providing feedback to improve student writing skills.

Research in Writing Instruction: Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers: This practice guide provides evidence-based recommendations for teaching elementary students to be effective writers. It highlights strategies such as teaching the writing process, sentence construction, planning, revising, and providing feedback to improve student writing skills.

Writing to Read: A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Writing and Writing Instruction on Reading: This meta-analysis examines the relationship between writing and reading achievement, finding that writing activities and writing instruction improve students’ reading comprehension, fluency, vocabulary, and overall reading performance across grade levels. The study provides evidence that writing can be used as an effective tool to strengthen reading outcomes.

Training Writing Skills: A Cognitive Developmental Perspective: This article presents a cognitive developmental model of writing, proposing that writers progress from knowledge-telling to knowledge-transforming and ultimately knowledge-crafting, with advanced writing requiring sophisticated coordination of planning, reviewing, audience awareness, and working memory processes. Kellogg argues that expert writing develops through extended practice, cognitive apprenticeship, and deliberate training over many years.

A Legibility Scale for Early Primary Handwriting: Authentic Task and Cognitive Load Influences: This article examines how cognitive load affects handwriting legibility in early primary students and develops a legibility scale based on six handwriting features: letter formation, size, spacing, line placement, and slant. The study found that handwriting legibility decreases as writing tasks become more cognitively demanding, with composition being more difficult than dictation and copying.

Computerized Writing and Reading Instruction for Students in Grades 4–9 With Specific Learning Disabilities Affecting Written Language: This article examines the effectiveness of computerized reading and writing instruction for students in grades 4–9 with specific learning disabilities (SLDs), including dysgraphia, dyslexia, and oral/written language learning disabilities. The study found that explicit, multi-level language instruction integrating handwriting, reading, spelling, syntax, and composition through technology produced significant improvements in literacy outcomes, especially when handwriting instruction included enhanced visual cues and lined writing supports.

An Analysis and Comparison of Theoretical Models of the Reading-Writing Relationship: This article examines theoretical models explaining the relationship between reading and writing development, comparing interactive, reading-to-writing, and writing-to-reading models. Shanahan and Lomax found that the interactive model, where reading and writing mutually support one another, best explained student performance, suggesting that integrating reading and writing instruction strengthens literacy development.

The Effects of Peer-Assisted Sentence-Combining on the Writing Performance of More and Less Skilled Young Writers: This study examined the effects of peer-assisted sentence-combining instruction on fourth-grade writers and found that teaching students to combine simple sentences into more complex ones improved sentence construction skills, story writing quality, and revision practices for both more and less skilled writers. The findings suggest that explicit sentence-level instruction can strengthen writing performance and support developing writers.

Empowering Literacy Instruction: Understanding and Applying the Science of Reading-Writing Connections: This article synthesizes current research on the reading–writing connection, explaining how reading and writing share foundational skills, interact dynamically, and influence one another. Using Kim’s Interactive Dynamic Literacy Model, it highlights implications for assessment and instruction, emphasizing integrated literacy practices that connect reading and writing while also addressing each domain’s unique needs.

One Sentence at a Time: The Need for Explicit Instruction in Teaching Students to Write Well: This article emphasizes the need for explicit instruction in writing, showing how teaching sentence construction step by step can improve students’ ability to write clearly, accurately, and effectively.