Instructional Strategies

Classroom Examples, Techniques, and Best Practices

Improving student achievement comes from more effective teaching. And effective teaching means educators have the right mindset, and training in a variety of classroom instructional strategies, tools and techniques. At Learning-Focused, we work with educators to improve their use of instructional strategies to accommodate for the different learning styles of all students. Check out our instructional strategies examples from the classroom, or as we like to call them “Classroom Chronicles.”

We have a variety of free and paid resources and trainings for school leaders and educators:

Our popular High-Yield Instructional Strategies resource
On-demand courses on individual instructional strategies (accelerating learning, collaborative pairs, effective questioning, higher order thinking, writing to raise achievement, and many more) or bundles (effective instruction, literacy, rigor, poverty and more)
In-person and virtual professional development trainings and events open to all educators

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reading comprehension skills - retell recount summarize framework

Retell, Recount, and Summarize:
3 Essential Reading Comprehension Skills

By Wanda Humphrey

As a literacy coach, I typically get asked by 4th and 5th-grade teachers how to teach students to summarize. When this happens, I refer teachers to the ELA Standard 2 spiral progression. We discuss the verbs used in grades K-3 and the student’s ability to retell and recount. Our discussion concludes that retelling and recounting…

Impact of Previewing in Science: Example from the Classroom

By Don Marlett

In a 5th Grade Science classroom at Barnes Elementary School in Wilson County, the students and teachers had a secret folder. The folder was the idea of the 5th Grade Science Teacher. This one particular class was scoring in the 20s and 30s on assessments. This was about half of what the other three classes were scoring. So the teacher created…

Previewing in Math: Using Instructional Strategies in the Classroom

By Don Marlett

I have had the privilege of working with Dr. Rene Spry and her teachers at Oxford Elementary School in Catawba County. After attending Accelerating Learning with Previewing training, she recruited a few select teachers and began implementing Previewing this year. After visiting her school and hearing about the impact of Previewing, I followed up with…

Writing in Middle School Math: Using Instructional Strategies in the Classroom

By Lindsey Hampton

For the last two years, I have had the privilege to work with the Hiwassee Dam Elementary and Middle School teachers in Cherokee County, NC. In October, during a coaching conversation, a middle school teacher told me she intended to incorporate more writing in her 8th-grade math class. At that time, her students had already…