Teaching practices and what the research says

Having students pull what they've learned back out of memory, by quizzing, recalling or explaining, instead of reading it again.

Spreading practice and review of the same material over days and weeks, instead of doing it all at once.

Teaching new material clearly and in small steps: the teacher shows how, guides students through practice, checks every student, and only then lets them practice alone.

Students learn by investigating questions (observing, predicting, testing and explaining) rather than being told the answer first, with the teacher guiding how much they work out themselves.

Teaching a unit through an extended project: students work over weeks on a real question or problem and make something for an audience, learning the content and skills along the way.

Adjusting teaching, tasks, support or grouping within a class so students at different starting points can all make progress toward the goal.

Students meet new material before class, usually through a short video or reading, and class time is used for practice, problem solving and help from the teacher.

Finding out what students understand while you're still teaching, and using what you find to decide what to do next.

Information a student gets about their work or performance, from a teacher, a peer, themselves or a program, that they can use to close the gap between where they are and where they're going.

The body of research on how children learn to read, and the teaching it points to: explicit, systematic phonics and phonemic awareness, alongside vocabulary, knowledge and comprehension.

Teaching children to hear and work with the separate sounds in spoken words (blending /c/ /a/ /t/ into cat, or splitting ship into /sh/ /i/ /p/), best done with letters.

Students read the same short passage aloud several times, with feedback, until they can read it accurately, at a good pace and with expression.

A structured, multisensory way of teaching reading and spelling, step by step from sounds to words, used mostly with students who have dyslexia or other word-reading difficulties.

Mixing different kinds of problems in one practice set, so students have to work out which method each problem needs, instead of practicing one kind in a block.

Showing students a problem solved step by step, and having them study it, before or alternating with solving similar problems themselves.

Helping students recall basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts quickly and accurately, so their attention is free for harder math.

Using a line with evenly spaced numbers to show how big numbers are and how they relate, from counting and addition to fractions, decimals and negative numbers.

Students working in small groups toward a shared goal, set up so that the group succeeds only when every member learns.

The belief that abilities like intelligence can grow with effort, good strategies and help, and the classroom lessons and habits meant to build that belief.

A schoolwide system that screens every student, teaches everyone well (tier 1), adds small-group help for those who need it (tier 2), and intensive help for the few who still struggle (tier 3).