Explicit instruction, often called direct instruction, refers to an instructional practice that carefully constructs interactions between students and their teacher. Teachers clearly state a teaching objective and follow a defined instructional sequence. They assess how much students already know on the subject and tailor subsequent instruction, based upon that initial evaluation of student skills. Students move through the curriculum, both individually and in groups, repeatedly practicing skills at a pace determined by the teacher’s understanding of student needs and progress (Swanson, 2001). Explicit instruction has been found to be especially successful when a child has problems with a specific or isolated skill (Kroesbergen & Van Luit, 2003).

The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) offers a helpful snapshot of an explicit instructional episode (Hall, 2002), shown in Figure 1 below. Consistent communication between teacher and student creates the foundation for the instructional process. Instructional episodes involve pacing a lesson appropriately, allowing adequate processing and feedback time, encouraging frequent student reponses, and listening and monitoring throughout a lesson.

Systematic instruction focuses on teaching students how to learn by giving them the tools and techniques that efficient learners use to understand and learn new material or skills. Systematic instruction, sometimes called “strategy instruction,” refers to the strategies students learn that help them integrate new information with what is already known in a way that makes sense and be able to recall the information or skill later, even in a different situation or place. Typically, teachers model strategy use for students, including thinking aloud through the problem-solving process, so students can see when and how to use a particular strategy and what they can gain by doing so. Systematic instruction is particularly helpful in strengthening essential skills such as organization and attention, and often includes:

• Memory devices, to help students remember the strategy (e.g., a first-letter mnemonic created by forming a word from the beginning letters of other words);
• Strategy steps stated in everyday language and beginning with action verbs (e.g., read the problem carefully);
• Strategy steps stated in the order in which they are to be used (e.g., students are cued to read the word problem carefully before trying to solving the problem);
• Strategy steps that prompt students to use cognitive abilities (e.g., the critical steps needed in solving a problem) (Lenz, Ellis, & Scanlon, 1996, as cited in Maccini & Gagnon, n.d.).

All students can benefit from a systematic approach to instruction, not just those with disabilities. That’s why many of the textbooks being published today include overt systematic approaches to instruction in their explanations and learning activities. It’s also why NICHCY’s first Evidence for Education was devoted to the power of strategy instruction. The research into systematic and explicit instruction is clear—the approaches taken together positively impact student learning (Swanson, in press). The National Mathematics Advisory Panel Report (2008) found that explicit instruction was primarily effective for computation (i.e., basic math operations), but not as effective for higher order problem solving. That being understood, meta-analyses and research reviews by Swanson (1999, 2001) and Swanson and Hoskyn (1998) assert that breaking down instruction into steps, working in small groups, questioning students directly, and promoting ongoing practice and feedback seem to have greater impact when combined with systematic “strategies.”

What does a combined systematic and explicit instructional approach look like in practice? Tammy Cihylik, a learning support teacher at Harry S. Truman Elementary School in Allentown, Pennsylvania, describes a first-grade lesson that uses money to explore mathematical concepts:

“[Students] use manipulatives,” she explains, “looking at the penny, identifying the penny.” Cihylik prompts the students with explicit questions: “What does the penny look like? How much is it worth?” Then she provides the answers herself, with statements like, “The penny is brown, and is worth one cent.” Cihylik encourages students to repeat the descriptive phrases after her, and then leads them in applying that basic understanding in a systematic fashion. After counting out five pennies and demonstrating their worth of five cents, she instructs the students to count out six pennies and report their worth. She repeats this activity each day, and incorporates other coins and questions as students master the idea of value.

Within this example, the relationship between explicit and systematic instruction becomes clear. The teacher is leading the instructional process through continually checking in, demonstration, and scaffolding/extending ideas as students build understanding. She uses specific strategies involving prompts that remind students the value of the coins, simply stated action verbs, and metacognitive cues that ask students to monitor their money. Montague (2007) suggests, “The instructional method underlying cognitive strategy instruction is explicit instruction.”