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Embedded Instruction | Undivided Conversations


Published: Apr. 3, 2025Updated: Jun. 6, 2025

Join Karen Cull, Undivided content specialist, and Michael McSheehan, inclusion consultant at Evolve & Effect™, to learn about embedded instruction and how it works in the classroom.

Learn more about embedded instruction here!

Video Transcript

Okay, let's start talking about embedded instruction, right? So we have a lot of children who need targeted support in foundational reading skills, and that's often provided with a pull out session, small group instruction, and often at what the schools call a tier two program, so evidence based program for intervention, but our goal is to keep them in the general education classroom as much as possible, so how do we navigate that challenge, and can you explain what embedded instruction is and how that could be an alternative? Well, I think I have to give you a three part answer. First, I think the goal is to have equitable participation in school wide structures, so if a school is using a framework like multi-tiered system of supports, MTSS, a school-wide approach to teaching and learning that provides a scheduled intervention block for all students, then it would be consistent with what's happening for peers. That would be equitable participation, right? It... This is where the placed based measures of inclusion at a student level don't provide the whole story, right? In equity based inclusion, it's situated in the school wide framework. So that's part one. Now that said, say we have a school wide framework or we don’t, another consideration would be if we’re considering the use of evidence based practices specifically for reading instruction that are available beyond the use of pre-made packaged intervention programs, it's also possible to embed and intensify instruction, reading instruction, in tier one, right? So if we look at the evidence base that's provided by the Institute of Educational Sciences, what works, clearinghouse practice guides as a random example, they have practice guides for K-three and for four-nine struggling readers, so in the K-three points, we'd want to develop awareness of segments of sound in speech and how they link to letters, as well as teaching students to decode words, analyze word parts, and write and recognize words. Those evidence based focus points can be embedded in general ed instruction when we think about time in small groups, how we provide reading materials. Same thing happens when we look at their practice guide for four-nine struggling readers, right? That points to decoding skills at the multi syllabic words level, providing fluency based activities, which think about reading effortlessly, right? I want to be practicing with text that I can be really independent with, and using comprehension building practices to make sense of text, so building world knowledge and word knowledge, opportunities to ask and answer questions about text, a routine for getting the gist of a short segment of text, and self-monitoring for comprehension. Again, those strategies can be embedded in general ed instruction where you're using materials that are consistent with your peers, so you have access to all the literate peered models at the same time that you're practicing your most important skill set, right? So if we think about emphasizing particular goals or skills or strategies during tier one, time in small groups can be really useful for that. So if a teacher is teaching whole class instruction and then breaks for students to be working at their level on their personalized goals across the whole class, teacher might pull aside a small group that's all working on a particular skill set, and provide additional intensified instruction at that time, and ensuring that students have access to materials that are matched to their independent as well as their instructional reading level across the whole day, right? So often a barrier that we put in for kids in tier one is we're not adapting their text based materials to their current reading level, so you can be working on these in any content area that has text based materials, not just during the reading block. So that's answer number two, right? Still anchoring on these evidence based practices but embedding them in tier one instruction. The third thing is to think just generally about embedding instruction and doing that in a way that intensifies and approaches this thing that we call intervention like it's a separate special thing, right? It's still very specific learning goals, specific teaching methods with specific materials, so I... the way that I remember... Go with me here. The way that I remember embedding is through the acronym EMMET. I'll explain. E is for educators, M is for methods, second M is for materials, the second E is for environment, and then T is for time, so EMMET is educators, methods, materials, environment, and time. We can manipulate all of those to embed instruction and intensify instruction in tier one. So in terms of the educators, you want to match educators with the greatest expertise with the students with the greatest needs, not by title, right, but by expertise. My first grade reading, general ed reading teachers really know how to teach reading, right? I want them working with my struggling readers in first grade, because they're going to see what strategies are being used or not being used. Exploring collaborative and co-teaching structures, right, would be another thing we can do in the educators’ realm to embed and intensify instruction in tier one, right? We don't want students to feel like they read one way with Mrs. Smith and another way with Mrs. Jones, right? We want to coordinate those curricular methods in order to lean on our educators to intensify in tier one. In the methods... And I apologize if I'm giving you too much information, but I just geek out about this stuff. In terms of methods, we can think about adding in modeling, breaking down steps, creating higher interest for students, increasing the relevance of what we're working on to that students life, right? When students are more engaged, when they're more interested, there's a more relevant reason to work toward that goal. We can increase their opportunities to practice and respond and increase our feedback, right? Leveraging a variety of methods to intensify in tier one. Materials aligned with universal design for learning, UDL, right? Multiple ways of representing concepts, pictures that support text, for example, showing concepts with different visuals and use of different media, adjusting the text level in the materials, as I said before, really central and important here, but students reading two grades below level, you don't want to just adapt the materials for English language arts, we want to do that for the entire day, right? When students have books that they can read in their hands all day long, we can expect greater effect from supplemental instruction and targeted interventions. With more differentiated set of curriculum materials in place, we might expect a better balance of whole class, small group, and side by side lessons. Okay, where was I? EMME... Environment. Think about, in terms of the environment, ways to intensify. We can shift the instructional arrangements, right? Greater use of small group instruction so that we're having a little bit more teacher... a higher teacher student ratio. Smaller. Smaller or higher? One teacher to five students versus one teacher to 25 students is what we might be going for. Supporting students’ attribution, right? Exploring how students can explain the causes of their successes in reading as well as their failures, right? This impacts their motivation and their future learning. If they can understand and promote adaptive attributions, right, and can see their internal control for identifying how they're doing as readers, that can help students develop a growth mindset and improve their academic performance. Finally, time. EMMET. T, time. The basics here, right? Frequency, length of a session, duration over time, so how long are we doing all of these ways of embedding the instruction? What's the frequency with which we want to do that? What's the length of these small group meetings in the room that will be best matched to student needs? How long should we run these embedded small groups for a particular student or group of students? Whatever approach you take, right, with whether it be thinking about MTSS as a school wide model, thinking about leaning on those high leverage, evidence based methods for reading instruction or general approaches to just good embedded instruction, you want to maximize a student's time in general ed and provide the best quality instruction for reading. These should not result in a false choice between being included or being a part time member of class, or being stigmatized in some way as the kid who gets pulled out. How would you write that into an IEP? So, would you see the embedded instruction as a service that was written up as service with minutes, and those would be push in minutes, right? Is that how you would do it? So if you were linking it to an IEP goal, specifically if a student had a particular IEP reading goal, I would make sure in the goal to state what the environment was for the work, as well as the kinds of materials for the work, and then I'd make sure to include in the IEP the supplementary aides and services that are related to that, right? So the adapted materials, particular teaching methods would be linked there, the times of frequency would be embedded there as well in direct relationship to the goal, but can be broadly stated as supplementary aides and services within the IEP in addition, supporting that goal.

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