providing-frequent-and-targeted.html

<section class="key_practices_container">
    <h3>Providing Frequent and Targeted Practice Opportunities</h3>
    <p>Teachers provide practice opportunities to a) check for errors or misconceptions, b) build fluency and automaticity, and c) eventually allow students to work without support. These practice opportunities can be either guided or independent. Many students are not ready to practice independently after a teacher models a skill, so guided practice provides teachers with an opportunity to use prompts to gradually release responsibility to students. On the other hand, independent practice is a time for students to apply a new skill or strategy with minimal support. Throughout guided and independent practice, teachers frequently monitor students’ work for errors or misconceptions.</p>

    [collapsible heading="Why are practice opportunities important for students with disabilities?" elem="h4"]
    <p>After the initial round of modeling, many students are not ready to work independently. Students need to practice new material as they learn it. We also know that students with disabilities benefit from more practice. According to Rosenshine (2012), “Students need to spend additional time rephrasing, elaborating, and summarizing new material in order to store it in long-term memory.” This type of rehearsing helps students to retrieve information from their long-term memory quickly and helps them to develop fluency and automaticity with foundational skills. When students spend time becoming automatic in a skill, they have more time and space in their brains to devote to higher order skills such as comprehension and application.</p>
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    [collapsible heading="What could this look like?" elem="h4"]
    <ul>
        <li>Explicitly stating how the practice opportunities are related to the instructional target</li>
        <li>Adjusting the complexity of practice opportunities based on student responses</li>
        <li>Leading students through a skill or strategy using prompts and cues, such as mini-reminders</li>
        <li>Encouraging students to self-prompt</li>
        <li>Allowing students to complete independent practice and then providing specific feedback</li>
    </ul>
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</section>