Principle 4: Effective Teachers Adopt a Balanced Approach to Instruction

Presenters: Melanie Murray and Christine Bell

• lecture style: teacher talks, student listens

• students work alone

• instructor chooses topics

Teacher -Centered

What happens when only teacher -centered

approach is used?

• interactive with teacher modeling

• students are given topic choices

• students may work in groups or alone

• students may participate in learning evaluation

• creativity is encouraged

Child -Centered

Balanced Approach to Instruction

Balanced Approach• Reading

• Phonemic awareness and phonics

• Literacy

• Vocabulary

• Comprehension

• Literature

• Content-area study

• Oral Language

• Writing

• Spelling

A balanced classroom

Think back to your favorite teacher. Which approach did

they use?

Teacher – Centered = Blue

Child-Centered = Red

Balanced Approach = Yellow

• explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics

• exposure to a variety of reading materials

• opportunities to read interesting books

• meaningful reading and writing experiences

What is excellent instruction?