The Strategic Instruction Model (SIM), developed by researchers and teachers at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning (KU-CRL), is an approach to teaching adolescents who struggle with becoming good readers, writers, and learners. It is based on the reality that for adolescents to meet high standards, they must be able to read and understand large volumes of complex, difficult reading materials. Additionally, they must acquire the skills to express themselves effectively in writing.
SIM's approach to instruction involves intensive, carefully tailored lessons in which students have ample opportunities to practice learning targeted strategies that will help them succeed in their classes. Teachers who use SIM in their classes are prepared to do so through extensive professional development experiences. They also are provided instructional materials to assist them in teaching these students.
SIM's instructional programs provide an array of supports for improving adolescent literacy. The Visual Imagery Strategy, for example, helps students overcome difficulty understanding reading passages by teaching them to create mental pictures as they read. The Paraphrasing Strategy guides students in identifying the main points of a paragraph and then restating them in their own words. The LINCS Vocabulary Strategy helps students learn the meaning of new vocabulary words through powerful memory techniques. The Sentence Writing, Paragraph Writing, and Theme Writing strategies provide concrete steps for students, beginning with the basics of writing a complete sentence through the more advanced processes involved in writing essays. Taken as a whole, the instructional components of SIM take the processes that are necessary for learning and break them down into manageable steps enabling students to successfully meet standards.
When an adolescent is struggling to meet the literacy demands of secondary schools, SIM teachers must first determine why. Does the student have trouble understanding what he is reading? Is she unable to rephrase information in her own words and remember the critical information in a chapter or book? By determining the root cause of the problem, teachers then select specific instructional strategies and teaching approaches that directly target those areas of weakness. Students then receive instruction that is intensive and very systematic in which they have many opportunities to practice what they are learning and to receive feedback from their teachers. This approach helps students move from a low level of performance to a level at which they can hold their own and compete with others. In short, SIM is designed to teach students strategies for how to learn and how to perform successfully within demanding secondary school settings.
One example of this approach in action involves Frank, a repeating ninth-grader, who was becoming very discouraged in school. He failed almost everything in his first ninth-grade year and was disengaged from school and felt a sense of hopelessness at the beginning of his second attempt. He performed at the third-grade level in reading. During small-group instruction, in which he learned specific steps of a new strategy for attacking the many unknown words he encountered in his school assignments, he became very involved and worked hard, not missing a single class period. By the time he returned to his sophomore English class, he was reading at grade level. Weeks later, his reading teacher found him in the library, where he was reading a book and proud of himself and his accomplishments as a learner.
This progression from hopelessness to independent learner is rewarding for both students and teachers. A teacher in Louisiana notes that since she has been using SIM, she has seen students take an active role in their learning and assume responsibility for their growth and progress. "The students tell me that they feel better when they don't have to ask someone what different words are when they are reading. That's because they now have a strategy to figure it out on their own. That is very rewarding to me as a teacher," she said.
Just as intensive instruction is critical for students, well-prepared teachers are essential to the successful implementation of SIM interventions in specific classrooms and across teachers within a school. It is imperative that teachers receive high quality, on-going professional development and have access to the necessary instructional supports and teaching materials.
SIM is made available to schools through a large network of more than 1,000 staff development specialists throughout the country. To ensure quality control, this network is supported and run by KU-CRL. These individuals work directly with teachers and districts, providing opportunities for teachers to learn to use the SIM instructional practices and then supporting their efforts in the classroom. To build school district capacity in supporting continuing SIM implementation, many districts support the development of their own SIM staff developers.
Jerri Neduchal, one of the SIM staff development specialists, based in a Florida state education service center, has worked closely with hundreds of classroom teachers since 1987, when she was among one of the earliest groups in Florida to adopt SIM. Ms. Neduchal has worked with the staff at Discovery Middle School in Orlando to learn an array of SIM interventions for use in their classes. She has provided follow-up support, individual consultation, and continuing troubleshooting to ensure successful implementation on behalf of adolescents who struggle in reading and writing.
Across the country, SIM teachers and staff developers are seeing success in students who had never experienced success before. In 1998, for example, a Florida college student related that her school years had been full of failure. She failed the ACT on her first attempt with a reading score of "18." After learning a SIM strategy designed to help students focus on the most important information in a passage and then rephrase it in their own words, she took the ACT again. Her reading score of "24" raised her composite score enough for her to be admitted to the College of Education, and she made the Dean's Honor Roll that semester.
This student's success is representative of students across the country. A staff developer in Connecticut relates that students return years after they have learned a SIM strategy to tell her they are still using those strategies. "These were the kids that really felt they could go on to college and other kinds of learning opportunities," she said.
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