In Our Store >>

Order the Reading Rockets Launching Young Readers PBS Series

Reading Rockets offers a wealth of reading strategies, lessons, and activities designed to help young children learn how to read and read better. Our reading resources assist parents, teachers, and other educators in working with struggling readers who require additional help in reading fundamentals and comprehension skills development.

Blogs About Reading > Sound It Out

Blogs About Reading

Sound It Out

Along with her background as a researcher, writer, and teacher, Joanne Meier is a mom. Join Joanne every week as she shares her experiences raising her own young readers, and guides parents and teachers on the best practices in reading.

I Do, We Do, You Do

March 31, 2009

Susan Hall, co-author of Straight Talk About Reading and more recently the editor for Implementing Response to Intervention: A Principal's Guide gave a workshop at the Center for Development and Learning's conference. The topic was on teaching the tough phonological awareness skills, and in it she referred to an instructional procedure she called "I Do, We Do, You Do."

As teachers, we're all familiar with this notion; we model, we work through it with our kids and then we release the responsibility to the students. As a variation of scaffolding, this model represents what we know about good teaching: teachers explicitly teach a new skill, teacher and students practice the skill together, and then student demonstrates the skill through practice activities. Corrective feedback and pacing vary by group and by student.

I like the language of I Do, We Do, You Do; it's simple, short, and clear. I can see the practicality of using it with young students as a guide for work throughout the week. I am sure someone has turned this into a poster or has created a neat graphic for their classroom. If you have something like that, please share!

<< Previous post Next post >>

Comments

(Note: Comments are owned by the poster. We are not responsible for their content.)

Hi, Joanne. I like Hall's variation on the old model-lead-test strategy. I need to read more about it, but it sounds a tad more macro level than the direct instructional strategy:

(a) "Listen to me. I can say 'sit' slowly. Sssiiit."
(b) "Let's do it together. We'll say 'sit' slowly: Sssiiit."
(c) "Your turn. All by yourself. Say 'sit' slowly." (Of course, the words would change from practice opportunity to practice opportunity.)

Posted by: John Lloyd | April 09, 2009 11:29 AM

This method has become implemented in Palm Beach County, FL. It is a required method within the classroom setting. It is required to have the method posted in the room for students, teachers, and visitors to understand what exactly is going on.

Posted by: Celia | November 11, 2009 02:21 PM