Direct Instruction — Every lesson teaches a specific concept or strategy. Instruction is straightforward, and the student’s mastery of the concept or strategy is assessed before moving to another lesson.

Explicit Instruction — The concept or strategy is explained to the student, demonstrated by the teacher, practiced by the student with the teacher’s guidance, and, finally, mastered by the student. Practice includes concepts and strategies from previous lessons.

Multi-Sensory Lessons — Lessons are interactive and designed so that students are engaged. Students learn by hearing sounds, manipulating letters, and underlining and reading word parts. Students do all the reading, and the teacher guides the students to read correctly when they misread a word.

Structured Lessons — Each lesson begins with an introduction to the concept or strategy to be taught. Lessons build from the introduction to demonstration by the teacher, guided practice, and then independent practice. Practice includes reading words, phrases, sentences, and passages.  

Systematic Instruction — The lessons are given in a pre-planned sequence so that easy concepts are taught and mastered first, before moving on to more advanced concepts. All lessons include practice with concepts taught in previous lessons. Most reading material is phonetically controlled, and only spellings taught to date are included in the reading material.