Teaching in the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model

by Wendy Seger Cornerstone Literacy Fellow

The students sat looking at each other in an uncomfortable silence. They were supposed to be discussing the next two chapters of a novel they started on Monday. Not everyone had finished their assigned reading; the students showed little enthusiasm for the newly formed book club. The teacher’s level of frustration grows rapidly as a student sends an eraser catapulting across the table. How come nothing in this situation resembles what she observed the week before in an open classroom?

Across town another teacher sighs deeply as she looks at the dismal responses from a strategy page her students completed independently while she met with groups for guided reading. As she places them in her bag to take home, she glances at the front bulletin board cluttered with anchor charts. She’s “schema”-ed out. How many charts can one teacher be expected to make in a week?

Soon after the holidays we gather as colleagues to participate in our annual Winter Conference. We anticipate being awestruck by the students in classrooms across our districts as they engage with each other in conversations about rigorous texts. Principals, coaches, and teachers will return to their buildings and classrooms with renewed motivation for implementing structures to engage students more fully in their literacy learning. Some of the participants will “give their all” to embed what they have observed into their instruction only to abandon it after a short time, concluding that these practices are just not for them or their students.

What goes wrong? Why don’t these teachers experience the same success as the others using these structures? While there may not be one simple explanation, there is an important question to ask: Did they practice a gradual release of responsibility for teaching the strategies or skills these students needed to accomplish their work? Author/educators Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey bring clarity to this topic in a book entitled Better Learning Through Structured Teaching: A Framework for the Gradual Release of Responsibility. In the text they describe the process by which the teachers transfer the thinking as the students gradually assume more responsibility for their learning:

“The gradual release model of responsibility model of instruction suggests that the cognitive load should shift slowly and purposefully from teacher-as-model, to joint responsibility, to independent practice and application by the learner…this gradual release may occur over a day, a week, a month, or a year.” (p.2)

Fisher and Frey suggest four instructional arrangements to build student capacity to become competent, independent learners. They are 1) Focus lessons, 2) Guided instruction, 3) Collaborative learning, and 4) Independent tasks. The arrangements are represented in the gradual release graphic along with the teaching and learning roles.

#1 Focus Lessons: Establishing Purpose and Modeling

In this first phase of gradual release, the teacher purposefully models, demonstrates, or shares his or her thinking with the students. The teacher establishes the purpose of the lesson through decisions about what the learners need to know, why it is important, and how they will use it or how it will be learned in this lesson. This purpose should be explained to the learner by using a child-friendly statement of purpose (WILF- “What I’m looking for…” or WALT- “We are learning to…”) or an inquiry question that positions the students as co-constructors of the knowledge. Notice how the purpose is established in this nonfiction text lesson in which the teacher will model how to record new learning:

During this part of the lesson, the teacher introduces the purpose statement on an anchor chart that becomes the artifact of the lesson and a scaffold for the students in the days ahead. In the next step of the Focus Lesson, the teacher explains how the students will experience the teaching point.

This is the time to show the students what you expect them to do. They need a model to incorporate into their own habits. It is not the time to probe the students by asking them about their predictions, questions, or inferences. This part of the lesson should last no longer than 10-15 minutes.

#2 Guided Instruction: Cues, Prompts, and Questions

The guided instruction phase of the gradual release is when the cognitive load begins to shift from teacher to student (p.39). Allowing student to turn and talk about the teacher’s behavior during a lesson is one way to begin this shift of responsibility. The teacher allows the students to share in the experience as they practice the behavior with the teacher. Just like helping a child learn to ride a bike, the important work for the teacher is deciding when to hold on and when to let go. Taking anecdotal notes during turn and talk conversations become a way to check for understanding. Teaching students to make their thinking visible by using post-its on clipboards becomes another form of formative assessment. Teachers should review their notes and the student responses after each lesson to decide who is ready for the next lesson and who needs a bit of reteaching. This information helps the teacher truly differentiate instruction based on student needs and keep groupings flexible.

One instructional approach to differentiating instruction for guided practice is guided reading, in which small groups of similarly performing students gather to read new text. Likewise, guided writing groups are formed with students displaying similar writing abilities. Invitational groups share a common learning need and benefit from targeted instruction. All of these approaches work best when the small group instruction is connected to the previously taught focus lessons and that the students uncover their own thinking processes and practice them with the teacher available to provide scaffolds when necessary (p. 54). Some examples of how teachers can differentiate instruction are by varying the text students read (the content), varying the level and variety of supports (the process), or giving the student a choice of how they will show their expertise (the product). Once again, the teacher can gather valuable data by taking notes while observing students working within the structures of this small group.

#3 Collaborative learning: Consolidating Thinking with Peers Known to Cornerstone followers as the pragmatic cueing system, collaborative learning provides students with the opportunity to work together to construct meaning and complete learning tasks. There is a growing body of research that, regardless of content, student learn and retain more, are more satisfied, complete more assignments, and generally enjoy school better when they work in small groups (p. 62). However, collaborative learning is not simply “group work” where a few students complete the majority of the work for the group. There are a few key features that researchers have identified as essential for successful collaborative learning (p. 66) that can help us design collaborative experiences that connect to our focus lessons.

1. Positive interdependence- the collaborative task requires that each member of the group make a contribution to the joint effort, not individual work completed with peers. For example, give each member a different colored marker (using that color to sign their name on the back) and ask that they create a visual display of their learning.
2. Face-to-face interaction- interactions that allow students to teach each other, check each other’s understanding, discuss ideas and concepts, explain processes, and make connections between the content and their own lives.
3. Individual and group accountability- expectations that tasks or products should be completed in the collaborative learning event. One example would be reporting the ideas of a partner to the whole group during reflection time.
4. Interpersonal and small-group skills- each member must possess some social skills such as active listening, turn taking, etc. to positively interact with classmates. If not observed, the teacher must take time to teach these skills.
5. Group processing- students use tools such as participation rubrics to reflect upon personal and group productivity. Reflecting on behavior and learning will help ensure the learning tasks are meaningful and fun.

Students need to be given access to each other to “try out” and synthesize what they’ve learned before they can move into the last phase of the gradual release model.

#4 Independent Learning Tasks: Not Just “Do It Yourself School”

The final phase and the ultimate goal of the gradual release model is independent learning. We want our students to apply what they’ve learned in the other three previous phases to become increasingly more self-directed and engaged.

Independent learning

• is based on meaningful learning activities.
• enables individual learners to take responsibility for their own learning.
• is essential for lifelong motivation and growth.
• prepares students for their role as responsible citizens in a changing society (p.86).

Independent learning tasks do not include a stack of worksheets. They are not stations of disconnected learning activities set up to keep students busy during small groups. Nor is it necessarily silent (p. 89). Independent learning is a result of guided and collaborative practice that reflects earlier explicit instruction. It is our responsibility to plan learning experiences so that students are able to do on their own what we have shown them in previous focus lessons.

Independent learning requires that students have access to information coupled with practice in how to use it. Fisher and Frey contend reading is a way to give access to information, and independent reading should be a daily part of the school day. “Students need time to practice it regularly. We don’t think that practice makes perfect, but we do hope that practice makes it permanent.” (p. 93). Conferring with students about their reading habits and interests is another way to gather formative assessment data. Running records, interest surveys, and discussion about personal reading goals help teachers learn to know their readers as they help them realize their potentials as learners. Donalyn Miller, in her book entitled The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child, describes her understanding of gradual release, “I realized that every lesson, conference, response, and assignment I taught must lead them away from me and toward their autonomy as literate people” (p.16).

Implementing the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model

It is possible to know the four phases of gradual release, but still wonder how it might look over time. The chart that follows shows a snippet of a nonfiction standard taught over two weeks. Notice that the phases overlap and can be experienced in more than one component of the reading workshop. Click here for link to Sound Bats Planning Template.

The two teachers at the beginning of this article show a willingness to change their instructional practices. They provided crafting lessons to introduce the strategies or processes to their students. The next step in supporting these teachers will connect targeted explicit instruction to guided practice with collaborative opportunities. Gradually they will build their students’ capacity to work independently and take greater responsibility for their learning.

As a Cornerstone Fellow, I have witnessed the work of some of the open classroom teachers and coaches preparing for the lessons we will observe in January and February. Since the first week of school in September, they have been taking daily steps to move their students toward independence in the reading practices they are teaching. The independence we will see in the lessons in the upcoming months truly did not happen overnight, but through their diligence to a gradual release of responsibility model.



Website for other resources by Fisher & Frey: http://www.fisherandfrey.com/?page_id=20

References

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2008). Better learning through structured teaching: A framework for the gradual release of responsibility. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Harvey, S. & Goudvis, A. (2007). “Seeing with sound”, Toolkit Texts. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann & Carus Publishing.

Miller, D. (2009). The book whisperer: awakening the inner reader in every child. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.