All of the routines promote direct, explicit instruction. There are a number of content enhancement routines that help practitioners to enhance:

• Instructional planning
• Ideas and supporting details
• Critical concepts
• Ability to recall
• Meeting outcomes

The amount of questions practitioners pose to their learners increases significantly when content enhancement is integrated into practice. This helps to foster problem-solving, reasoning, discussion and higher order thinking. By asking more questions and presenting fewer facts through lecturing, learners can become more engaged in the learning process rather than being passive participants.⁸

The routines were designed for use during group instruction to help practitioners provide instruction that is more sensitive to the learning needs of individuals in the group. Some content enhancement routines help practitioners think about and organize content and present it in such a way that learners can see how it is organized. Other routines help teach complex concepts, so learners can gain a deeper understanding and develop a vocabulary for talking about important information. Still other routines help learners to recall the information being taught.⁹

This module highlights each of the content enhancement routines associated with the above categories and provides one detailed example for each type of routine. Web links have also been included for practitioners who wish to pursue additional information on the subject.

Enhance instructional planning

The SMARTER Routine helps to effectively connect all the phases of planning, instruction and learning for each student. This model helps practitioners to meet the range of information-processing differences by teaching SMARTER. This process is also effective when working on a one-to-one basis, especially if a tutor has to plan instruction for more than one learner.