Another Look at Gradual Release: What Does “I Do” Really Mean?

by Michelle Yzquierdo

A seventh-grade teacher is solving a two-step equation at the board. “What do we do first?”
A few students shout out, “Subtract four!”
The teacher writes it down. “Now what?”
Another student shouts out: “Divide by two!”
The teacher finishes the problem and moves to the next one.

This looks like direct instruction. The teacher modeled a problem at the board. But look closer at who did the thinking. It was not the teacher, nor was it most of the class. Rather, three or four students carried the cognitive work for the whole class, and everyone else watched.

This is a math example, but the subject doesn’t matter. The same thing happens when an ELA teacher annotates a paragraph while students call out the theme, or when a social studies teacher pulls up a primary source document and asks, “What do you notice?” I see this pattern frequently when I visit classrooms, across all grade levels and all content areas. It seems to be the norm, and not an outlier.

This is the most common way the “I Do” phase of gradual release breaks down. When P. David Pearson and Margaret Gallagher first defined gradual release of responsibility in their original 1983 research, the modeling phase (“I Do”) was built on one simple premise: the teacher holds all of the responsibility for the work, and the student holds none of it yet (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983; full text via ERIC). “I Do” works when the teacher carries 100% of the thinking out loud, without student input. The moment a student supplies a step, the model stops being a model.

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From Cold Call to Choice: Trauma-Informed Shifts in a Randomization System

by Elise White Diaz

“My mom was supposed to arrive this year, but there is no chance she will be let into the country now.”

“I’m a U.S. citizen, but I’m afraid of being targeted.”

“I’m scared to go to school and be deported.”

These statements were either overheard or relayed to me last year. Worries affecting students’ families and communities don’t disappear when they enter school; they shape how safe—or unsafe—their nervous systems feel in the school environment. And highly evaluative classrooms can unintentionally amplify that sense of threat.

According to Stephen W. Porges, learning environments that rely heavily on evaluation and judgment can cue danger for nervous systems. When this happens, the body shifts toward protection rather than connection, making learning and engagement more difficult. Fortunately, small shifts in the classroom can increase students’ sense of safety by reducing the pressure to perform—something educators can control even in uncertain times.

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A Guatemalan Journey with CHILD AID: Commitment, Passion, and Hope

by Mónica Lara

Have you ever been genuinely moved by an experience?

Several months ago, Pete Noll, Child Aid’s Chief Development Officer, invited me on a week-long trip to visit schools in rural, indigenous communities in Guatemala. Child Aid (child-aid.org) is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing child literacy through teacher training, classroom resources, and reading programs.

Having previously visited schools in Mexico and Honduras, I anticipated finding passionate teachers, eager students, adherence to school guidelines, and limited resources. While these assumptions were correct—I certainly saw passionate teachers and students who welcomed us with inquisitive attitudes and love—my week in Guatemala proved to be much more profound.

As I reflect on the experience, three powerful words capture the essence of what I witnessed: Commitment, Passion, and Hope.

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All Kids Doing, All the Time

by Sally Barnes

This year, there’s a new rule in classrooms across the United States: Many state legislatures or local districts have banned cellphones and related devices in schools. With this change comes so many benefits, but also a few challenges. What do we do with students who were compliant (quiet, nondisruptive) because of their phones, but now don’t have their device at their disposal? What does this mean for classroom behavior, free time, peer-to-peer socialization, and expectations for bell-to-bell work? The truth is, I don’t want my kids to be compliant. I want them to be engaged in our class. So, how do we move kids from compliant to engaged? What does that mean day-to-day?

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Beyond the 7 Steps: Discovering a Trauma-Informed Approach for Multilingual Learners

by Elise White Diaz

For years, the 7 Steps framework had been my Bible—my gospel for teaching language to some of the most challenging students: timid newcomers and discouraged multilingual learners struggling with disabilities.

But one day, I was sitting beside a newcomer of 2.5 years who refused to participate. She was well past the silent period, so expecting her to verbalize “repeat, please,” didn’t seem unreasonable. We were on Step 1: What to Say Instead of I Don’t Know. I had broken down each phrase and ensured understanding, and now it was her turn to repeat after me. She opened her mouth, paused, and simply said, “No.”

The finality in that single syllable said everything. Her eyes narrowed in defiance. I knew there was nothing I could do to coax her into speaking. My mind jumped back to other students who refused to speak (although they most certainly could), and to students who resisted walking into a classroom.

Something deeper was happening with these students—something I couldn’t reach with strategies alone. The crisis team, the administrators, even the parents were at a loss. The special education department called it culture shock, but decades of experience told me that wasn’t the whole story.

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SLIFE Are Valuable Members of Our Learning Communities

by Dr. Carol Salva

In this blog post, I am going to reflect on how I changed my mindset about SLIFE, or Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education. But first, I need to recap a bit about the demographic SLIFE. I want to explain what is meant by the acronym and a bit more about these learners.

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