Synergistic, whaaat?! The word may sound like a woo woo 1970’s teaching fad, but synergistic teaching is all about research and rigor. Synergistic instruction is essentially when we take highly effective approaches to reading instruction and we smash them all together into something your students need.  

And want. 

In this blog, I share the five steps behind this high-impact, high-energy approach to instruction. I promise, whether you are a wacky goofy person like me or a more deliberative, calm educator, consistently using these steps as a framework will get your learners where they need to go. 

Step 1:  Think About Students 

You can use a synergistic approach to introduce a new topic, or for additional practice, or review, or even as an intervention. No matter what, begin by considering:  

What skills and strategies am I going to teach?  This is the targeted instruction kids need. 

What am I going to create this instruction based upon—what’s a context I know my learners will respond to? This is about the kids’ wants.  

Because when we keep our eyes on the evidence, sometimes we forget that elementary school is supposed to be a wild ride and a wonderful experience. Plan lessons with your inner kid in mind, your memories of those little moments in school that were extremely precious. Sometimes it’s some encouraging words a teacher said just to you that were game-changing. Most often, though, it’s a shared experience, something fresh and unexpected, that built relationships and gave your social and emotional growth a jolt. The wow factor bubbles up when we design experiences around students’ personalities and their interests. Their obsessions. If you are teaching first grade, you might make it all about Roblox. Second grade? Minecraft. Third grade, it’s Fortnite. You get the picture—tap into their worlds. For more on designing lessons kids care about, read Dr. Young's blog on From Phonics to Awesome Reading.

Step 2: Think About the Evidence-Base   

Next, we ponder: How I am going to give students a series of engaging experiences that will lead to deep learning? This is where the synergy comes in because we are pushing beyond a single evidence-backed practice to plan a string of them. For example, we know that correct teaching of phonics has a moderate effect on their phonics skills. We know that bringing in content areas into our literacy instruction has a large effect on their vocabulary and content knowledge and a moderate effect on their comprehension. We also know that writing a summary has a large effect on their writing skills. Finally, evidence suggests that performance assessments are a great way to assess learning, and they can also be fun. So, we put all these things together and we have instruction that is engaging, makes sense for kids, and reflects the research. 

Speaking of fun, did you know that boredom has a negative effect on learning? So, we can avoid this negative effect by creating awesome lessons. If your lesson is designed around phonics, you can start by directly teacher the skill. I developed a framework that you are welcome to try. I particularly like the last step – students come up with some amazing connections.  

• Introduce the sounds verbally. 
• Show the letter(s) in isolation and students read chorally several times. 
• Write the letter(s) in isolation (whiteboards, paper, fingerpaint, etc) and read chorally several times. 
• Show the letter(s) in the context of a word and read chorally several times. 
• Write the letter(s) in the context of a word and read chorally several times. 
• Blend the word _____. 
• Segment the word ______ and count the phonemes.  
• Engage the students in elisions: 
  • What would the word ________ sound like without the /1st/ sound? 
  • What would the word ________  sound like without the /2nd/ sound?  
  • What would the word ________  sound like without the /X th/ sound?  
  • Finally, draw an interpretive picture that represents the letter-sound relationship to spoken language.  

Notice in the final step, students at every stage of literacy can engage in it. Low risk, fun, creative, and yet shows your teacher so much about what they are learning. 

Step 3: Think About Content  

Ask yourself: What’s going on in math, science, and social studies? If you teach in K-3 and cover it all then identifying your content area objectives should be a snap. If you are departmentalized, meet with your partner teachers, and find out which topics you can include in your synergistic lessons. I am sure they will thank you immensely for reinforcing content learning in language arts.  

As an example, let’s use what we know about effective practices to bring in our science curriculum on the digestive system. Here’s an outline of a lesson designed to teach the EA digraph, among other things, of course. All nine steps use effective and evidence-based practices.  

1. Direct Teach /EA/.  
2. Read a nonfiction book about seals.  
3. Determine importance by directing students to pay attention to details about a seals diet. 
4. Write a summary about their diet. 
5. Connect to your science curriculum on the digestive system. 
6. Write a chronological story from the perspective of a fish being eaten.  
7. Type it up! It is a great way to improve writing and let’s be honest, kids need more keyboarding practice.  
8. Turn it into a reader’s theater script.  
9. Rehearse and act it out! Who wouldn’t want to act out the entire digestive process?  

Step 4:  Think About Writing  

Research says that intermediate grades devote about 25 minutes to daily writing. Unfortunately, this is less than half of what the What Works Clearinghouse recommends, which is a full hour. Fortunately, however, we as teachers get to decide how kids can their daily recommended dose of writing. It can be broken up, integrated into other subjects, and writing doesn’t have to be ample or formal—it could be a graphic organizer, a summary, a recipe, or a letter to a friend.  

It can also occur in your synergistic lessons. I always have some element of writing in these lessons. Students receive a lot of information, but they should also be expressing it, and writing is a great way to do that. What type of writing all depends on your objectives and your students' needs and wants. Just make sure it is happening daily.  

Step 5: Think About Demonstration  

Finally, ask yourself: How are my students going to demonstrate their understanding? Do I give them a choice this time? What are the options? Fortunately, they are endless. It could be something simple like reading their writing aloud in a British accent or more abstract like demonstrating their understandings of trigraphs with interpretative dances. Personally, I like any performance approach, such as making a podcast, news broadcast, writing and singing a song, a group tableau, or performing a reader’s theater. Artistic approaches are fun, too; students can draw, fingerpaint, construct their understandings with popsicle sticks, or form letters with playdough. This is another good time to lean into your students’ interests, and pick something that will engage them, and dare I say, a lesson they might just remember forever.  

Finally, the social-emotional connection benefits of these demonstrations are awesome. Engaging instruction is more effective when there is a strong, positive relationship between teachers and students. I encourage you to be attuned to students' emotional needs, and tailor your instructional approaches to be more engaging and responsive to individual students. Plus, it makes the day way more fun.  

Some Tips for Success   

• Consider these questions as you finalize your lesson before implementation: 
• Whole group or small group? 
• If small group, how many groups need this lesson, and does it need to be modified for each? 
• How long will the lesson take? 
• Do I need to stretch the lesson across multiple days?  
• If over multiple days, how should I chunk it?  
• How much responsibility can my students handle?  
• What will my students think of the lesson? 
• Is there one more tweak to make it even more engaging? 

About the Author

Dr. Chase Young: Literacy guru by day, undercover comedian(ish) by night. He’s known for transforming dense academic theories into bedtime stories so entertaining that even textbooks enjoy them. As a professor at Sam Houston State University, Co-Editor of Literacy Research and Instruction, and Co-Author of Artfully Teaching the Science of Reading and Build Reading Fluency, Dr. Young is an award-winning educator who proves that wit and wisdom are the perfect pair in his classroom.