The section emphasizes planning explicit instruction that integrates multiple literacy pillars. What is the advised approach?

• A. Integrate several literacy skills in one explicit lesson.
• B. Focus on a single skill per lesson.
• C. Rely solely on student-led discovery without planning.
• D. Skip explicit instruction to save time.

Answer: (A)

Integrating several literacy skills in one explicit lesson reflects how real reading and writing work—students apply multiple strategies at once, not in isolation. When you plan with multiple pillars in mind, you model how decoding, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, and writing support each other and how a reader uses them together to understand text and respond to it. For example, during a guided reading moment you can demonstrate decoding a challenging word, discuss a related vocabulary term in context, prompt meaning-making questions, and then have students produce a short written response that uses the new word and a comprehension strategy. This approach provides clear guidance, scaffolded practice, and feedback across multiple skills within a cohesive task, which helps students transfer these strategies to new texts and tasks. It also makes instruction efficient and more relevant to authentic literacy.

Choosing to focus on a single skill per lesson can oversimplify how readers use strategies, while relying on student-led discovery without planning misses the explicit supports learners need, and skipping explicit instruction removes the teacher’s modeling and structured guidance.