• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

New Resource Spotlight

What’s New?

Find up-to-date information and resources for supporting students with disabilities.

  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Phone

T-TAC ODU

Linking People and Resources

  • Home
  • About
  • Services
    • Library
    • Publications
    • Newsletter
    • Assistance Request
  • Focus Areas
    • Administration
    • Assistive Technology
    • Autism
    • Behavior
    • Early Childhood
    • Intellectual Disabilities
    • Math
    • Reading
  • Events
  • Resource Hub

Published September 2011 Filed in Early Childhoodcategory

Tactics For Your Toolkit: Embedded Instruction

Rather than providing instruction in an isolated and discrete manner, embedded instruction maximizes children’s motivation by following their interests, and promotes generalization and maintenance by providing instruction within and across activities, routines, and transitions.

 

Research

Embedding instruction on individual goals into typically occurring activities and routines is a recommended and evidence-based approach to providing children the opportunity to learn and practice important skills in meaningful contexts (Grisham-Brown, Hemmeter, & Pretti-Frontczak, 2005).   Rather than providing instruction in an isolated and discrete manner, embedded instruction maximizes children’s motivation by following their interests, and promotes generalization and maintenance by providing instruction within and across activities, routines, and transitions.

 

Available evidence suggests that embedded instruction:

  •  is effective for teaching children new skills;
  •  is effective for increasing engagement, participation, and independence;
  •  promotes generalization and maintenance of newly learned skills;
  •  is feasible for teachers to use in the ongoing activities and routines of the classroom. (Embedded Instruction for Early Learning, n.d.).

Application

  • Choose a priority learning-target for the student. A priority learning-target is a statement of an observable behavior or skill thechild will learn to do, and is key to their participation in the classroom (i.e. expressing their wants and needs, attending to task).
  • Determine what activities are best suited to teach the priority learning-target.  It is crucial to find a time of day when the skill fits in well so that it will be functional and meaningful to the student (e.g., using one sign to ask for food at snack). Embedding the learning target several times per day, across different activities, is encouraged.
  • Use an activity matrix ((found here) to schedule the instruction, and include other classroom staff in planning how to address the priority learning-target to encourage consistency.
  • When planning how to address the priority learning target, consider the A-B-C’s.  Include an Antecedent-what will happen to prompt the behavior (can be naturally occurring or planned), define the Behavior-what the student will do as a result, and the Consequence-what will happen after the behavior.
  • Plan for complete learning trials.  Complete learning trials occur whenever there is a “complete” A-B-C sequence.   Planning for a complete learning trial includes deciding what the consequence will be if the child does not perform the behavior.  For example, an appropriate consequence after a pre-determined number of trials would be to assist the child in performing the desired behavior (e.g., providing hand-over-hand, helping the student to imitate a sign).
  • Keep track of the opportunities provided to determine when the child achieves the priority learning-target.

Resources

Find more about  (broken link) on the (broken link) Embedded Instruction for Early Learning website.

Request our newest curriculum unit,  Growing Things that includes an Embedding Matrix that you can personalize and print.

TTAC Library

Check out the book Building Blocks for Teaching Preschoolers with Special Needs, by Susan Sandall and Ilene Schwartz, for moreinformation on embedded instruction as well as practical teaching tips!

 

References

Embedded Instruction for Early Learning. (n.d.). Complete Learning Trials.  Retrieved from (broken link)

Embedded Instruction for Early Learning. (n.d.). What is Embedded Instruction for Early Learning? Retrieved from (broken link) http://www.embeddedinstruction.net/node/17

Grisham-Brown, J., Hemmeter, M.L., & Pretti-Frontczak, K. (2005). Blended practices for teaching young children in inclusive settings.

Baltimore: Brookes.

Tags: Activity based, Embedded instruction

Related Articles

Math in Preschool: Powered by Play
Blending Best Practices to Benefit All ECSE Students
EC T.R.I.O Newsletter (January 2025)

Footer

Locations

Main Office & Library
T-TAC ODU
Old Dominion University
860 W. 44th St
Norfolk, VA 23529

Child Study Center
4501 Hampton Blvd, Room 224
Norfolk, VA 23529
Education Building
4301 Hampton Blvd
Norfolk, VA 23529

Contact

Phone: (757) 683-4333
TDD: (757) 683-5963
FAX: (757) 451-6989
Email: info@ttac.odu.edu
Request Assistance

T-TAC ODU
Copyright ©  2025 T-TAC ODU | All Rights Reserved | Sitemap