Super Teacher is built on decades of research in reading and math instructional practices. Here's how evidence-based practices — from phonics to spaced repetition — shape the tutoring sessions that children get in Super Teacher.
Each practice below is supported by peer-reviewed research and by guidance from national reading and mathematics panels. Together they determine how a Super Teacher lesson is written and sequenced.
Letter-sound relationships taught in a planned sequence, from single letters through complex spelling patterns, so students can decode words they have never seen before.
Moves each student through a phonics scope and sequence, correcting decoding errors as they occur in the lesson.
The ability to hear, identify, and manipulate phonemes, the individual sounds within spoken words. It is among the strongest early predictors of later reading achievement.
Opens with listening and speaking activities, then attaches each sound to the letters that spell it.
Explicit teaching in small steps, with the teacher modeling each one, guiding practice, and giving feedback while the student works.
Introduces one step at a time, models it, and checks understanding before the next step begins.
Review distributed across days and weeks rather than concentrated in one session. The wider the spacing, the longer the material is retained.
Returns to previously taught skills at widening intervals as a student works through a course.
Students demonstrate proficiency on one skill before beginning the next, so that later work rests on prerequisites they have already secured.
Checks proficiency throughout a lesson and keeps a student on the current skill until they reach it.
Quick and accurate recall of basic facts leaves more working memory available for the reasoning a multi-step problem requires.
Builds fluency through brief timed practice and repeated retrieval, alongside work on number relationships.
Reading begins with hearing the separate sounds in spoken words, and spelling begins with attaching those sounds to letters. The early reading course teaches the two together, in that order.
Every lesson follows the same cycle: introduce a step, practice it with guidance, check understanding, and return to it on a later day. A student advances once the check is met.
A student who stops to work out 6 + 7 spends attention on arithmetic that the wider problem needs for reasoning. Fluent recall of basic facts keeps that attention available.
Each claim on this page is listed below with a study or panel report showing or describing the evidence for the claim.
| Practice | What the research says | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Phonics Instruction | Systematic phonics instruction significantly improves word recognition, spelling, and reading comprehension in K–1. | National Reading Panel (2000) |
| Phonics Instruction | Teachers should explicitly teach decoding and analyze word parts, with daily reading of connected text. | IES/WWC Foundational Skills Guide (2016) |
| Phonemic Awareness | PA instruction produced large effects on PA (0.86) and moderate effects on reading (0.53) and spelling (0.59). | National Reading Panel (2000) |
| Phonemic Awareness | Strong evidence for explicitly developing awareness of sounds in speech and linking them to letters. | IES/WWC Practice Guide, Rec. 2 (2016) |
| Direct Instruction | Effective instruction: teach in small steps, guide practice, check understanding, require high success rate. | Rosenshine, Principles of Instruction (2012) |
| Direct Instruction | In a federal study of more than 200,000 students, Direct Instruction produced the strongest results of the models compared. | Project Follow Through, NIFDI |
| Spaced Repetition | Spacing study sessions across time improves long-term retention; optimal gap grows with desired retention interval. | Cepeda et al. (2008), Psychological Science |
| Retrieval Practice | Taking recall tests produces substantially greater long-term retention than repeated studying. | Roediger & Karpicke (2006), Psychological Science |
| Mastery Learning | Meta-analysis of 27 studies: overwhelmingly positive effects on achievement (effect sizes 0.72–0.93). | Guskey & Gates (1986), Educational Leadership |
| Mastery Learning | Meta-analysis of 46 studies: mastery learning produced positive effects on cognitive and affective outcomes. | Guskey & Pigott (1988), J. of Educational Research |
| Math Fact Fluency | Teachers should regularly include timed activities to build fluency and free working memory for problem-solving. | IES/WWC Math Intervention Guide (2021) |
| Math Fact Fluency | Children progress through counting, reasoning, and mastery phases; number-sense instruction promotes automatic retrieval. | Baroody (2006), Teaching Children Mathematics (NCTM) |
Every lesson in Super Teacher is grounded in these evidence-based practices, with decades of research working for your child.
