Adaptive Teachers as Innovators: Instructional Adaptations Opening Spaces for Enhanced Literacy Learning

Adaptive teachers are innovative in their teaching approach, assembling and reassembling their instruction based on their knowledge of effective pedagogy and the specific and individual needs of their students. This article presents descriptive case studies of two teachers’ adaptive teaching. These teachers taught in different contexts: a sixth-grade classroom in a suburban school in the Mid-Atlantic region and a third-grade classroom in a rural school in the Pacific Northwest. The researchers closely examined these teachers’ instructional adaptations and found that their adaptations often opened up spaces for students’ learning. Accordingly, these adaptations illustrate the innovative nature of effective literacy teaching.