Using Oral Language to Drive and Adjust Instruction

This week during an executive leadership coaching session, the principal and I found ourselves deep in conversation about the power of oral language—specifically, how teachers can use what they hear from students to inform their next instructional move. We talked about how student talk can signal whether more modeling is needed, whether the class is ready for guided practice, or whether it’s time to release students into independent work.

It struck me that, despite years of thinking about the gradual release of responsibility, I had never really considered how listening closely to students’ language could actively guide those shifts. Once I started paying attention, I noticed example after example in classrooms. Here are three that stood out.

1st Grade Writing Lesson

A couple of weeks ago, I was observing a first-grade lesson where students were asked to write about how they are team players, using a passage they had previously read and discussed. When I entered, the class was transitioning from the rug to their seats, armed with the sentence starter “I am a team player…”

Within minutes, only a few students had begun writing. Most had copied the sentence starter but then froze, unsure how to move forward. To help, I asked a few students how they show they are team players. Each one gave a thoughtful oral response—and almost immediately picked up a pencil and began writing.

We’ve all experienced moments like this: we believe we’ve prepared students, but a quick walk around the room tells us otherwise. Their hesitations were not a lack of ability—just a need for oral rehearsal. Listening to their verbal responses made it clear that the simplest instructional adjustment would have been to pause the class, have students share their ideas with a partner, and then try again. They were ready for independent practice, but they needed to say it before they could write it.

2nd Grade Inferencing Lesson

Later that same week, I observed another second-grade class reading a story from their anthology. Afterward, students were asked to record an inference on a graphic organizer. But as I walked around, it quickly became clear that many students were stuck. A few quick conversations revealed why: they weren’t sure what an inference was. They needed more modeling and guided practice before attempting the task independently.

The teacher worked hard, moving from student to student, trying to help each one individually. But the oral responses she was hearing—hesitation, confusion, incomplete understandings—signaled something important: the class wasn’t ready for independent practice. This was a moment when listening to students could have prompted a whole-class adjustment—pulling back to reteach or model the thinking process again rather than supporting struggling students one by one.

2nd Grade Vocabulary Lesson

In a second-grade vocabulary lesson, I watched a teacher introduce key words students would encounter in an upcoming text. She used a clear, structured routine: examples, non-examples, and non-verbal signals to show whether each example used the word correctly. This routine gave her an immediate window into student understanding.

She then asked students to turn and talk, using the new word in a sentence. Many used the provided sentence starter, and as she circulated and listened, she could confidently determine that students were ready to move into reading. Their oral language—accurate, confident, and appropriately applied—became the evidence she needed to proceed. And had she heard shaky or incorrect usage, she was ready to pivot and reinforce the concept before moving on.

Across all three lessons, the through-line is clear: students tell us what they need—not just through their work, but through their words. When teachers intentionally listen to student talk, it becomes one of the most powerful tools for decision-making in the gradual release of responsibility. Their oral language reveals readiness, confusion, confidence, and misunderstanding. And when we attune our instruction to what we hear, our next steps become both clearer and more responsive.