Responsive Teaching in Action: Just in Time Learning - A Reflection on Keynoting at the HKIS Literacy Institute
Tania Lattanzio | 24 November 2025
Picture from the workshops at the Uruguayan American School
On 22–23 November, I had the absolute joy of keynoting at the Hong Kong International School (HKIS) Literacy Institute, where educators gathered to explore what it means to design and engage students in meaningful literacy experiences.
My keynote, “Literacy Learning: Just in Time—The Right Skill, at the Right Time, for the Right Learner,” centred on the message that inquiry and explicit instruction are not opposites; they are partners. When woven together through responsive teaching, they help learners become confident, independent, and deeply literate.
The False Divide: Inquiry vs. Explicit Instruction
For years, many have positioned inquiry and explicit instruction as if they are competing pedagogies. But as Kath Murdoch regularly reminds us, this has always been a false choice.
As she states, the question is not:
“Should I teach through inquiry, or should I teach explicitly?”
The real question is:
“How do I use inquiry and explicit instruction together to meet the needs of my learners?”
Inquiry gives students purpose, curiosity, and meaningful contexts.
Explicit instruction gives them the tools and precision needed to act on that purpose.
They don’t compete. They complement.
No Two Learners Come to Us the Same
One of the most important ideas we explored at HKIS is that no two learners arrive with the same literacy profile. Students bring:
different strengths
different gaps
different identities and languages
different experiences
different levels of readiness
Some decode easily but struggle to comprehend. Some express ideas beautifully but need support with structure. Some think critically but lack the vocabulary to articulate their thinking.
Because of these unique and uneven profiles, teaching cannot be predetermined or uniform. Literacy learning is responsive, flexible, and driven by what we notice about our learners right now.
As Mary Aukerman (2024) noted in a webinar:
“(We need) skillful differentiation of instruction so we need to make sure children who need more phonics will get it, but we can’t assume that providing it to all children will be beneficial to all.”
The same can be said for any explicit teaching of skills.
This reality is what makes just-in-time teaching essential.
Just-in-Time Teaching: The Heart of Responsiveness
Just-in-time teaching is:
based on current evidence
targeted and intentional
adaptable
learner-centred
timely and relevant
It honours the learner in front of us at that time, not one for whom we make assumptions for regarding their learning. If we are to challenge learners and move them forward in their learning, we need “just-in-time” teaching.
The Responsive Learning Model
To help teachers make intentional, evidence-driven decisions, we explored the Responsive Learning Model:
1. Elicit Evidence (Intentionality)
Eliciting evidence is intentional. We consider:
• What do our curriculum standards say?
• What evidence will show us where students are in their learning?
• How can we plan to elicit that evidence?
Begin with inquiry: invitations, questions, texts, images, and tasks that reveal what students currently understand.
2. Gather and Analyse Evidence
Gather evidence of what students can already do, know, or understand. This can take many forms: observations, listening, checklists, rubrics, anecdotal notes, and learning samples.
The most important step is looking at this evidence to determine next steps. What do learners need now?
3. Respond
This is where explicit instruction lives. Based on the evidence collected, we determine what explicit teaching is needed. Instruction is short, targeted, timely, and tailored to the specific needs uncovered. We look for patterns and group students accordingly.
4. Transfer & Grow
Students apply their new learning in authentic contexts, this is where independence, confidence, and agency emerge.
As Duke and Pearson remind us:
“All the explicit instruction in the world will not make students strong readers or writers unless they have ample experience applying those skills during actual reading and writing.”
Inquiry Leading to Explicit Instruction:
Critical Literacy: How Do We Know If a Message Is Trustworthy?
A Responsive Teaching Cycle
Elicit Evidence
Students rotate through headlines, ads, social media posts, short videos, and data visuals.
They respond to two prompts:
• What is this text trying to make me think or feel?
• Can I trust it? Why or why not?
This inquiry provocation surfaces intuitive understandings and misconceptions about credibility, bias, and persuasion.
Gather and Analyse Evidence
Using a checklist, the teacher looks for patterns:
Do students identify the purpose?
Can they spot bias?
Do they evaluate credibility and evidence?
Can they explain how craft shapes impact?
These patterns reveal strengths, misunderstandings, and readiness levels across the class.
Respond (Explicit Instruction)
Targeted group lessons follow, such as:
Bias: How authors position readers
Credibility: How to assess sources
Craft: How structure and techniques shape meaning
Purpose & audience
Students practise with short, focused examples aligned to their needs.
Transfer and Grow
Students apply and extend their new understanding in authentic, creative ways:
Create Intentional Bias
Students write a short text that deliberately uses bias to influence an audience, then annotate the techniques they used.
Make a Text Trustworthy
Students revise one of the original gallery-walk texts to improve its credibility—strengthening evidence, tone, structure, and sourcing.
Two Versions, Two Purposes
Students craft two versions of the same message:
one trustworthy, one manipulative.
They then explain how their choices changed the impact.
This final stage turns skill into understanding. Students don’t just learn about bias, credibility, and craft they use these concepts to create, analyse, adapt, and justify their decisions.
Sentence Crafting: Using Images to Drive Just-in-Time Instruction
A Responsive Teaching Cycle
Elicit Evidence
Image Choice Provocation
Students choose an image from a set and write a single sentence about it.
This simple inquiry task surfaces what each learner can currently do without any prompting.
Gather and Analyse Evidence
The teacher examines:
Are there describing words?
Is the sentence still very basic?
Are students ready for adjectives, adverbs, or precision?
These observations and collection of student’s sentences reveal the exact next steps each learner needs.
Respond (Explicit Instruction)
Based on the evidence, the teacher forms flexible groups for short, targeted teaching:
Group A – Adding One Adjective
“The dog ran.” → “The big dog ran.”
Group B – Adding One Adverb
“The big dog ran.” → “The big dog ran quickly.”
Group C – Choosing Precise Words
Refining vague or overused words:
“quickly” → “swiftly”
Instruction is brief, focused, and matched precisely to learner readiness.
Transfer and Grow
Students choose another image and write a new sentence using the skill they’ve just learned, immediately applying learning in context.
Learner Agency: When Students Act on Their Own Evidence
One of the most powerful shifts in responsive teaching is moving from:
the teacher making responsive decisions → the learner making them.
Agency is the learner’s capacity to:
notice what they need
choose strategies
monitor progress
adjust based on evidence
act with confidence and independence
Responsive teaching builds learners who can navigate their own learning.
As Yong Zhao (2017) reminds us:
“The first thing schools can do is to give students more autonomy, more agency over what (not just how or when) they would like to learn.”
Uruguayan American School: What are you interested in writing about?
The Literacy Learners We Need Now
Today’s literacy landscape demands that students:
make meaning across modes
think critically
question perspectives and power
identify bias and evaluate credibility
connect identity and lived experience
communicate across contexts
act autonomously and strategically
Inquiry gives learners the world.
Explicit instruction gives them the tools.
Responsive teaching helps them use those tools effectively.
Agency empowers them to choose and apply those tools independently.
Final Reflection
Responsive literacy teaching is not a method. It is a mindset. It recognises that:
every learner has a unique profile
inquiry and explicit instruction must sit side by side
evidence—not assumptions—guides teaching
skills must be used to be learned
agency emerges when learners act on their own evidence
just-in-time teaching honours the learner in front of us
When these elements come together, students do not simply learn literacy—they live it.
And as Paulo Freire so powerfully reminds us:
“Reading the world precedes reading the word.”
References
Aukerman, M. (2024, February 22). Toward comprehensive, research-informed literacy instruction: Thinking with, against, and beyond the science of reading [Lecture video]. Department of Education, Ithaca College. https://media.ithaca.edu/media/Maren+Aukerman+2024+Ithaca+College+Educational+Freedom+Lecture/1_rvncpvoa
Duke, N. K., & Pearson, P. D. (2002). Effective practices for developing reading comprehension. In A. E. Farstrup & S. J. Samuels (Eds.), What research has to say about reading instruction (3rd ed., pp. 205–242). International Reading Association.
Zhao, Yong. (2017, August 12). “National Standards are the Wrong Bet: Interview with Professor Yong Zhao.” StartUpTown. Retrieved from https://startuptown.wordpress.com/2017/08/12/yong-zhao/
Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed (30th anniversary ed.). Continuum.