The second part of the PLAAFP writing strategy is to preview the instructional focus. The instructional focus is the specific, observable, and measurable skill the student needs to learn. If we know the spotlight area, we can narrow our focus within that category and identify a specific skill for improvement. We can identify the instructional focus once we have our spotlight area by examining a students current performance.

Here are some examples of spotlight areas paired with a specific instructional focus:

For an academic spotlight area such as Reading Comprehension, here are a few examples of a corresponding instructional focus:

Answering factual question after reading a grade-level passage
Identifying the main idea of a paragraph
Writing a 2-3 sentence summary after reading a passage

For an academic spotlight area such as Math Problem Solving, here are a few examples of a corresponding instructional focus:

Solving one-step word problems
Solving multi-step word problems
Identifying which operation to use in a word problem

Finally, for a functional spotlight area such as health, here are few examples of a corresponding instructional focus:

Completing all the steps of hand washing
Cooking a healthy meal
Completing all the steps in cleaning up after cooking something

Let's go back to our example about Jaylen...

From Jaylen's FIE we read the following information:

Jaylen scored 50% correct on the math computation section from the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test given by his general education teacher.

Jaylen also scored a standard score of 79 on the Woodcock Johnson IV Calculation subtest, classifying him as below average in this skill.

Jaylen’s most recent Math Computation CBM (addition and subtraction) scores reported from his math intervention teacher ranged from 8-10 correct digits, which places his performance at the frustrational level for third grade (less than the cut point of 14 correct digits). His scores are 21-23 points below the benchmark of 31 correct digits.

We previously identified the spotlight area of Math Calculation. Now we want to identify the instructional focus. The CBM data above tells us where the student is currently performing. We see that Jaylen struggled on a Math Computation CBM Probe. We know that on a Math Computation CBM probe, students are asked to solve basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems.

If we look at Jaylen's specific CBM probe results we see that the two skills for our instructional focus are:

Solving basic addition problems
Solving basic subtraction problems