Nine Essential Instructional Strategies: Classroom Instruction that Works by Laura Varlas ASCD Curriculum Update Winter 2002 Researchers at Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) have identified nine instructional strategies that are most likely to improve student achievement across all content areas and across all grade levels. These strategies are explained in the book Classroom Instruction That Works by Robert Marzano, Debra Pickering, and Jane Pollock. in Ed. Research and Theorieswith instructionmarzanoreadingstrategiesworks