The National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI) provides schools and districts comprehensive training and support services designed to ensure that every child succeeds.

The services provide teachers the skills they need to teach the Direct Instruction (DI) curricula, remediate student problems and motivate students to be attentive learners. The services also allow administrators and teachers to monitor the state of the DI implementation and make changes weekly to the implementation based on student performance data and direct observation.  Making timely adjustments based on student performance is key to ensuring that all students receive the most appropriate instruction daily.

NIFDI as an organization is much broader in its services than having school districts implement DI programs. NIFDI uses DI published programs to deliver curriculum content, but provides a great deal more. NIFDI is an organization that offers a comprehensive approach to the education crisis in America by providing continuous administrative and curricular support to schools and districts as they implement DI programs with students who are performing or typically would be expected for perform below grade level. While working with these schools and districts with the ultimate goal of making them self-sufficient, NIFDI serves as a transforming agent to the schools, providing them with the content, skills and organization required to achieve excellence in education.

A NIFDI implementation transforms schools in the following manner:

1. Establishes a comprehensive, undiluted implementation of Direct Instruction school-wide and across all grade levels, beginning with school entry.

2. Builds a management team that involves coordination of NIFDI and school personnel for the purpose of attaining a high level of student learning.

3. Emphasizes student performance at a high level of mastery.

4. Accelerates all students and trains teachers in structural and instructional details that enable acceleration to occur.

5. Conducts preservice training of teachers before school begins and inservice training throughout the school year to meet needs and solve problems.

6. Each week, uses experienced NIFDI personnel (by phone and/or person) to monitor student performance and provide assistance.   A Project Director and Implementation Manager are assigned to each school to fulfill functions that are integral to a successful implementation of the model.

7. Trains district-employed personnel to provide on-site support and coaching.

8. Generalizes effective instruction to all areas of teacher/student interactions.

9. Gradually equips school districts and/or schools with tools, training procedures, and skills to maintain the implementation after the NIFDI assistance is faded.

10. Includes customized remedies by the authors of the DI programs for curricular areas that are not working for children.