Numerous myths about DI circulate in education circles, usually by people who have never taught the program or never seen it used by teachers who have received proper training and support. These myths have to do with the supposed rigidity of DI, its inappropriateness for certain populations, and its restrictions on creativity. These myths are myths.
After you’ve taught the program for a few months, you will see that the program has the flexibility to accommodate the needs of lower and higher-performing students, and it allows teacher creativity within the confines of the script, much as a play script allows an actor to be creative within its confines. Most importantly, you will see that all students succeed in ways you hadn’t thought possible before. The DI programs provide teachers with a powerful tool for presenting an instructional sequence that has been verified to be highly effective with the full range of learners. By providing effective wording and examples, the scripts allow teachers to focus on students’ responses.
Teachers don’t need to worry about how to present critical skills and concepts. Instead, they can concentrate on what students know, what they don’t understand, and where they need additional practice or support. Your interaction with students will increase with DI because the DI programs elicit high rates of student responses in each lesson. With DI, you will have a much better understanding of your students’ skill levels than ever before. DI is effective with all students as long as they are placed and grouped at their skill levels and taught to mastery every day.
Groups should be homogeneous with respect to students’ current performance level, and these groups should be flexible in order to incorporate different rates of student learning. Some students master skills and concepts quickly and may be ready to move to a higher group. Other students need additional practice and might need to be moved to a lower group. These adjustments to student placement are made on a weekly basis through the analysis of student performance data. To the largest extent possible, with the school’s resources, instruction is individualized for students through flexible grouping.
Senior Direct Instruction Author Siegfried Engelmann addresses many of the myths related to DI in a series of videos recorded in 2017. In the video segments, you will hear Zig's thoughts on everything from "Drill and Kill" to multi-sensory learning to teachers' creativity in a DI classroom.
For more, see the work of:
Professor Sara Tarver - University of Wisconsin
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DI and Higher Order Thinking, compiled by Bill Sower
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Myths and Truths About Direct Instruction (Tarver, 1998)
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Research on Direct Instruction: 25 Years Beyond DISTAR, Chapter 3: “Myths about Direct Instruction” (Adams & Engelmann, 1996)
Project Follow Through was the most extensive educational experiment ever conducted. Beginning in 1968 under the sponsorship of the federal government, it was charged with determining the best way of teaching at-risk children from kindergarten through grade 3. Over 200,000 children in 178 communities were included in the study, and 22 different models of instruction were compared. The communities that implemented the different approaches spanned the full range of demographic variables (geographic distribution and community size), ethnic composition (white, black, Hispanic, Native American) and poverty level (economically disadvantaged and economically advantaged). Parent groups in participating communities selected one approach that they wanted to have implemented, and each school district agreed to implement the approach the parent group selected.
Follow Through had strong safeguards to assure that the participating districts actually implemented the approach it adopted. The government provided stipends to supplement local budgets and support the implementations and also provided comprehensive health services, including a nutritional component, plus medical-dental care.
Follow the links below to get additional information on Project Follow Through, including its design, the findings, and what happened with the results:
Athabasca University online module on Direct Instruction Evidence: Project Follow Through.
A pdf special issue of Effective School Practices published in 1995-96 described Project Follow Through and its implications for current generations of students.
Shepard Barbash describes the design and outcomes of Project Follow Through in his book Clear Teaching.
Staff of NIFDI's Department of Research and Evaluation have prepared a comprehensive pdf bibliography of writing related to Direct Instruction and Project Follow Through.
Veteran Direct Instruction author, researcher, and implementer Bonnie Grossen presented this webinar and provided insight into the outcomes of the project and the response to the findings.
Linda Carnine, Susie Andrist, and Jerry Silbert discuss Project Follow Through with Dr. Zach Groshell on The Direct Instruction Podcast.
All Direct Instruction programs are developed with extensive field testing. Most traditional programs are routinely published without first being subjected to extensive trials in actual learning situations. In contrast, Direct Instruction programs are field tested to determine the extent to which students actually master the material that is presented in a program and the extent to which teachers are able to follow the program’s presentation specifications.
Field testing begins as the Direct Instruction programs are being developed. The authors select several classrooms in which to field test the first version of the curriculum. These classrooms are selected to include a variety of students and teachers. At least some of these classes must include the lowest performing students who will be placed in the program. This is important because the lower-performers make all the mistake that higher performers make and additional mistakes that higher performers tend not to make.
Every activity in the field-test version of the program is assessed. Data are kept on the number of students who miss particular items and the incorrect responses that were made by the students. Rules are established about what student performance levels indicate a need to revise the teaching sequence. Student errors are analyzed to determine how the sequence of instruction likely led to the student problems. Revisions may include:
The revised version of the curriculum is then field tested and revised again. Data are kept on student performance on each item. In addition to the data on student performance, information on how long tasks take to present are collected as well as feedback from teachers about the clarity of directions.
Each element of this field testing procedure is essential to providing teachers with a program capable of being an effective instructional tool for all students. The extensive testing that underlies the development of Direct Instruction programs is the primary reason that they are so effective.
For more information on the theory and process that underlies the field testing of Direct Instruction programs, see:
Proactive administrative support and strong commitment to success are prerequisites for developing outstanding school-wide Direct Instruction (DI) implementations. When the school's principal and leadership team demonstrate that they are committed to implementing DI with high fidelity every day, and they communicate this commitment to the rest of the staff through words, deeds and actions, the prospect of success with DI increases substantially throughout the school. Isolated teachers may achieve considerable success implementing DI alone in an uncoordinated effort, but the effect of individual teachers implementing DI by themselves is usually far less than the effect of a schoolwide, coordinated implementation of DI lead by an actively involved administrator. Success with DI depends on many factors—schedules, assignment of paraprofessionals, professional development, data analysis—that cannot be controlled by individual teachers. These factors are most effectively implemented through a coordinated and systematic effort, which requires consistent and forward-thinking leadership.
Successful school leaders take decisive action through all stages of a DI implementation. They:
Observing Classroom Instruction
Regular classroom observations conducted by the administrator with focus on student performance are critical for a successful DI implementation. The administrator's presence in the classroom communicates a strong message to staff the commitment of the school to implement the model with fidelity. Direct observation by administrators also provides another set of eyes to identify possible instructional problems and assess the status of past problems. NIFDI trains principals and other administrators on conducting 5-minute observations that provide quick, comprehensive and powerful assessments of classroom instruction.
Ensuring Accountability for Student Success
The principal is the school's leader in the NIFDI accountability system. In addition to regular classroom observations, the principal can help ensure a successful implementation and quality instruction through active participation in weekly conference calls conducted with NIFDI. Each week, the principal attends a conference call between NIFDI and the school's leadership team, during which the progress of each instructional group is discussed. A summary of the call is provided to the school and describes the actions to be taken before the next call and designates who will take which actions. Principals can greatly facilitate the implementation by ensuring that the actions described are in fact taken before the next conference call.
IMPORTANT: A long-lasting commitment to implementing Direct Instruction (DI) with fidelity is a prerequisite to maximizing student achievement with DI. Student achievement may surpass historical levels after just a couple of years of DI, especially in the lower grades. Maximizing student achievement—especially in the upper grades—requires years of implementing DI with fidelity. Teachers usually require thorough program training and several years of expert in-class coaching and professional development before they become highly effective with DI. It takes several years for student performance in Kindergarten to reach its peak as Kindergarten teachers master DI techniques. It takes several more years for student performance in the upper grades to reach its peak as cohorts of students work their way up through the grades. If an elementary school contains grades K-5, it can take more than six years before an implementation reaches its full potential in the upper grades. Strong leadership must be in place for this time to maintain the school's commitment to implement the program with fidelity and maximize student performance for all students.
