The services and implementation materials provided by the National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI) provide schools and districts with a strong basis for implementing the comprehensive Direct Instruction (DI) model successfully with all children. However, a successful implementation requires much more than the services NIFDI provides. What a school does with the services makes the biggest difference. Teachers and administrators themselves are the ones who implement the model day in and day out. The way in which the implementation is set up at the school and the way it is carried out every day will determine how successful DI will be with students.
This section provides a description of the primary ways schools can ensure a successful implementation of DI. This section describes the main steps to take when NIFDI is on site as well as steps to take when NIFDI is off site.
Additionally, the pdf Developer's Guidelines describe critical components that need to be in place to ensure a successful implementation of DI and how to install a system of accountability. The Developer's Guidelines are authored by Siegfried "Zig" Engelmann, creator and senior author of Direct Instruction.
IMPORTANT: The description on this site of each of the ways schools can ensure a successful implementation is accompanied by a box like this one that describes the consequences of forgoing any of the implementation components. Read the boxes and carefully consider the consequences of omitting any implementation component. You will find that each implementation component will help every child succeed!
#1 Reading Mastery Video Training Series
Coaching is an essential element to achieving high levels of success with a schoolwide implementation of Direct Instruction (DI). Coaching improves teachers’ mastery of DI techniques at the same time that it builds teachers’ confidence in their abilities to effect positive changes in student performance.
Schools that have already received extensive on-site support can benefit by arranging remote coaching over the Internet with a consultant from the National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI). With the proper hardware and software requirements in place, NIFDI consultants can observe teachers instructing groups remotely and provide specific feedback on what they observe. Except for demonstrating lessons or parts of lessons, these “virtual visits” can provide full coaching support to teachers.
Virtual visits can be used to target specific instructional problems, student behavior problems, or specific classrooms. A virtual visit for as short a time as 15 minutes can be effective and far less costly than bringing in a consultant.
In addition to hardware and software requirements, virtual visits require a peer coach or building coordinator to operate the laptop and position it where the presentation book, the teacher, and most of the children’s faces are visible. With remarkable clarity, the technology enables the NIFDI consultant to provide feedback to the coach through audio and text messages in real time!
Virtual visits cost $165 per hour.
IMPORTANT: In times of budgetary constraints, school leaders are forced to make difficult choices. Decreasing external support for a DI implementation before the school and district have developed the capacity to maintain program fidelity at a high level can have negative effects on student performance. Faced with tough budgetary decisions, schools should consider employing virtual visits to maintain external support at a fraction of the cost of on-site visits.
The National Institute for Direct Instruction is a non-profit organization dedicated to...
1. Providing continuous administrative and curricular support to schools and districts as they implement Direct Instruction (DI) programs.
2. Conducting, promoting and publicizing high-quality research on the effects of DI implementations.
NIFDI is uniquely qualified for these tasks as its founding members include the creators of DI. NIFDI's implementation support consultants are experienced teachers with advanced degrees and 5 to 25 years teaching experience in DI. Many of the senior consultants are co-authors of the DI programs. NIFDI's leaders have more than 30 years experience with school and district implementations of DI in all types of environments.
NIFDI has extensive experience providing support for implementing DI in a wide variety of settings. NIFDI has its roots in the University of Oregon Direct Instruction Follow Through model, which was conceived at the University of Illinois in the late 1960's and implemented in schools around the country from 1967 to 1995. NIFDI began as the Accelerated Student Achievement Project (ASAP) in 1993. ASAP negotiated with the state of Utah's State Department of Education and the Utah Learning Resource Center to implement DI in four elementary schools. The positive acceleration of student achievement as a result of the ASAP implementations led to its adoption in Baltimore and elsewhere.
Since its formal creation in 1997, NIFDI has supported DI implementations in 18 states (California, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin), the territory of Guam and Cape York Australia. In Guam, NIFDI implemented the comprehensive Direct Instruction model in 24 elementary schools and all middle schools for several years. In Texas, NIFDI works with IDEA Schools, Inc. to implement the comprehensive Direct Instruction model in 10 elementary schools and a Special Education DI intervention in IDEA high schools.
