The phonemic awareness concept has had a significant influence on understanding reading and its acquisition. Students with it tend to become better readers than those without it. This feature has led to interest in teaching it prior to reading instruction. However, this focus raises several issues about phonemic awareness that are as yet not fully resolved. Is phonemic awareness causal to reading acquisition? Consequential? Or is there a mediating variable between it and reading? Is the confusion due to differences in the chosen assessment methods? Can and should it be taught independent of graphemes? If it is to be taught, which activities are important? Rhyming and alliteration? Onsets and rimes? Elision? Blending and segmenting? All of the above?

Click here to read on and find out!

If you're a user of Essentials for Algebra (EFA), you may have encountered trouble with your display CD that accompanies the program. The National Institute for Direct Instruction learned recently that the EFA display CD does not work with Macs, although it should still work with PCs. If you put the EFA display disc into a Mac, you will likely get an error message indicating "Power PC applications are no longer supported". This problem is related to how newer Mac operating systems are configured.

McGraw-Hill Education has addressed this problem by making the displays available through their online system, ConnectED. Users with a ConnectEd account should be able to access the displays through this system. If you do not see EFA as a program in your ConnectED account, you will need to contact your McGraw-Hill representative for a redemption code. Only McGraw-Hill can issue these codes.

With the closure of the Association for Direct Instruction, NIFDI has been seeking ways to assist the DI community to stay connected. Some of these efforts include:

• facilitating the DI list serve;
• revamping our website to include a wide variety of DI resources such as popular bloggers, a complete library of past DI News and Journal of Direct Instruction issues and various texts ADI used to market;
• offering open enrollment training events;
• increasing awareness of current DI resources, news and information through NIFDI News!;
• and, networking with other researchers in the field through our DI Research Group and Directory.

To help make the training events more affordable as well as create a link among the DI community, we are now offering NIFDI Memberships. Members will enjoy several special benefits:

• 20% off our outreach training events
• 20% off materials
• Advance access to web resources
• and more!

Regular NIFDI Memberships are only $50.00 annually and students can join for $30.00 per year. Institutional memberships, good for up to five staff people, are $250.00 billed annually.

Former ADI Members: Send us your membership number and expiration date, and we will convert your ADI membership to a NIFDI membership at no charge.

Ready to join NIFDI as a charter member? Download the membership registration form today!

The National Institute for Direct Instruction proudly announces the addition of a publication arm to the organization: NIFDI Press! Dedicated to publishing high quality works that support the development of effective implementations of Direct Instruction programs, the press will publish manuals and books designed to help a variety of audiences purposes:

• teachers, coaches, and administrators implementing DI programs in their schools;
• parents preparing or supporting their children in academic success;
• researchers in search of theoretical and empirical studies regarding the development, efficacy and implementation of DI.

The Press will also be distributing titles previously available through the Association for Direct Instruction (ADI), including Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, Teaching Needy Kids and Theory of Instruction.

Both NIFDI Press publications and books previously available through ADI can be purchased through our website or by calling 877.485.1973. New NIFDI Press publications will be released starting Summer 2014. Watch our website or follow us on Facebook to hear about upcoming releases!