The Baltimore Curriculum Project (BCP) hosted their version of Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader? as Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawling-Blake, City Schools CEO Andres Alonso, Actress/Dancer/Storyteller Maria Broom and Economist Anirban Basu matched wits with fifth graders from four neighborhood charter schools in East Baltimore operated by BCP. Actor and Baltimore City School Board Commissioner Robert Heck served as Master of Ceremonies. The fifth graders upheld their winning title, beating these local leaders! Last year BCP students bested Dr. Alonso, Comedian Mickey Cucchiella, Houston Texans Wide Receiver Bryant Johnson and Baltimore City Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

The four BCP charter schools -- City Springs Elementary/Middle School, Collington Square School of the Arts, Hampstead Hill Academy and Wolfe Street Academy -- all implement Direct Instruction (DI) programs schoolwide with NIFDI support. City Springs has had particularly remarkable success working with NIFDI to maximize student performance with DI. Learn about City Spring's success with DI here.

See video footage of this remarkable event here.

Have you ever discovered an error in the DI programs? The programs are thoroughly vetted and field tested before publication, but sometimes errors still appear.

If you've found an error in a DI program, email the authors at info@engelmann-becker.com. The Engelmann-Becker Corporation (named after the founders of DI) is devoted to designing, field testing and refining the DI curricula both before and after they are published. The E-B Corp would be eager to learn of any errors you've found in the programs so they can note them and work with the publisher to correct errors before the next printing.

Reading Mastery Signature Edition (RMSE), a Direct Instruction (DI) program, is an effective reading program that has been used nationwide. Like all teachers, those using the DI programs are concerned with ensuring students are exposed to and have experience with varied genres and literature. The National Institute for Direct Instruction, NIFDI, has compiled a listing of the genres included in levels 4 and 5 of the program and an outline of examples of the writing activities embedded in the program within each genre. The booklet is free for download pdf here .