Successful and Confident Students with Direct Instruction

This latest impressive work by Zig Engelmann is, among other things, a gift to thoughtful, no-nonsense educators everywhere. Successful and Confident Students provides us with over 40 years of wisdom, insight, sound practice, and true genius collectively applied to educating all students in a brief, easy to read, and professionally inspiring book. The book provides both a platitude-free rationale for and the means by which to teach all students to mastery, accelerate achievement, and thereby create school-wide success for both teachers and students. The last chapter is a must-read for all who love teaching. Thank you, Zig!

This book provides a great overview of Direct Instruction and the key components of becoming an instructor and school that teaches all students to mastery.

In reading Professor Engelmann's research, realistic approaches, and thoughts on how to teach effectively, it makes me all the more grateful to be working directly with NIFDI. We have been provided the training and support to understand and implement each of the tenets he writes about to help our students towards becoming successful and self-confident life long learners.

DI is a program many may need to see to believe. I never thought I would be a supporter of a scripted program, but having seen the incredible results first hand, I am now a believer. This is the first program I have taught that I haven't needed to supplement and is truly effective with all levels of learners. When implemented with fidelity, as described by Engelmann, teachers really are able to forever change the trajectory of their students' lives forever.

Ziggy’s new book, Successful and Confident Students with Direct Instruction, is a must read for any school administrator. If you are a tenured school administrator, Successful and Confident Students with Direct Instruction reinforces the need for teaching to mastery – if you are a newly minted principal, it introduces the reader to the critical features for establishing a mastery learning environment in your school. His book focuses on the whys-and-hows of creating a mastery learning system within a school. Ziggy creates a brilliant argument that teaching to mastery: (a) is the key to creating high performing schools; (b) builds upon effective student/program alignment; (c) believes that student failure lies not with the students inability to learn but with the delivery system’s inability to teach; (d) has the key elements of training, instruction, scheduling, monitoring, and budget; (e) holds the same standard for high performers and low performers; (f) has positive effect on students’ self-image and intrinsic motivation; and, (g) establishes a meaningful blueprint for celebrating academic achievement.

Again, Successful and Confident Students with Direct Instruction is a succinct and powerful read for all school administrators. As Ziggy tells you, “teaching to mastery has benefits for students, teachers, and the school system” (p. 58).