Direct Instruction

Direct Instruction was found to have no discernible effects on the oral language, print knowledge, cognition, and math skills of special education students.

This report focuses on a family of interventions that includes all Direct Instruction products (DISTAR and Language for Learning). We use Direct Instruction to refer to this family of interventions, as well as to all versions past and present. Direct Instruction includes teaching techniques that are fast-paced, teacher-directed, and explicit with opportunities for student response and teacher reinforcement or correction. The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) English Language Learners topic also reviewed the effects of a Direct Instruction program called Reading Mastery (SRA/McGraw-Hill) on the skills of children in elementary school; the findings are reported in the WWC English Language Learners intervention report Reading Mastery.

One study of Direct Instruction met the WWC evidence standards with reservations. This study included 164 special education preschool and kindergarten children from the Child Development and Mental Retardation Center at the University of Washington in Washington State. This report focuses on immediate posttest findings to determine the effectiveness of the intervention. The WWC considers the extent of evidence for Direct Instruction to be small for oral language, small for print knowledge, small for cognition, and small for math. No studies that met the WWC evidence standards with or without reservations addressed phonological processing or early reading/writing.