DART 15 th Annual Clergy Conference

1. DART 15th Annual Clergy Conference Education Breakout Session Kurt Engelmann, President The National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI) www.nifdi.org

2. Focus Questions: • What are the instructional needs of children in the primary grades? • What is the primary power structure determining children’s education in the U.S.A.? • How does Direct Instruction (DI) address children’s instructional needs? • What actions can DART members take to promote academic success for children?

3. Instructional Needs of Young Children • Long-term study by psychologists Betty Hart and Todd Risley, University of Kansas. • Conducted weekly observations in 42 homes on quantity and type of parent talk. • Started when children were 9 months old. • Recorded every verbal interaction between children and parents once a week until 3 yrs old. • Found stark differences between the families. How Children Acquire Language in the Home: 2

4. Instructional Needs of Young Children Average number of words heard in a typical hour: 3

5. Instructional Needs of Young Children Cumulative Vocabulary Experiences 4

6. Instructional Needs of Young Children • Children in low SES families experienced a higher proportion of business talk. • Children in high SES families experienced more complex language interactions. Type of interaction differed by socio-economic status (SES): 5

7. Instructional Needs of Young Children Cumulative Vocabulary Experiences 6

8. Implications of Language Differences Coming to school behind results in being sorted into the slowest track: George Farkas, Professor of Sociology, University of California at Irvine, tracked performance of Kindergarten students Children who enter Kindergarten with sizable deficiencies in vocabulary and oral language proficiency tend to experience academic difficulties throughout their school years Dr. Granzin, Psychologist and Author Emotional trauma often accompanies prolonged reading difficulties, which “affects children's overall educational trajectories”. 7

9. Implications for Primary Education School districts should have an airtight system for addressing differences in language by: assessing students’ language skills as soon as they enter school; providing systematic instruction that has been demonstrated to improve students’ language skills; monitoring student performance and adjusting instruction to ensure that students develop critical skills throughout the grades; train teachers to provide effective instruction and administrators to manage the instructional system. 8

10. Reality of Primary Education At most school districts: Students’ language skills are assessed as soon as they enter school. But instruction has not been demonstrated to meet students’ needs (catch kids up who are behind). Student performance is monitored primarily through high-stakes tests, which aren’t usually given until 3rd grade. Teachers are unfamiliar with effective instructional methods, and administrators are not equipped to manage instructional systems. 9

11. Educational Power Structure Colleges of Education Publishers of Instructional Materials School Systems (Districts/Schools)

12. Educational Power Structure Colleges of Education—Ultimate Cause • Education is not a profession: • “In education, the judgments of ‘experts’ frequently appear to be unconstrained and sometimes altogether unaffected by objective research. Many of these experts are so captivated by romantic ideas about learning or so blinded by ideology that they have closed their minds to the results of rigorous experiments.” • — D. Carnine (U of Oregon) Publishers of Instructional Materials School Systems (Districts/Schools)

13. Educational Power Structure Colleges of Education—Ultimate Cause • Greatly determine mindset of educators • Romance over science: Discovery or constructivist theories predominate • Role of teacher: "Guide on the Side" • Little or no response to the testing of theories • Don’t prepare teachers for the classroom • Self-generating Publishers of Instructional Materials School Systems (Districts/Schools)

14. Educational Power Structure School Systems (Districts/Schools)—Proximate Cause • Rhetoric vs. Reality: Sorting Machine • Teachers largely left on their own • Behavior management the primary focus • Problems dealt with remedially—urgency in the testing grades • Faddism/multiple campaigns • Arbitrary decisions, not data-driven (BREAD example) • Bureaucracy of deflection Colleges of Education Publishers of Instructional Materials 13

15. Educational Power Structure Publishers of Instructional Materials—Enabling • Primary market force in education • Multi-billion $ industry • Opportunistic--oriented toward adoption cycles • Sales 1st, results 2nd • Appeal to preconceptions of school systems • Basals a mile wide and an inch deep • Assume that some students will fail • No tryout of programs before publishing Colleges of Education School Systems (Districts/Schools) 14

16. Educational Power Structure Colleges of Education State Governments Publishers of Instructional Materials School Systems (Districts/Schools) 15

17. Addressing the Instructional Needs of Young Children Colleges of Education State Governments Publishers of Instructional Materials School Systems (Districts/Schools) 16

18. How Direct Instruction (DI) Closes the Language Gap The language track of the Reading Mastery series: • assesses student language skill repertoire before instruction; • explicitly teaches the language of instruction; • curriculum is carefully sequenced in small steps; • systematically introduces higher order thinking skills; • the teacher presentation and corrections are scripted for clarity and efficiency; • small-step design assures mastery of concepts and skills covered; • basic language skills are mastered before reading instruction begins; • DI programs are published only after they have been tested with children and revised based on student performance. 17

19. How Direct Instruction (DI) ensures that all students become successful readers: The reading track of the Reading Mastery series: • starts off with simple phonemic awareness exercises that lead to blending phonemes and segmenting words; • explicitly teaches common letter-sound correspondences then less common ones; • uses a special orthography to make initial reading easier, which is faded over time; • separates the introduction of letters that children might confuse; • teaches decoding strategy (sounding out words, then saying them fast) that children can apply to all words • contains stories that are 100% decodable, which facilitates comprehension; • builds accuracy before fluency. 18

20. Major Features: Strategy Teaching Reading Mastery Explicitly teaches strategies so students can generalize to a wide range of examples:

21. How Direct Instruction (DI) ensures that all students comprehend what they read: The Reading Mastery series: • includes checks on student mastery every 5-10 lessons; • introduces critical vocabulary before story reading; • ensures literal comprehension; • provides strategies for interpretive comprehension (identifying the main idea, outlining, predicting outcomes, inferring cause and effect, summarizing); • provides strategies for advanced reasoning skills (deductive logic, identifying relevant evidence, explaining faulty reasoning, use figurative language); • exposes children to a wide range of literature and poetry (The Wizard of Oz, Jack London, Walt Whitman); • are published only after they have been tested with children and revised based on student performance. 20

22. Direct Instruction (DI) addresses students’ needs in other subject areas: Math: • Connecting Math Concepts • Corrective Math • Distar Arithmetic • Essentials for Algebra Spelling: • Spelling Mastery • Spelling Through Morphographs Understanding US History ELL: • Direct Instruction Spoken English (DISE) • Español to English 21

23. DI’s Evidence of Effectiveness Zigsite.com--Kindergartners Showing Off From page 12 of Clear Teaching: • 1967-1977 “Project Follow Through” • Largest educational experiment to date • Goal—to identify BEST PRACTICES in: • increasing basic knowledge and skills in reading, language and mathematics; • improving cognitive and problem solving skills; • promoting positive self-concept. • Focus of other models was in one of these categories.

24. DI’s Evidence of Effectiveness Project Follow Through Results • 9 models in final evaluation • 700,000 children and $1 billion • Different sites in 170 communities throughout the country • a variety of ethnic groups and sites (urban, rural, ELL) • DI was shown to be MOST effective in all areas

25. DI’s Evidence of Effectiveness Current Research Resources: • Clear Teaching on education-consumers.org website. • Searchable database of abstracts on NIFDI’s website of > 130 research articles (30 with random assignment). • Handout: Scientifically Based Research. • Handout: The Research Base for Reading Mastery. • Research resources on McGraw-Hill’s website (under “other resources” by program). • Email research@nifdi.org.

26. Suggested Action Plan for DART Members Steps (from handout): Inquire about the early identification of academic problems in neighborhood schools. Review resources on Direct Instruction's evidence of effectiveness (if properly implemented). Review what needs to be in place to make Direct Instruction a success. Visit a model Direct Instruction School (See handout). Contract with NIFDI to ensure that the implementation is a success. Once DI has been adopted, monitor the implementation in coordination with NIFDI. 25

27. Direct Instruction’s Effect if Implemented with Fidelity Every Child And Every Teacher Succeed Every Day! 26

28. REFERENCES Alessi, G. (1988). Diagnosis Diagnosed: A Systemic Reaction. Professional School Psychology, 3 (2), 145-151. Association of American Publishers. BookStats Publishing Categories Highlights. http://publishers.org/bookstats/categories/ Carnine, D. (2000). Why Education Experts Resist Effective Practices (And What It Would Take to Make Education More Like Medicine). The Fordham Foundation. http://www.edexcellencemedia.net/publications/2000/200004_whyeducationexpertsresist/carnine.pdf "Early Struggles In Vocabulary Development Can Hamper Economically Disadvantaged Children". (April 11, 2001). Penn State Newswire http://www.psu.edu/ur/2001/childrenvocabulary.html Hart, B., & Risley, R. T. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes. "Interview with Dr. Alex Granzin: Traumatized Learning: The Emotional Consequences of Protracted Reading Difficulties.” Children of the Code http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/granzin.htm "Interview with Dr. Todd Risley: Meaningful Differences in the Language Learning Environments of Young American Children." Children of the Code http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/risley.htm

29. Contact The National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI) for more information Kurt Engelmann, President kengel@nifdi.org Ph. 541-505-5717 Toll-free: 1-877-485-1973 x119 Christina Cox Public Relations and Marketing Manager ccox@nifdi.org Ph. 541-505-5901 Toll-free: 1-877-485-1973 X 112 Web: www.nifdi.org