Guest Blog Post Dr. Katherine May, Ed.D., BCBA
Direct Instruction: “The Faster We Teach, The More They Learn.”
Direct Instruction Explained:
Direct instruction was founded by Siegfried Engelman and is a published ABA instructional methodology that believes all children can learn. This teaching methodology is commonly one of the best practices to serve a variety of learners in special and regular education settings. This teaching methodology involves teaching in small group, face-to-face lessons.It includes immediate error correction, highly structured scripted lessons, fast paced and frequent assessments.Students are regrouped into small groups based on their skill set determined based on those assessments.
Guiding principles of Direct Instruction:
- Choral Responses
- Fast Paced
- Highly reinforcing teaching technique
- Carefully designed curriculum
- Small group instruction
- Scripts
- Signals
- Error correction techniques
- Project follow through
Carlson, C. D., Francis, D. J. (2002). Increasing the reading achievement of at-risk children
through Direct Instruction: Evaluation of the Rodeo Institute for Teacher Excellence
(RITE). Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 7, 141–166.
