A solution for the achievement gap was discovered four decades ago, writes John McWhorter in The New Republic, and it has nothing to do with raising low expectations, improving parental involvement, or demanding accountability. Starting in the late 1960s, he writes, Project Follow Through compared nine teaching methods and tracked their results in more than 75,000 children from kindergarten through third grade:
It found that the Direct Instruction (DI) method of teaching reading was vastly more effective than any of the others for (drum roll, please) poor kids, including black ones. DI isn’t exactly complicated: Students are taught to sound out words rather than told to get the hang of recognizing words whole, and they are taught according to scripted drills that emphasize repetition and frequent student participation.
Subsequent studies found similar results, says McWhorter, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Indeed, he notes, ”a search for an occasion where DI was instituted and failed to improve students’ reading performance would be distinctly frustrating.” So why no discussion of Direct Instruction as a means of addressing the achievement gap?
Schools of education have long been caught up in an idea that teaching poor kids to read requires something more than, well, teaching them how to sound out words. The poor child, the good-thinking wisdom tells us, needs tutti-frutti approaches bringing in music, rhythm, narrative, Ebonics, and so on. Distracted by the hardships in their home lives, surely they cannot be reached by just laying out the facts. That can only work for coddled children of doctors and lawyers. But the simple fact of how well DI has worked shows that “creativity” is not what poor kids need.
Matthew Yglesias describes McWhorter’s piece as “somewhat overblown but essentially correct” and nails an even larger issue:
It’s both strange and unfortunate that the education system is so unresponsive to this research and also strange and unfortunate that “education reform” efforts have so much focus on administrative structure of school systems and so little on these kinds of curriculum issues.”
McWhorter meanwhile urges Arne Duncan, the next Ed Secretary to consider “taking the blinders off and forcing America’s urban school districts to teach poor kids to read with tools that we have known to work since the Nixon Administration.”
For those of us who don’t teach elementary, how do you guys define elementary school. Secondly, how do McWhorter and Ygelsis define it? Do you guys who understand the issue think that they understand it? (checking the links you provide, I’m still curious whether the pundits understand that there is a difference between national standards and national curriculum.)
Typically, elementary schools are K-5. Some have Pre-K, some may go through 6th. (I’m not sure what you call a K-8 school). But when it comes to reading instruction (decoding), it seems the battle is won or lost by 2nd grade at the latest.
See, that’s another example where someone who isn’t in the schools doesn’t really know. I had always learned that 4th grade was the year when the gap grew, but I always have questions about simple patterns.
I think my question is about scripted instruction. Am I wrong in believing a certain amount of scripting is inherent in DI, but there are varieties of DI? How do the various types of DI shake out? Am I wrong in believing that Success for All is a DI and that there is more evidence for it than some (many? most?) other DI packages? Also, do different DI advocates want scripting to coninue to higher ages? Do McWhorter and/or Yeglias have a specific package in mind? Or are they saying that all DI packages have been proven? I don’t even know how Voyager fits into this. The What Works Clearinghouse said that Voyager may have even reduced comprehension. Does it count as DI?
As an elementary teacher of 34 years (grades 2-6) I subscribed to Jeanne Chall’s philosophy. From Chall’s work I realized the difference between phonics-based versus meaning-based reading instruction.
Some kids learn to read via the phonetic approach (able to sound out words), while others do better through a “sight” program (repeatedly seeing the same words). Additionally, some kids are able to learn to read through a combination of the two. Kids’ brains are wired differently and it really doesn’t take long to figure out which approach matches each individual. It is also meaningless (to me anyway) which method fits each kid. What’s important is to get them reading as early as possible.
As a teacher of elementary school children it was obvious which children were read to on a regular basis at home for the first six to seven years of their lives and which ones were not. Beyond anything I was able to do for my students, this variable was clearly the most important in determining success. The kids who were read to at home regularly, many of them came to school at four and five years old, already reading. For them reading in the early grades (preK-1) was a given and this was an obvious/enormous advantage to them in their primary years. This ability to read at such an early age ensured success for many of these kids. This also explains the importance of quality pre-school programs, especially for poor and minority youngsters.
There are many nuances to this entire process with four to six year olds learning to read 2000 to 4000 new words each year. Amazing they’re capable of absorbing this much at such an early age. It also helps explain why the best time to learn a new language is before age eight. So many of these kids are like sponges.
I also told parents on numerous occasions, reading is like anything else in life. If you want to get better at it you have to do it over and over again. Whether it’s gymnastics, playing a musical instrument, dance, skating, swimming, anything – you have to practice, practice, practice.
John McWhorter is an excellent writer and social commentator, in my opinion. I’ve read (and enjoyed) several of his books. However, I have a critique of his comparison of Fairfax County and Richmond schools. From my understanding of the article, Direct Instruction works well for poor and/or minority students. Being from Virginia, I’d like to point out that Richmond city schools are overwhelmingly black and many students are low-income. Fairfax, on the other hand, is a predominantly middle class suburban community with students of many ethnic backgrounds. As such, it wouldn’t surprise me that Fairfax wouldn’t adopt DI universally as its curriculum for elementary schools. According to McWhorter’s analysis, I’d assume that most of the students in Fairfax wouldn’t benefit from DI. Would you agree?
Attorney DC’s comment highlights an issue that is a potential conundrum for public education.
Direction instruction (particularly the capitalized version) is pretty off-putting to many middle-class parents (probably especially to ones who are reading to their kids every night), and to many teachers. On the other hand, there seems to be significant evidence that it helps kids who are struggling with reading — I first read about it in an AFT survey of successful reading interventions.
But how do you counter the two-tier effect that you tend to get when good teachers and middle class families flee schools with “scripted” classrooms.
We’ve already figured out that separate isn’t equal — but so many of the current education reform strategies seem to push schools in directions that get them to separate.
I’m not saying I have the answer to this, but it troubles me.
Rachel, I don’t understand why middle-class parents and teachers would be off-put by DI. In PFT, DI performed better with every subgroup and on every measure than any other intervention. Here’s how Zig describes the results in his last book (Chapter 5):
“Not only were we first in adjusted scores and first in percentile scores for basic skills, cognitive skills, and perceptions children had of themselves, we were first in spelling, first with sites that had a Headstart preschool, first in sites that started in K, and first in sites that started in grade one. Our third-graders who went through only three years (grades 1-3) were, on average, over a year ahead of children in other models who went through four years—grades K-3. We were first with Native Americans, first with non-English speakers, first in rural areas, first in urban areas, first with whites, first with blacks, first with the lowest disadvantaged children and first with high performers.”
Whats’s not to like?
I can’t speak for teachers, though the AFT summary of DI’s success is interesting (http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/downloads/teachers/remedial.pdf).
I think with middle-class parents, the benefits of advancement are countered by the (perceived) negatives of regimentation. My sense is that there’s a lot of potential for sociological study in what middle class parents look for in a school, but from what I see as a school board member, at least at the elementary level there’s a strong correlation between parent educational level and a desire for a loosely structured, discovery-oriented classroom.
One of the things that the tirades of “reformers” against Ed Schools and the “status quo” miss is that there is a significant fraction of parents who like the “status quo” teaching style, particularly as it is implemented in affluent suburban school districts.
I’m pretty confident that if our district were to introduce Direct Instruction in our elementary schools there would be a significant exodus to private schools.
I’d say: recognize the value of drills in reading instruction. Do drills every day in the elementary grades. Find an excellent phonics textbook and fly with it. Teach children to sound out words confidently and swiftly. Begin with simpler sound-letter correspondences, then move on to more complex patterns, teaching some etymology along the way. Combine these drills with readings, discussion, writing, memorized recitations, and other activities. Bring in poetry, plays, fiction, nonfiction. Make some parts of the lesson highly structured and regular, others less so. And be willing to adjust the proportion as needed.
Such lessons would be a delight to plan out. Why take such responsibility and joy away from teachers? Why hand them scripts and say, “Follow DI–it’s a proven success”? It may be a proven success, but it’s not all there is to reading, literature, teaching, or education.
It’s not a matter of rigidity vs. creativity, exactly. The two are not mutually exclusive. It’s more a matter of assigning each approach, method, or activity its proper value and not mistaking a partial truth or solution for a whole.
Diana: I have used a scripted approach (many years ago) for 1s grade reading/phonics. I liked that it was scripted, because that left me more time to plan the more creative, literature-based activities and yet know that a well-researched method was helping me covering the basics. I liked that I didn’t have to re-invent the wheel all the time. Just like physicians don’t have to invent a new treatment protocol for each patient who has diabetes.
Rachel: You’re right that middle class, well-educated parents are likely to prefer the more random, more “creative” approaches for their lower-grade children (altho that’s partly because the conversations they have with their children before the kids go to school, help the kids arrive at school with high language skills, and they certainly follow a logical structure (even if that structure exists under the radar) that is the equivalent of a “script” pedagogically if not emotionally. HOWEVER, when the rubber hits the road later on in high school, those parents are happy to see a very highly structured approach for foreign language classes, math classes, interscholastic sports, instrumental music, and so on.
And let me add: those of us who attended grade school during the early ’50’s — think baby-boom-induced overcrowding — had highly structured and often almost scripted instruction, with group response like that used in DI, because with 38 children in the room what else are you going to do? I liked the structure, and I really liked that I read well enough by the end of second grade to read any book I wanted.
It’s more a matter of assigning each approach, method, or activity its proper value and not mistaking a partial truth or solution for a whole.
Well said, Diana!
Rachel, in her second comment above, uses the word “regimentation”, suggesting middle class parents don’t like it. I think this is an idea worthy of much more attention and analysis. Is regimentation in the classroom good or bad?
As a young beginning teacher many years ago I discovered the positive side of regimentation, though I did not use that term at the time. If you can regiment a class, that is somehow bring them under strict control of their behavior, then, and only then, you can think about actually teaching them something. Of course I am not the only one to think this way. “Don’t smile before Christmas” is a common expression. Much of the important stuff I learned in my first year of teaching could be described as a matter of regimentation.
But I can also very much understand the negativity associated with regimentation. Our youngest daughter was very civilized when she started school, or even preschool. She, and the group of kids she naturally gravitated to, never needed much regimentation in school, and so far as I know, was never subject to much regimentation. It would have been very painful for my wife and me if she were.
I have no experience teaching in urban schools, or public schools with really low class kids. However I do have two years experience teaching in a prison school. This was generally a very good experience. I had small classes and was able to give a great deal of individual instruction. This individual instruction gave me a lot of insight about teaching and learning that is not easily obtained from a classroom setting. It was a very good situation for me, but even more importantly it was a very good situation for the students, who were young convicted felons either in their teens or very early twenties. But this pleasant state of affairs was totally dependent on very strict regimentation. This regimentation was laid down from above. It was a prison, after all. All I had to do was to plug into this system and use it skillfully. I recognized this at the time. My previous experience, with lots of frustration, had well prepared me for that. I was painfully aware of what happens when you don’t have the ability, and the means, to maintain tight control of your class.
So is regimentation in a classroom good or bad? Of course it depends entirely on the situation. What’s most important, it seems to me, is having the right level of regimentation. The regimentation that was essential, beneficial, and totally appropriate in the prison school would be out of place and counterproductive in my daughter’s fifth grade class. But the reverse is equally true. The level of freedom in my daughter’s fifth grade class would quickly lead to bloody mayhem in the prison school, and I use the word “bloody” literally.
Of course I am talking about regimentation of behavior, not of scripted instruction. Wise and informed teachers and parents would recognize the difference. But it is understandable if there is some confusion, which makes it all the more important that the ideas be carefully thought through.
And if I may take a bit of a tangent, I want to make one more point. I’m all in favor of educational research, but much research seems not to be guided by what we know from common sense. If one were to take 50 classrooms, rate them by level of regimentation and by level of achievement, and look for a statistical correlation, what would we find? If the results say regimentation leads to high achievement, I would say that is totally misleading. If the results say regimentation leads to low achievement, I would again say that is totally misleading. If the results are inconclusive, I would say, “Of course, what did you expect?” Research, of the usual sort, is very unlikely to lead to the idea that different levels of regimentation are needed in different situations. That has to come from observation and careful thought.
Brian,
What you call regimentation I call hidden structure. This is laying out a set of guidelines, academic and behavior, from the outset that everyone in the class agrees to abide by. These policies are usually understood by everyone in the room after the first couple of weeks AND they are discussed thoroughly the first few days of school with an opportunity for input from each class member (”This is your room for the year and you’re going to have to live by these rules so speak now or forever…”).
When people are allowed to work together and talk (”inside voices”) or not; the sequence/order of each school day; the ramifications of not completing work; who is out of their seat for day or not and what constitutes this policy; all responsible work due by the end of each day; homework protocol for each night; the acceptable quality of work from everyone in the room (if it looks like trash, that’s probably where it’s going and you’ll have to do it over); what is the rationale for a phone call home and the resulting conference from there; the grading procedure in each subject; acceptable v unacceptable level of noise in the room; the prominence of the “golden rule”; etc.
There’s more and although it might sound like a lot they all get it and usually most KIDS THRIVE ON STRUCTURE. Some of them love it, others crave it. It gives many kids a feeling of security. They know the parameters from a responsible adult and they feel safe knowing where they are and exactly what is expected of them and their classmates.
I started with the typo, “how do you define elementary school” when I meant to write, “how do you define direct instruction?” I’ve loved the discussion. I’m still curious, though. Have the pundits taken the time to understand what they are writing about? Have they considered the ideas presented in this excellent comment thread?
Of course I am talking about regimentation of behavior, not of scripted instruction.
But it would seem to me that scripted instruction requires a certain regimentation of behavior. Teachers aren’t going to be able to follow a fast-paced script if kids are asking tangential questions or wanting to use be excused to use the bathroom.
Rightly or wrongly, I think most middle class parents believe their kids are smart and that their questions (tangential or otherwise) should be respected and encouraged, and that a key part of education is learning to ask questions.
One of the things that the tirades of “reformers” against Ed Schools and the “status quo” miss is that there is a significant fraction of parents who like the “status quo” teaching style, particularly as it is implemented in affluent suburban school districts.
As long as their little darling learns to read on a timely basis. If he doesn,’t their tune changes very quick.
I would say that there is an increased correlation as you move up parental SES. In my experience, there’s also a large faction of parents at all SES levels that do not like such loosey goosey methods and that dissatisfaction grows as the unfullfilled promises mount.
But, what I mostly see is parents who do not wish to rock the boat, do not want to question the school’s decisions, and do not know the facts.
I’m pretty confident that if our district were to introduce Direct Instruction in our elementary schools there would be a significant exodus to private schools.
You’d have an influx of complaints, but not necessarily an exodus od students. And what about the influx of students from parents who don’t like the current ways of teaching and the perceived lack of rigor. That is a large group as well.
Why take such responsibility and joy away from teachers? Why hand them scripts and say, “Follow DI–it’s a proven success”?
There are many commercially available phonics programs that teachers can use and adapt. The data shows, however, that they are incapable of adapting and/or using these materials to effectively teach a majority of students to grade level norms.
It may be a proven success, but it’s not all there is to reading, literature, teaching, or education.
Based on this comment I can tell you are not personally familiar with the DI ELA curricula above first two levels.
Direct Instruction is far from a “proven success”. The studies cited in the article may sound impressive, but they don’t stand up to scientific review. Anyone interested in understanding education research needs to know about the What Works Clearinghouse, a Department of Education website that evaluates education research using rigorous scientific standards. The What Works Clearinghouse indicates that for DISTAR/Direct Instruction there are no studies meeting evidence standards. This means that in 40 years the advocates of Direct Instruction have not been able to come up with a single scientifically valid study that shows that Direct Instruction is actually effective.
Systematic phonics is an important part of beginning reading instruction, and it can be useful to have it presented in a scripted form. But systematic phonics by itself is not enough. Students need to be taught vocabulary. Jeanne Chall was the first researcher to demonstrate that students who could sound out words perfectly would still have difficulty comprehending a reading passage if they did not know the meaning of the words. This finding has been confirmed repeatedly.
Some students, particularly those from impoverished backgrounds, also need to be taught comprehension. This was brought home to me when I had a student read a passage about Pocahontas. She read fluently, sounding out each word with ease. When I asked her how Pocahontas had helped John Smith, she looked puzzled. I pointed to a sentence which she reread out loud. “Pocahontas saved John Smith’s life.” Once again, I asked her how Pocahontas had helped John Smith. She shook her head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t say.” This is a student whose first, and only, language is English. I was eventually able to teach her how to understand as well as sound out what she reads, and she now reads chapter books with enthusiasm.
John McWhorter is an engaging writer, but like most people without a background in research, he is not able to suss out the difference between “studies” that sound good on paper and those that pass scientific standards.
The What Works Clearinghouse indicates that for DISTAR/Direct Instruction there are no studies meeting evidence standards.
This statement is incorrect on at least two counts. The WWC did not review any research prior to 1985. Also, it only reviewed the commercially available Reading Mastery curriculum. So, a more accurate statement would be “The What Works Clearinghouse indicates that for Reading Mastery alone there are no studies after 1984 meeting evidence standards.” But that makes a very different point, because 1. most of the Basic DI research occurred before 1985 adn much of the post 1984 research was excluded because the interventions were confounded with other DI programs/techniques.
You should read NIFDI’s criticism of the WWC’s research before making such blanket statement.
But systematic phonics by itself is not enough. Students need to be taught vocabulary. … This finding has been confirmed repeatedly.
That’s probably why no one seriously disagrees with this statement and it’s also probably why vocabulary is extensively taught in DI.
Some students, particularly those from impoverished backgrounds, also need to be taught comprehension.
This is another statement no one seriously disagrees with. Also, comprehension is stressed practically from day one in the DI reading programs and especially in the latter half of the sequence after students have learned to decode proficiently.
John McWhorter is an engaging writer, but like most people without a background in research, he is not able to suss out the difference between “studies” that sound good on paper and those that pass scientific standards.
It does not appear that you are capable of doing that either.
I’ve never edited comments on this blog for reasons of politeness and personal comments, and I don’t much care to. Let’s make sure we’re polite, please
I’m sorry if my closing comment sounded snippy. That really wasn’t my intent. The truth is that I would have to include myself among those that don’t have the background in research methods and statistical analysis to judge the quality of educational research. That’s why I rely on the What Works Clearinghouse. I realize that the What Works Clearinghouse has been criticized for what some see as an excessively high standard of proof. It’s been derided as the “Nothing Works Clearinghouse”. But I appreciate its commitment to the highest standards, and it’s hard to see why after 40 years Direct Instruction has not been able to come up with at least one study that meets these standards.
I am concerned about the credulous tone in John McWhorter’s original article. He speaks of Direct Instruction as if it were some kind of miracle cure that would close the achievement gap almost overnight.
The reality is that the What Works Clearinghouse indicates a number of reading programs that seem to show more promise, though none of them come with the inflated claims associated with Direct Instruction.
There are many highly-educated parents in affluent school districts who prefer a structured school environment, which often seems to come with a less artsy-crafty, touchy-feely approach. I absolutely agree with the above comment that creativity is much over-valued in education. All of my children (pre-k readers, phonics) hated the endless arts projects, touchy-feely books and group projects that dominated their school. At home, they read classic literature and non-fiction. We knew many families who sent their children to private schools to get more structure and less emotion and creativity, and that includes non-Catholics sending their children to Catholic schools.
As far as DI being boring for kids who don’t need the repetition, homogeneous grouping fixes that problem neatly. Once the material is mastered; advance. Heterogeneous grouping and differentiated instruction waste time for everyone and does anyone think that every kid in the class doesn’t know what the groups (however named) mean? I’ve never heard of such a class.
I really wish I’d seen this commentary/thread as it was happening. Here I am a couple of months late. I am a parent (and former teacher of DI) in Fairfax County and have been INCREDIBLY disappointed by the lack of rigor of instruction. At my child’s school they boast about differentiated instruction and yet my son has been forced to complete mind wasting shape matching and abab design completion and other such simple worksheets in spite of completing them with 100% accuracy from the beginning. Of course, I taught him to read before he started school via DI…he reads at about 2nd grade level according to his DIBELS/ORF scores and the corresponding level of his current lesson in the Horizons program…and yet his “teacher” believes he cannot make rhymes b/c she “…has not taught that yet”. HUH?!? I am SO frustrated and am looking for help with getting my son’s school to wake-up and stop using their SOL scores as an excuse not to reconsider their instructional approach and be wiling to consider that just maybe there IS a better way. I’m incredibely grateful for the comment above from KDeRosa who set the record straight about the WWC report. The data that supports DI is undeniable…and I dont’ think you need an especially good mind for reading the research…it’s THAT clear. it’s just SO unfortunate that the same wealth of data leads so many people to believe that DI is only for low performing kids. It works for all kids and in fact, works even better for average and above average learners. I’m looking for others in my community (Fairfax County Public Schools), who are of like-mind. Or anyone who has any advice for me about how to get the attention of my son’s school principal/administrator. Please post here.