Reviews of Direct Instruction
Despite decades of well-designed scientific research demonstrating that Direct Instruction (DI) is highly effective, the program has faced considerable criticism. Critics claim that DI is less effective than other teaching methods, lacks lasting impact, is suitable only for disadvantaged or struggling students, and can even harm self-esteem and behavior. However, evidence suggests that DI is more effective than other programs, with benefits that persist through high school and support students from all backgrounds. Additionally, students exposed to DI tend to exhibit higher self-esteem and confidence because they learn more effectively and realize their potential for success.
Common Myths & Misconceptions
Numerous myths about DI circulate in educational circles, often from individuals who have never taught the program or observed it in use by teachers who have received proper training and support. These myths have to do with the supposed rigidity of DI, its inappropriateness for certain populations, and its restrictions on creativity. These myths are myths.
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After you’ve taught the program for a few months, you will see that the program has the flexibility to accommodate the needs of lower and higher-performing students, and it allows teacher creativity within the confines of the script, much as a play script allows an actor to be creative within its confines. Most importantly, you will see that all students succeed in ways you hadn’t thought possible before. The DI programs provide teachers with a powerful tool for presenting an instructional sequence that has been verified as highly effective for the full range of learners. By providing effective wording and examples, the scripts allow teachers to focus on students’ responses.
Teachers don’t need to worry about how to present critical skills and concepts. Instead, they can concentrate on what students know, what they don’t understand, and where they need additional practice or support. Your interaction with students will increase with DI because the DI programs elicit high rates of student responses in each lesson. With DI, you will have a much better understanding of your students’ skill levels than ever before. DI is effective for all students as long as they are placed and grouped at their skill levels and taught to mastery every day.
Groups should be homogeneous with respect to students’ current performance level, and these groups should be flexible in order to incorporate different rates of student learning. Some students master skills and concepts quickly and may be ready to move to a higher group. Other students need additional practice and might need to be moved to a lower group. These adjustments to student placement are made on a weekly basis through the analysis of student performance data. To the largest extent possible, with the school’s resources, instruction is individualized for students through flexible grouping.
Senior Direct Instruction Author Siegfried Engelmann addresses many myths about DI in a series of 2017 videos. In the video segments below, you will hear Zig’s thoughts on everything from “Drill and Kill” to multi-sensory learning to teachers’ creativity in a DI classroom.
Siegfried "Zig" Engelmann on Instruction
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Siegfried Engelmann explains the power of DI for ALL learners, not just those at risk. He also discusses one of his most impactful creations, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, a program used by nearly a million families and known for its incredible results.
Siegfried Engelmann on Individual Learning Styles
Siegfried Engelmann challenges the popular idea of individual learning styles: visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. He argues that these categories are based on preference, not evidence. Decades of research attempting to design programs for specific “learning styles” have failed, while well-designed instruction has consistently proven effective for all learners. Engelmann explains that reading, by necessity, is a visual process that also requires understanding auditory relationships between symbols and sounds. The real issue isn’t matching instruction to supposed learner types but using programs like Direct Instruction that are empirically validated and effective across students.
Siegfried Engelmann on the Role of Rote Learning
Siegfried Engelmann explains that some knowledge is inherently rote, like numbers and their properties, and must be learned accurately to prevent foundational errors. Using fractions as an example, he warns that poor instruction can lead to lasting misconceptions, such as believing all fractions are less than one.
He highlights his project, where preschool children from disadvantaged communities demonstrate a strong understanding of fractions, including those greater than one. Engelmann’s message is clear: rote content should be taught with fidelity, carefully sequenced and focused on essential features, so students truly learn what they need to know.
Siegfried Engelmann explains why students thrive when they’re placed in groups where everyone is learning at a similar level. When students experience success, have fun, and see evidence of their own learning, they build confidence regardless of how groups are organized across a classroom.
Engelmann reminds us that children understand differences in ability, but what truly matters is feeling successful, supported, and smart in their own learning environment. When teachers reinforce that success, students believe it.
Watch as Engelmann shares a powerful story that challenges common misconceptions about grouping and highlights why effective instructional design matters.
Siegfried Engelmann on Individualizing Instruction
Siegfried Engelmann explains why truly “individualized” instruction in early grades is unrealistic and how effective teaching instead treats time as a precious resource. By grouping strategically, monitoring individual progress, and teaching to mastery, we can do the best for the most every minute the clock ticks.
Evidence of Direct Instruction Effectiveness
Direct Instruction has received the highest rating in recent meta-analyses and assessments of the scientific research basis for models of comprehensive school reform (CSR):
- The Effectiveness of Direct Instruction: A Meta-Analysis of a Half-Century of Research (2018) published by The Review of Education Research and authored by Jean Stockard, Tim Wood, Cristy Coughlin, and Caitlin Rasplica Khoury. The meta-analysis examines the research published from 1961-2016 on the effectiveness of Direct Instruction. Analyses were based on 318 studies involving 431 study designs and almost 4000 effects. Among the findings, the abstract for the article reports, “All of the estimated effects were positive, and all were statistically significant except results from metaregressions involving affective outcomes. Effects showed little decline during maintenance, and effects for academic subjects were greater when students had more exposure to the programs.”
- Comprehensive School Reform and Student Achievement (2003), a meta-analysis of 29 Comprehensive School Reform models conducted by Dr. Geoffrey Borman (U Wisconsin-Madison) and colleagues. Direct Instruction was one of only three models found to have the “strongest evidence of effectiveness.” Models were categorized according to quality and quantity of evidence of effectiveness and according to whether that evidence indicated “statistically significant and positive results.
- John Hattie’s Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement (2009) summarizes the results of four meta-analyses that examined Direct Instruction. These analyses incorporated 304 studies of over 42,000 students. Across all of these studies, the average effect size was .59. This effect is significantly larger than those of any other curriculum Hattie studied and was similar for studies of general education students, special education students, and low-performing students. Results were also similar in mathematics and reading.
- An Educator’s Guide to Schoolwide Reform (1999), a study of 24 instructional models of schoolwide reform sponsored by five national associations of educators (AASA, AFT, NAESP, and NEA). Direct Instruction was only one of two models for elementary and middle schools that received a “strong” rating for evidence of positive effects on student achievement. This report was the first that systematically evaluated and rated each of the most prominent CSR models “based on what the research shows about the model’s effects on student achievement.”
- Research on Direct Instruction: 25 Years Beyond DISTAR (1996) by Gary L. Adams and Siegfried Engelmann. Adams conducted a meta-analysis of 34 research articles after screening over 350 publications for relevant features (e.g., pretest scores, comparison-group research designs, use of formal DI curricula, and use of statistical measures). Effect sizes were calculated for each of the articles included in the analysis that met these criteria. Thirty-two of the 34 effect size scores were positive, with a mean effect size per individual variable of 0.97 and a mean effect size per study of 0.87.
To learn more about the research behind DI, visit our DI Research Database. This database includes the most recent contributions to the field of DI research and is searchable by keywords, subject areas, publication year, and more!
Literature Reviews
Several systematic literature reviews have documented the efficacy of Direct Instruction programs:
- Kinder and associates (2005) summarized the results of 37 studies that used Direct Instruction materials with students with disabilities. Over 90 percent of these studies found positive effects for the Direct Instruction programs.
- Przychodzin-Havis and colleagues (2005) reviewed 28 published studies of the Direct Instruction Corrective Reading program. Over 90 percent of the studies found positive results, and only one study found greater gains with another intervention. Similar results appeared with different types of assessments (e.g., standardized tests or curriculum-based measures), in different settings, with different types of instructors (e.g., certified teachers, peers, aides), and with different research designs.
- Schieffer and colleagues (2002) reviewed 21 studies of Reading Mastery that compared its use to that of another program. Results in fourteen of these studies (67%) favored RM, other programs were favored in three (14%), and there were no differences in the remainder.
Meta-Analyses of DI Programs
Five meta-analyses have examined Direct Instruction programs. All of these analyses have concluded that DI programs have highly positive effects on student achievement and that the programs are more effective than other curricular approaches.
- John Hattie examined meta-analyses of over 300 research studies relating to student achievement and concluded that Direct Instruction is highly effective. No other curricular program showed such consistently strong effects with students of different ability levels, of different ages, and with different subject matters.
- Borman and associates examined studies of 29 comprehensive school reform models. They found that much more evidence was available for the Direct Instruction model than for other interventions. Direct Instruction was found to produce the strongest effects of all models examined.
- In Research on Direct Instruction: 25 Years Beyond DISTAR, Adams and Engelmann respond to unfounded negative views of Direct Instruction and a lack of a thorough scientific review of the effectiveness of Direct Instruction at the time. Engelmann provides a detailed description and history of Direct Instruction, and Adams conducted a meta-analysis of 34 highly controlled studies that looked at the effectiveness of Direct Instruction programs. Adams found very strong, positive results.
- Coughlin’s meta-analysis focused on 20 studies of Direct Instruction that employed a randomized control group design. Strong positive effects were found with reading, language, mathematics, and other areas. Similar results appeared with general education and special education students.
- Stockard and associates used quantitative mixed models to examine literature published from 1966 through 2016 on the effectiveness of Direct Instruction. Analyses were based on 328 studies involving 413 study designs and almost 4,000 effects.
What Works Clearinghouse
The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) was established in 2002 with funding from the U.S. Department of Education. The Clearinghouse was charged with producing user-friendly guides for educators on effective instructional practices to help educators understand which instructional programs have been shown to be effective.
Unfortunately, the WWC has failed to live up to its promise. The claim that Direct Instruction programs are not effective has been promulgated by the WWC. Careful analyses of the WWC reports show that they can be very misleading and provide inaccurate summaries of the research. As a result, some WWC reports give positive ratings to programs that researchers have found to be ineffective and negative ratings to programs that the research has found to be highly effective. Here are some of the major problems documented by NIFDI staff:
- The WWC ignores large elements of the research base in searching the research literature.
- The WWC uses inconsistent and flawed criteria to choose studies to examine in depth.
- The WWC’s interpretations of the research are often inaccurate and misrepresent the conclusions of the studies.
- The WWC’s procedures and methods are very different than those used by most social scientists and widely accepted in the scientific community.
NIFDI staff have documented numerous problems with the procedures and reports of the What Works Clearinghouse. Learn more about some of these issues in the articles and reports below.