School and District Leaders
For school and district leaders responsible for creating the conditions for successful Direct Instruction implementation.
Strong leadership is an important part of successful Direct Instruction implementation. Leaders play a critical role in ensuring teachers have the time, resources, training, coaching, and support needed to deliver instruction effectively. Strong leadership keeps the focus on student performance and creates the systems necessary to implement DI with consistency and fidelity.
Effective Leadership
Strong leadership is the foundation of a successful schoolwide Direct Instruction (DI) implementation. When principals and leadership teams actively support DI and model that commitment every day, schools see stronger, more consistent results.
DI works best as a coordinated, schoolwide effort. From scheduling and staffing to professional development and data use, lasting success depends on clear systems led by engaged and committed leaders.
What Effective Leaders Do
- ensure initial support from all staff members for the DI implementation.
- understand the major factors that lead to success with DI, including the purpose and function of NIFDI support services.
- set up the structural components of a successful implementation, such as the schedule and assignment of paraprofessionals, before instruction begins.
- arrange for initial program training and other professional development sessions.
- ensure that staff members attend training and practice sessions.
- identify student problems through data analysis and direct observation of instruction.
- take appropriate actions to resolve student problems.
- recognize and celebrate student achievement!
Stay Connected to Classrooms
Frequent, focused classroom observations and coaching keep implementations on track with a focus on student performance. Even brief walkthroughs provide valuable insight into student performance and reinforce a culture of accountability and support.
Drive Results Through Accountability
Effective leaders stay closely involved in monitoring progress. By reviewing data weekly, sometimes daily, and ensuring action steps are followed, they help maintain momentum and ensure every student stays on track.
Commit to Long-Term Success
Strong DI schools commit to consistent, high-quality implementation over time, building teacher expertise and improving student outcomes year after year.
Ready to see what strong leadership can do? Keep exploring how DI transforms schools.
Important: Maximizing student achievement with Direct Instruction (DI) requires a long-term commitment to implementing the program with fidelity. While gains can appear within the first few years, especially in early grades, reaching full impact, particularly in upper grades, takes sustained effort over time. Teachers need thorough training, ongoing coaching, and professional development to become highly effective, and student outcomes improve as cohorts progress through the grades. Strong, consistent leadership is essential to maintain fidelity and ensure lasting success for all students.
Scheduling Sufficient Instructional Time
Successful Direct Instruction (DI) use depends on one key factor: giving students enough time to learn and practice every day. Strong schedules ensure students can master content, accelerate when ready, or receive extra support when needed.
Recommended Daily Schedule
Instructional Block | Who It Applies To | Time Needed | Notes |
| Morning Reading | All students | 90 minutes | Core reading instruction for all learners |
Afternoon Reading | K–1 and students below grade level (Gr. 2+) | 60 minutes | Provides additional practice and acceleration |
Language Instruction | Grades 1+ | 60 minutes | Often taught by an assistant in K–1 alongside reading |
Mathematics | All students | 60 minutes | Dedicated, uninterrupted math block |
| Additional Reading (Middle School) | Students in intervention (e.g., Corrective Reading) | 60 minutes | Ideally scheduled in addition to comprehension |
Scheduling Best Practices
- Align instructional times across classrooms and grades to allow flexible grouping and regrouping.
- Protect instructional time, minimize transitions, and avoid late starts — every minute matters.
- Plan for differentiation by building in time for both acceleration and extra practice.
Creating a strong schedule is only the first step; protecting instructional time is just as critical. Every minute counts, and lost time due to transitions or late starts reduces students’ opportunities to master content.
With sufficient time in DI, students typically complete at least one reading level per year and often exceed grade-level benchmarks. Two daily reading periods not only accelerate literacy but also build knowledge in science and social studies, which are integrated throughout the program.
CAUTION: Teachers cannot guarantee student success if students do not spend sufficient time in the DI programs. This is especially true for younger children who are in the early stages of formal learning. Young students have fewer problems when practice occurs twice a day instead of once every 24 hours. Two reading periods a day is particularly helpful for highly at-risk students who have less background information and less academic experience than their more affluent peers.
Ensuring Sufficient Personnel
Successful implementation of the Direct Instruction (DI) model depends on having enough trained staff to deliver instruction with fidelity and administrators to support it. Student placement levels should drive staffing decisions to ensure effective group sizes and instruction.
Group Sizes by Performance Level
In the first two levels of Reading Mastery, small-group instruction is essential:
- Lower performers: 4–6 students per group
- Middle performers: 8–10 students per group
- High performers: 10–12 students per group
These ratios allow teachers to closely monitor responses and provide immediate feedback, especially critical for lower-performing students who require more practice and correction.
For Corrective Reading (Levels A and B1):
- Level A: No more than 12 students per group
- Level B1: 15 or fewer is optimal (larger groups may be accommodated)
Once students reach Level 3 in either program, instruction can shift to larger, homogeneously grouped classes of up to 35 students.
Classroom Staffing Structure
In elementary schools implementing a 90-minute reading block, each classroom requires:
- 1 teacher and 1 paraprofessional
- 3 instructional groups rotating every 30 minutes
Each group receives:
- 30 minutes of reading
- 30 minutes of language instruction
- 30 minutes of independent practice
This rotation is repeated in the afternoon with 20-minute group sessions.
Schools must also plan for:
- An additional 60-minute reading block for all K–1 students and those below grade level
- A 60-minute math block if implementing DI mathematics
Leadership & Ongoing Support
Each school needs a full-time, on-site coordinator to manage daily implementation, analyze data, and support instruction. Coordinators also serve as lead coaches, especially in the first year, and receive advanced training over a three-year period.
Access to trained substitute teachers is equally important to ensure continuity of instruction when staff are absent.
Why Staffing Matters
When students learn content incorrectly, re-teaching can require dozens or even hundreds of correct repetitions, often with decreased motivation. Preventing errors through:
- Proper placement
- Daily mastery-based instruction
- Small, skill-based groups
Ensuring sufficient, well-trained personnel allows schools to deliver instruction accurately the first time, setting students up for long-term success.
Focusing on Student Performance
Implementing Direct Instruction (DI) effectively requires teachers and administrators to make student performance the focus of the staff’s efforts to improve the school.
Student performance determines:
- placement in groups,
- which instructional materials should be ordered, and
- which levels of the programs teachers should receive training in.
Student performance also determines whether a problem exists. If students are not progressing through the program at mastery at an acceptable rate, then there is a problem. When effective administrators and coaches enter classrooms, they focus on student performance. If the classroom setup or the teacher’s delivery is unconventional but students are learning successfully, there is no problem. If a teacher’s signal is unusual, for instance, but all children respond in unison, then there is no problem because a signal’s purpose is to prompt students to respond together. Similarly, if an instructional group is larger than recommended but all students can see the presentation book, respond together, and the teacher can monitor all students’ responses, there is no problem, because the purpose of smaller groups is to ensure that teachers can monitor all students’ responses.
When administrators and coaches identify problems in student performance, they require accurate, current data on the progress of each instructional group and each student’s performance on in-program assessments. They may also need to get more specific information on the problem:
- During which exercises and on which items does this problem occur?
- How long has the problem been taking place?
- What has been done already to solve the problem?
- What was the effect of implementing these remedies?
- Have any other problems, including behavioral problems, arisen since the identification of the original problem?
- What specific steps can be taken to solve the original problem and any spin-off problems?
- Who is going to take the steps and talk with the teacher about the problem(s)?
A proactive, structured approach to problem-solving is essential because challenges rarely resolve on their own. When identified early and addressed consistently, small issues can be prevented from becoming bigger barriers to student success.
Important: Problems can’t be solved if they aren’t identified. Through regular classroom observations and weekly data reviews, our model helps uncover student needs and pinpoint where support is needed most. By keeping the focus on student performance, leaders and coaches can drive productive, solution-focused conversations, ensuring every student stays on track to succeed.
Prepare Teachers for Coaching
Watch the video below to find out how to prepare your teachers for NIFDI coaching.
Hear From Leaders Who Partnered With NIFDI
One of the most important steps a school that is starting to implement DI can take is to contact school leaders who have been successful with DI. Through this contact, new DI practitioners can learn from veteran DI practitioners’ experiences to ensure their students are successful with DI as well. Over the course of 25 years, NIFDI has had the privilege of partnering with schools across the U.S. and in other countries. (See below for success stories of NIFDI partners.) Now, NIFDI is launching a series of video interviews with experienced DI leaders that can help inform new practitioners about their experiences working with NIFDI. Below are short video interviews with instructional leaders who share their experiences working with NIFDI and how it has affected their instructional practices and students’ performance.
Leaders
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Rhonda Richetta, Principal
City Springs Elementary/Middle School
Baltimore, Maryland
Implementation Type: Schoolwide literacy and math
Partnered with NIFDI in 1996
Rhonda started at City Springs as a teacher, left the school, and then returned as principal. Upon her return, she found that the implementation had deteriorated substantially. Her solution was to contact NIFDI and get her school back to the high quality she knew was possible. When asked how NIFDI helped her as an administrator, she replied, “The assistance in looking at the data and making decisions was really valuable. I couldn’t have done it by myself.” For teaching staff, she adds, “The most valuable tool for a teacher is a NIFDI coach… side by side, shoulder to shoulder. They model for you, show you, and give you feedback.”
Sean McKenzie, Director of Support Services
Bethel School District
Spanaway, Washington
Implementation Type: Corrective Reading, intervention for students in 4 schools
Partnered with NIFDI in 2019
Bethel School District partnered with NIFDI to refresh and upgrade their implementation of the Corrective Reading Program. They had been DI users for some time but weren’t getting the results they felt were possible. Along with improved student performance, Sean notes the increase in the quality and quantity of communication among staff members. He tells us, “Schools with NIFDI support have more and better discussions about what they are doing and how it impacts individual student achievement.” He goes on to say, “The partnership between cert[ified] and para[professional] is tight. They know that their time with students is the most important time they are going to get, and they treat it accordingly.”
Finally, he tells us, “Our principals have all agreed that NIFDI support is the single most changing professional development experience they have experienced in their careers.”
Nazam Hussain, School Psychologist
Bradford, United Kingdom
Implementation type: Language for Learning and Reading Mastery in two Primary Schools.
NIFDI began working in Bradford when Nazam attended the National Direct Instruction Conference in 2019. He was interested in improving teachers’ professional development beyond what he describes as “one-off presentations that have no effect.” He further describes how NIFDI support is the polar opposite. “The thoroughness and robustness of the training was rigorous and professional but sensitive to the individual. The schools like the support, and they are seeing the results.”
Robin Shakespeare, Director of Education
Midland Academies Trust
United Kingdom
Implementation type: Research project implementing Connecting Math Concepts in eight schools and extended professional development of their key DI support personnel.
NIFDI began partnering with the Midlands Academy Trust and the U.K. Direct Instruction hub in 2018. The Education Endowment Fund was calling for research on improving math skills in students in their secondary schools (U.S. equivalent to 7th-9th grade). The staff had been using DI for several years but had not received formal training. Once we began working together, the Midlands leadership quickly realized the benefits of the NIFDI partnership. As Robin describes, “When you work with NIFDI, you work with a group of people who are professional, passionate and challenging–in the best sense of the word.” To describe the impact of NIFDI support, Robin says, “I would use the word transformational to characterize our relationship with NIFDI.”
Selina Ortiz, Assistant Principal of Instruction
IDEA Edinburg Academy
Edinburg, Texas
Implementation Type: Reading Mastery (Signature and Transformations), DISTAR Arithmetic I, and Connecting Math Concepts in Pre-K through grades 2, Corrective Reading, Essentials for Algebra, DISE, and Expressive Writing in grades 3-8.
Partnered with NIFDI in 2010
Selina Ortiz has been a classroom assistant and teacher and is now an Assistant Principal of Instruction. She appreciates the data-driven nature of NIFDI implementations and how it supports her in her job, and in turn, helps teachers overcome student performance problems. She says, “The teachers have gained so much knowledge behind the data tracking. They love the consistency of end-of-week goals, end-of-month goals… it is so helpful.” Selina also values the strong professional development NIFDI provides. She notes, “The tools and procedures taught in training are applicable to an array of programs. When they present a new program, they pick it up easily.”
Ann Fuentes, Assistant Principal of Instruction
IDEA Mission Academy
Mission, Texas
Implementation Type: Reading Mastery (Signature and Transformations), DISTAR Arithmetic I, and Connecting Math Concepts in Pre-K through grades 2, Corrective Reading, Essentials for Algebra, DISE, and Expressive Writing in grades 3-8.
Partnered with NIFDI in 2010
Ann Fuentes is the Assistant Principal of Instruction at IDEA Mission Academy. One of the things she values in partnering with NIFDI is the strong relational support the NIFDI Implementation Manager (IM) provides. She talks about her school’s implementation manager’s style of giving “small, bitesize level of feedback. This has supported me in improving as a teacher. The IMs build relationships. She is here to help and support. It is a caring, comforting approach.”
Tova Feifer, K-2 English Language Arts Supervisor
Lakewood, New Jersey
“At first I was extremely hesitant because it looked different than programs I had used in the past…however after the outstanding training, ongoing collaboration, and exceptional coaching from Tara, our NIFDI coach, we came to appreciate just how unique and special this DI program is. The structured, explicit lessons, consistent routines, immediate corrective feedback…seeing the measurable growth in students, completely changed my perspective.”
In this Partner Perspective, Tova shares her experience as part of an Institute of Education Sciences (IES) first-grade supplemental reading study. The project uses Reading Mastery and the Science of Reading to improve literacy outcomes, while providing participating educators with professional development, curriculum, and instructional resources.
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