20/20 News Report on Direct Instruction with John Stossel – Part 2

This video aired on the popular current events program 20/20 in the mid-1980s. It features clips of students at Wesley School engaged in Direct Instruction lessons. There are several parts of the segment in which Siegfried “Zig” Engelmann discusses the programs and addresses some criticisms. It is rather unbiased, but it focuses on the “basic” nature of the programs and gives little recognition to the higher-level comprehension and reasoning development incorporated into the design. See Science of Reading: Explicit
Fundamental Language Instruction to Improve Reading Comprehension for more information.

Primetime Live Segment on Direct Instruction and Wesley Elementary (1991)

This segment from Primetime Live features Mabel B Wesley Elementary Principal Thaddeus Lott and the successful implementation of Direct Instruction. The focus is on how underserved students in Houston were outperforming all other students. Rather than celebrate the success at Wesley, district officials tried to discredit Lott and his staff.

A Tale of Two Schools

This documentary, narrated by Morgan Freeman, was produced for PBS in 2003. It portrays the efforts of two high-poverty schools to promote reading success in their classrooms: Walton Elementary in Fort Worth, Texas, and Bearden Elementary in the Mississippi Delta.

During filming, Walton Elementary was using Reading Mastery and had an experienced literacy coordinator who supported teachers as they delivered the program, which they had been trained in and had implemented successfully for several years.

Bearden Elementary had just begun implementing a different set of instructional practices, which the narrator characterizes as “more complex” than DI. The film portrays the efforts of one teacher to implement these practices for about half a year before she receives training in them.

The two schools experience contrasting results at the end of the school year. While the principal at each school identifies teachers as the source of success in reading, the film identifies several additional factors that lead to reading success: “…a determined principal, a systematic reading program, some help at home, and well-trained teachers who expect the kids to succeed.”

You can read more about the documentary on the official website.