Direct Instruction Research in Australia: a ten‐year analysis

Parental Involvement in the Teaching of Reading: A Comparison of Hearing Reading, Paired Reading, Pause, Prompt, Praise, and Direct Instruction Methods

“…", which was evaluated here for the first time, produced equally impressive results with regular students, when delivered by parents, as those obtained by other Direct Instruction programmes designed on the same principles which have been applied to disadvantaged children (Flecker, 1977) and children with a range of learning difficulties (e.g. Lockery and Maggs, 1982) by professional teachers. Moreover, the gains made by the children were, on a test of general reading skills, unrelated to the programme content and were achieved despite the fact that the group completed only one half to three-quarters of the programme in the time available.…”

Why is there so much resistance to Direct Instruction?

“…These particular programs have been in circulation for many years with empirical research spanning their eras. Lockery and Maggs (1982) documented the success of DI for children who have learning difficulties, are gifted, come from disadvantaged backgrounds, who have intellectual impairments ranging from mild to severely impaired, and who are 'normal' students in mainstream classes (p. 270). Their analysis of research on DI across a 10-year period makes a convincing case for the application of DI to teach skills such as language, reading, mathematics and computers to any of the included populations of students (p. 286).…”

“…For example, Lockery and Maggs (1982) included studies that investigated the success of Morphographic Spelling for Aboriginal children with learning difficulties (p. 271), reading achievement of students with Down Syndrome after instruction with DISTAR (now known as Reading Mastery) (p. 274) and other specific investigations in their analysis on DI research in Australia. They concluded that repeated replication of the success of DI when used with varied populations, a range of ages and for different learning areas shows its suitability as an effective intervention for all students (p. 284).…”

Direct Instruction Microcomputing in Primary Schools: manipulation of critical instructional variables

“…On the basis of research evidence (Lockery & Maggs, 1982), it was predicted that the Direct Instruction Method One would lead to the most effective learning, and that Method Four, the least structured, would be least effective.…”