Direct Instruction With Special Education Students: A Review of Evaluation Research

Abstract

Studies evaluating the effectiveness of direct instruction curricula and teaching procedures are reviewed and, in some instances, critiqued. The six studies indicate that direct instruction tends to produce higher academic gains for handicapped children than traditional approaches. They also suggest that some of the more subtle principles of direct instruction—such as insistence on complete (rather than partial) mastery of each step in the learning process—are important. The author contends that future research should more care-

Relative Effects of Whole‐word and Phonetic‐prompt Error Correction on the Acquisition and Maintenance of Sight Words by Students With Developmental Disabilities

“…In particular, direct instruction has been found to produce higher academic gains than do traditional approaches when educating children with disabilities (Bateman & Carnine, 1977;Gersten & Maggs, 1982;Stevens & Rosenshine, 1981). However, insufficient research has been conducted to evaluate individual direct-instruction program components (Englert, 1984;Gersten, 1985). Whole-word feedback is also a component of the systematic error-correction procedures used in several successful peer and crossage tutoring programs (Barbetta, Miller, Peters, Heron, & Cochran, 1991;Delquadri, Greenwood, Stretton, & Hall, 1983;Greenwood et al, 1987;Heron, Heward, Cooke, & Hill, 1983).…”

Effectiveness of the DISTAR Reading Program for Children with Learning Disabilities

“…Since the DISTAR reading program incorporates direct instruction techniques that have been found to be effective for children with LD (Gersten, 1985), it was hypothesized that the group receiving instruction through the DISTAR program would progress more quickly in reading than the group using the basal reading program.…”

Attention and Cognitive Deficits in Learning-Disabled Students

“…Of course, we may find that additional instruction is not the solution, but rather, that quite different instructional procedures are needed. Research conducted on some other instructional design procedures (Gersten et al, 1982) and on instructional programs that incorporate the procedures (Lakery & Maggs, 1982;Gersten, in press) suggest that additional instruction may be the answer, but only further research can clearly resolve the question. Other research that has shown these design procedures to be effective with handicapped students entailed much more training than the present studies.…”