Direct Instruction and Its Effects on Special Education Students

Direct Instruction Overview

Direct instruction is an increasingly popular and well-supported educational technique that has been utilized for several years. It has historically been used as a method of instruction for special education students (Goral, 2001). Many educators have claimed that direct instruction helps students regardless of their learning capability or any defined learning disabilities (Goral, 2001). Direct instruction is based on the idea that a teacher-led classroom involving active participation and well-choreographed lesson plans is a more effective learning environment than a less structured or student-led situation.

Kozloff (2002), a firm proponent of direct instruction, suggests that it provides an effective method of instruction by helping students learn to organize and activate knowledge. Kozloff further suggests that direct instruction shifts the emphasis of teaching toward mastering and acquiring proficiency in tasks, rather than focusing on deficits, which can sometimes inhibit learning for students with learning disabilities. Direct instruction requires that students receive instruction that is precise and clearly defined, and that teachers model by illustrating—not simply lecturing—using carefully defined lesson plans and tools that help facilitate learning (Kozloff, 2002).

Direct instruction is a highly teacher-led teaching style that requires the design of effective instructional interventions, particularly for students with reading or learning disabilities (Allington, 2001). It also supports the use of instructional aids, with an emphasis on facilitating student achievement (Boyd-Zaharias & Pate-Bain, 1998). These aids may take many different forms, including charts, worksheets, instructional guidelines, and workbooks.

The study "Direct Instruction in Math Word Problems: Students with Learning Disabilities" by Paul Sindelar and Cynthia Wilson (1991) examined elementary school mathematics curricula with an emphasis on students with learning disabilities. The intent of the study was to determine whether a direct instruction approach would help learning disabled students cope with problem solving. The authors suggest that other programs—particularly basal programs—fail because of a "lack of adequate provision for practice and review and absence of adequate teaching strategy involving step-by-step protocols" (Sindelar & Wilson, 1991).

Review of Key Research Studies

This study involved 62 participants with learning disabilities from nine elementary schools in Florida (Sindelar & Wilson, 1991). Students selected for the study had to be labeled as learning disabled, enrolled in a special education math program, scoring a minimum of 80% on basic addition and subtraction skills, and identified as needing help with problem solving (Sindelar & Wilson, 1991, p. 512). The assessment instrument consisted of 216 word problems divided into four types: simple action problems, classification problems, complex action problems, and comparison problems (Sindelar & Wilson, 1991).

The results indicated that the direct instruction approach worked best when teaching students with learning disabilities to solve word problems related to addition and subtraction (Sindelar & Wilson, 1991). These results correlate with other studies suggesting that the direct approach produces superior performance compared with other approaches, and support its use as a primary teaching strategy for learning disabled students. The direct instruction method utilized in this study included explicitly teaching each step of the translation process, providing detailed correction procedures, and using scripted lessons (Sindelar & Wilson, 1991).

In the article "Advanced Story Map Instruction: Effects on the Reading Comprehension of Students with Learning Disabilities," Gardill and Jitendra (1999) conducted a multiple baseline study examining direct instruction specifically as it relates to reading. The aim was to evaluate the effectiveness of direct instruction when combined with a story map procedure to improve reading comprehension performance. Six middle school students diagnosed with learning disabilities participated in the study.

The results suggest that story grammar and basal comprehension performance increased for all participating students when direct instruction techniques were employed. The study was undertaken because students with learning disabilities have been identified as a population with significant difficulties related to reading comprehension (Gardill & Jitendra, 1999). The researchers note that a large body of research supports direct instruction as an effective tool for teaching comprehension as well as general analytical skills to students with learning disabilities.

Reading comprehension is thought to be difficult for students with learning disabilities because it requires deriving meaning from printed material (Gardill & Jitendra, 1999). Participants were sixth and eighth grade students—all white, all holding active individualized education programs—and all receiving instruction in reading or language arts. Selection criteria required that students had been identified as having a learning disability under Pennsylvania special education eligibility standards, demonstrated difficulty with reading comprehension as determined by instructors, and met minimum fourth-grade reading level standards on a word identification and passage comprehension test (Gardill & Jitendra, 1999).

Direct instruction for this study was carried out during the school day in a separate classroom, where students were assessed using instructional and testing passages (Gardill & Jitendra, 1999). The story maps were designed to help students recognize critical details in passages and subsequently infer unstated ideas (Gardill & Jitendra, 1999). Students recorded information from passages on the story maps, including character information, problems, and issues or themes (Gardill & Jitendra, 1999).

In "Integrated Learning: Explicit Strategies and Their Role in Problem Solving Instruction for Students With Learning Disabilities," Hollingsworth and Woodward (1993) investigated direct instruction strategies with respect to problem solving in learning disabled students. Specifically, the study examined the effectiveness of direct instruction as a means to help learning disabled students link facts, concepts, and problem-solving strategies in an "unfamiliar domain of learning" (Hollingsworth & Woodward, 1993). The study included 37 secondary-level students diagnosed with learning disabilities.

Students in the experimental group received direct instruction techniques for solving problems through the use of computer-simulated games. The comparison group received supportive feedback rather than direct instruction and was encouraged to discover their own strategies for learning (Hollingsworth & Woodward, 1993).

Analysis and Conclusions

Hollingsworth and Woodward note that a majority of students with learning disabilities spend a large portion of their time in drill-and-practice programs—particularly when working on computers—which does not allow them to infer information that might assist them in problem solving (Hollingsworth & Woodward, 1993). Students were selected from a city in the Pacific Northwest and a community in Alberta, Canada; five were in 7th or 8th grade and the remainder in 9th or 10th grade (Hollingsworth & Woodward, 1993). Eligibility criteria required a reading disability and performance at least two years below grade level. Results showed a substantial differentiation in learning between the direct instruction group and the comparison group, with direct instruction students significantly outperforming their peers.

The majority of literature on special education and students with learning disabilities suggests that such students benefit from direct instruction techniques. Hollingsworth and Woodward (1993) conclude that direct instruction may be particularly advantageous for learning disabled students struggling with problem solving, because direct instruction techniques enable students to infer information from text that they might otherwise overlook. Sindelar and Wilson (1991) show that direct instruction facilitates problem-solving capabilities in learning disabled students by providing a framework and strategy for analyzing problems—something not typically available in a traditional curriculum. Gardill and Jitendra (1999) further conclude that direct instruction offers advantages with respect to reading comprehension.

All three of these studies share a common focus: direct instruction as a teaching intervention and strategy for students with learning disabilities. Most of the research focuses primarily on reading skills and mathematical ability. The studies are strengthened by the fact that they typically compare direct instruction with at least one other method of instruction when evaluating its effectiveness, and most require that students meet specific criteria before participating, further substantiating the evidence provided by each study's results.

A large body of additional, non-experimental literature also supports the use of direct instruction in the classroom—both with special education or learning disabled populations and with student populations as a whole. In her journal article "Effective Instruction Begins with Purposeful Assessments," Cobb (2003) points out that building administrators and reading specialists must take a leadership role in helping teachers distinguish between assessment and evaluation. Cobb suggests that teaching will be more meaningful when instruction is directed and when administrators and teachers collaborate to develop an integrated, reciprocal curriculum. While her article does not specifically endorse direct instruction, it implies that methods incorporating direct instruction techniques may produce more effective classroom outcomes. Cobb also emphasizes the importance of meaningful and guided instruction, and encourages teachers to meet, discuss student work, and share instructional methods—including direct instruction—when they facilitate higher-order learning and purposeful assessment (Cobb, 2003).

In "Student Perceptions of Online vs. Campus Instruction," Beard and Harper (2002) describe direct instruction as a "modern day miracle" with regard to 21st-century education, arguing that it can have a tremendous impact on instruction and student learning specifically within colleges and universities. Reviewing various instructional techniques, the authors claim that students learn best through direct interaction—provided by professors and other students alike—and suggest that distance education fails to promote this type of beneficial interaction, making learning less impactful (Beard & Harper, 2002).

In "Curriculum-Based Assessment and Direct Instruction," Hershusius (1991) examines and compares two popular methods of instruction: curriculum-based assessment and direct instruction. He confirms that direct instruction has been used to teach with great precision by adding specific content components to the curriculum; however, he concludes that there is still much to be discovered about human learning, and argues that direct instruction "reflects not a model of instruction for human learning, but rather an isolated set of control procedures" superimposed on—but not fully integrated with—the needs of individual special education students (Hershusius, 1991). His central argument is that additional research is necessary regarding direct instruction and other forms of instruction in order to most fully address the needs of individual students.