Does teaching matter?
Teaching matters, argues American Public Media's Sold a Story in Season 2. Specifically, students learn more when schools use direct, explicit instruction, rather than "discovery" or "inquiry" learning, argues Emily Hanford. She focuses the first two episodes -- It’s Not Just Reading and The Remedy Is Always Teaching — on Direct Instruction, a program developed by Zig Engelmann in the 1960's that features fast-paced scripted lessons, choral responses, checks for comprehension and lots of repetition.
In a huge Great Society study of teaching methods for needy students called Project Follow Through, Engelmann's DI was the most effective by far, notes Education Week. Students in schools using DI "made the highest average gains in basic skills, academic thinking abilities, and self-esteem." Progressive methods did poorly in raising academic achievement and self-esteem. But the study's results were ignored. DI is used rarely, mostly in special-ed classes and some charter schools.
DI was one of three programs with the strongest evidence of effectiveness, out of 29 school reform approaches, in a 2002 Johns Hopkins meta-analysis of the research, and a 2018 meta-analysis "found positive, statistically significant results on reading, math, and other academic subjects."
Many teachers see scripted lessons as a threat to their autonomy and creativity, writes Robert Pondiscio. Hanford is challenging "deeply held beliefs about what good teaching is and is not." That's going to be hard for educators to accept.
The American education system "has vastly undervalued direct, explicit instruction, particularly at lower grade levels," writes Natalie Wexler. She's not sold on DI, as opposed to lower-case direct instruction, but welcomes a new look at the benefits of explicit teaching for novice learners.
DI builds knowledge, not just basic skills, writes Linda Diamond. DI is "engineered to eliminate misinterpretation so that students learn complex concepts as efficiently as possible. There is zero logical reason why explicit, clear pedagogy cannot convey rich, challenging, and domain-specific knowledge."
Reading Mastery Signature Edition 'incorporates authentic, unabridged texts — spanning classics, contemporary literature, poetry, plays, and rigorous informational text," she writes. Non-fiction selections build knowledge students will use to understand upcoming stories.
Ojibwe students in Lake Leech, Minnesota are learning to read since the reservation school switched to DI in 2024, report Olivia Chilkoti and Mathew Holding Eagle III for MPR.
The first class of 12th-graders to graduate after the pandemic scored at a fifth-grade level, said Superintendent Dan McKeon. After two years of DI's Reading Mastery program, "students made close to four years of progress on basic reading skills like sounding out words."
Elementary-age students are grouped by reading level, not age, Chilkoti and Holding Eagle report.
"While lower-level groups work on basic skills like reading individual words, more advanced groups work on comprehending longer passages with specialized vocabulary."
When students make progress, they move up, explains Bambi Brown, who teaches sixth grade and special-ed classes. That "really fit our higher elementary students who were some three and four grade levels behind, who are now on grade level.”
There's lots of pushback to the first two episodes. Some say DI is only good for memorizing basic skills. Many hate scripting.
I'm seeing a lot of teachers say that they already use (lower-case) direct or explicit instruction, so there's no need to change. (Others say they receive poor evaluations if they're caught explaining ideas to students instead of facilitating their own "inquiry.")
The "gaslighting" has started, tweets Greg Ashman. "We will be told, repeatedly, that all teachers use explicit teaching. Which is true to some extent because the alternatives are so ineffective. But they’re using it without knowing the research and often under pressure to do something else."
A more troubling argument is that teaching doesn't really matter because students' achievement is based on socioeconomic status. If you're raised by two college graduates in an affluent suburb, you'll do well. Otherwise, tough luck.
If people really believe think kids from difficult circumstances are no-hopers, why not turn schools into day-care centers? Provide sports, music, arts and play equipment plus breakfast, lunch and snacks. Don't bore the kids with academics.
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