“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”
~Fred Rogers, You Are Special: Neighborly Words of Wisdom from Mister Rogers (1995)
Emily Hanford’s Sold a Story 2 is a tribute to Siegfried “Zig” Engelmann, whose Direct Instruction (DI) explicitly teaches scripted lessons, broken into small steps. One problem with this is that Engelmann opposed discovery learning.
His ideas matter, but so does the research of Piaget, Vygotsky, Erikson, and others. Discovery learning through play has been shown to be critical to a child’s growth and development. Children learn well by actively experimenting and problem-solving.
APM reviews why DI did not become mainstream after Project Follow Through, a massive, costly federal government project during the Johnson administration to see which programs helped disadvantaged children. Problems included insufficient funding, a lack of randomization, and biased testing.
Direct instruction may have shown impressive results on certain performance tests, and it may have been rejected because it doesn’t conform to the mainstream view. But its size and problems don’t make it definitive. The High/Scope Perry Preschool Project also appeared to do well.
The report notes that Gene Glass, a well-respected scholar and former president of the American Educational Research Association, disliked Direct Instruction.
I wish Emily would have compared DI and discovery learning. She could have discussed the Perry Preschool Project findings in detail.
The case for discovery learning.
Whatever the results of Project Follow Through, DI hasn’t been missing from public schools. Siegfried Engelmann and colleagues published DI curricula like DISTAR, Reading Mastery, Connecting Math Concepts, and Language for Learning in the 1960s, and McGraw-Hill still publishes them. Many have been used with students considered at high risk and with learning disabilities. They’re still found in more than 10,000 schools worldwide.
Research generally shows that DISTAR doesn’t perform better than traditional basal reader programs, except for progress in word-attack skills (Kudar, 1990). Like many phonics programs, students still lack comprehension skills.
DI was popular with Teach Like a Champion, but concerns surfaced about overcompliance and rigidness often found in charter schools that advertised “no excuses.”
As a resource teacher, I used SRA Corrective Reading and Morphograph Spelling, also co-created by Engelmann, with middle and high school students in the 1980s and 90s. DI can help children with reading difficulties and/or autism, especially with small groups, but students need much more.
Veteran early childhood (PK-3) teacher educator Karl Wheatley, writing for the National Education Policy Center, questions the lack of student choice with DI and self-determination in relation to human motivation, identity formation, internalization of values, and the effects on mental and physical health.
Yes, there are times when direct instruction is useful, but as an all-purpose instructional model, its effectiveness has been vastly overstated, and misunderstood. In a nutshell, the claim that direct, explicit instruction is more effective and more efficient than partial guidance is absolutely true in one way and absolutely false in another way.
Preschoolers learn much but probably don’t need algebra.
One troubling issue about public education today involves the high expectations that often appear beyond a child’s age and development.
In Sold a Story 2 Emily references Engelmann’s teaching preschoolers algebra and notes:
Most kids aren’t taught algebra until they’re in middle school or even high school. But these kids haven’t started elementary school yet.
These kids are in preschool.
Why? Why algebra at this age? Why make children learn faster? It’s cringeworthy to see kindergarten teachers using DI to teach the Science of Reading, sounds and decoding with large groups. Five-year-olds sit on the floor, wiggle, stare at the teacher making commands and seem forced to comply. Precocious children yell out answers, and quieter ones or those with auditory difficulties are lost.
Kindergarten never used to be structured this way. This age group was never expected to enter first grade as readers. When such instruction turns to standards with demanded mastery by all students, how many children fall behind?
The National Association for the Education of Young Children debunked the either or of DI and discovery learning.
…in the face of increased pressure on literacy and mathematics, driven in part by the No Child Left Behind Act and development of the Common Core Standards, policy-makers and some parents are expecting preschool programs to look more like classrooms for older children. They believe direct instruction is the way to meet these expectations.
They considered studies comparing DI and Discovery Learning
…children given direct instruction learned the intended use of the toy. Ultimately, the children in the free-play condition did so, as well. But the children in the exploration groups also discovered additional uses of the toy or its pieces. The authors concluded that this group showed creativity and problem solving skills not necessary in the direct instruction condition.
How many parents use Engelmann’s Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, to teach early learners and believe their children are lacking because they’re not reading by age three?
The HighScope Perry Preschool Study is worthy of serious consideration, too.
The High Scope Perry Preschool Project involves discovery learning, appeared to score high in the Project Follow Through project and has had interesting long-term results.
According to Schweinhart and Weikart (1993), the High/Scope Perry study used an experimentally designed longitudinal study to show program effects, even decades after the program. They:
- identified 123 young African American children living in poverty and at risk for school failure.
- randomly assigned 58 of them to a program group and 65 of them to a no-program group.
- provided the program group with high quality active learning at age 3 and 4.
- collected data on both groups at ages 3 through 11 and then at age 14, 15, 19, and 27
- after each phase of data collection they analyzed the data and wrote project reports.
They called the Perry Preschool Study a landmark study claiming it established the lasting human and financial value of early childhood education and led to the establishment of the HighScope Educational Research Foundation.
In Perry — Through Age 40 we learn:
The longitudinal study found that at age 40, participants who experienced the preschool program:
- Were less likely to experience teenage pregnancy
- Were more likely to graduate from high school
- Were more likely to maintain employment and have higher earnings
- Were less likely to commit crimes
- Were more likely to own a home and a car
If you’re not aware of the High Scope Perry Preschool, find the book Educating Young Children through the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation. It’s filled with the kinds of activities where professional teachers plan and guide small groups of children in play-based and unstructured play. Students are active participants in learning. The results continue to be promising.
Educating Young Children should be a resource for any preschool. DI shouldn’t replace discovery learning. Some DI might be helpful to students who need lessons broken down.
DI should be able to co-exist with discovery learning. Promoting DI as the only way to teach is strangely deceptive. Teaching and learning are much more than scripted instruction and discovery learning is critical to child development.
References
Kuder, S. J. (1990). Effectiveness of the DISTAR Reading Program for Children with Learning Disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 23(1), 69–71. https://doi.org/10.1177/002221949002300114
Schweinhart, L. J., & Weikart, D. P. (1993). Success by Empowerment: The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study Through Age 27. Young Children, 49(1), 54–58.
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