Direct instruction is required in the use of different comprehension skills in order to advance students' ability to independently comprehend texts. Being able to make connections is an important reading comprehension strategy which allows students make meaning of what they are reading. The aim of the current study was to investigate the…

This study explores volitional and affective responses to instructional activities aimed at developing geometric and spatial vocabulary of a neurodivergent student. Using teaching experiment methodology across 15 instructional sessions, we observed how the student responded to games, direct instruction, and vocabulary support embedded in spatial…

Little-to-no research examines the provision of targeted mathematical interventions to students struggling with mathematics in a virtual environment. And yet, the global pandemic of 2020--extending into 2021--found schools in such a scenario. This article reports two studies in which researchers explored the intervention package of explicit…

English Language Learners, such as my Hutterian students, struggle to overcome a variety of learning barriers. I examined a variety of instructional methods to determine what would help them. The first aspect I explored was how English Language Learners acquire literacy skills. I also investigated how to expand my students' background knowledge.…

We designed and implemented a modified eight-week Direct Instruction (DI) program intended to teach a third grade student with learning disabilities to tell time. The first objective was to determine whether or not the appearance (interesting or boring) of the worksheet affected performance. These data suggested the use of large-scale clocks and…

Children with disabilities often demonstrate difficulties in code-focused and meaning-focused domains of literacy. Best practice indicates that skills within these domains should be taught together. The current study used principles of ABAB single-case experimental design to monitor the development of narrative retelling and phonemic awareness in…

Growing gaps in reading and vocabulary achievement between minority and majority student subgroups have led to an intense focus on implementing effective classroom instructional strategies. Prior research concerning teachers' perceptions of using explicit instructional strategies to teach vocabulary to underperforming students has been…

Though research on effective instruction in math word problem solving is prominent at the middle and secondary levels, much less work has been done in elementary grades. In this article, we review the research on varied problem-solving instructional interventions at the third-grade level for students across ability levels. Third grade was chosen…

There is limited research demonstrating Direct Instruction (DI) as an effective reading comprehension intervention for students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and developmental disabilities (DD). Previous research has shown that DI, when portions of the program were implemented, resulted in increased skills (Flores & Ganz, 2007; Flores…

The purpose of this study was to determine if a typical third-grade boy and fifth-grade girl and a boy with learning disabilities could benefit from the combined use of Direct Instruction (DI) flashcard and math racetrack procedures in an after-school program. The dependent variable was accuracy and fluency of saying basic multiplication facts. A…

"Spelling Mastery" is designed to explicitly teach spelling skills to students in grades 1 through 6. One of several Direct Instruction curricula from McGraw-Hill that precisely specify how to teach incremental content, "Spelling Mastery" includes phonemic, morphemic, and whole-word strategies. The What Works Clearinghouse…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of explicit, direct, and generative strategy training and working memory capacity (WMC) on mathematical word problem-solving accuracy in elementary schoolchildren. In this study, children in third grade ("N" = 82) identified as at risk for math difficulties (MD) were randomly…

The traditional classroom educational approach has been unsuccessful in helping special education and non-special education students who are not proficient readers. The problem addressed in this study was that a large number of American children are experiencing difficulty learning to read. One possible way to help students learn to read is…

This paper describes an action research project that addressed the issue of low oral performance in English among third grade learners at a public girls' school in Bogota, Colombia. The issue was identified via content analysis of ten field logs compiled over the third and fourth quarter of the second semester, 2010. To address the problem of…

This study investigated whether the use of "Spelling Through Morphographs" (Lessons 1-45) designed for grade 3-adult students could be effective when implemented in an above-average educational setting with grade 2 students. Using a cross-grade, longitudinal design, designed to provide a methodological foundation for addressing the acceleration of…