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Generalization and success
Because nearly every child, if given the chance,
is able to learn—and to learn well.
Direct Instruction (DI)
Precision Teaching (PT)
Other Things
The rules taught in DI are useless unless they can be applied to more than one situation, more than one example. Therefore, in the design of DI curricula, it is crucial that a reasonable number of good examples follow upon the learning of a particular rule, whether of pronunciation or of spelling or of arithmetical operations, and that these rules continue to be exemplified as new material is presented. This is not a “spiral” process, but a straightforward process of presenting facts or principles learned earlier under different circumstances.
The reading curricula are developed in such a way that rule-following, that is, readily decodeable, text is given to beginning students as quickly as possible. This leads to feelings of success on the part of students, and the avoidance of discouraging failure. This, as much as any single thing, is central to the success of Direct Instruction.
The exceptions to the usual rules (which may follow separate rules themselves) can then be introduced as necessary or desirable, without confusing the students.
The entire business is learning to make quick and correct discriminations in how words look on the page and what they mean. This is not a method which ignores the meaning of words and phrases, of sentences, paragraphs and complete texts: meaning must be taught as well, and the ability to categorize correctly and follow logical rules. All this is done with a certain lightness of tone, and good humor. “The Pet Goat,” now famous as the text which President George W. Bush was reading on September 11, 2001, is only incidentally about a pet goat. It is a Reading Mastery story, written by Zig years earlier, exemplifying the silent e rule.
For the earliest learners in pre-school and Kindergarten and through second grade, there is a specific DI curriculum called “Language for Learning.” often abbreviated L4L. Many children are insufficiently acquainted with fundamental concepts and words when they first arrive in school, so that L4L is a useful means of getting kids started in school.
To see how this works in practice, see the 1964 paper which Zig wrote during and after his first summer’s employment as an educational researcher, found at http://zigsite.com, under the heading “Comparative Preschool Study: High and Low Socioeconomic Preschoolers Learning Advanced Cognitive Skills.“