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This report focuses on a family of interventions that includes all "Direct Instruction" products ("DISTAR" and "Language for Learning"). "Direct Instruction" was used to refer to this family of interventions, as well as to all versions past and present. "Direct Instruction" includes teaching techniques that are fast-paced, teacher-directed, and explicit with opportunities for student response and teacher reinforcement or correction. The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) English Language Learners topic also reviewed the effects of a "Direct Instruction" program called "Reading Mastery" (SRA/McGraw-Hill) on the skills of children in elementary school; the findings are reported in the WWC English Language Learners intervention report "Reading Mastery/SRA/McGraw-Hill." One study of "Direct Instruction" met the WWC evidence standards with reservations. This study included 164 special education preschool and kindergarten children from a Child Development and Mental Retardation Center at the University of Washington in Washington state. This report focuses on immediate posttest findings to determine the effectiveness of the intervention. The WWC considers the extent of evidence for "Direct Instruction" to be small for oral language, small for print knowledge, small for cognition, and small for math. No studies that met the WWC evidence standards with or without reservations addressed phonological processing or early reading/writing. "Direct Instruction" was found to have no discernible effects on the oral language, print knowledge, cognition, and math skills of special education students. (Contains 10 footnotes.) [This publication was produced by the What Works Clearinghouse. The following studies are reviewed in this intervention report: (1) Cole, K. N., Dale, P. S., Mills, P. E., and Jenkins, J. R. (1993). "Interaction between early intervention curricula and student characteristics." Exceptional Children, 60(1), 17-28; (2) Cole, K. N., and Dale, P. S. (1986). "Direct language instruction and interactive language instruction with language delayed preschool children: A comparison study." Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 29(2), 206-217; and (3) Dale, P. S., and Cole, K. N. (1988). Comparison of academic and cognitive programs for young handicapped children." Exceptional Children, 54(5), 439-447.]

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert