Free DI seminar coming in March 2026
What abut the scientific groundings of DI, even beyond the evidence of effectiveness?
The National Institute for Direct Instruction will provide a free Webinar about scientifically grounded language instruction 26 March 2026. The session will cover features of effective instructional design and describe key language skills that students need to master for them succeed in reading (and life).
Here’s NIFDI’s description:
A prevalent myth in education is that Direct Instruction (DI) can be effective in teaching rote learning but is ineffective in teaching reading comprehension and other types of deep cognition. Join Dr. Kurt Engelmann, President of the National Institute for Direct Instruction (NIFDI), in a free, 90-minute webinar as he dispels this myth and demonstrates the power of DI to provide children the conceptual building blocks for reading comprehension through explicit instruction in fundamental concepts expressed in everyday language. Mastering these fundamental concepts is critical for students in preschool, Kindergarten, and ESL/EAL/MLL students as well as students in Grades 1-2 who are behind in acquiring fundamental reading skills.
Kurt Engelmann, the lead presenter, knows what he’s talking about. He’s been around DI since his childhood, when his father (Zig) demonstrated some of the earliest versions of DI problem solving. Sixty years later, Kurt wrote a fantastic book, Direct Instruction: A Practitioners Handbook (we noted it here on Special Education Today 10 February 2024).
I hope to see this NIFDI Webinar. It’s at 3:00 PM (PDT; 10:00 PM GMT, I think) on 26 March 2025. Reserve a spot (for free!). Learn more about the Explicit Fundamental Language Instruction session in NIFDI’s “Science of Reading” series of Webinars.
DI is the primary exemplar of systematic, explicit instruction. It has provided the foundation of what we now call the “the science of reading.” NIFDI is the foremost proponent of DI. This is a great opportunity to learn about the tenants of promoting the language competence that undergirds reading comprehension.