I recently started teaching with two Direct Instruction programs. The first is Corrective Math, which I am using to teach basic fractions to a group of five middle school students. The second is Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, which I am using to teach beginning reading skills to my 4 year old daughter.
I am a total novice with these materials, but for years I have been reading about the principles that underlie DI. These map closely to general principles of explicit instruction, such as collect responses from all students, use models and guide practice, correct errors, and provide lots of review. Perhaps the most controversial feature of all DI programs is that they require teachers to use a script.
Before I started teaching with DI programs, I figured people shouldn’t knock the scripts until they tried them. After using the two different scripts for a few months, I’m here to tell you that they are nothing to get worked up about.
The format of both the scripts is the same. The words the teacher says are in color and the directions for what to do (i.e., write on the board, point to a letter, repeat until firm, etc.) are in black. It takes about 5 minutes to prepare for a 20-30 minute lesson. A few minutes before the kids come in, I read the script aloud and practice doing what it says.
When I first started using these materials, I was worried I wasn’t making enough eye contact with the children. To counteract this, I would look up so frequently that I would lose my spot on the page. I learned to keep my finger on my place in the script and to do extra rehearsal of the key lines for the day’s lesson (“How many parts are in each whole and how many are used?”). I also learned from watching video of myself that my eye gaze looked fine from the students’ perspective. With a bit of practice it’s becoming second nature.
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Often when I talk about scripts or “canned” curriculum materials in general, teachers will leap out of their socks to defend their autonomy. They tell me they are two things at once that cannot both be true. They tell me that 1) they are skilled professionals and 2) they are not skilled or professional enough to be able to read a script without sounding like a robot.
It’s curious.
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