The Educational and

Developmental Psychologist
Teaching reading through Direct Instruction:
A role for educational psychologists?
www.cambridge.org/edp
Kerry Hempenstall
School of Education, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Original Article Abstract

Cite this article: Hempenstall K. Teaching Educational psychologists can play a number of roles within education settings. They are often
reading through Direct Instruction: A role for called upon to assist with the assessment and treatment of disability issues, student behaviour
educational psychologists? The Educational
and Developmental Psychologist doi: 10.1017/ and mental health problems, parent and teacher liaison, and counselling, to name a few. Less
edp.2020.13 frequently pursued is an active role in establishing and evaluating both general classroom and
remedial literacy instruction. A lack of success in the literacy domain can have far-reaching
Received: 6 March 2020 effects on students’ educational and social and emotional development. Further, it has been
Revised: 15 May 2020
Accepted: 18 May 2020
noted in national and international reports that the accumulated evidence for effective literacy
instruction has not had the impact on policy that it deserves. Educational psychologists are well
Keywords: placed to assist schools to develop an evidence-based perspective that can provide a marked
Direct Instruction; educational psychologists improvement in the literacy development of students. One such model with a long research
Author for correspondence:
history is Direct Instruction. This article will describe the model, and consider how it might
Kerry Hempenstall, be profitably employed in schools.
Email: kerry.hempenstall@rmit.edu.au

Closing the Gap in Literacy

For quite some time it has been clear that our education system has been unable to close the
gap between high and low achievers, despite regular increases in funding (Holden & Zhang,
2018), but the resultant community concern has heightened and broadened in recent times.
Three findings, in particular, have produced significant concern. The Australian Industry
Group (2016) reported that 44% of Australians had reading skills below the minimum
required to cope with the demands of workplaces and society. Recent scores on Australia’s
National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) have shown that the
achievement gap has even widened (Goss & Sonnemann, 2016; Holden, 2019; Holden &
Zhang, 2018). Further, international assessment through the Program for International
Student Assessment (PISA) found that the reading performance of Australia’s adolescents
has declined since 2000 (Thomson, De Bortoli, Underwood, & Schmid, 2019).
There has long been an unfortunate disconnect between empirically derived research find-
ings on literacy and the practices typically occurring in our classrooms (Hempenstall, 2006).
Education has a history of regularly adopting new ideas, but it has done so without the widescale
assessment and scientific research that is necessary to distinguish effective from ineffective
reforms. This absence of a scientific perspective has precluded systematic improvement in
the education system, and it has impeded growth in the teaching profession for a long time
(Anwaruddin, 2015; Carnine, 1995; Hempenstall, 1996).
As other articles in this special issue have made clear, there is a great deal known about the
development of reading skill and the means of effectively teaching its constituent elements.
This knowledge seems to exist in a parallel universe, having yet to make its way into the teach-
ing profession in a meaningful way. A number of factors relevant to this situation have been
explored. For example, educational policies over many years have lacked an evidence-based
culture. Carnine (1991) viewed educational policy makers as lacking any scientific framework
and inclined to accept proposals based on good intentions and unsupported opinions. In more
recent years, policy makers have begun to exhort the profession to take into account the
research findings (e.g., National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy, 2005; New South
Wales Parliament Legislative Council, 2020); however, many teacher education faculties have
yet to modify their programs to reflect this policy shift. Buckingham (2019) reported several
disturbing findings regarding initial teacher education. Just 4% of the 116 literacy units in
reviewed education faculties included a specific focus on early reading instruction.
Further, only 6% of those units included all five of the recognised elements of effective early
literacy instruction.
© Australian Psychological Society Ltd, 2020. This absence of emphasis on beginning reading has led to new teachers having little knowl-
edge of how optimally to teach reading (Fielding-Barnsley, 2010; Hammond, 2015; Stephenson,
2018). Studies of both preservice and inservice teachers have noted a lack of knowledge about
early literacy, and also personal literacy concerns among a higher than expected number of
teachers (Cohen, Mather, Schneider, & White, 2017; Meeks & Kemp, 2017). Those in the latter

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 2 Kerry Hempenstall
group are doubly impeded in that their low level of understanding
of the structure of language and personal literacy difficulties com-
bine to preclude effective instruction in the phonological processes
central to evidence-based initial reading instruction (Stark, Snow,
Eadie, & Goldfeld, 2016).
So, the evidence indicates that the Australian education system
is not doing enough to ensure all students have the opportunity to
reach their potential. For example, there is a gap in student
achievement between advantaged and disadvantaged schools
that increases between Year 3 and Year 9 from 1 year 3 months
to 3 years 8 months. Across Victorian schools there is an average
attainment gap between the top students and low progress stu-
dents of 7 years (Goss & Sonnemann, 2016).
Although literacy research has had little penetration into
Australian classrooms, there are exceptions. ‘About 5% of schools
are routinely doing better than we would expect given their stu-
dent population mix’ (Goss, 2018). Some of these schools are
disadvantaged.
These schools tend to have several discernible characteristics:
1. School discipline. Based on high expectations, a clear set of
consistently applied classroom rules, and a centralised school
behaviour policy.
2. Direct and explicit instruction. New content is explicitly
taught in sequenced and structured lessons. It includes clear les-
son objectives, immediate feedback, reviews of content from
previous lessons, unambiguous language, frequent checking
of student understanding, demonstration of the knowledge or
skill to be learnt, and students practising skills with teacher
guidance.
3. Experienced and autonomous school leadership. Stable, long-
term school leadership, and principal autonomy to select staff
and control school budgets.
4. Data-informed practice. Using data from teacher-written,
NAPLAN and PAT assessments to improve teaching, track stu-
dent progress, and facilitate intervention for underachieving
students.
5. Teacher collaboration and professional learning. Collaboration
among teachers and specialist support staff to cater for the often
complex needs of disadvantaged students, with a focus on
teacher professional learning, involving peer observations,
mentoring, and attending practical professional development
activities that help refine literacy and numeracy instruction.
6. Comprehensive early reading instruction. Including five nec-
essary elements of reading instruction: Phonemic Awareness,
Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. (Joseph,
2019, p. 2).
These characteristics are uncommon in our schools, and their
adoption is unlikely to occur without expert encouragement and
support, for reasons outlined earlier. This vacuum provides a
potential role for educational and developmental psychologists
in the school system. Apart from Characteristic 3, these school
qualities represent a rich vein of opportunity for our practitioners
to play an important role in school improvement and thereby stu-
dent attainment. Because of their training, which differs from that
provided in education courses generally, psychologists enthusias-
tically seek out research-based practices, are practised in dealing
with data, and collaboration is a strong part of their work style.
The main focus of this article is on Characteristics 2 and 6,
which emphasise direct and explicit instruction and early reading,
although 4 and 5 also offer a rich and related field for psychologists.
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There is ample evidence that the explicit approach to reading
instruction is under-utilised despite being superior to other forms
of instruction for basic skill development, especially for low
progress students (Alfieri, Brooks, Aldrich, & Tenenbaum,
2010; Archer & Hughes, 2011; Clark, Kirschner, & Sweller,
2012). Apart from the definition provided in Joseph (2019), a
teacher characterised direct and explicit as: ‘Instruction, and I
don’t mean facilitation, I mean stand-up-in-front-of-the-class,
put-it-on-the-board, do-it-this-way-because-it-works-best, practise-
until-you’ve-got-it-right instruction.’
Direct Instruction (DI) programs were among the first to incor-
porate explicit teaching as their delivery system, but additionally
they provide carefully structured curriculum content to maximise
the impact on student outcomes. The DI reading programs, such as
Reading Mastery, have been acknowledged as exemplars of the
National Reading Panel’s five major components of early reading
instruction listed by Joseph (Stockard & Engelmann, 2010).
The DI model has a relatively long history in reading education,
the first program (DISTAR Reading) having been published in
1969, and new programs have been published up to the present
day. Initially, the programs were intended for struggling students,
but others are designed for whole classes. The most frequently used
emphasise reading, spelling, language, writing, and maths. For
information about any of these programs, see National Institute
for Direct Instruction (2018).
The programs share a common teaching style readily observ-
able to any classroom visitor. The instruction usually takes place
in small groups (4–15) with a teacher directing activities with
the aid of a script, and students actively involved in responding
to a fast-paced lesson during which they receive constant
teacher communication, questions, and feedback. Choral (uni-
son) responding during part of a lesson keeps students on track
and provides feedback to the teacher if any students are falling
behind. Also noticeable is the frequent use of a model-lead-test
sequence during instruction. Some may know it as ‘I do, we do,
you do’. Programs are designed according to what, not whom, is
to be taught. Thus, all children work through the same sequence
of tasks directed by a teacher using the same teaching strategies.
Individual differences are accommodated through different
entry points, reinforcement, amounts of practice, and correction
strategies (Gregory, 1983).
Assumptions
DI programs extend beyond the principles of explicit instruction
and into the curriculum domain (Becker, 1977). It is assumed that
all children can learn and be taught; thus, failure to learn is viewed
as failure to teach effectively (Engelmann, 1980). Children whose
progress is delayed must be taught to learn faster because catchup
at a later stage is very arduous. This acceleration is achieved
through a focus on features designed to improve the efficiency
of instruction. So, DI is not simply a program of what to teach,
but also how to teach each element.
Teaching Methodology
Curriculum is designed with the goal of ‘faultless instruction’
(Engelmann, 1980, Engelmann & Carnine, 1982), that is, sequences
or routines for which there is only one logical interpretation. The
designer’s brief is to avoid ambiguity in instruction — the focus
is on logical-analysis principles. These principles enable the organ-
isation of concepts according to their structure. It is intended to
 The Educational and Developmental Psychologist
answer the question: what types of student-teacher interactions
or methods lead to the most student development while using the
fewest resources?
Engelmann (1980) highlighted four design principles:
(1) Where possible, teach a general case. That is, those skills, which
when mastered, can be applied across a range of problems for
which specific solutions have not been taught; for example,
teaching letter-sound correspondences and phonological skills,
such as blending, to enable the decoding of regular words. The
generalisations may be taught inductively by examples only, or
deductively by providing a rule and a range of examples to define
the rule’s boundaries.
(2) Teach the essentials. The essentials are determined by an
analysis of the skills necessary to achieve the desired objective.
There is an underlying assertion that it is possible to achieve
skilled reading by a task analysis and the teaching of subskills
within a cumulative framework.
(3) Keep errors to a minimum. Errors are considered counter-
productive and time-wasting. For struggling learners, a high
success rate is beneficial in building and maintaining the moti-
vation often lost through a history of failure. A low error rate is
achieved by the use of the instructional design principles first
described in Theory of Instruction (Engelmann & Carnine,
1982), and by ensuring students have the preskills needed to
commence any program (via a placement test). Thus, the pro-
grams are very detailed and precisely crafted. To reduce vari-
ability in teacher presentation all lessons are scripted, and all
programs are field-tested and revised prior to publication.
Engelmann described the preeminent feature of DI as the
orchestration of detail in program design and presentation.
This involves ‘picky details of how the tasks are formulated,
how the example sets are designed, how the details of lessons
are organized and sequenced from lesson to the next so that
only about 10–15% of each lesson presents brand new material,
and how exercises are designed so they are unambiguous about
details of the content’ (Engelmann, 2004, para 4). Scripted pro-
grams are employed because they help control instructional deliv-
ery, thereby increasing fidelity of implementation (Plavnick,
Marchand-Martella, Martella, Thompson, & Wood, 2015).
(4) Adequate practice. DI programs include the requirement for
mastery learning (usually above 90% mastery). Students con-
tinue to focus on a given task until the mastery criterion is
reached. The objective of this strategy is the achievement of
retention. The practice schedule includes massed practice,
shifting to a spaced schedule. The amount of practice on a
given skill decreases as the relevant skill becomes incorporated
into more complex skills. Advocates of DI argue that this fea-
ture of instruction is particularly important for low-achieving
students and is too often given scant regard (Engelmann, 1980).
While this emphasis on practice may be unfashionable, there is
considerable supporting research, and a number of effective
schools are increasingly endorsing its importance (Rist, 1992):
‘The strategies that have fallen out of style, such as memorising,
reciting and drilling, are what we need to do. They’re simple —
but fundamental — things that make complex thinking
possible’ (p. 19). More recent research has reinforced that
point (Megherbi, Elbro, Oakhill, Segui, & New, 2018).
In line with current research findings, effective early reading
programs tend to incorporate these four design principles. There
is an emphasis on the essential areas for beginners: letter-sound
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3
relationships and phonological blending. Teaching these generalis-
able components within a cumulative framework enables early suc-
cess in decoding regular words, even those not before encountered.
Review and practice are addressed systematically. Each of these areas
is particularly critical for struggling students, and is paid careful
attention in the program design to reduce errors and help promote
mastery.
Factors in Success
In addition to the above overarching principles, there are crucial
factors in program implementation.
Grouping
The teachers’ manuals recommend group sizes between 4 and 15
across the various reading programs. Engelmann, Becker, Carnine,
and Gersten (1988) portrayed DI programs as individual programs
presented in a group format. For this efficiency element to succeed,
the teacher must observe each student’s response to every question.
So, the choral responding must be precise to enable the detec-
tion and teacher correction of errors. The extent to which teachers
can do this successfully depends upon several factors, such as their
hearing acuity, ability and determination to ensure their students
achieve truly choral responding, and the group size.
The vigilance provided by teachers in attending to student
responses is a major defence against any student’s failure in the
program. It is an area in which training and monitoring of any
teachers inexperienced in the approach should be a priority.
Additionally, smaller group sizes have larger effects on vulnerable
students (Suggate, 2016).
Time and Intensity of Instruction
An element contributing to the impressive gains almost certainly
involves the duration and intensity of the intervention. Longer
interventions allow for greater content coverage and adequate
practice. Program intensity involves a combination of lesson
length, lesson density, and lesson frequency. For example, lesson
length for the Corrective Reading program is about 40–60 minutes.
This period allows for a reasonable content coverage in each ses-
sion and for the integration of new knowledge into existing knowl-
edge structures (Rosenshine, 2002). As the programs involve a
cumulative subskills approach to reading, the introduction of
new skills, the practising of recently acquired skills, and the (vitally
important) amalgamation of these with the already established
core requires careful lesson planning within programs and suffi-
cient time for this amalgamation to occur.
Program density involves the extent to which students are
actively engaged in learning during the lesson time. Various con-
cepts, such as time-on-task, academic engaged time, and academic
learning time have been employed to address the issue of student
engagement. As an instructional issue it relates to the manner in
which program design evokes high rates of student engagement.
Another element of lesson density involves the proportion of
correct to incorrect responses. Students who struggle with reading
require high rates of success if they are to adopt new strategies,
transfer new skills across tasks, and persevere with new strategies.
Teachers have commented on the high success rates achieved daily
through both careful lesson design and student placement at the
appropriate program level (Schug, Tarver, & Western, 2001).
The author counted 300 responses from a student in a 10-minute
word attack segment of a Corrective Reading: Decoding lesson.
 4 Kerry Hempenstall
This represents a very high rate of student engagement; addition-
ally, the success rate was above 90%.
Lesson frequency appears to be important, perhaps because of
the need for spaced practice of newly mastered skills. It has been
noted that students, particularly those at risk, readily forget what
they have learned when lesson frequency is low (Rosenshine,
1986). If this occurs, additional time is spent in relearning rather
than in new learning and incorporation activities. Alternatively,
teachers may ignore some student errors in the interests of
maintaining lesson pace, thereby condemning some to failure.
Frustration and disengagement are the possible negative outcome
of underscheduling. The program guidelines usually recommend
five lessons per week, although this may not achieved by all schools.
The effect of variable frequency impacts most notably on the stu-
dents most at risk. They are the students most likely to lose hard-
won gains through forgetting (National Reading Panel, 2000;
Swanson, 2001). The total contact hours are also relevant — for
example, each of the levels of the Corrective Reading program
entails about 50 hours of instruction.
Priority on Academic Learning
A related issue concerns the priority that schools assign to assisting
readers with difficulty. At one level, this relates to the number of
social issues schools are expected to address within a school day.
A consequence can be that even if lessons are scheduled at a rate
of five per week, this may rarely be achieved. Some schools may
schedule four sessions, but average little above three sessions, a rate
that seriously jeopardises the program’s likelihood of success.
In-Vivo Coaching
Engelmann et al.’s (1988) experience has been that, without safe-
guards, less than 30% of the skills practised outside the classroom
will be evident subsequently in classrooms. Thus, the provision of
in-vivo coaching was found to be especially important for the
acquisition of skills. Glang and Gersten (1987) commented on
the value for teachers in seeing how their own students responded
to the expert instructional techniques presented by the visiting
supervisor. Unfortunately, this level of coaching support is rarely
available in our educational settings. The issue of coaching is
increasingly being raised given the expectation that teachers will
be required to adopt evidence-based approaches (Hammond &
Moore, 2018).
Fidelity
High fidelity implementation means that you get a program with
an internal design and follow that design. That would include using
the materials in a particular sequence, adhering to the amount of
time and practice called for by the program, and following the
recommendations for grouping or reteaching students. It would
mean using all the essential components as they are designed,
including differentiated instructional time and program assess-
ments (Diamond, 2004).
DI program effectiveness is predicated on implementation
fidelity. In particular, departures from the program, such as omit-
ting individual turn-taking, or specific tasks may have a significant
effect on the average group progress. These ‘creative’ modifications
are likely to interfere most with the progress of the most vulnerable
students, for it is they who adapt least easily to ambiguous or
incomplete instructional sequences. ‘Our analyses revealed that
overall fidelity of implementation accounted for 22% of the variance
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in the gains in basic reading skills and 18% of the passage compre-
hension gains of middle school students with reading difficulties’
(Benner, Nelson, Stage, & Ralston, 2011, p. 85).
Progress Monitoring
In a cumulative curriculum, it is essential that all tasks are mastered
if students (especially the vulnerable) are to make progress. The
in-built continuous progress evaluation is valuable in quickly
detecting individual or group difficulty at any point. Incorporated
in programs are both daily monitoring of errors, and regularly
scheduled mastery tests. It is through these program features that
problems of low progress can be addressed, and students spared
the fate of participating in an ineffectual educational process. This
inclusion of continuous observation and testing has been shown
in independent research to enhance retention in addition to its role
in monitoring progress (Adesope, Trevisan, & Sundararajan, 2017).
Evaluation of the Direct Instruction Model
Surprisingly little serious attention has been paid to DI from both
the education and wider educational research communities,
despite its strong history of supportive empirical evidence
(McMullen & Madelaine, 2014). As with explicit instruction
in general, DI has been criticised, especially by those of more
constructivist persuasion. For an extended discussion, see
Hempenstall (2013).
Follow Through
A major study was federally funded in the United States in the
late 1960s, arising because of a concern about the poor educational
outcomes for disadvantaged students. Entitled Follow Through
(Engelmann et al., 1988; Grossen, 1996), it was aimed at the first
three years of school, and was designed to determine which meth-
ods of teaching would be most effective for disadvantaged students
throughout their primary school career. It was a huge study,
involving 75,000 children in 180 communities over the first three
years of their school life. It is the largest educational experiment
ever undertaken, extending from 1967 to 1995, at a cost of almost
a billion dollars. There were nine major competing sponsors cover-
ing a broad range of educational philosophies. They included
child-directed learning, individualised instruction, language expe-
rience, learning styles, self-esteem development, cognitive empha-
sis, parent-based teaching, DI, and behavioural teaching. The
models can be reduced to three distinct themes — those empha-
sising either basic academic outcomes, cognitive development, or
affective development. The targeted basic skills included reading,
language, spelling, writing, and maths. The models that emphas-
ised the systematic teaching of basic skills (DI and Behaviour
Analysis) performed best. In reading, the DI model, which also
has a strong phonic emphasis, had the most impressive results
in both academic and affective areas. Apart from the basic skills
models, all others produced more negative than positive outcomes
on measures in the basic skill domain.
Follow-up studies were performed 3, 6, and 9 years after the DI
students had completed Follow Through. They showed strong con-
sistent long-term benefits in reading (Gersten, Keating, & Becker,
1988), effects that were evidenced in higher achievement, fewer
grade retentions, and more university acceptances than in com-
parison groups that had traditional education in the same com-
munities. For more reading on Follow Through, see National
Institute for Direct Instruction (2013).
 The Educational and Developmental Psychologist
Subsequently, meta-analyses documenting the effectiveness of
DI were reported by White (1988), who reported an overall effect
size of .84, and by Adams and Engelmann (1996) with effect size
of .87. A report from the American Institutes for Research (1999),
An Educators’ Guide to School-wide Reform, found that only three
programs, DI among them, had adequate evidence of effectiveness
in reading instruction. However, the approach has never been
accorded the attention that might have been expected.
Recently, a paper published in the Review of Educational
Research, ‘The Effectiveness of Direct Instruction Curricula: A
Meta-Analysis of a Half Century of Research’ (Stockard, Wood,
Coughlin, & Khoury, 2018), outlined and analysed the long history
of research into the effectiveness of the various DI programs.
Quantitative mixed models were used to examine literature
published from 1966 through 2016 on the effectiveness of DI.
Analyses were based on 328 studies involving 413 study designs
and almost 4000 effects. Results are reported for the total set
and subareas regarding reading, math, language, spelling, and
multiple or other academic subjects; ability measures; affective
outcomes; teacher and parent views; and single-subject designs.
All of the estimated effects were positive and all were statistically
significant except results from metaregressions involving affec-
tive outcomes. Characteristics of the publications, methodology,
and sample were not systematically related to effect estimates.
Effects showed little decline during maintenance, and effects
for academic subjects were greater when students had more expo-
sure to the programs. Estimated effects were educationally signifi-
cant, moderate to large when using the traditional psychological
benchmarks, and similar in magnitude to effect sizes that reflect
performance gaps between more and less advantaged students
(Stockard et al., 2018, p. 1).
These outcomes are impressive given the wide range of study
designs, sample sizes, educational domains, and evaluation tools
employed across the studies. Although there were variations across
programs, effect size for the total sample was .60, with the 95% con-
fidence interval within .54 to .66.
John Hattie (2009) reached broadly similar conclusions about
the size of effect:
One of the common criticisms is that Direct Instruction works with very
low-level or specific skills, and with lower ability and the youngest students.
These are not the findings from the meta-analyses. The effects of Direct
Instruction are similar for regular (d = 0.99), and special education and
lower ability students (d = 0.86), higher for reading (d = 0.89) than for math-
ematics (d = 0.50), similar for the more low-level word attack (d = 0.64) and
also for high-level comprehension (d = 0.54), and similar for elementary
and high school students. The messages of these meta-analyses on Direct
Instruction underline the power of stating the learning intentions and success
criteria, and then engaging students in moving towards these. The teacher
needs to invite the students to learn, provide much deliberative practice
and modeling, and provide appropriate feedback and multiple opportunities
to learn. Students need opportunities for independent practice, and then
there need to be opportunities to learn the skill or knowledge implicit in
the learning intention in contexts other than those directly taught.
(Hattie, 2009, pp. 206–207)
Apart from evaluating the DI programs’ effects on student out-
comes, there have also been performed many evaluations of the
diverse instructional features underpinning DI programs, includ-
ing: preteaching to low progress students, signalling, group size,
use of overt steps, sequencing of positive and negative examples,
pacing, correction procedures, and massed and spaced practice.
The bibliography of writings on DI reports 44 such papers
(National Institute for Direct Instruction, 2017). The database
on Theories on Instruction & Learning comprises 48 papers.
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5
Why Might Educational and Developmental Psychologists
Consider Becoming Involved With These Programs in
School Settings?
As a group, psychologists are interested in student welfare, and
reading attainment plays a huge role in enabling students to make
the most of their years of schooling. Additionally, failure of student
reading development has been associated with a range of mental
health and behaviour issues. Studies have noted an increased risk
for both internalising and externalising problems (Boyes, Leitao,
Claessen, Badcock, & Nayton, 2016; Katzir, Young-Suk, & Dotan,
2018; Russell, Ryder, Norwich, & Ford, 2015). My own role as an
educational psychologist in schools was initially dominated by
referrals of student behavioural issues. After dealing with an endless
stream of such referrals in both primary and secondary schools, it
became apparent that a very high proportion of these students also
had significant reading problems. Obviously, not all behaviour prob-
lems are a consequence of low progress in reading, but I was surprised
at the level of comorbidity. Shifting some of my attention to their aca-
demic progress was fulfilling and enabled having a positive influence
on a larger number of students in the schools in which I consulted.
Educational policies are beginning to reflect a better understanding
of what is possible in school settings to enhance the outcomes for
more students. However, schools are being asked for more than they
have been trained to deliver. For example, Joseph (2019) noted the use
of data as important in school improvement. It is becoming manda-
tory in policies in decision making, in progress monitoring and pro-
gram evaluation, yet it is foreign to most teachers as their training has
not emphasised its role. Psychologists speak data, and can assist
schools in dealing with these new responsibilities.
Evidence-Based Practice in School at Last?
In the report of the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group
(2014), evidence-based appears 31 times, and one recommendation
was that: ‘The theory, methods and practices taught to pre-service
teachers need to be clearly based on evidence linked to impact on
student learning outcomes’ (p. 18). How are current teachers to
know how to make sense of educational research findings, to sep-
arate the wheat from the chaff? Psychologists, because of their
training, can assist in this task.
The DI model has some administrative features that make it an
attractive option: lessons fit readily into a school timetable; their
completeness relieves schools from developing their own curricula;
and the clearly defined skill objectives and associated mastery tests
make reporting to parents a simple task. Additionally, many teach-
ers express a lack of confidence in individually addressing the
problems of the at-risk reader, expressing a sense that they have
been insufficiently trained to deal with them. Who better than psy-
chologists to oppose the numerous pseudo-scientific education
programs that abound, and also to counteract those teacher con-
sultants who continue to provide seminars and training in mori-
bund literacy strategies. In the reading domain, this involves
attention to the empirical literature that addresses the five main
components of effective instruction, including individual program
evaluations. As practitioners, we need to be able to discern between
dross and gold, and to effectively communicate relevant findings to
teachers and administrators.
Our education system ultimately will require teachers to
become researchers, understand the evidence, become collabo-
rators, and collect data to enhance their effectiveness. What a
great opportunity this represents for educational and develop-
mental psychologists!
 6 Kerry Hempenstall
Acknowledgments. None.
Financial support. This research received no specific grant from any funding
agency, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Conflicts of interest. None.
Ethical standards. Not relevant to this study
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