DI Success: Washington School District Boosts Literacy with Direct Instruction

In the Washington area in the USA, the Sumner School District is recognised as one of the premier districts. Here, part of the district’s new focus is identifying the approximately 20% of students who are falling behind and looking at alternatives to help them catch them up and keep them caught up. Direct Instruction (DI) curricula were identified as essential to ensuring success in the district’s existing intervention system.

“Students were getting further and further behind, and we knew that if the progress wasn’t accelerated soon, we were never going to make headway.”

Traci Donohue, Special Services Director for Sumner.

Led by Traci Donohue, Special Services Director for Sumner, the district chose two of McGraw Hill's Direct Instruction reading programs: Reading Mastery and Corrective Reading to help get their struggling students back on track.

In the first year, only a handful of teachers used the new DI programs, but after the third full year of implementation, the district had full participation. Reading Mastery and Corrective Reading now fully complement the core reading programs in the district’s elementary and middle schools.

“DI programs are the best thing for struggling learners that we’ve seen… They provide structure for teachers and support for teachers. I haven’t seen anything else that can meet the needs of struggling students [as well] as the Direct Instruction curriculum does. It truly meets the needs of all students.”

Traci Donohue, Special Services Director for Sumner.

Read the full story and learn more about how implementing Direct Instruction has seen an increase in student confidence and achievement, and enhanced the quality of special education in Sumner’s schools.

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