Sample Programs – Direct Instruction
At Firefly Education we teach the full range of Direct Instruction programs. Each program is built around the core Direct Instruction principles of consistent language, carefully sequenced material, highly individualized delivery, and continuous assessment. The following is a selected sample of Direct Instruction programs that we teach to special needs students, all of which are available either online or at our education centre:
Connecting Math Concepts
Connecting Math Concepts provides systematic, intensive instruction to teach students to connect skills and “big idea” concepts in math. The program combines facts, procedures, conceptual understanding, applications, and the development of problem solving to enable students to achieve mastery of core mathematic skills. Explicit strategies that incorporate oral and written responses are taught to build a strong foundation of basic skills, enabling students to master difficult ideas such as ratios, proportions, probability, functions, and data analysis. The mystery is taken out of math by teaching students how to discover and use math patterns. Key concepts are introduced clearly and incrementally and extended into subsequent lessons, providing the time students need to learn, process, and build a deep understanding. Students move forward in small steps, learn many topics in each lesson, and assimilate all concepts through use and continuous review. Detailed explanations and guided practice move students toward independent work, ensuring that students gain success and confidence as capable problem solvers who are able to think and communicate mathematically. Students learn in less time, remember more, and develop a depth of understanding needed for advanced mathematics.
Language for Learning
Language for Learning provides young learners with the basic vocabulary and understanding of concepts that they need to be successful in school. The program is designed to meet the needs of early students, English language learners, and those who have less than adequate language skills for their age. Children are taught the words, concepts, and statements important to both oral and written language, enabling them to extend this knowledge to other areas of their development. A strong focus is placed on the meanings and uses of words that are important for following instructions, answering questions, and reasoning. Many opportunities are provided for students to describe what they are doing, observe details in pictures, and sequence events in time. Acquisition of vocabulary and background knowledge is maximized through direct teaching, building the prerequisite skills required to achieve proficiency in reading comprehension. Early students are given the essential tools and understanding of language to foster educational success.
Language for Thinking
Language for Thinking helps students learn the words, concepts, and thinking skills important to written language and reading comprehension. Carefully organized sequences of activities, exceptional vocabulary development, extensive practice, sequencing and retelling exercises, and inference activities set the stage for reading comprehension and the grammatical analysis of written language. The program provides a secure foundation on which reading comprehension and writing skills can be developed, and offers crucial content that is not explicitly offered in other reading or pre-reading programs. Extensive practice with word usage prepares students for writing that follows conventions of grammar, usage, and mechanics.
Reading Mastery
Reading Mastery helps students develop into fluent, independent, and highly skilled readers. The program features a highly explicit, systematic instructional design that breaks learning into manageable steps that all students can master, and helps students achieve a high rate of success. Five essential components of reading – phonemic awareness, phonics and word analysis, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension – are addressed, teaching important concepts and efficient strategies thoroughly and effectively. Spelling instruction is introduced to help students make the connection between decoding and spelling patterns. Fast-paced lessons keep instruction focused and students actively engaged. Students are given ample opportunities to practice and apply skills and concepts, and to extend learning. Teacher modeling, guided practice, and cumulative review are central to the program and ensure that all students make significant progress. As the program progresses, the focus shifts from learning to read to reading to learn, as students acquire skills needed to learn from a variety of texts. A strong foundation of decoding, word recognition, and comprehension skills are built that transfer to other subject areas.
Spelling Mastery
Spelling Mastery teaches dependable spelling skills that students need to become proficient readers and writers by interweaving concentrated instruction in three approaches – phonemic, morphemic, and whole-word strategies – to make learning easier. The phonemic strategy helps beginning spellers to use sound-symbol correspondence as a foundation for spelling, learn and apply relationships between spoken sound and written letters to spelling, and generalize the spelling of many words and word parts that follow in regular patterns. The morphemic strategy teaches advanced spellers how to spell meaningful prefixes, suffixes, and word bases, and combine words and word parts to spell multisyllabic words. The intensive whole-word approach helps students at all levels to spell common, high-frequency words which are irregular in their letter sounds, and commit these potentially troublesome words to memory. Systematic and explicit teaching of reliable rules and their applications reduces the number of words students must memorize, providing the skills needed to spell thousands of words. Ample practice and ongoing, cumulative review of every skill, pattern, and rule ensures long-term retention and a solid understanding of how words are spelled.