As a first step, the researchers identified the skills and concepts needed for reading and which of those this group of children lacked. From that point, their approach was straightforward. Look at where you want them to end up. If students failed to learn from a particular lesson, it meant either that they needed to be taught a more basic skill or concept first or that the teacher's communication had been unclear. We let them show us by the mistakes that they made what we screwed up on when we tried to teach it.
Children practice a word for several lessons before they see it in a story.
Comprehension questions build from literal meaning in the first two levels of the program to literary interpretation in the sixth, and final, level. In Engelmann's view, developing any skill is simply a matter of good training and practice. Recent research by behavior analysts supports this claim. Generally, the early levels of DI reading and language teach less content knowledge than the early years of whole language. As in a progressive classroom, one concept is linked to another for better comprehension and retention.