This review of recent research highlights some new findings on the relationship between classroom instruction and student achievement gain. These include the importance of content covered and the number of minutes students spend directly engaged in academically relevant activities. In specific instructional variables, the important variables include maintaining a strong academic focus, giving encouragement and concern to the academic progress of each student, teacher selection of activities rather than student selection, grouping of students into small and large groups for instruction, using factual questions and controlled practice in the teacher-led groups. Non-academic activities such as a teacher reading stories to a group, arts and crafts, or questions to students about their personal experience always yielded negative correlations with achievement gains. This overall pattern might be labeled “direct instruction.”
