Effectiveness of Direct Instruction (DI) Approach in Improving Reading Proficiency for Children with Learning Disability in United Arab Emirates

Children with learning disability face many challenges in reading comprehension and proficiency which affects their learning progress across all academic areas. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of “Direct Instruction” (DI) approach in improving reading for children with learning disability in the UAE. A total of 60 students aged seven through eight, participated in the study. All participants were classified as having mild, moderate to severe reading difficulties. An experimental design where participants randomly assigned to control (N=30) and experimental (N=30) groups was used in order to compare the effectiveness of utilizing the direct instruction. The experimental group students received training on basic morphological and phonological skills using the direct instruction approach, whereas the control group students received traditional instruction. A reading performance test was administered as pre-test and post-test to measure reading proficiency among participants. Results from the statistical analysis indicated a significant difference between the two groups in favor of the experimental group who received the direct instruction.