Engelmann was Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of Oregon and Director of the National Institute for Direct Instruction.
After graduating with class honors in philosophy from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1955, he spent time in a variety of occupations, from working in exploratory oil drilling to being a science editor.
[2][3] In addition to developing curricula, Engelmann wrote 19 books as well as scholarly articles and other reports of his experiments on teaching and learning.
At the University of Illinois, Bereiter had a grant to accelerate the development of young children, and Engelmann worked with him on that project.
Their goal was to demonstrate the extent to which disadvantaged children could accelerate their learning beyond the performance of middle class students and thus have a better chance of success in school.
[2] The DISTAR materials were used in some locations that participated in Project Follow Through, the largest educational experiment in the history of the United States.
It gained attention on September 11, 2001: U.S. President George W. Bush was reading the story at the Emma E. Booker School in Sarasota, Florida, when he was informed of the ongoing terror attacks.
In 1994, he received the Fred S. Keller Award from the American Psychological Association’s Division of Experimental Analysis of Behavior.