As educators of students with autism, many teachers recognize that the day-to-day instruction is helping students learn skills to improve their quality of life, for today and in the long term. For those who teach young students, it may be difficult to project that far into the future; however, the reality is that educators want students with autism to become contributing members of their communities, and this needs to begin early by ensuring that students receive quality instruction among their community peers in order for them to attain fundamental knowledge. The instructional plan presented in this article, using fundamentals of direct instruction (DI), is a stepping-stone to a long-term goal of solving word problems, in that children with autism need to understand the math vocabulary for sentence comprehension resulting in computation (Bae et al., 2015). Although there is much to be learned with regard to employing the fundamentals of DI with students with autism, the basic steps presented in this article can be applied across content areas. When students are carefully prepared with small-group instruction procedures, the transition into a general education setting may be easier, thereby increasing opportunities for students with autism to learn alongside their peers in the least restrictive environment. By designing instruction for students to learn important and relevant concepts alongside others, students with autism can learn skills that extend to the bigger picture of a more independent, improved quality of life.