Increasing Oral Reading Proficiency

Abstract

A number of techniques have been used to correct oral reading errors and enhance word recognition accuracy. For example, drill has been shown to be effective with learning-disabled children, and positive practice procedures have been found to be effective with mentally retarded children. In the present study an alternating-treatments design was used to measure the differential effects of these two error correction procedures and a no-training control condition on the number of oral reading errors made by four moderately mentally retarded children. The extent to which the children retained their learning of the error words following intervention with drill and positive practice was also assessed one day after the initial reading of the passages. Results showed that when compared with the no-training control condition both error correction procedures were effective in reducing the number of oral reading errors, but that positive practice was superior to drill for all subjects. The retention data showed that fewer errors were made on those passages that had been remediated through positive practice. However, a comparison of the mean number of errors made during intervention and retention indicated that retention was marginally better under the drill condition than under positive practice.