Traditional Drill and Practice is a method that targets improving reading skills among learners with disabilities. It helps to teach high-frequency words in a case where the pupils may not read the presented terms automatically. The instructor models the words and asks the learners to read them aloud. The students are then left to read the terms independently, and corrective feedback is offered to help them learn the words. WordSheets perform the same function as TDP but differs in two ways (Mulé et al., 2018). First, the target words in WS are offered in a manner that approximates the appearance of words in a connected text or a reading passage. Secondly, the instructional stimuli are presented in one sheet, thus increasing efficiency by boosting the opportunities to respond within a fixed instructional period.
The purpose of the article is to compare two-word interventions that are WordSheets and Traditional Drill. The WordSheets tend to differ from Traditional Drill and Practice based on the opportunity to respond thus increasing efficiency and the presentation of stimuli that resembles normal passage reading. TDP, on the other hand, has been shown to improve word recognition. The research design is a quantitative one meant to determine unknown and known words from the two sources. Up to 379 high-frequency words were selected randomly and used for the study (Mulé et al., 2018). The comparison was made on first-grade learners identified and struggling pupils. Results from the survey showed that WS was less effective in cumulative retention as compared to TDP despite its response opportunities. There were no differences as far as treatment gains and maintenance are concerned for the two approaches.
The Effects of Computer-Assisted Instruction Using Kurzweil 3000 on Sight Word Acquisition for Students with Mild Disabilities
The strategy in the study helps to solve the problem of consistent reading failures among learners with disabilities. Often, sight words are more than half of the words that students read; thus, helping in their recognition goes a long way towards improving their reading efficiencies. Kurzweil 3000 allows students to use computers to read aloud words before taking part in instructional activities. The approach supports both free operant and selection-based responses that help to provide data for progress monitoring (Cullen et al., 2013). The tutor, to allow students to give their answers in the form of typing, selecting multiple choices, and using a microphone to say the answers, can formulate the embedded questions.
The study focuses on the impacts of a computer-assisted instruction approach on sight word acquisition for graders with learning disabilities, ADHD, and mild intellectual defects. The Kurtzwell 3000 program helps to convert text into speech for the disabled by mastering sight words. The research design used is a mixed-method meant to acquire the number of students that improved their sight word recognition skills with the approach as well as analyzing their experiences after a specific period. The study used four students who were subjected to a series of 20-25 minute learning sessions (Cullen et al., 2013). The activities involved include typing the words, cloze passage completion, highlighting computer-spoken words, and reading words on a microphone. All the students mastered the recognition of sight words with up to 7 sessions, while three of them maintained the acquired sight words four weeks after the discontinuation of the sessions. It showed that Kurzweil 3000 was an effective tool in boosting sight word recognition and retention among students with mild disabilities.
Increasing the Sight Vocabulary and Reading Fluency of Children Requiring Reading Support: The Use of a Precision Teaching Approach
Precision Teaching is a strategy meant to develop fluency in reading among students with disabilities. It helps to track the performance and learning of pupils as well as supporting information-based decision-making. Fluency often involves the speed and the accuracy that results in better performances. The approach emphasizes increased response levels for basic fluency skills as a sign of competent learning. PT tutors assume that underperforming students tend to have lower fluency skills as compared to their best-performing counterparts. The method takes five distinct steps (Griffin & Murtagh, 2015). The teacher outlines the pinpoint of learning, and the materials for learning the skills are arranged. Time probes with 40-50 cells are used for random repartition of the skills. The learner’s performances are monitored, and the number of errors and accuracies noted. The data is plotted on a Standard Celaration Chart to represent learning outcomes as per the calendar days.
The purpose of the study is to highlight the impacts of Precision Teaching was conducted for eight weeks on a group of primary school students. It sought to analyze the role of the teaching approach in boosting formative evaluations of their signs of progress. The research design is a mixed-method one using interviews and a quasi-experimental system. The interview was composed of 40 students with seven teachers to offer learning support. An analysis of variance confirmed a steady growth in scores of sight vocabularies across the intervention groups used (Griffin & Murtagh, 2015). There was an increased sight vocabulary magnitude coupled with improved reading fluencies, accuracy, and comprehension. The interview conducted showed that Precession Teaching is an effective method in alleviating formative assessments and a suitable tool for motivating the students.
The Effects of Reading Racetracks on the Sight Word Recognition of Four Elementary School Students with Learning Difficulties
Reading racetracks serves as a game board with blank cells often used by students to solve math problems. In most instances, the teacher develops a list of math words, writes them in different cards, flips them upside down, and places them on the blank cells. The student then rolls a die to play the game, and a matchbox racecar is moved forward. The tutor turns over the track when stopped at a particular card, and the learner is asked to read the word (Grünke, 2019). In case of difficulties, corrective feedbacks are given, thus helping them to learn.
The purpose of the study is to determine the effectiveness of reading racetracks in increasing the fluency of sight words for students with disabilities. The method was being tested for the first time outside the United States. Four pupils from elementary school with varying capabilities were involved in study intervention sessions by two graduate individuals. The research design is a qualitative one meant to evaluate students’ fluency while using the racetracks. Four students, Amelle, Blanca, Dario, and Collin, attended the inclusive sessions in western Germany from an elementary school. The students were required to score 5% in the reading evaluation tests to be eligible for the study (Grünke, 2019). The test used was Salzburg Reading and Writing Test. The students did not recognize many sight words thus took more extended periods to read them. A DIN-A-3 racetrack with 30 cells was used to collect data on performance variables of the students while solving simple math problems. The four students registered moderate trends with their performances at the start of the study and later improved consistently with time. Dario reported the most impressive outcomes. The study, therefore, showed that reading racetracks were effective to improve the fluency of children with disabilities.
The Effects of Using Flashcards with Reading Racetrack to Teach Letter Sounds, Sight Words, and Math Facts to Elementary Students with Learning Disabilities
Reading racetracks acts as instructional tools meant to improve specific areas of fluency for students. Students who portray a wide range of disabilities to strengthen fluency through sight word recognition can use it with flashcards. Other vital areas for use include math calculation to help students memorize respond quickly to different facts. As such, students can easily build their skills and gain mastery in working with high-level math concepts. Understanding phonetics is also crucial towards attaining improved reading skills (Erbey et al., 2011). The two methods help learners to read and master sight words as an effective way to boost phonetics awareness. Often, flashcards contain pieces of information that the learner needs to identify and read correctly. An ability to read the words aloud precisely means that the student understands basic skills that determine their fluency capabilities.
The study is purposed to determine the effects of reading flashcards and racetracks in teaching sight words, phonics, and addition facts. The design is a qualitative one targeting the experiences of the students after using the two intervention methods. The participants were two-second-grade pupils diagnosed with learning disabilities. The seven-year-old suffered from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and traumatic brain injury. The dependent variables were errors and correct while reading from a list of sight words (Erbey et al., 2011). The math facts were chosen with regard to a 100-addition test for the third student. The results showed that the intervention of flashcards paired with racetracks helped to boost the number of corrects in each of the three mentioned areas. However, the responses of the three participants varied with their conditions; for example, the third participant became active and interested after taking medications.
Using Reading Racetracks and Flashcards to Teach Sight Words to Students with Disabilities: Effects for Acquisition and Response Maintenance
Learners with mild to severe conditions require the ability and the skills to use sight words for successful reading. The development and maintenance of these skills form the basis of some teaching-assistance methods like flashcards and racetracks. The two approaches target the six sections of reading instructions. It includes text comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, phonemic, and awareness. Reading racetracks improve the fluency of learners with a varied range of disabilities (Green, McLaughlin, Derby & Lee, 2010). The addition of flashcards to reading racetracks helps to boost sight word recognition despite the designation of student disability. As such, it helps to eliminate the possible weaknesses linked to the use of racetracks to target the various forms of reading instructions.
The study focuses on determining the efficacy of combine reading racetracks and flashcards method in teaching sight words. It also compares the use of different unknown and known words in maintenance and acquisition. The research design is a quantitative one considering the comparative study and the need to determine the number of students that performed better with the methods. The first participant had serious behavioral and specific learning disabilities, and the second was impaired orthopedically with severe scoliosis. The number of errors and correct words was determined for each of the participants (Green et al., 2010). A functional link between the flashcards and the racetracks was developed from the evaluation of readings. A mini-reversal was done at the end of each racetrack to assess sight word maintenance. Follow-up probes registered high response maintenance rates of sight words across the groups.
The Effects of Internet-Based Software on the Improvement of Reading Performance
The demand for competent performances in reading pushed the development of different internet-based software. The program supports better reading efficiencies via cloze activities that target high-frequency sight words. Most of the computer-assisted programs fail to train the students in reading target words within passages or sentences. Yet, the idea can provide extended practice in identifying and reading words, thus enabling learners to use syntactic data in word recognition. The target words are selected based on their frequency and utility in the reading series (Englert et al., 2005). For a close activity, the target words can be chosen from a series of high-frequency words compiled in a passage or story. The words can be presented in short sentences where the students can identify sentences with missing words and type one target word.
The purpose of the study is to assess the effectiveness of internet-based software from Tele-web in improving the reading performances of students on the verge of dropping out of school. The first study was used to evaluate the reading disabilities of four students in their first grade. The second study involved the entire first-grade students in helping improve their reading skills via sight word recognition. The research design is a quantitative one meant to determine the number of students who benefited from the activity (Englert, Zhao, Collings, & Romig, 2005). Sixteen students were present during the first study, some with varied disabilities like ADHD and Emotional and Behavioral Disorder (EBD), among others. Students were rotated to the TELE-Web to complete a cloze activity while the instructor focused on the other groups. A STAR reading test was the standardized performance measurement used for analyzing the reading efficiencies for the students.
References
Cullen, J., Keesey, S., & Alber-Morgan, S. (2013). The effects of computer-assisted instruction using Kurzweil 3000 on sight word acquisition for students with mild disabilities. Education and Treatment of Children, 36(2), 87-103.
Englert, C. S., Zhao, Y., Collings, N., & Romig, N. (2005). Learning to read words: The effects of internet-based software on the improvement of reading performance. Remedial and Special Education, 26(6), 357-371. Web.
Erbey, R., McLaughlin, T. F., Derby, K. M., & Everson, M. (2011). The effects of using flashcards with reading racetrack to teach letter sounds, sight words, and math facts to elementary students with learning disabilities. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 3(3), 213-226.
Green, C. L., McLaughlin, T. F., Derby, K. M., & Lee, K. (2010). Using reading racetracks and flashcards to teach sight words to students with disabilities: Effects for ccquisition and response maintenance. Journal of Educational Research (1027-9776), 13(2).
Griffin, C. P., & Murtagh, L. (2015). Increasing the sight vocabulary and reading fluency of children requiring reading support: The use of a precision teaching approach. Educational Psychology in Practice, 31(2), 186-209. blished online: 2015.
Grünke, M. (2019). The effects of reading racetracks on the sight word recognition of four Elementary school students with learning difficulties. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 11(4), 291-297.
Mulé, C. M., Daniels, B., Volpe, R. J., Briesch, A. M., Joseph, L. M., Harris, K., & Leslie, L. K. (2018). A comparative effectiveness study of two high-frequency word interventions: Traditional drill and wordsheets. Journal of Behavioral Education, 27(2), 240-261. Web.