Comparison of a Programed Method of Beginning Reading Instruction with the Look-and-Say Method

Abstract

This experiment involved comparison of a programed method of beginning reading instruction with a variation of the look-and-say technique. 15 kindergarten children were randomly divided into three treatment conditions. The first group was taught 20 words from the story, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, in a programed instructional manner. Echoic, pictorial, intraverbal, and textual stimuli were used to overdetermine correct reading responses in the beginning. The supplementary stimuli were gradually faded as the Ss progressed through the program until only the textual stimuli remained. The second group was taught with the look-and-say technique. These Ss received the same number of training trials with identical words as the programed group; however, there were no supplementary stimuli to be subsequently faded. There was also a control group which received no reading instruction. The two instructional groups showed significant and practically identical improvement as indicated by pre-, mid-, and posttest scores on tests of reading ability for the 20 words. The control group showed no improvement in reading ability. The lack of differential effectiveness for the two instructional techniques was discussed.