The Effects of a Direct Instruction Curriculum Sequence on the Reading Comprehension Responses of Early Readers

Abstract

Reading comprehension is critical for early learners’ academic success. Derived relations are an important feature of reading comprehension within the science of behavior because reading comprehension involves experientially acquired derived stimulus relations (Helou-Care, 2008; Neves in Behavioral Interventions 38:376–400, 2023, Park, 2005; da Silva in Experimental Analysis of Human Behavior Bulletin 24:1–8, 2006). That is, derived relations pertain to a learner demonstrating comprehension by making untrained connections to previously trained stimuli (e.g., words). For example, a learner who is trained that “kitten” is a type of “cat” and that all “cats meow” should then be able to demonstrate the untrained connection that “kittens meow.” The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of the Corrective Reading Comprehension (CR) curriculum, which employs an instructional sequence involving derived relations, on reading comprehension responses entailing derived relations. Four typically developing first-grade students were the participants in this study and the students were divided into two dyads. The principal researcher instructed each dyad on each of the five lessons of CR until mastery was obtained and then conducted postprobes on the dependent measures that were metaphors, derived relations from sentences, derived relations from letters/numbers, and implicit/explicit comprehension questions. The researchers used a delayed multiple probe design across 1st-grade dyads to assess the effect of five CR lessons on derived relations and reading comprehension responses of the participants. Posttest assessments showed gains for all four participants. The article concludes with a discussion of the main findings, implications for future research, and the limitations of this study.

This project was completed in partial fulfillment of the Ph.D. degree from Teachers College, Columbia University by the first author.

Responses of Early Readers

According to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF, 2022), only an estimated one third of 10-year-old children globally can read and comprehend simple written stories. This statistic is important because learners become at increased risk for academic underperformance in reading comprehension after third grade when they are expected to learn from reading when engaged with subject-specific content texts. Further, limited reading comprehension skills in elementary school can result in adolescents who do not demonstrate functional reading comprehension skills (Kendeou et al., 2014), which can affect their social and economic outcomes as adults (Christle & Yell, 2008; Ritchie & Bates, 2013). Thus, given the importance of reading comprehension throughout a learner’s school experience, improving reading comprehension outcomes for young learners is critical and instruction that targets enhanced reading comprehension skills should be an important part of reading instruction in early elementary classrooms.

The characteristics of students in schools in the United States are complex and varied and those characteristics may affect the trajectory of academic success and longer-term outcomes (Carvalhaes et al., 2022; Del Toro & Wang, 2021). The Nation’s Report Card (National Assessment of Educational Progress [NAEP], 2022) provides achievement data of U.S. students across different grades and subject areas as well as across demographic features associated with academic risk. For example, in 2017, only 37% of students were reading at or above the basic level during 4th grade (NAEP, 2022). However, when these data are disaggregated according to race, socioeconomic status, and disability, the picture of disparity comes more clearly into focus. For example, 78% of White students were reported to have reading skills at or above the basic level whereas only 51% of Black students and 54% of Hispanic students achieved that level. As a measure of poverty, students who were eligible for the national school lunch program achieved basic reading levels or above at a rate of only 48% whereas 76% of students with higher income status achieved this benchmark. Finally, the disparity is most pronounced for students with disabilities, with only 32% of these students reaching this minimum standard of reading proficiency.

To further the complexity of the problem of reading risk and failure, students are not unidimensional and will often represent more than one of these categories. To most effectively address all students and provide robust prevention, schools may adopt a multitiered system of support (MTSS) approach such as Responsiveness to Intervention, whereby students are provided effective instruction and effective classroom placement procedures before academic risk compounds into failure and subsequently engage with evidence-based interventions to remediate any remaining deficits (Benner et al., 2013; Lurz & Walsh, 2022; Siegel, 2020). In fact, according to Carta et al. (2015), children from low-income families were disproportionately represented at higher levels of intervention to remediate risk. The authors recommended that schools increase their focus on robust early literacy practices to prevent higher rates of disability diagnoses and reading challenges in the future.

One promising approach to reading comprehension has been the use of programmed instruction and curricula such as Corrective Reading Comprehension, which is a Direct Instruction program. There is evidence that Direct Instruction Corrective Reading (CR; Engelmann et al., 1999a, 1999b) programs have produced positive and durable effects on students’ reading comprehension scores (Gersten & Keating, 1987). The largest government-funded experimental comparison of teaching methods ever conducted was Project Follow Through. In 1967, the U.S. Department of Education sponsored a study that involved approximately 700,000 youth to evaluate 12 instructional models including constructivist models and discovery learning as well as teacher-directed Direct Instruction, which was found to be overwhelmingly superior in nearly every analysis of math, reading, higher order cognitive skills, and conceptual thinking (Kim & Axelrod, 2005). In fact, according to a follow-up analysis of students who participated in Project Follow Through, Direct Instruction students outperformed other participants across multiple reading measures, and the same students who performed well in 3rd grade continued to perform well by 9th grade (Meyer, 1984).

These positive effects of CR programs on comprehension skills are encouraging and should be highlighted as an approach to narrowing the achievement gap for students with and without disabilities. To this effect, an experimental evaluation of the CR comprehension program was conducted with students with autism or developmental disabilities. Head et al. (2018) used a multiple-probe across behaviors design to analyze the effects of Corrective Reading Comprehension Level B1 (Englemann et al., 2008) on students’ specific comprehension skills (e.g., parts of speech, combining sentences with “and,” identifying contradictions, and identifying relevant/irrelevant information). The authors observed a functional relationship between Corrective Reading Comprehension Level B1 program and specific comprehension reading skills across all participants. All participants mastered each skill evaluated and maintained those gains after instruction ended. Furthermore, these gains generalized and yielded improved performance on the standardized reading comprehension measure of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test-III (Woodcock, 2011). To extend the analysis beyond single-case design demonstrations of functional relations between CR programs and reading comprehension, another study compared the effectiveness of Corrective Reading Thinking Basics and Language for Learning programs (both Direct Instruction programs) for 18 students with autism and developmental disabilities and used a one-way analysis of variance to analyze results (Flores et al., 2013). Prior to the analysis, the investigators checked for linearity, normality, and variability of the population. Participants were administered placement tests and placed within either Thinking Basics or Language for Learning, depending on performance. They received approximately 30 min of daily instruction through teacher-delivered, unmodified curricular lessons. For each group, one-way analysis of variance was conducted with time and percentage correct on curriculum-based assessments as the dependent variables. For the Corrective Reading Thinking Basics group, results indicated a significant time effect and follow-up polynomial contrasts suggested means increased over time with a significant linear effect. Likewise, the Language for Learning group ANOVA results indicated a significant time effect and follow-up polynomial contrasts show a significant linear effect with means increasing over time. Taken together, these results suggest that CR had strong effects on students’ comprehension skills with coefficients ranging between .93 and .99, and that these effects were durable over time. Furthermore, this study demonstrated a realistic evaluation of CR programs due to the teacher-delivered, unmodified nature of instructional delivery.

Considering the effect of Corrective Reading programs on improved reading comprehension outcomes for students with disabilities (Head et al., 2018; Flores et al., 2013; Flores & Ganz, 2007, 2009) , but with significant gaps in achievement as measured by the Nation’s Report Card (NAEP, 2022), we should more closely examine programming and service delivery deficits or obstacles to effective instruction that may exist. One obvious concern is the reluctance of school districts to adopt effective reading instruction in favor of less rigorously tested programs (Lyon et al., 2005; Schwartz, 2022), particularly for its most disadvantaged members. However, a full analysis of that problem is beyond the scope of this article and is addressed in other outlets (Datnow, 2000; Kim & Axelrod, 2005). Even when school personnel adopt an effective reading curriculum such as Corrective Reading, there may be pedagogical discontinuity among service delivery professionals who are working “together” on a multidisciplinary team (MDT) for students with disabilities (Gann & Kunnavatana, 2016). The strength and purpose of the MDT is to work in synergistic ways to provide services that facilitate the mastery of a student’s goals and objectives. When a student has identified academic goals in reading comprehension, it is possible that more than one member of the MDT may be providing services designed to help that student meet their goal. Further, it is likely that members of the MDT from adjacent disciplines, such as special education, applied behavior analysis, and school psychology, may provide services for skills and behaviors that are the same or closely related. Maintaining an effective way to communicate among professionals from different disciplines is crucial to the overall success of such a multidisciplinary team (Garbacz et al., 2015). It is important that we bridge or translate professional discourse among MDT members to ensure the student’s efficient acquisition of target skills and behaviors.

To make this point, consider the following. One theoretical approach to reading comprehension that is pedagogically compatible with CR has been relational frame theory (RFT). RFT is a contemporary behavior analytic account of language and cognition that relies on the use of equivalence relations. It is largely derived from Sidman’s stimulus equivalence and Skinner’s (1957) verbal behavior (Sidman, 1971, 1994; Sidman & Cresson, 1973). It should be noted, though, that to develop a scientific treatment of cognitive processes, RFT uses technical, noncolloquial language that may not be readily understandable to those professionals on student’s MDT who do not have extensive training in verbal behavior (Blackledge, 2003). For example, whereas teachers on the team may describe reading comprehension processes as deductions and inferences, RFT offers an explanation for the conditions under which comprehension may occur. These include three properties to explain language acquisition: mutual entailment, combinatorial entailment, and transformation of stimulus functions (Hayes et al., 2001).

Mutual entailment refers to the relation between two stimuli in which A = B, and B = A is derived without instruction. Combinatorial entailment involves similar derived relations, however, among three or more stimuli. Transformation of stimulus functions is said to have occurred if, without training, the function of one stimulus alters the functions of another stimulus within the derived relations.

From an RFT perspective (Barnes, 1994; Barnes-Holmes et al., 2000; Barnes-Holmes et al., 2004) and based on Verbal Behavior Development Theory (VBDT) research (Greer & Ross, 2008; Greer & Speckman, 2009), reading comprehension involves experientially acquired derived stimulus relations. That is, when a student reads a passage of text, in addition to the decoding of print symbols on the page, they are also making meaningful connections to other learned stimuli in their language repertoire (e.g., as a student reads the word “cow” within a story, they are imagining the visual depiction of a cow, and they may recall cow sounds such as “moo” and so forth). Therefore, comprehension is a type of relational responding and is implicitly learned through certain types of experiences (Barnes-Holmes et al., 2004; Newsome et al., 2014). It is students' instructional histories that allow them to accurately respond to arbitrary relations between or among stimuli. See Table 1 below for a visual comparison between RFT, stimulus equivalence, and reading comprehension (Barnes & Holmes, 1991; Sidman, 1994).

Table 1 A Visual Comparison between Stimulus Equivalence, RFT, and Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension involving relational responding can be trained in a 1:1 setting or a group setting. A teacher may be able to determine if a learner can be instructed in reading comprehension skills in dyads or larger group settings by first determining if the learner can acquire new skills after observing the consequence that a peer receives during instruction which is a cusp called observational learning (Greer & Keohane, 2006; Neu & Greer, 2019; Rehfeldt et al., 2003, Sivaraman et al., 2023). VBDT (Greer & Ross, 2008; Greer & Speckman, 2009) highlights the importance of observational learning (OL) as a necessary verbal developmental cusp for learners to acquire new skills through observation, especially given that most general education classrooms instruct students for reading and other subjects in small or large group formats and with model demonstrations in which the teacher models a skill before giving students an opportunity to attempt it (Greer & Keohane, 2006; Neu & Greer, 2019; Sivaraman et al., 2023). If a student is not demonstrating proficient reading comprehension, it may be helpful for teachers to analyze how they are delivering the reading instruction and further evaluate whether their students have the OL cusp in repertoire (Rehfeldt et al., 2003). How to assess for OL is discussed further in the Method section of the article.

The instructional sequence found within the CR curriculum appears to teach derived relations by providing instructions that teach explicit comprehension skills, (i.e., mutual entailment) and implicit comprehension skills (i.e., combinatorial entailment). Explicit reading comprehension is mutual entailment because it assesses for bidirectional relationships between two stimuli (e.g., between word and picture) explicitly stated in a text. The relation between RFT and CR is that the curriculum has a sequence that, if mastered, teaches the reinforcement history to transform stimuli such that multiple single stimuli come to control multiple responses. RFT asserts that an individual learns relations within frames based on their reinforcement history with nonarbitrary and arbitrary relations, similar to how experiences expand relations for learning of names of things (Kleinert-Ventresca et al., 2023).

An example of relations being taught in CR can be found in Lesson 4, Exercise 8 of the Thinking Basics: Comprehension A, teacher presentation book (Engelman et al., 1999). Each exercise consists of multiple opportunities to respond and tasks and each opportunity or task targets different skills such as deductions or definitions. This exercise targets deductions and has the following interaction presented: “Listen to this rule. All snakes crawl. Rattlers are snakes. Listen, all snakes crawl, rattlers are snakes. So, rattlers ____?” The teacher pauses and provides a signal. The students then chorally respond to the signal with the word “crawl.” In this example, one can see that “snakes crawl” was the first taught relation (A = B). “Rattlers are snakes,” was the second taught relation (A = C). Lastly, “rattlers crawl” was the untaught derived relation (C = B). In the scripted component of exercise 8, the instructor is required to reinforce and explain the relation by stating, “You know that rattlers crawl because all snakes crawl. How do you know that rattlers crawl?”

CR is a particularly useful intervention for students with disabilities not only because of its demonstrated effectiveness but also due to the pedagogical overlap between the education discipline and behavior analysis (e.g., reinforcement for correct responses, instructional trials). CR’s curriculum sequence teaches derived relations, which in turn improves listening/reading comprehension skills. Metaphors are also a type of derived relation due to the fact that they are a type of extended tact (Skinner, 1957). Students encounter metaphors in aesthetic writings in which the writer writes to affect the emotions of the reader; therefore, metaphors are an important part of building reading comprehension (Cunningham, 1976). Meincke et al. (2003) measured the emergence of novel metaphor productions in middle-school students following a multiple exemplar training experience. Advanced reading comprehension involves metaphors and inferences, both of which are a type of relational responding. Inference is defined as any given information that is not explicitly provided or stated within a text (Maguet et al., 2021). According to Hassani et al. (2015), reading comprehension such as inferences occurs when a reader textually responds to a text and elaborates on the text based on the reader’s background knowledge and prior experiences in order to generate accurate inferences.

As mentioned previously, the CR instructional sequence appears to have been teaching derived relations, although not describing them as such, by providing multiple exemplar instruction leading to multiple responses for stimuli. CR has a sequence that trains derived stimulus relations across multiple exemplars within one mode of responding and these sequences appear to allow the process of relating to become abstracted in the appropriate context (Barnes-Holmes et al., 2004). This curriculum identifies derived relations from sentences as deductions, which is considered an advanced reading comprehension skill in reading curricula.

As we align instructional service delivery across adjacent disciplines such as education and behavior analysis, one may note that deductions formed as a result of reading, might be identified as derived relations such as mutual and combinatorial entailment from a contemporary analysis of behavioral science. In the end, members of MDTs may be able to more efficiently advance foundational academic goals such as reading comprehension for learners with disabilities if we can translate the features of the instruction and the subsequent analysis of outcome variables across these adjacent field’s professional discourse.

The purpose of the current project was to determine if an abbreviated version of CR comprehension results in derived relational responding for early readers. The specific research questions were: (1) to what extent does the CR curriculum sequence affect early readers’ responses to metaphors and derived relation probes as measured by isolated metaphor probes, sentence-based deduction probes, as well as arbitrary relation probes using letters and numbers and (2) to what extent can beginning readers being taught with CR demonstrate use of advanced reading comprehension skills such as implicit/explicit reading comprehension questions, as measured by the Qualitative Reading Inventory (Leslie & Caldwell, 2010) standardized reading assessment? The focus of this study is to address these research questions from a scientific behavioral lens in order to provide educators who are teaching students from diverse backgrounds (e.g., learners who are economically disadvantaged, learners with disabilities) a research-based instructional practice for improving student reading comprehension skills in their educational setting.

Method

Participants and Setting

Four participants from a 1st-grade inclusion classroom participated in this study. The classroom was located in a K–5 elementary school in a public school district located in a suburban, diverse town within proximity to a large metropolitan area. The students from the elementary school were selected because the school district’s elementary students demonstrated a 45% proficiency test score in reading and, in particular, only 52% of the entire school district’s students demonstrated at or above proficiency in reading. Based on racial and economic data of the participant’s school, the demographics consisted of 61% White students, 28% Hispanic students, 4% multicultural students, 4% Asian students, and 2% Black students. Also, 10% of the students within the school qualified for free and reduced-price lunch.

All participants were typically developing 1st-grade learners who read on grade level and read at a rate of 90 words per minute. There were three girls and one boy who were 7 years of age at the start of the study. All participants were selected by the 1st-grade teacher and experimenter because they required additional support with reading comprehension skills during instruction based on teacher assessment The study consisted of two dyad groupings: Participants A and B were in Dyad 1 whereas Participants C and D were in Dyad 2. The classroom consisted of 15 students, one lead teacher, and one teaching assistant. Some features of this classroom included but were not limited to large group instruction, choral responding, and a class-wide behavior management system. All procedures were conducted by the experimenter at a U-shaped table in the corner of the participants’ classroom.

At the onset of the study, all participants demonstrated the ability to read at a 1st-grade level according to the Qualitative Reading Inventory (Leslie & Caldwell, 2010). However, though the participants were reading on grade level, they each required additional support with reading comprehension. All participants were assessed for the skill of observational learning (OL) to determine whether this verbal developmental cusp was in repertoire as this cusp is an indicator of how a student learns (Greer & Ross, 2008; Neu & Greer, 2019). The assessment procedure for OL consisted of two participants set up in a dyad and the experimenter teaching one nontarget peer participant the names of pictures (e.g., five targets and four exemplars of each) while the target participant observed. The target participant observed the nontarget peer participant receive either reinforcement for correct responses or corrections for incorrect responses (Delgado & Greer, 2009; Fryling et al., 2011). After the peer participant mastered the names of the pictures, the target participant was probed for OL by being required to label the images within the set of stimuli at a criterion of 80% accuracy. Results from the OL assessment showed all four participants had OL in their repertoire, which confirmed for the experimenters that the participants could learn in a dyad/group setting where they observed other students receive reinforcement or corrections (Greer & Ross, 2008; Greer & Speckman, 2009).

All participants functioned at listener/speaker, and reader/writer levels of verbal behavior. Functioning at a listener/speaker level means that the learner demonstrates joint stimulus control due to their ability to emit correct listener responses (e.g., selecting items) and correct speaker responses (e.g., labeling items) as a result of unreinforced observing experiences. Functioning at a reader/writer level of verbal behavior means that the participants were able to read words fluently, read-and-do, and emit writing behavior that had an intended effect on a reader. The following prerequisite repertoires were required to be a participant in this study: participants could read-do (i.e., follow written instructions), demonstrated grade 1 reading level, and books were conditioned reinforcers. According to the Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI) probe and a probe that measured duration of book-engagement, the participants demonstrated the prerequisite repertoires while engaged with books (Gentilini & Greer, 2021; Greer, 2002; Greer & Ross, 2008). Although the participants had these repertoires, the experimenters selected them because they were performing below criterion according to preprobe data across all four of the dependent variables in this study

Materials

The reading comprehension curriculum used was Corrective Reading (CR; Engelmann et al., 1999a, 1999b). Researchers used the CR placement test materials to conduct the prescreenings and determine appropriate placement within the curriculum. All participants were placed on CR placement test A. The experimenters used the Corrective Reading: Thinking Basics-Comprehension A Teacher Presentation Book 1 and the Corrective Reading: Thinking Basics-Comprehension A workbook (Engelmann et al., 1999a, 1999b) to implement the intervention. The experimenters implemented the first five lessons only found within the Corrective Reading: Thinking Basics-Comprehension Level A workbook (Engelmann et al., 1999b). The experimenter selected this level of the curriculum because it matched the participants preperformance level as well as due to the pedagogical compatibility with training for relational responding.

In terms of reading assessment, the experimenters implemented the fifth edition of the QRI and it was used to assess implicit and explicit reading comprehension skills during pre- and postintervention probes (Leslie & Caldwell, 2010). The QRI assessment worksheets consisted of one Level 1 (i.e., 1^st-grade level) story and a Level 1 QRI questionnaire packet. The questionnaire packet consisted of comprehension questions and a scoring section. The experimenters used the test materials from the Level 1 stories because Level 1 was equivalent to 1st-grade reading level and all participants were on 1st-grade reading level at the start of the study. The following QRI stories were used, Mouse in the House, The Bear and the Rabbit, and Marva Finds a Friend (Leslie & Caldwell, 2010). Samples of the QRI assessment sheets are shown in Fig. A1 in Appendix A and Fig. B1 in Appendix B.

Fig. 1

Sample of Sets 1–3 from the Metaphor Probe. The participants were required to attend to the teacher vocal antecedent and respond by providing three metaphor responses. The participants were provided with five opportunities per set to demonstrate that extended metaphors were in repertoire

The experimenter constructed metaphor probes that consisted of sentences that were presented vocally and read from a word document. The document listed questions for each set within the metaphor probe. The participants responded in vocal form. The probe materials used for the derived relations from sentences probe consisted of sentences that were presented vocally and read from a document. The document listed questions for each set within the probe. The participants responded in vocal form. The sentences presented on the probe were developed by the researchers. The material used for the derived relations from the letters/numbers probe, which used arbitrary combinations of letters/numbers consisting of alphabetic letters and Arabic numbers, was visually presented to the participants. There were 10 opportunities to respond and they were presented as such: 1) Visual of “X = G,” 2) visual of “G = T, and then 3) the question to test for combinatorial entailment was presented visually, “T = ?” These dependent measures are explained further in the procedures section.

Dependent Variables

There were four dependent variables measured in this experiment and each variable expounded upon reading comprehension from a scientific behavioral approach. In the current study we evaluated derived relations for combinatorial entailment in three ways. First, we probed metaphors that were exclusively based on the learner’s instructional history without explicit rules provided (e.g., “Name three ways a house is like a seashell”). Next, we also evaluated derived relations from sentences (i.e., deductions) that provided explicit rules because that format was similar to the presentation of deductions in Corrective Reading (e.g., “if a chicken is coral it has 3 legs. Bob’s chicken is coral, what else do you know about it?”). Finally, to evaluate the generality of the thinking skill, we probed combinatorial entailment outside of a story-based or learning history context by presenting arbitrary letter and number relations (e.g., X = G, G = T, so T = ___ ).

Overall, the dependent measures were: (1) number of correct metaphor responses; (2) number of correct derived relations from sentences probe; (3) number of correct derived relations from the letters/numbers probe; and (4) number of correct responses to the QRI reading comprehension probe. The first three dependent variables were used to answer the first research question: to what extent does the CR curriculum sequence affect early readers’ metaphors and derived relations as measured by isolated metaphor probes, sentence-based deduction probes, and arbitrary relation probes using letters and numbers? The final dependent variable was used to answer the second research question: to what extent can beginning readers being taught with CR demonstrate advanced reading comprehension skills.

Metaphor Probe

The purpose of the metaphor probe was to test for the presence of combinatorial entailment. There are four different rudiments of metaphors according to Stewart and Barnes-Holmes (2001). The four components of metaphors are: (1) the learner establishing two separate equivalence relations; (2) the learner deriving an equivalence relation between the two relations; (3) the learner discriminating a formal relation via this equivalence–equivalence relation; and (4) a transformation of function takes place based on the formal relation discriminated in the third element. An example of a metaphor provided by Stewart and Barnes-Holmes (2001) is, “struggling with anxiety is [as] struggling in quicksand.” In this example, both anxiety and quicksand involve a form of struggling (psychological or physical); however, the listener contacts the fact that struggling in quicksand leads to drowning based on his previous reinforcement history and subsequently begins to relate that to anxiety. Therefore, the listener derives relations between the two different events and a transfer of function from one stimulus to the other occurs (Stewart & Barnes-Holmes, 2001, Stewart et al., 2001). The structures tested were the commonalities of features or noncommonalities of features between explicit stimuli and often these were arbitrarily applicable (e.g., “name three ways that a house is like a seashell”). See Fig. 1 for an example of the metaphor probe.

Derived Relation from Sentence Probe

The purpose of the derived relation from sentence probe was to test for the presence of combinatorial entailment (e.g., learning relations between two or more stimuli), after being trained relations between two stimuli or events presented in sentence form. In terms of reading comprehension, combinatorial entailment occurs when a teacher teaches her students that poodle (A) is a type of dog (B), which is relation-1, and that dogs (B) bark (C ), which is relation-2, and the teacher assesses for implicit comprehension by asking the students, “Do poodles bark?” The learners who make the appropriate relation that poodles (A) bark (C) is demonstrating the untaught derived relation that A = C. Overton (1990) stated that inferences is the process by with an individual arrives at a conclusion on the basis of other propositions that were presented to them and accepted (i.e., instructional history). The following is an example of one of the derived relation sentences found in the probe with a non-sense rule, “If a monkey is tiny, it is blue; Nick has a tiny monkey, what else do you know about it?” The participant was required to respond by stating the untaught relation which in the case of the mentioned example would be, “the monkey is blue” based on the provided rule. There was a total of five rules presented and three opportunities to respond to each rule. This probe presented two relations then probed for the untaught relation (Howarth et al., 2015). Participants were presented with a novel set of questions during each probe condition (see Fig. 2 below).

Fig. 2

This is a Sample of the Derived Relation from Sentence Probe. Note. The participants were required to attend to the experimenter’s vocal antecedents and emit vocal responses to each relation

Derived Relation from Letters/Numbers Probe

The purpose of the derived relations probe of letters/numbers probe was to determine if the participants could demonstrate combinatorial entailment (RFT) after being trained on two relations (e.g., if G = T and T = 5, then 5 = G). To transfer this to reading comprehension, combinatorial entailment occurs when an educator teaches their students that fuji (A) is a type of apple (B) which is relation-1, and that apples (B) grow on trees ( C), which is relation 2, and then the teacher assesses for implicit comprehension by asking the students, “where do fuji’s grow?” The learners who make the relation that fuji's (A) grow from trees (C) are demonstrating the untaught derived relation that A = C. Here is another example of how derived relations occur during the reading comprehension. A student learns the following relation while reading a passage, cow = milk and kefir = milk, then the untaught relation between kefir and cow can emerge for the learner (see Figs. 3 and 4). This dependent measure builds from the theoretical and scientific groundwork that explains language development; however, we are extending this to further strengthen how reading comprehension occurs after relations are trained. Similar to the transitive property of stimulus equivalence research, combinatorial entailment refers to a network of relations or a combination of two or more stimulus relations. The participants were required to demonstrate that they could learn relations between multiple numbers/letters stimuli, after being taught relations between three contrived letters and/or numbers. There was a total of 10 opportunities to respond in this probe (see Fig. 5, below).

Fig. 3

A visual of derived relations using the following set of stimuli: cow, kefir, and milk. Note. A learner’s ability to respond accurately to the third untaught relation demonstrates transitivity (stimulus equivalence) and combinatorial entailment (RFT)

Fig. 4

A Visual of How the Deduction Learn unit is Formatted in CR Using the Stimuli, Cow, Kefir, and Milk

Fig. 5

Sample of the Derived Relations from Letters/Numbers Probe Presented Using PowerPoint. Note. The participants were presented with one slide at a time and were trained for the first two relations (e.g., mutual entailment) but were probed on the last relation (e.g., combinatorial entailment)

Qualitative Reading Inventory Probe

Numerous reading assessments test for student performance with implicit and explicit comprehension skills, such as the Developmental Reading Assessment (Beaver & Carter, 2006), Fountas and Pinnell Benchmark System (Fountas & Pinnell, 2010), and Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) for retell comprehension (Good & Kaminski, 2002); however, in this study the experimenters measured implicit (i.e., combinatorial entailment) and explicit (i.e., mutual entailment) reading comprehension using the Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI; Leslie & Caldwell, 2010). The QRI is a common standardized reading assessment used in grade level schools from K-12. The purpose of this dependent measure was to examine readers’ textual responses, reading rate of grade level passages, vocabulary, and comprehension responses. The experimenters used the reading comprehension questions from the QRI to assess for mutual entailment (i.e., explicit comprehension) and combinatorial entailment (i.e., implicit comprehension). For example, Level 1 story Mouse in a House, included four explicit comprehension questions and two implicit comprehension questions. The following is an example of one of the explicit questions presented in the Mouse and the House narrative, “Where did the mouse live in the house?” This is an explicit comprehension question because the answer to this question is explicitly stated in the text. This form of question demonstrates mutual entailment due to the fact that it assesses for a bidirectional relationship between two stimuli and the first relation (A = B) relation is directly presented in the text. In this example, the first relation taught was, mouse lives (A) in a wall (B). The reader simply has to demonstrate that he can respond accurately to this explicit question in both directions (i.e., A = B and B = A or mouse = “lives in wall” and “lives in wall” = mouse).

The following is an example of one of the implicit questions presented in the Mouse in the House narrative, “How many floors did the house have?” Responding accurately to this question demonstrates combinatorial entailment because the answer to this question is not explicitly stated in the text and must be inferred given the other information that the text provided (i.e., A = B, B = C, therefore A = C). The assessment provided the participants with a total of six questions following each story; the majority of the stories contained four explicit questions and two implicit questions. See Figs. A1 and B1 in the Appendices for a sample page of the QRI story and the QRI comprehension questions.

Interobserver agreement (IOA) was conducted for all four of the dependent measures across both dyads with 100% agreement. The purpose of IOA is to assess for procedural fidelity (Cooper et al., 2020). Observer agreement is a critical piece in behavior analytic research as it measures the extent to which the procedure was implemented as described (Essig et al., 2022). More specially interscorer agreement (ISA) was conducted for the QRI probes. ISA assesses for procedural fidelity by scoring permanent products (e.g., worksheets, written text, pictures). ISA was conducted for 100% of the QRI comprehension permanent product probes with 100% agreement.

Independent Variable

CR (Engelmann et al., 1999a, 1999b) is the intervention that was implemented in order to measure its effect on the dependent measures. CR has a sequence that trains derived stimulus relations across multiple exemplars within one mode of responding and these sequences allow the process of relating to become abstracted in the appropriate context (Barnes-Holmes et al., 2004). The CR curriculum provides over 30 lessons and within each lesson are multiple exercises targeting different skills related to reading comprehension (Engelmann et al., 1999a, 1999b). Each lesson within the curriculum provides 12–16 exercises and each exercise teaches comprehension skills involving true/false, inferences, deductions, and some/all/none. The experimenters implemented the first five lessons of the CR curriculum because the first five lessons provided ample opportunities for the participants to engage with the curriculum’s sequence that appears to teach derived relations.

The curriculum rotates between listener (e.g., selection responses such as multiple choice) and speaker responses (e.g., emitting a response vocally). One exercise (e.g., deductions) was considered one instructional unit. Some exercises contained multiple tasks (e.g., Task A and Task B) and each task within an exercise was also considered an instructional unit. Data were recorded on each learn unit (Albers & Greer, 1991) within each instructional unit. A learn unit is a fundamental measure of pedagogy and is composed of interlocking operants between the teacher and student, which involves teacher and student interactions (Greer & McDonough, 1999). In brief, the learn unit consists of an attending learner, the presence of a teacher or a target discriminative stimulus for teacher behavior, an unambiguous antecedent, student response to the teacher target discriminative stimulus, and a consequence for student response to the teacher behavior or discriminative stimulus (Albers & Greer, 1991; Greer & McDonough, 1999). Though many learn unit types are not discrete trials, the learn unit shares similar components to discrete trial teaching (DTT), in the sense that DTT involves a discriminative stimulus (i.e., instructional antecedent), a prompt, a response from the learner, and a consequence (Leaf & McEachin, 1999; Smith, 2001). In learn units, a consequence can include either reinforcement (e.g., praise) for correct student responses or correction operations for incorrect student responses. All learn units include correction operations; however, discrete trials may not include correction operations (Greer & McDonough, 1999). For purposes of this study, instructional unit simply refers to the skill (i.e., exercise and tasks) being taught within each lesson. An instructional unit referred to each exercise, which targeted a specific comprehension skill (e.g., True/False) and each task within each exercise was also considered an instructional unit. The criterion was set to 90% accuracy within one lesson.

Design

A concurrent multiple probe design across two dyads was used in this study (Horner & Baer, 1978). In the current study, Dyad 1 included Participants A and B and Dyad 2 included Participants C and D. The sequence of the experiment was as follows: (1) A preexperimental screening to identify the participants’ level of comprehension for the material in the CR curriculum; (2) preintervention probes targeting all four dependent measures for both dyads; (3) CR intervention for Dyad 1; (4) postprobes for Dyad 1; (5) a second preintervention probe for Dyad 2; (6) CR intervention for Dyad 2; (7) postprobes for Dyad 2; and (8) a second postprobe for Dyad 1.

Procedure

Preexperimental Screening

The experiment began with the implementation of the CR (Engelmann et al., 1999a, 1999b) prescreening assessments. The tests were conducted by following the instructions provided in the curriculum. During implementation of the CR Placement Assessment packet, the experimenters recorded the number of correct responses emitted to comprehension questions by the participants. The participants were required to respond in written and vocal form to comprehension questions delivered by the experimenter. The responses emitted during this assessment determined the participants’ placement during the CR intervention. All four participants were placed in Comprehension Level A of the CR intervention.

Preintervention probes

Derived Relation from Letters/Numbers Probe

During the preintervention probe, the number of correct and incorrect responses to the derived relations from letters/numbers probe trials was assessed with a visual presentation containing an arbitrary relation made of contrived relations between letters and numbers (e.g., A = 5 and 5 = H). The experimenters presented the visual of the letters and numbers when presenting each relation and asking each question. The experimenters rotated between two forms of antecedents, “what is the same as ____?” and “what does ____ equal?” There was a total of 10 opportunities to respond and each opportunity presented a visual of each relation and the question. The participants were required to emit a vocal response within 5 s following the presentation of the antecedent. When the participants did not emit a response within 5 s, the response was recorded as incorrect by recording a minus (-) and the experimenters proceeded to the next presentation. Correction operations were not provided for incorrect responses during the probe and the correct responses were not consequated with reinforcement during the probe. The experimenters recorded a plus (+) when the participant emitted a correct response. During all probe trials, the experimenters did not consequate any correct or incorrect responses.

Metaphor Probe

During the metaphor probe, the experimenters presented one set of five questions and each question provided three opportunities to respond, which totaled to 15 opportunities to respond per metaphor question. The experimenters presented the participant with metaphor trials that consisted of an antecedent which prompted the participant to describe up to three commonalities or noncommonalities of features between stimuli such as things (e.g., animals, body parts) or events. One example of a metaphor probe trial is, “Name three ways a fin is the same as a tail.” The response was considered correct when the participant responded with one or up to three accurate commonalities or differences. The participants were required to vocally say “both are” or “they have” or “one is _______ and the other is______” in order to accurately communicate the commonality or difference. The content of the participant’s response needed to be accurate and functional. For example, if the participant emitted a vocal response such as, “a house and a seashell are the same because they both are furry” the experimenters marked this as incorrect due to the fact that the participant did not demonstrate an accurate understanding of the commonalities of features between the house and seashell given that neither are furry. However, if the participant emitted a vocal response such as, “a house and a seashell are the same because they both provide shelter,” then the experimenters considered this response as accurate. An incorrect response was recorded if the participant was unable to tact a commonality or difference between the two stimuli or only emitted a response for one of the two presented stimuli (e.g., You can live in a house) rather than both (e.g., You can live in a house and creatures live in a seashell). See Table 2 for an example of a correct and incorrect metaphor response. The experimenters recorded a plus (+) if the participant emitted a correct response and the experimenters recorded a minus (-) if the participant emitted an incorrect response. All participants’ responses were probed using a novel set after each condition.

Table 2 An example of a correct response and an incorrect response for the metaphor probe

Derived Relation from Sentence Probe. During the derived relations from sentence probe, the experimenters presented the participants with five rules (e.g., If a chicken is coral, it has three legs) per each set. The rules combined nonsense and factual content. The experimenters presented three questions following each rule to probe combinatorial entailment according to RFT (e.g., Bob’s chicken is coral, what else do you know about it?). The participants were presented with a total of five deduction rules and there were three opportunities to respond following each deduction rule. A correct response was recorded if the participant was able to identify the correct relation for each question. If the participant emitted, “I don’t know” or another response aside from the correct relation, the response was recorded as incorrect. The experimenters recorded a plus (+) for correct responses and a minus (-) for incorrect responses and the experimenter did not consequate the trials.

Corrective Reading Curriculum

During the CR (Engelmann et al., 1999a, 1999b) intervention, both dyads were presented with the first five lessons of CR. Each lesson consisted of eight or more exercises and each exercise consisted of four to eight learn units (Albers & Greer, 1991). The learn unit is the smallest component of pedagogy in which it breaks down the exchange that takes place between the teacher and the learner. As mentioned previously, learn unit consists of multiple interlocking contingencies such as a teacher delivered antecedent, a learner’s behavioral response to the antecedent, and a teacher’s response to the learner’s behavior (i.e., reinforcement or a correction operation). Each exercise was counted as an instructional unit because each exercise taught a specific comprehension skill. The CR curriculum requires that the participants master the skill at 90% criterion or above per lesson. If accuracy falls below 90%, participants need to repeat the lesson. The experimenters recorded data on each participants’ responses to learn units (Albers & Greer, 1991; Greer & McDonough, 1999) within each instructional unit. The data collected on each learn unit within each instructional unit allowed the experimenters to analyze whether the participant passed each lesson with a score of 90% or higher. If the student emitted less than 90% correct responses, the student was required to recycle the specific instructional unit to mastery. It should be noted that all students in this study emitted 90% or above during each exercise. If a participant emitted all correct responses during an instructional unit, a plus (+) was recorded. However, when the participant emitted an incorrect response within an instructional unit, the experimenters recorded a minus (-) and the student received a correction operation for that specific response. The correction operation consisted of the experimenters re-presenting the antecedent, modeling the correct answer, and then presenting the antecedent again to then allow the student an opportunity to respond correctly after receiving the model. Praise was withheld for correct responses during all correction operations. Each lesson within CR consisted of one workbook exercise. The workbook exercises required the participants to emit selection responses (e.g., circle the correct letter) when presented with positive and negative exemplars of the answer to the questions. See Table 3 below for a visual display of the total number of instructional units and total number of derived relations learn units within each lesson.

Table 3 This table shows the total number of instructional units (i.e., exercises/tasks) presented within each lesson and the total number of derived relations learn units presented within each lesson of the Corrective Reading intervention

Reading Comprehension Assessment

During the QRI probe the experimenters presented each participant with a pencil and one copy of a Level 1 story packet selected from the QRI book. The Level 1 packet consisted of three pages: (1) a written story with corresponding concept-questions; (2) scoring guides for retell responses and accuracy of retell responding; and (3) comprehension questions. The participants were given the direction to independently read the narrative on the first page and answer the six comprehension questions. When it was time for the participants to answer the comprehension questions, the article containing the story was covered so that the participants could not return to it to view the story to answer the questions. The experimenters allowed the participant to view one question at a time by covering the additional questions so that the participant would only answer one question at a time and not be influenced by the other questions. The participants completed the retell portion of the QRI as well; however, for purposes of this study the data for retell was not included. The experimenter scored the comprehension worksheets and a second observer collected data and scored the comprehension worksheets independently for interscorer agreement purposes (ISA).

Results

The findings demonstrated increases in correct responses on at least two or more of the dependent variables for all four participants following the CR intervention. For the metaphors and derived relation from sentence probes, both dyads emitted a higher number of correct responses following the CR intervention when compared to preintervention probes. There were weaker gains for derived relations for letters/numbers across both dyads when compared to the gains for the other dependent measures. For the derived relations from letters/numbers probe, all participants but Participant C showed increases in correct responding following the CR intervention. For Dyad 1, the gains on the QRI comprehension responses were higher than gains for Dyad 2.

On probes for derived relations from sentences, Participant A had 60% correct responding during the preintervention probe. Following the intervention, the median percentage of correct responses for Participant A was 88%. On probes for derived relations from metaphors, Participant A had 60% correct responding during the preintervention probe. Following the intervention, Participant A had 80% and 93% correct responding for postprobes 1 and 2, respectively. On probes for derived relations for letters/numbers, Participant A had no correct responses during the preintervention probe. Following the CR intervention, Participant A had 10% and 30% correct responding for postprobes 1 and 2, respectively (see Figs. 6, 7, 8).

Fig. 6

The Number of Correct Responses Emitted during the Deductions Probe

Fig. 7

The Number of Correct Responses Emitted during the Metaphor Probe

Fig. 8

The Number of Correct Responses Emitted during the Derived Relation from Letters/Numbers Probe

On probes for derived relations from sentences, Participant B had 53% correct responding during the preintervention probe. Following the intervention, the median percentage of correct responses for Participant B was 80%. On probes for derived relations from metaphors, Participant B had 53% correct responding during the preintervention probe. Following the intervention, Participant B had 93% and 86% correct responding for postprobes 1 and 2, respectively. On probes for derived relations for letters/numbers, Participant B had no correct responses during the preintervention probe. Following the CR intervention, Participant B had 20% and 50% correct responding for postprobes 1 and 2, respectively (see Figs. 6, 7 ,8).

On probes for derived relations from sentences, Participant C had 46% correct responding during the first preintervention probe and 20% correct responding on the second preintervention probe. Following the intervention, the percentage of correct responses for Participant C was 100% for both postprobes. On probes for derived relations from metaphors, Participant C had 46% correct responding for both preintervention probes. Following the intervention, Participant C had 100% correct responding for the postprobe. On probes for derived relations for letters/numbers, Participant C had no correct responses during the two preintervention probes. Following the CR intervention, Participant C had 0% correct responding for the postprobe (see Figs. 6, 7, 8).

On probes for derived relations from sentences, Participant D had 40% correct responding during the first preintervention probe and 50% correct responding on the second preintervention probe. Following the intervention, the percentage of correct responses for Participant D was 100% correct responding for postprobe 1 and 93% correct responding for postprobe 2. On probes for derived relations from metaphors, Participant D had 46% correct responding for preintervention probe 1 and 53% correct responding for preintervention probe 2. Following the intervention, Participant D had 86% correct responding for the postprobe. On probes for derived relations for letters/numbers, Participant D had 20% correct responses for both of the preintervention probes 1 and 2, respectively. Following the CR intervention, Participant D had 70% correct responding for the postprobe (See Figs. 6, 7, 8).

For the QRI reading comprehension probe, Participant A scored 66% accuracy on the preprobe. Following the intervention, Participant A scored 83% and 100% accuracy on both postprobes. Participant B scored 66% accuracy on the preprobe. Following the intervention, Participant B scored 83% accuracy on both of the postprobes. Participant C scored 83% and 66% accuracy on both of the preprobes. Following the intervention, Participant C scored 83% accuracy on the postprobe. Participant D scored 66% and 100% accuracy on both of the preprobes. Following the intervention, Participant D scored 83% accuracy on the postprobe. See Fig. 9 for the graphic display of the results.

Fig. 9

The Number of Correct Responses Emitted during the QRI Comprehension Probes

Discussion

Research supports that effective instruction is a critical piece when it comes to maximizing student acquisition of new academic skills, especially within schools in which students are underperforming in reading such as students attending the school in this study (Stichter et al., 2009). Taken together, results suggest that CR (Engelmann et al., 1999a, 1999b) provides the experiences necessary for a learner to either acquire or improve upon derived relational responses which in turn reflects reading comprehension from a behavior analytic perspective. This study examined the effects of the first five lessons of Corrective Reading Comprehension on the emergence of derived relational responses using sentences, letters/numbers, metaphors and reading comprehension measures for early readers. As mentioned previously, the participants were 1^st grade students who did not demonstrate criterion for derived relational responses on reading comprehension measures before the use of the CR intervention. Results showed that the implementation of CR lessons provided an increase in correct responses to the derived relation from sentences probe and the metaphors probe for all four participants. For the derived relations from letters/numbers probe, Participant D showed substantial gains in number of correct responses and Participants A and B showed small increases in correct responding immediately following the CR condition. Participant C did not show gains in the number of correct responses for the derived relations from letters/numbers probe following CR intervention. Participant D’s lack in correct responding may be due to the fact that unlike da Silva et al. (2006) findings, the sequence found within CR does not teach derived relations using arbitrary, symbol or letter/number combinations, rather it trains derived relations using short sentences (e.g., deduction, inferences). The arbitrary relation was included in the present study to evaluate the extent to which metaphors taught in isolation or derived relations from sentences may show generality to arbitrary stimuli such as letter/number sequences. Future studies can further evaluate whether derived relations may need to be taught using different types of stimuli (e.g., sentences, symbols, letters, numbers, pictures) in order for that type of abstraction to take place.

The results are consistent with the previous findings from Howarth et al. (2015), who showed that teaching symmetrical relations provided an experience that induced mutually entailed relations. The experiment reported herein showed that mastering the five lessons of CR was effective in increasing correct responses to comprehension questions (i.e., derived relations from sentence probes). Dyad 2 emitted a higher number of correct responses to derived relations from sentence probes following CR (Engelmann et al., 1999a, 1999b) compared to Dyad 1. This may be due to the fact that Dyad 2 recycled Lesson 1 and therefore received a total of six lessons. Dyad 1 did not require any recycles and therefore only received the required five lessons. For the derived relations from numbers/letters some participants showed an increase from zero during preprobe to some correct responses following the CR intervention, which may suggest some extent of generalized application of the thinking skill.

According to the results of the QRI probes, the CR instructional sequence improved implicit and explicit reading comprehension for three of the four participants. Participants A, B, and C emitted less than 90% correct responses during the pre-CR probes for 1^st grade level implicit and explicit reading comprehension questions. Following the CR intervention, all three participants increased in correct responding compared to scores performed during preintervention conditions. Participant D demonstrated that accurate responding to 1^st grade implicit and explicit reading comprehension skills were already in repertoire during the second preintervention probe. A learner’s performance in reading comprehension is a function of the experiences that the learner encountered within his environment. Reading comprehension occurs when a learner hears his own textual responses (i.e., reading behavior) and responds to the text in the way the writer intended for the reader to respond (Greer & Ross, 2008). Successful correspondence between reading and doing occurs when the reader is able to hear himself when textually responding to the words and CR reinforces the appropriate listener and speaker-as-own listener repertoires during comprehension instruction.

Given the considerable concerns related to reading achievement, it is important to note that many vulnerable populations such as students with disabilities fare even worse. A review of the NAEP report card (2022) for 4^th grade reading achievement has identified a persistent achievement gap between students with disabilities and their nondisabled peers. Over the past 20 years, the achievement gap has ranged between 31 scaled score points to 42 scaled score points with the narrow end of the gap occurring in the early 2000s and the largest gap of 42 occurring in the most recently reported year, 2019. During that same year, 88% of students with disabilities scored at or below basic levels in reading, whereas only 11% of this population was considered proficient or advanced. Flores and Ganz (2007, 2009) found a functional relation between DI instruction and improvement in inferences and reading comprehension (i.e., picture analogies, deductions, and opposites) with learners who have developmental disabilities. It is clear that the need for effective remedial reading programs is especially urgent for students with disabilities and the curriculum sequence found in CR provides the appropriate training necessary to aid learners in improving their performance with reading comprehension.

The results demonstrated that advanced reading comprehension involves relational responding and that relational responding can be taught directly when initially not present in a learner’s repertoire. The findings suggest that relational responding is most likely present in a learner’s repertoire when advanced reading comprehension is taking place (e.g., deductions, inferences, and metaphors). The CR (Engelmann et al., 1999a, 1999b) curriculum trains derived relations and can increase correct responding for metaphors and derived relations in elementary learners (i.e., early readers). Furthermore, teaching early readers to correctly respond to derived relations can lead to more advanced levels of comprehension, minimizing the likelihood of reading comprehension difficulties later on. In terms of limitations, it may have strengthened the study if the experimenters conducted additional postintervention probes following the intervention. The findings are consistent with research studies that found that reading comprehension responses or derived relations responses improved following the appropriate multiple exemplar experiences such as those in a curriculum such as CR (da Silva et al., 2006; Helou-Care, 2008; Howarth et al., 2015; Meincke et al., 2003; Park, 2005; Wiehe, 2014). The findings also showed that the sequence found in CR was effective in increasing correct metaphoric responses, which is a necessary repertoire to have in order to be successful at comprehending all genres of texts. Future research may consider examining the effects of CR on the emergence of derived relations and its impact on reading repertoires for older learners. Future research can also examine the effects of other DI curricula on the improvement of reading comprehension involving derived relations (Carnine et al., 2010). Flores and Ganz (2007) found that DI improves comprehension skills involving statement inferences, fact usage, and analogies with at-risk students who have reading delays.

The findings from the current study demonstrate a few important implications for the complex nature of effective reading instruction in schools. First, this study presents evidence in support of timely and responsive intervention as a form of preventive practice before students are identified with disabilities in reading comprehension. Participants in the current study were identified by the classroom teacher as showing deficits in core early reading comprehension skills, but not yet at the stage of formal disability diagnosis. An approach that is proactively responsive to early indicators of academic need (e.g., teacher report) is one means of providing socially just education to all of our students because students who show multiple markers of reading risk are more likely to incur marginalized long-term outcomes. A second important implication of this work is that this study was conducted within a general education classroom for 1st graders. Our schools are becoming more academically integrated and moving away from a siloed model of educational service delivery, such as self-contained classroom settings. We know that members of the MDT may include a general education teacher, special education teacher, school psychologist, behavior analyst, and/or speech pathologist and any of these members may work with the student to facilitate progress on identified goals, which concern skills that are either the same or very closely related. Unfortunately, if MDT professionals are not in pedagogical accord or use professional vernacular that are incongruent, progress may be slowed, stationary, or even countertherapeutic. Considering the movement toward MTSS (Benner et al., 2013; Lurz & Walsh, 2022; Siegel, 2020) and away from antiquated methods of addressing students' needs well after failure has already occurred, an empirical demonstration such as this provides strong evidence to support the use of a CR curriculum to teach advanced levels of comprehension and derived relations to students not yet identified for special education. We have decades of data that show stubborn rates of reading failure for marginalized populations such as those living in poverty, students with or at risk for disabilities, and students of color. At the same time, we have plenty of empirical evidence that demonstrates that effective methods such as CR (Engelmann et al., 1999a, 1999b) can be used to teach important skills such as advanced levels of reading comprehension. The current study demonstrates that these methods can be employed effectively for students with and without disabilities. Finally, the present study synthesizes pedagogical paradigms of adjacent professional disciplines (i.e., education and behavior analysis) to yield a more fluid, socially just, and dynamic framework for early literacy education.

In conclusion, these findings contribute to existing research on early reading and listening comprehension and provide a clear picture of how we can use an effective curriculum as a means to prevent reading risk for students with and without disabilities who attend a school with high markers for poverty. Based on the findings, instructors may find it advantageous to include instruction to their early readers (e.g., K–2 or higher) using a component of CR (Engelmann & Bruner, 1995; Engelmann & Carnine, 1982; Engelmann et al., 1999a, 1999b) to build or improve the comprehension performance of their learners and the nature of pedagogical accord with other disciplines and frameworks such as RFT may be leveraged to facilitate greater connections and depths of academic support for students.

Appendices

Appendix A

Sample of a Level 1 QRI-5 Comprehension Story Assessment Sheet.

Appendix B

Sample of a Level 1 QRI-5 Comprehension Assessment Sheet.