This study evaluated the amount of time necessary to teach educable mentally retarded children the Cover/Write/Method—a rehearsal strategy that can be used to learn how to spell. Subjects were five, twelve year old intermediate EMR students with an average IQ of 68. The average number of fifteen minute teaching sessions required to reach criterion was 14.8, representing a total time of 220 minutes. Based on these findings, one may conclude that 12 year old EMR students can be taught a rehearsal strategy for spelling in approximately four hours. Teachers reported improvement in spelling proficiency and more on-task behavior during instruction.
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