Preschool Children's Acquisition,Maintenance,and Generalization

Abstract

This study examined the three reading procedures of sight, syllable blending, and phonics blending to determine which was the most efficient one to teach words for acquisition, maintenance, and various types of generalization. Six typical preschool children who did not recall and recognize the training words were selected as subjects. An individual analysis design was used in which all the subjects were taught all words, counterbalanced across the three reading procedures. All reading procedures were tailored to allow for the same number of training responses while using the identical modeling, imitation, and reinforcement technique. Results showed the sight procedure took the fewest training sessions to acquisition with the smallest number of errors, in comparison with syllable and phonics. But all words, regardless of the type of training, were maintained equally well. Considering the generalization measures, however, each procedure had unique advantages. Therefore, it is speculated how the three procedures might be combined for the beginning reader.

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