Access to General Education Curriculum

Abstract

The effects of preteaching key words on accuracy and fluency in connected text were examined with three fifth-grade participants identified with learning disability and reading two grade levels below their same age peers. Researchers incorporated a multiple baseline design (i.e., Baseline and Wordlist Intervention) and found that preteaching increased accuracy in connected text overall and increased fluency to some extent. The technique required minimal instructional support while providing participants with access to general education curriculum. Words that were pretaught generalized to unfamiliar passages that contained the key words 14 days after the intervention concluded.

Keywords

fluency decoding vocabulary learning disabilities multiple baseline preteaching key words

The National Reading Panel (NRP; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000) identified fluency as one of five critical components of reading. Fluent readers spend less time and energy accessing words on the page, thus freeing up cognitive resources to better understand the content of what is written (LaBerge & Samuels, 1974; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000; Therrien & Hughes, 2008). The purpose of reading fluency, therefore, is not just to read text at a quicker rate but rather to gain a better understanding of what is being read (Jenkins, Fuchs, van den Broek, Espin, & Deno, 2003; Pikulski & Chard, 2005).

Fluency in reading, however, is dependent upon both accuracy and automaticity with print. D. C. Parker and Burns (2014) suggested that accuracy is the foundation for fluency. They recommended interventions, focusing upon fluency after the student reaches accuracy at the instructional level, between 93% and 97%. Many strategies and commercial programs are available to increase rate and accuracy. The most effective approaches, however, are time intensive and require high commitment on the part of both students and teachers. For example, multiple studies have shown that repeated reading increases fluency and comprehension, but repeated reading is difficult to use beyond a clinic setting (Sweeney, Ring, Malanga, & Lambert, 2003). Repeated reading interventions are often presented with multiple components, requiring several discrete steps and a significant amount of time (Lo, Cooke, & Starling, 2011). Sweeney et al. (2003) noted that months after a study was completed, students approached the researchers and asked them when they would come back and continue a repeated reading intervention. So, even with positive results and high student satisfaction with the intervention, teachers chose not to continue repeated readings once the support and tutors were removed.

Students with reading difficulty, especially those in upper-elementary, middle-school, and high school who read well below their same age peers, are faced with reading connected text in content courses. The challenge, therefore, is to facilitate meaningful access, that is, reading text fluently and accurately, in general education materials on a daily basis, while more intensive interventions are undertaken and ongoing to remediate the reading difficulty for the long term. Finding methods that require minimal instructional time and individual support is necessary for students with reading difficulty to benefit from general classroom instruction.

It is well understood that increasing accuracy and fluency for students with disabilities is more difficult and involves more time intensive interventions and individual support than necessary with normally achieving peers (Ehri & Wilce, 1983; Manis, Custodio, & Szeszulski, 1993; O’Connor, Swanson, & Geraghty, 2010; Reitsma, 1983; Torgesen, 2000, 2004). Several researchers suggest that children with disabilities differentially benefit from various methods of reading fluency instruction, depending upon individual characteristics (e.g., Daly, Martens, Hamler, & Dool, 1999; Eckert, Ardoin, Daisey, & Scarola, 2000; Jones & Wickstrom, 2002). Therefore, it is likely that strategies used with typical readers may not necessarily benefit students with disabilities.

The oldest and most researched type of reading fluency intervention currently used in education and special education contexts focuses upon increasing rate through repeated readings (Meyer & Felton, 1999). In most cases, fluency is developed using text that is at either the instructional or independent reading level (Burns, 2007; Meyer & Felton, 1999). Undeniably, this practice has been effective in eventually remediating rate and accuracy. The focus, however, only upon text that is calibrated to a student’s instructional or independent reading level does not necessarily provide access to text used in the general education classroom. Most texts in the general education curriculum are written at two or more grade levels above the skill level that students with disabilities can read, thus limiting access to information that is available to the same age peers. For example, a student who is in fifth grade may be reading at only a third-grade level.

Preteaching key words is one method that shows promise in facilitating access to expository text for students with reading difficulty. Research on the effects of preteaching key words, however, has shown mixed results. On one hand, early studies such as Fleisher, Jenkins, and Pany (1979) concluded that training target words in list form had little impact upon fluency or comprehension on passages that contained those words. In addition, Dahl (1979) compared two interventions (a) teaching 800 words in isolation and (b) reading in connected text. Across a period of 8 months, he found that participants reading in connected text gained in accuracy, speed, and comprehension, whereas the results of those in the list condition were no different from children in the control group. In a later study, Martin-Chang and Levy (2005) investigated the effects of two types of word training (i.e., words trained in context and words trained in isolated list format) upon speed, accuracy, and comprehension in transfer text for young readers. They found that both treatments increased speed and accuracy over the control group. However, they found that training words in context was more effective than training words in isolated list. A caveat, however, is that more words trained in the isolated list format were learned than through context.

In contrast to the previous studies, Burke, Crowder, Hagan-Burke, and Zou (2009) found that word recognition in an isolated format was a strong predictor of fluency in connected text. Furthermore, preteaching key words has been effective in increasing fluency and enhancing maintenance and generalization in children with learning disabilities (Burns, Dean, & Foley, 2004; Levy, Abello, & Lysynchuk, 1997). Likewise, Speece and Ritchey (2005) determined that previewing isolated words and providing practice in list form was effective in increasing fluency. Tan and Nicholson (1997) also found that preteaching words in list form improved reading fluency in connected text for participants reading below their same age peers. Finally, Coulter and Lambert (2015) found that preteaching key words to three general education students before passage reading improved fluency in connected text written at least two grade levels above participants’ reading level. The difference in Coulter and Lambert’s study, in relationship to like studies, was that the passage text was at the frustration level, and participants were reading well below the recommended 93% accuracy level (D. C. Parker & Burns, 2014). In addition, the Coulter and Lambert study did not include participants with learning disabilities.

Much of the relative research couples preteaching of key words with other types of interventions, such as repeated readings and/or passage previews, making it difficult to determine which component actually was the determining factor that led to increased word recognition or fluency (Beck, Burns, & Lau, 2009; Begeny & Silber, 2006; Lo et al., 2011; Meyer & Felton, 1999; Rousseau & Tam, 1991) For example, Rousseau and Tam (1991) demonstrated the efficacy of listening preview and discussion of key words on oral reading proficiency for bilingual learners with speech and language impairments. Therefore, it is difficult to identify which part of the intervention was responsible for the improvement (e.g., listening preview, preteaching key words, or repeated reading). In addition, it is difficult to implement an entire package of interventions because of the intensity of time and instructional support required, limiting the applicability for use in a general education classroom.

The present study is an extension of Coulter and Lambert (2015) to include children with disabilities. Whereas typically developing readers did show a marked increase in fluency on passages written at the frustration level with the simple introduction of preteaching key words, it is unclear whether a like strategy would also be effective for children with reading disabilities in developing both accuracy and fluency in connected text beyond their instructional range. Instructional methods that focus upon preteaching to increase accuracy and fluency in related connected text may be beneficial for children with reading or learning disability and may be one way to provide immediate access to the general education curriculum that may otherwise be beyond their reach. This present study employs a method that is less time intensive and requires less individualized support than current interventions, making it useful for students with disabilities in the general education environment.

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether preteaching key words would increase accuracy and fluency in expository text written at participants’ frustration level.

Method

Participants

The regular education and special education teacher collaboratively nominated three Caucasian fifth-grade males from middle-income families for this study. The participants were Mark, George, and John. Their respective ages were 11 years 3 months, 10 years 11 months, and 11 years 1 month. All participants were identified with a learning disability and performed at least one standard deviation below their same age peers on Broad Reading scores according to the Woodcock–Johnson III: Tests of Achievement (Woodcock & Johnson, 2001; see Table 1).

Table 1.

Pre-Intervention Scores for Woodcock–Johnson III: Tests of Achievement.

Assessment	Mark	George	John
Subtest standard scores (68% confidence band)
Letter–Word Identification	90 (87–92)	76 (73–78)	87 (80–83)
Passage Fluency	87 (85–89)	77 (75–79)	77 (76–79)
Passage Comprehension	79 (75–83)	75 (71–78)	87 (83–90)
Word Attack	100 (97–102)	82 (79–85)	90 (88–93)
Reading Vocabulary	88 (85–92)	81 (78–84)	95 (92–98)
Cluster scores
Broad Reading	84 (82–85)	73 (71–74)	81 (80–83)
Basic Reading Skills	94 (92–96)	78 (76–80)	88 (88–90)
Reading Comprehension	83 (78–87)	84 (80–88)	89 (86–92)

Participants received small group reading instruction in a resource room in a suburban public elementary school in the Pacific Northwest. The population of the school was 432 and consisted of 66% Caucasian, 18% Hispanic, 10% Asian/Pacific Islander, 5% African American, and 1% Native American. Class sizes were approximately 23 students. The percentage of students identified as needing special education services was 18%. In addition, 10% were classified as English language learners.

Setting

The study was conducted in a resource room that was free of distractions. One participant was assigned to one project assistant. Each pair (i.e., project assistant and participant) met for 25 to 30 min at a pre-assigned time and location for reading sessions so that participants could not overhear other participants. Sessions were held 3 to 4 days per week for 14 weeks, depending upon school attendance and the school schedule.

Project Assistants

Researchers trained three project assistants for a total of 4 hr across two training sessions. Each project assistant was an undergraduate student in the Department of Special Education who had successfully completed two reading courses, focusing upon teaching reading to students with disabilities. To ensure accurate implementation, each of the 2-hr training sessions included explanations about the investigation as well as practice with study guidelines and procedures (i.e., timing, scoring, and administration). Practice sessions included an implementation rubric to ensure that assistants were accurate. Research assistants were brought to 100% accuracy on implementation procedures. Throughout the study, the primary researcher provided feedback to ensure fidelity of implementation.

Materials

Materials were 150- to 200-word passages derived from Rosen Real Life Readers. Rosen Real Life Readers are short books of expository social studies and science texts about 30 pages in length and are designed as supplements for social studies and science instruction in general education classrooms. As such, they mimic the content and the structure of expository text frequently found in general education curriculum textbooks. Rosen Real Life Readers are similar to textbooks in that the short books include headings, graphics, density and complexity of vocabulary, as well as wide variability (i.e., plus or minus up to four to five grade levels) of readability based upon common formulae (Gallagher, Fazio, & Gunning, 2012).

Researchers chose expository text for two reasons (a) to ensure sufficient lexical density (Kamhi & Catts, 2012), meaning that each clause contained a certain percentage of words that carry the meaning of the text and (b) to most closely mimic text required for students in content courses. Each book is devoted to a particular topic (e.g., bats, amphibians, and rocks). Rosen Real Life Readers uses a leveling system coded A–Z to help teachers place students in appropriate reading material. Books were leveled from N–T, designed for fluent readers with skill levels from fifth through sixth grade. Researchers purposely chose the levels to ensure that the text was challenging to the participants.

The first step was to select books beyond the reading level of the participants. Researchers provided a list of 50 multisyllabic key words derived from a variety of books on different topics from Rosen Real Life Readers. Each participant read the list at a separate time so that other participants could not overhear. The researchers noted which words were read correctly and which were read incorrectly. Researchers then chose the books for each participant based upon words that were not read correctly. For instance, if a participant decoded the words inflates, experiments, and conclusion correctly but did not correctly decode echolocation, vampire, or nocturnal, then the passage for that particular student was selected from the book Vampire Bats (Raabe, 2006) instead of Chemical Reactions (Hoffman, 2009). Researchers identified a number of books for the study for each of the participants in this manner. In this way, investigators ensured that the decoding of words in the study was more likely a result of the intervention and not due to prior knowledge.

Two passages were selected from each book, one for each intervention (i.e., baseline and wordlist). Both passages were verified for the degree of difficulty using a Flesch–Kincaid grade readability formula. Flesch–Kincaid is a readability formula that uses calculations for total words, total sentences, and total syllables for a selected passage to determine grade level. Actual readability for the passages N–T ranged from 7th to 11th grade.

Research Design and Procedures

Researchers used a multiple baseline design across three participants to determine whether the intervention effected fluency and accuracy in connected text. The design included baseline and wordlist. The multiple baseline design was chosen because it allowed for the study of multiple students in a single-case experimental design (Barger-Anderson, Domaracki, Kearney-Vakulick, & Kubina, 2004) and, as Kucera and Axelrod (1995) noted, are particularly “well-suited to literacy research” (p. 47).

Baseline

Baseline consisted of a varied number of sessions depending upon the specified order of the participant. For each session, the participant read one of the pre-selected 150 to 200 word passages that had been determined to be above that participant’s reading level. Participants had not been exposed to the passages prior to the reading and read the passage just once. Researchers used standard reading directions,

Read this passage as quickly and as accurately as you can. If you do not know a word, I will tell you the word. Keep reading until you have reached the end of the passage. Think about what you read because you will answer questions at the end of the passage.

Timing began when the participant read the first word of passage. The researcher circled the errors as the participant read and noted the overall time to read the entire passage. Errors were omissions of words, misidentification, hesitations for more than three seconds, and substitutions. A skipped line counted as one error. If a word was misidentified more than once, only the first misidentification counted as an error. Repetitions and self-corrections within 3 s were not counted as errors. After the participant completed the passage, the research assistant asked four questions to give a purpose for reading. Correct words per minute were calculated based upon the number of words in the passage minus errors divided by minutes and seconds converted to decimals (e.g., 1 min 30 s = 1.5 min). The number of errors was noted. Percentage of accuracy was calculated by dividing the total number of words in the passage minus the errors by the total number of words.

Wordlist Intervention

A passage from a different book topic for each session was selected to reduce the possible effect of key words appearing across consecutive readings. For example, Mark read a passage about Jamestown for the second session, a passage about spiders for the third session, and a passage about volcanoes for the fourth session. In this way, an effort was made to limit the effects of confounding words and concepts across sessions.

Researchers selected 15 to 20 multisyllabic key words that would most likely be missed from each passage. Each wordlist that pertained to the passage was pretaught one session in advance of reading the corresponding passage and then reviewed immediately before reading the passage. For example, if the participant was scheduled to read the passage about volcanoes on Wednesday, the list of words for volcanoes was pretaught on Tuesday and then reviewed on Wednesday immediately before reading the passage. In this way, researchers ensured that the participants were at mastery.

The project assistants taught the wordlist one word at a time in the following manner. The project assistant pointed to the word and said, “This word is _________. What word?” The participant repeated the word. The project assistant repeated the process with each word in the list. The project assistant then directed the participant back to the beginning of the list and had the participant say each word without a prompt. If an error occurred, the project assistant told the word, and the participant repeated the word. After an error had been corrected, the project assistant had the participant say each word again in the list from the beginning. In this way, the participant learned all the words in the list to mastery. The following day, before reading the corresponding passage, the project assistant had the participant say each word in the list without a prompt, thus ensuring that the participant still could say the words without errors. If the participant made an error, the same correction procedure as described above was followed until mastery. Finally, the project assistant instructed the participant to read the passage for accuracy and fluency. The directions for passage reading were the same as in the baseline phase. Errors were noted as well as overall time of reading. Fluency and accuracy were calculated using the formulas mentioned above.

Interobserver agreement (IOA)

An independent observer provided inter-scorer agreement (IOA). Measures for a randomly selected 30% of the sessions across the two phases were selected for IOA. The independent observer received the same training as all project implementers on the administration of the procedures and measures. These sessions consisted of practice sessions. The independent observer listened to audiotaped practice passages until 90% agreement was reached.

To calculate IOA, the researcher calculated total agreement for at least 50% of each condition. IOA was 92%, with no condition below 88%. To calculate total agreement per session, the experimenter divided the larger amount of observed words read either correctly or incorrectly by the smaller amount of observed words read either correctly or incorrectly, respectively.

Procedural integrity

The same independent observer assessed procedural integrity on 50% of the sessions. The observer viewed approximately 25% of live sessions and reviewed 25% of audiotapes of the remaining sessions, completing a checklist verifying the specific steps of the procedure. The procedural steps were followed with 100% accuracy for baseline and 96% accuracy for wordlist. When a procedural error occurred, the primary researcher provided feedback to the project assistant to ensure fidelity of implementation.

Results

Researchers relied upon visual analysis to report trend, level, and variability for each participant (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Wordlist Intervention across three participants with learning disabilities.

Results for Mark

Mark’s baseline data across 10 sessions showed a stable pattern that was relatively flat with a narrow variability. The range was a low of 43 correct words per minute and a high of 52 correct words per minutes. The variability was no more than nine words across all 10 sessions. The first data point for the intervention phase showed immediate improvement. During Wordlist Intervention that included a total of 21 sessions, Mark’s scores ranged from 58 to 90 correct words per minute. Intervention phase showed an ascending trend as well as a change in level across data points with greater variability from session to session during intervention. There were no overlapping data points between baseline and intervention. The 14-day follow-up consisted of 3 data points from 81 to 92 correct words per minute and was consistent with the intervention phase.

Results for George

Baseline for George was 13 sessions with scores ranging from 19 to 47 correct words per minute. Visual inspection showed a stable baseline but with greater variability than Mark. The intervention phase also showed greater variability than Mark. The intervention phase had a slight ascending trend across 20 data points. There was an immediate effect when the intervention was initiated; however, subsequent data points showed some overlap with the baseline phase. The range for Wordlist Intervention was 41 to 85 with 5 overlapping points between baseline and intervention. The 14-day follow-up consisted of 3 data points ranging from 63 to 70, consistent with the majority of data points during intervention.

Results for John

John’s baseline was 19 sessions. His scores ranged from a low of 36 to a high of 60 correct words per minute. Visual inspection showed a stable baseline with similar variability to George. Wordlist Intervention was stable and showed an immediate effect with a marked change in level. The 13 intervention sessions ranged from 76 to 107 correct words per minute. There were no overlapping data points. The 14-day follow-up consisted of 3 data points ranging from 96 to 113. Again, these scores were similar to those during intervention.

Effect Size

Researchers encourage quantifying data overlap in single-case research for several purposes, including comparing the relative effectiveness of two or more interventions as well as providing support for a knowledge base of “evidence-based practices” (R. I. Parker & Vannest, 2009, p. 357). For this study, effect size was calculated using “percentage of all nonoverlapping data” (PAND; R. I. Parker, Hagan-Burke, & Vannest, 2007). PAND is recommended for longer data sets in multiple baseline designs. In this case, there were a total of 96 data points. PAND and a Pearson Phi effect size were calculated using methods described in R. I. Parker et al. (2007) and R. I. Parker and Vannest (2009) (PAND = 97.91%; 90% confidence interval: .94 < .98 < .99). Phi was calculated using bootstrap for Symmetric Measures (Phi = .915; 90% confidence interval: .84 < .92 < .98. Phi² = .838).

Accuracy

Descriptive statistics is used to report accuracy data due to the wide variability in passage length and degree of difficulty (i.e., readability scores ranging from 7th to 11th grade even though passages were leveled between 5th and 6th grade). Accuracy was calculated using percentage of words read correctly in each passage. Baseline scores for Mark ranged from 63% to 84% accuracy with a median score of 75.5%. Intervention scores ranged from 85% to 95% accuracy with a median score of 92%. Baseline scores for George ranged from 76% to 94% with a median of 89%. Intervention scores for George ranged from 89% to 98% with a median of 97%. Baseline scores for John ranged from 87% to 95% with a median of 92%. Intervention scores for John ranged from 97% to 100% with a median of 98%. In addition, all participants showed a substantial decrease in mean number of errors. Results for mean errors for baseline and wordlist are the following: Mark, 13.94 and 2.1 errors; George, 40.28 and 15.7 errors; and John, 17 and 6.26 errors, respectively.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to determine whether preteaching key words effected accuracy and fluency in connected text written beyond independent and instructional reading levels for three students identified with learning disabilities.

To ensure that the results were indeed related to the interventions, the authors chose reading materials well beyond participants’ third-grade reading level. The readability of the passages ranged from 7th to 11th grade. Besides choosing texts that were beyond the participants’ reading skill, the authors also chose topics that were outside the perimeters of prior experience, thus ensuring that key words were more likely beyond participants’ familiar lexicon. For example, words from one passage about rocks included sedimentary, fusing, convert, and igneous.

The results for all three fifth-grade boys showed change in fluency across phases. One factor that likely affected the results was health of the participants. All three participants were absent from school for a number of days during the intervention due to illness. Qualitative notes indicated “not feeling well.” Notations corresponded with lower fluency scores.

Second, passage variability appeared to affect fluency scores. Individual passages incorporated sentences that were longer in length and consisted of more complex grammatical structures than other passages, thus intensifying passage difficulty. This variability in passage complexity can affect rate and accuracy, which is to be expected. The variability of reading passages from session to session was similar to what would be typically encountered in a general education classroom on a daily basis.

To factor out some of the variability that could be attributed to either motivation or passage difficulty, researchers calculated mean fluency scores for correct words per minute for each phase. The mean scores for Mark for baseline and wordlist were 45.73 and 66.81, respectively. Mean scores for George were 33.81 for baseline and 54.76 for intervention. Finally, John’s mean scores were 48 for baseline and 79.47 for intervention. When mean scores were analyzed, all participants showed a marked increase in correct words per minute from baseline, averaging more than 20 correct words per minute. In addition, all participants showed a substantial decrease in mean number of errors, averaging a decrease of more than 13 errors.

Participants showed a marked increase in fluency for the intervention, and yet scores remained below the fluency of 110 words per minute for students in the 50th percentile for beginning 5th grade (Hasbrouck & Tindal, 2006). Although the somewhat slower rate still needs to be addressed, the immediate increase in fluency related to specific passages may mitigate some of the reading discrepancies between normally achieving students and those with learning disabilities in general education curriculum. Fluency is certainly necessary for comprehension of text; however, the type of text (e.g., expository or narrative) and the density of text (e.g., vocabulary, structure of text, and complex content) often dictate reading speed (Barth, Tolar, Fletcher, & Francis, 2013). Therefore, it is likely that even normally achieving students read at a slower rate overall to fully comprehend more complicated material. Likewise, participants in this study had a slower reading rate, which may have been due to expository text structure. The comparative increase in accuracy and fluency from baseline to intervention supports the efficacy of preteaching key words in advance of reading passages written at the frustration level.

Maintenance and generalization measures assessed whether or not participants decoded key words accurately and fluently and whether fluency was generalized to unique passages that contained the key words. Fourteen days after the last intervention, researchers provided each of the participants with an isolated wordlist composed of the key words that the participant had learned. Mark correctly decoded 162 out of 168. George correctly decoded 112 out of 128 words, and John correctly decoded 115 out of 126. The percentages correct were 96.4%, 90.6%, and 91.3%, respectively. The high percentage of correct words retained after a period of two weeks suggests a useful approach for preteaching key words.

Researchers then composed generalization passages similar to those that participants had read across both conditions. Each generalization passage was tailored for the individual student based upon his own wordlist. Each generalization passage incorporated one-third randomly selected key words from the list. For example, out of 150 words, 50 were identified from the list. The Flesch–Kincaid grade-level readability scores ranged between 6.5 and 9.0, similar to the degree of difficulty during both conditions. The generalization passages were administered 14 days after the intervention was completed. The results showed that Mark, George, and John had similar mean fluency scores across the three generalization passages as they did during the intervention. Mean scores were 108, 100, and 70 correct words per minute, respectively. In addition, mean errors across the passages remained relatively low (i.e., 2, 6, and 4.3 errors, respectively). This outcome suggests that key words read within passages generalized to like passages that shared common words, which possibly affects fluency and comprehension of reading material that contain the same concepts and difficult words, for example, subsequent chapters in a book.

Limitations

Although researchers attempted to address all contingencies, some limitations are evident. First, the small number of participants limits the generality of these results.

Second, questions remain as to whether the increase in fluency was functionally relevant for participants in general education classrooms even though there was a marked increase in correct words per minute.

Finally, the text chosen for the participants was within the levels recommended for fifth grade, but the actual readability of the passages, according to Flesch–Kincaid grade formula, ranged from 7th grade to 11th grade. Quite likely, this broad range in readability contributed to the variability in fluency scores. Although, this range of readability is typical in content area text, this variability is challenging for researchers.

Future Research

Replication of our research including additional participants (e.g, gender, age, reading skills, grade levels) is needed. The implications for middle-school and high school students would be of particular interest to the researchers. Further research is needed that examines whether an increase in fluency is related to an increase in comprehension with expository text in the upper grades. At a more fundamental level, research is needed to examine the interplay between preteaching the decoding of key words, vocabulary knowledge of keywords, prior knowledge, and comprehension of expository text.

Implications for Practice

One of the most pressing issues for children with learning disabilities is limited access to general education curriculum. In many cases, limited access is the result of the inability to decode words accurately and automatically, which in turn, limits fluent reading of grade-level connected text, especially expository text. Research suggests that development of fluency, even for children without disabilities, is a lengthy process that develops over time and with much practice. For students with learning disabilities, this process is even more time consuming (O’Connor et al., 2010; Reitsma, 1983; Torgesen, 2000, 2004). Although interventions (e.g., repeated reading) are effective in developing fluency in the long run, they do not necessarily contribute to the daily access of grade-level reading material typically found in textbooks used in general education classrooms. To access print information on a daily basis, students need to be able to decode the difficult words they encounter in each lesson and read with fluency to make sense of the information.

The importance of preteaching is summed up by the comment of one of the participants. After the study was completed, George was asked to read an oral reading fluency passage leveled for his grade. He did not do as well as he wanted and said, “That’s not fair. You didn’t teach me the hard words first.”

This intervention is a simple procedure that can be used in general education classrooms and can take as little as 10-min of time, requiring very little in preparation. This method can provide students with learning disabilities who are reading below their same age peers access to grade-level general education curriculum within the general education classroom setting. In addition, this study suggests that words that are learned are maintained over time and can be generalized to novel content.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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