Effects of a Taped-Words Treatment Procedure on Learning Disabled Students' Sight-Word Oral Reading

The effects of modeling vocabulary words using a tape recorder on six high-school learning disabled boys' sight-word reading were examined in a multiple-baseline design. Response rates were first scored during the Baseline condition when no tape recorder was used. No teacher modeling was given. Later response rates were measured during the Taped-Words condition after a tape recording only provided a model for correctly pronounced words. Results indicated an increase in correct oral response rates of isolated word lists and a sharp decrease in each student's oral error rates. Implications of the findings are drawn both for practitioners working with learning disabled students and for others involved with reading tasks. The results indicate that the students were able independently to improve their response rates through the use of the tape recorder alone, thus freeing the teacher for other kinds of instruction.