A description of the verbal behavior of students during two reading instruction methods.
The teaching style you pick decides whether kids spend reading time saying words off the page or talking about meaning.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The author watched kids talk while they learned to read. Two groups got different lessons. One group used Mastery Learning: they practiced tiny skills until perfect. The other group used Language Experience: they told personal stories, then read them back.
The team wrote down every word the kids said. They sorted each word into Skinner’s verbal operants: textual, intraverbal, echoic, mand, tact. The goal was to see which teaching style changed the kind of talking kids did.
What they found
Mastery Learning filled the room with textual operants. Kids pointed to words and read them aloud. Language Experience filled the room with intraverbal operants. Kids chatted about their stories and answered questions.
Same kids, same books, different verbal footprints. The teaching method shaped the kind of language kids used while they read.
How this fits with other research
Järvinen et al. (2015) later used computers to test the same big idea. They gave teens with learning disabilities either decoding games or comprehension games. Comprehension training lifted both comprehension and word reading, just like Mastery Learning boosted textual control.
Ulriksen et al. (2024) moved the question to kids with intellectual disability who use AAC. Systematic phonics lessons gave them decoding and phonological awareness. Their procedure looked like Mastery Learning: break the skill, master each piece.
Yeung et al. (2023) pitted English phonics against Chinese character work. English phonics helped bilingual kids read both languages, but Chinese lessons stayed put. Again, the method shaped what transferred, matching the 1987 finding that instructional style drives verbal output.
Why it matters
When you pick a reading program, you are also picking the kind of verbal behavior kids will emit. Want more word-for-word reading? Use Mastery Learning. Want richer discussion? Use Language Experience. Check your learner’s goals, then choose the method that produces the verbal operants you need.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The responses of students during two reading methods, the language experience approach and two Mastery Learning programs, were analyzed using verbal operants. A description of student responding was generated for these methods. The purpose of the study was to answer the questions: What are the major controlling variables determining student reading behavior during the language experience approach and two Mastery Learning programs, and how do these controlling variables change across story reading sessions and across stories in the first method? Student responses by verbal operant were compared for both reading methods. Findings indicated higher frequencies of textual operants occurred in responses during the Mastery Learning programs. A greater reliance on intraverbal control was evident in responses during the language experience approach. It is suggested that students who can generate strong intraverbal responses and who may have visual discrimination problems during early reading instruction may benefit from use of the language experience approach at this stage.
The Analysis of verbal behavior, 1987 · doi:10.1007/BF03392821