Sight word reading in children with developmental disabilities: a comparison of paired associate and picture-to-text matching instruction.
Have kids match pictures to text instead of showing both together—words stick faster and last longer.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Fossett et al. (2006) tested two ways to teach sight words to kids with developmental disabilities. One way paired a picture with the printed word on the same card. The other way showed the picture first, then the child picked the matching word from two choices.
They used an alternating-treatments design. Each child got both methods in mixed order. The team tracked how fast new words were learned and whether the kids still knew the words months later.
What they found
Picture-to-text matching won. Kids learned new words faster when they had to match the picture to the text instead of seeing both side-by-side. One child still read the words four months later.
The paired-associate method worked, but it took more trials to reach mastery.
How this fits with other research
Van der Bijl et al. (2006) ran a similar two-method test the same year. They also found small differences, but their top method added a spelling step. Both studies agree: tiny tweaks in how you show the word can change learning speed.
Omori et al. (2013) later copied the picture-to-text idea with Kanji characters. Six students with developmental disabilities learned and kept the new characters, showing the trick holds across languages.
Klaus et al. (2019) looked at two prompting styles instead of picture placement. They saw no clear winner for most kids, reminding us that sometimes the method matters less than the learner’s profile.
Why it matters
If you run sight-word drills, drop the flashcards that put the picture next to the word. Instead, show the picture alone and have the child touch or say the matching word from a set. This tiny switch can cut practice time and the skill may stick for months, giving you more room in the session plan for new targets.
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Replace side-by-side picture/word cards with a matching task: picture on top, two text choices below.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Numerous instructional techniques have been used to teach sight word reading skills to individuals with developmental disabilities. The results of research incorporating paired associate instruction, in which familiar pictures are paired with unknown print stimuli, suggest that pictures "block" (i.e., interfere with) learners' ability to recognize novel text. On the other hand, there is some evidence that both stimulus fading and picture-to-text matching techniques can be used successfully to teach sight word recognition. The present study used an adapted alternating treatments design (Sindelar, P. T., Rosenberg, M. S., & Wilson, R. J. (1985). An adapted alternating treatments design for instructional research. Education and Treatment of Children, 8, 67-76) to compare paired associate and picture-to-text matching techniques for teaching a small corpus of unknown words to two children with developmental disabilities. Results indicated that the picture-to-text matching condition was more effective than the paired associate condition for developing a small sight word vocabulary. Follow-up data for one participant showed that skills developed using the picture-to-text matching strategy were maintained 4 months after intervention. Further research is necessary to extend these findings, particularly in terms of the development of larger sight word vocabularies and the transition from sight word reading to more conventional reading skills.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2006 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2005.05.006