A procedure for increasing oral reading rate in hard-of-hearing children.

Four hard-of-hearing children worked with a teacher in a small classroom corner. Each child wore a small box that buzzed at a steady beat on the wrist or ankle. The buzz told them when to say the next word aloud.

Every time the child kept pace with the buzz while reading, the teacher dropped a plastic token in a cup. Later the kids traded tokens for small prizes like stickers.

Reading speed went up for every child while the buzz-plus-token game was on. When the teacher later handed the kids new stories that had never been practiced, the faster pace stuck.

DeRoma et al. (2004) later asked, "Do we even need the buzz?" They tried three different reading tactics with one student and saw the same gain in speed. Their work extends Wilson et al. (1973) by showing the pacing cue is helpful but not required.

Stancliffe et al. (2007) and Matson et al. (2011) kept the fluency goal but swapped the teacher for parents and peers. Both teams first ran a quick 5-minute test to pick the best tactic, then let the new coach take over. These studies supersede the 1973 model by moving the intervention outside the teacher’s hands.

Stasolla et al. (2015) pushed the idea further. They used a laptop and a pressure switch so kids with cerebral palsy could read and spell without speaking. Like Wilson et al. (1973), they saw big gains that lasted at home, proving the core idea—tech-aided practice plus reward—works across very different bodies.

You can copy the 1973 recipe in five minutes: pick a timer sound, hand out tokens, and trade them for fun stuff. If a hard-of-hearing student drags through reading, the buzz gives a clear beat and the tokens keep them going. Once the rate is up, fade the buzz first, then the tokens, and check new passages to be sure the speed sticks.