Antecedent control of oral reading errors and self-corrections by mentally retarded children.
A two-minute teacher-led preview of the exact reading passage cuts errors and boosts self-corrections for students with ID.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Four students with intellectual disability took part. Each child read short passages out loud during class.
Before some readings the teacher spent two minutes previewing the exact text with the child. They talked about the story and skimmed hard words. Other readings had no preview or an unrelated preview.
What they found
When the teacher previewed the exact passage, kids made fewer reading errors. They also fixed their own mistakes more often.
Unrelated preview or no preview did not help. The benefit showed up right away and stayed.
How this fits with other research
Coleman et al. (2015) asked who should deliver the prompt. They compared teacher-led and computer-led flash cards. Both worked, but kids learned slightly better with the teacher. Singh et al. (1984) adds that even a quick teacher chat before reading helps.
Coleman et al. (2025) moved the work from teacher to peer. Fourth-grade tutors gave younger kids flash-card drills. Sight-word scores rose. The 1984 study shows teacher preview works; the 2025 study shows peers can also run the lesson.
Reiss et al. (1993) looked at adults with ID. They tested three prompting styles in a lab first, then used the best one in the community. Like Singh et al. (1984), they found preview or feedback boosts reading, but they added a portability test.
Why it matters
You can cut oral reading errors in two minutes. Before the student opens the book, skim the page together. Point out new words and chat about the topic. No extra materials, no tokens, no data sheets needed. Try it during your next reading session and watch self-corrections rise.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Academic behaviors can be enhanced through the manipulation of either consequent or antecedent stimuli. In this study, we evaluated the effects of manipulating two antecedent stimulus events with respect to oral reading errors and self-corrections of four mentally retarded children. Using an alternating treatments design, the effects of previewing the target text and previewing an unrelated test were evaluated against no- previewing . In the first previewing condition, the teacher discussed the target text with the children before they were required to read it orally. The same procedure was used in the other previewing condition but with the provision that an unrelated text was previewed . Oral reading errors decreased and self-corrections increased when the children previewed the target text with their teacher before reading it orally. No changes were observed as a result of implementing the other two procedures, previewing an unrelated text and no- previewing . The results, which were consistent across all four children, showed that reading proficiency can be increased by manipulating antecedent stimulus events prior to oral reading.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1984 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1984.17-111