Improving oral reading fluency: a brief experimental analysis of combining an antecedent intervention with consequences.
A five-minute alternating probe shows that adding praise or a simple graph to repeated readings boosts fluency for most kids, but check each child.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team ran a quick test on six elementary kids who read slowly. They tried three setups: just previewing the passage and repeated reading, that plus praise for beating their last score, and that plus a simple graph showing how many words they read correctly.
Each condition lasted only a few minutes. The researchers flipped the order every day to see which package helped each child read faster.
What they found
Four kids read more words per minute when praise or the graph was added. Two kids showed no clear winner; their scores bounced around no matter what.
The brief probe worked like a mini-experiment. It told the teacher which package to pick for each student in less than a week.
How this fits with other research
Baranek et al. (2011) did the same quick-switch method with sight words and also found one clear winner. Their result backs up using a brief experimental analysis for any reading skill.
STAATHOFFMAN et al. (1964) showed in a lab that praise keeps kids reading longer. McIntyre et al. (2002) moved that old idea into a real classroom and added the preview step.
Plant et al. (2007) gave teachers a graph of their own behavior and saw better results. The reading study flips the graph toward the student, again showing that a simple picture plus a few words of feedback beats words alone.
Why it matters
You can copy this five-minute probe tomorrow. Pick a short passage, count words read correctly, then test preview alone versus preview plus a quick ‘You beat your last score!’ or a tiny bar graph. Stop when one kid pulls ahead. No extra materials, no long assessment. It gives you an IEP goal and an intervention in one sitting.
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Join Free →Run one 2-minute timing of preview plus repeated reading, then repeat with a quick ‘Great, you beat 62!’ and pick the winner for that student.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
A brief experimental analysis was used to evaluate the relative effectiveness of combining two consequences (contingent reinforcement or performance feedback) with an antecedent intervention (listening passage preview and repeated readings) on the oral reading fluency of 6 elementary students. The antecedent intervention increased the number of correctly read words per minute for all 6 students. For 4 of the students, pairing the antecedent intervention with either of the consequences resulted in higher reading rates over the antecedent intervention alone. Undifferentiated results were obtained for the remaining 2 participants. These results suggest that combining an antecedent intervention with consequences may enhance the oral reading fluency of students with reading problems. However, individual responsiveness to the different intervention components indicates that brief experimental analyses are warranted to identify the most effective intervention.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 2002 · doi:10.1901/jaba.2002.35-271