Reading is essential for successful maneuverability in society. Although many children learn to read in elementary school without much difficulty, there are a fairly large number of students who do not acquire basic literary skills. Without early identification and the implementation of proper reading interventions, many children with reading difficulties fail to catch up academically with their peers, further widening the gap between skilled and unskilled readers. Equally important as early identification and the implementation of empirically based interventions is the selection of interventions that are both effective and efficient. Treatment effectiveness and efficiency is especially important in public school settings, as teachers have increased demands and larger class sizes, causing time constraints within the school day. Therefore, interventions that are both effective and efficient will greatly impact the quality of literacy instruction and increase the likelihood of enhancing students’ academic achievement.
The current study examined the instructional effectiveness and efficiency of three early literacy interventions on students’ correct identification of letter-sound correspondences within words and acquisition rate. Specifically, a repeated acquisition design embedded within an alternating treatment design without a baseline was used to compare the effects of the traditional phonics – distributed practice, traditional phonics – massed practice, and incremental rehearsal conditions on kindergarten students’ letter-sound correspondence performance. This study extended previous research findings by examining letter-sound correspondences, as well as comparing the effects of distributed and massed drill and practice procedures for improving letter-sound correspondence acquisition for kindergarten students.
The results of the study indicated gains in letter-sound correspondence acquisition for all six students who participated in the study. Similar gains were made in the traditional phonics – distributed practice, traditional phonics – massed practice and incremental rehearsal conditions. The traditional phonics – massed practice procedure was found to be the most efficient in terms of increasing letter-sound correspondence performance. Preferences for instructional approaches varied among participants. Social validity results indicated that all three instructional techniques are socially valid ways to teach letter-sound correspondence identification skills to students identified as having difficulties identifying letter-sound correspondences within words.