Direct Training of Reading Skills: A Review

An evaluative review of the literature on direct training of reading skills is provided, including studies of exceptional children & behavior modification techniques. Task-analysis-oriented approaches provide an explicit breakdown of concepts & behavior to be acquired, allowing concrete evaluation & teaching structure. Research shows that care must be taken to find validated models of task analysis. Such techniques have been found successful with reading-disabled & normal students, using behavior modification. A direct approach to decoding was devised involving training letter sounds, blending, phonic analysis, & finally word reading (see LLBA IX/4, 7503250). Fading of a known skill coupled with a new skill progressively introduced has also met with success, eg, a picture (known stimulus) introduced with a word (new stimulus). All research shows that reading skills can be taught directly, although small student populations & lack of control groups weaken results. T. Lamb