TEACHING READING AND SPELLING: EXCLUSION AND STIMULUS EQUIVALENCE

TLDR

The study used an exclusion‑based teaching program that had children match printed to dictated words and, in Experiment 1, construct printed words with movable letters, while Experiment 2 omitted the construction task. All participants learned the training words, but only those who received the construction component showed consistent generalization to new words, supporting a stimulus‑equivalence account of reading acquisition.

Abstract

In Experiment 1, 7 nonreading children were exposed to a program designed to teach reading of 51 training words. The program featured an exclusion‐based procedure in which the children (a) matched printed to dictated words and (b) constructed (copied) printed words with movable letters and named them. All children learned to read the training words. Five children also read generalization words and showed progress in spelling. Experiment 2 applied the program to 4 different children, omitting the word‐construction task. They also learned to read the training words, but only 1 participant read generalization words. The data support a stimulus equivalence account of reading acquisition and suggest that reading generalization may be obtained, especially when the teaching program includes word construction.