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Perspectives on Early Childhood Psychology and Education

Submission Type

Article

Abstract

Early literacy skills are considered prerequisites for early learners to eventually become effective readers (Storch & Whitehurst, 2002). Increasing early literacy skills is often the goal of teachers and schools, but skill acquisition can be hindered due to the bidirectional relationship between behavior difficulties and academic skill deficits. To compound this struggle, there is limited research available on the use of behavioral interventions that exist in conjunction with early academic interventions (Volpe et al., 2012). The goal of the current study was to pilot three emerging early literacy interventions: Fluency Letter Wheel; Letter Flash; and I Do, We Do, You Do. All three interventions were pulled from the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR), and target letter sound fluency (LSF). The second objective of this study was to examine an early academic intervention in conjunction with behavior management techniques (i.e., reinforcement and differential attention). One 7-year-old student with a history of academic and behavioral difficulties was examined across 13 individual academic sessions. A brief experimental analysis (BEA) was utilized within an alternating treatments design to identify the most effective academic intervention. A changing criterion design was then used after the I do, We do, You do intervention emerged as the most effective academic intervention. Results indicated that this intervention had moderate effects for increasing skill acquisition. In addition, skill acquisition of LSF was noted to increase from a frustrational range to a grade level instructional range during intervention implementation. Limitations, implications, and future directions of this research are discussed.

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