Traditionally, this type of flash-card instruction draws items only from material that has not yet been learned (i.e., unknown stimulus items MacQuarrie, Tucker, Burns, & Hartman, 2002 Nist & Joseph, 2008). Use of the three-term contingency (otherwise referred to as the learning trial) to conceptualize the components of effective instruction has been helpful in explaining the differential effectiveness of various instructional procedures ( Heward, 1994), with conditions that deliver more learning trials consistently leading to greater learning ( Belfiore, Skinner, & Ferkis, 1995 Skinner, Fletcher, & Henington, 1996). Each repetition of the three-term contingency (presentation of the flash card, response of the learner, and consequence delivered by the teacher) further strengthens future responding in the presence of the relevant antecedent ( Catania, 2007). Sight words can be presented singly while the instructor delivers prompts, reinforcement, and corrective feedback. Thus, word reading must come under the stimulus control of the entire word.įlash cards are a convenient, simple, and popular format for presenting discrete stimulus items (e.g., sight words) during discrimination training. Each item of the response class that makes up what educators refer to as sight words contains a unique configuration of letters whose phonemic properties do not conform to conventional pronunciation rules (e.g., the), distinguishing it from all other reading words. Although phonics is a vital part of any reading instruction program ( National Reading Panel, 2000), some words (e.g., through) do not contain predictable grapheme–phoneme correspondence, making them difficult to decode based on phonics rules learned through DI programs.
In fact, one of the most successful reading programs involves direct instruction (DI), which is based on principles of instructional design that are derived from a stimulus control paradigm ( Adams & Carnine, 2003 Gersten, Carnine, & White, 1984). For example, with the use of differential reinforcement, word reading should come under stimulus control of the configuration of letters and spaces in a text. Goldiamond and Dyrud (1966) proposed that reading could be productively investigated as a form of operant behavior.
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