|
...acquisition (AR) component of an appropriate level of challenge. The current study used curriculum-based assessment to assess the AR of five fourth-grade students diagnosed with reading disability and taught each 20 words from the Esperanto International Language over two sessions (10 each session). Students were observed during instruction, and the number of demonstrated off-task behaviors was converted to a mean rate of off-task behaviors/minute. Comparison of pre- and post-AR data showed that each student demonstrated an increase in off-task behaviors while rehearsing the word that immediately exceeded his or her AR. Implications for practice and suggestions for future research are discussed.
**********
Research has consistently demonstrated that matching the difficulty of instructional material and student skill level increases outcomes such as task completion, task comprehension, and student time on task (Daly, Martens, Kilmer, & Massie, 1996; Gickling & Armstrong, 1978; Gickling & Rosenfield, 1995; Gickling, Shane, & Croskery, 1989). This match between material and skill can be assessed with curriculum-based assessment (CBA; Gickling & Havertape, 1981) by computing the percentage of known items within the academic task and comparing it to an optimal level, called the instructional level.
Reading tasks must include 93% to 97% known words to represent an instructional level, and tasks that involve rehearsal or practice of individual items (drill; e.g., rehearsing math facts, learning sight words) must include 70% to 85% known items (Gravois & Gickling, 2002). If the learning material contains less than 93% known material for a reading task, or less than 70% for a drill task, the child may experience frustration due to the mismatch between student skill and challenge level of the learning activity. This mismatch may also serve as a source for intervention, in that steps can be taken to more closely match curricula and student skill (Burns, 2002; Shapiro, 2004). Although the proposed ratios of known material were hypotheses, independent empirical research has supported interventions based on these ratios (Burns, 2002, 2004a; Gickling et al., 1989; Roberts & Shapiro, 1996; Shapiro, 1992; Shapiro & Ager, 1992).
The instructional level includes a second, less-researched component called the acquisition rate (AR), which is the amount of new information a student can successfully rehearse and later recall during initial instruction (Burns, 2001). Cesaro's (1967) seminal research found that a child's attempt to complete an instructional set that exceeded his or her individual limit resulted in an inability to learn new information and reduced retention of previously learned material. Therefore, Gickling and Thompson (1985) proposed that, in addition to including enough known material in the learning task to arrive at the appropriate level of challenge, the amount of new information a student can learn at one time must also be considered. That is, the student may become frustrated if the amount of new material being introduced, even if presented with an appropriate ratio of unknown to known material, exceeds the student's AR, possibly leading to increased off-task behavior.
Moreover, research has identified individual differences in the amount of information children retain from one instructional session (Brainerd & Reyna, 1995). This may be due to several variables, including prior experience with the information (Rabinowitz, Ornstein, Folds-Benett, & Schneider, 1994); content of the material (Scweickert & Boruff, 1986; Semb & Ellis, 1994); and developmental factors (Fry & Hale, 1996; Gathercole & Baddeley, 1993; Miller & Vernon, 1996). Student ARs, as measured by CBA, have also revealed individual differences in the amount of new information successfully rehearsed, consistent with previous memory research (Burns, 2004b), but data examining the effect of ARs on behavioral outcomes such as off-task behavior are lacking in the literature.
Reducing off-task behavior could directly affect learning because academic learning time (ALT), defined as the "proportion of instructional time allocated to a content area during which students are actively and productively engaged in...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos
have been removed from this article.
More articles from Learning Disability Quarterly
The effects of disability labels on special education and general educ..., September 22, 2005
Looking for additional articles?
Search our database of over 3 million articles.
Looking for more in-depth information on this industry?
Search our complete database of Industry & Market reports by text, subject, publication
name or publication date.
About Goliath
Whether you're looking for sales prospects, competitive information, company
analysis or best practices in managing your organization,
Goliath can help you meet your business needs.
Our extensive business information databases empower business
professionals with both the breadth and depth of credible,
authoritative information they need to support their business
goals. Whether it be strategic planning, sales prospecting,
company research or defining management best practices -
Goliath is your leading source for accurate information.
|
