Beyond Sight Words: Reading Programs for People With Intellectual Disabilities

Abstract

The Edmark Reading Program (ERP; Tague, Kidder, & Bijou, 1967; Pro-Ed, 2011) was the first reading program specifically designed for individuals with intellectual disabilities. The program effectively teaches sight-word reading using a programmed-instruction approach; however, the decoding skills taught in the program are limited. Because phonics and phonemic awareness instruction are missing from the ERP, students fail to learn a generalizable reading repertoire. Recently, there have been a few select programs developed that have successfully taught intellectually disabled people a generalizable reading repertoire. These programs are briefly reviewed.