Efficacy of Picture-Text Compound Prompts During Sight-Word Instruction

Researchers have continually sought to refine interventions targeting reading-related skills in an effort to improve their efficacy, efficiency, or social validity. Despite their prominence in early reading materials, pictures are often excluded from reading intervention procedures, likely because pictures have been shown to impede stimulus control by the textual stimuli when pictures and text are presented simultaneously. The current study describes the use of a novel prompt type, picture-text compound prompts, embedded in a strategic incremental rehearsal procedure to teach sight words to four children exhibiting reading challenges. Prompted opportunities resulted in the presentation of four picture-text compounds (e.g., the word dog appeared below a picture of a dog). To correctly respond, the participant was required to match the identical target textual stimulus to the element in the corresponding compound. Doing so then allowed the picture element of the compound stimulus to function as a tact prompt. Picture-text compound prompts produced mastery levels of responding in three or fewer instructional sessions and participants’ responses during generalization and maintenance probes were generally high. The current findings suggest that picture-text compounds prompts are efficacious, although additional research is needed to evaluate the relative efficiency and social validity of similar arrangements.