The purpose of the present study was to investigate of the impact of a twopronged
reading intervention package on specific reading skill acquisition and levels
of on-task classroom behavior exhibited by students in an alternative school setting.
The interventions used individualized direct instructional techniques with students
who were placed in an alternative educational setting as a result of behavioral
symptomatology that was considered to be unmanageable in their home school
districts. The two interventions focused on improving reading skills through the
development of phonemic awareness/basic phonics skills, and repeated readings with
error feedback to improve levels of reading fluency. Additionally, the impact of the
intervention was also examined in relation to student classroom behaviors believed to
be connected to their frustration with the reading process. Two single-subject
multiple baseline across subjects research designs were used to assess the
effectiveness of the interventions on reading skill development and on-task behavior,
and the order of the interventions was reversed for the second experimental condition
in order to address the possibility of order effects.