Training Parents to be Home Reading Tutors: Generalization of Children's Reading Skills from Home to School

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a procedure for teaching parents of mildly retarded children to be home reading tutors and to examine generalization of the children's acquired skills from the home to the school setting. The parent‐tutor procedures were based on Glynn, McNaughton, Robinson and Quinn (1979). Four children aged 8 to 10 years, attending a special class, participated in the project. The reading tutor training procedure was implemented in a multiple baseline across participants design. Tutor behaviours measured were attention to errors, delayed attention, modelling, prompting and the use of praise; child reading behaviours assessed were accuracy of reading, number of errors, self‐corrections and prompted corrections. During intervention and maintenance phases substantial increases in targeted tutor behaviours and corresponding improvements in child reading behaviours were observed. Improvements in the children's home reading behaviours, particularly self‐correcting, generalized to the classroom setting.