The Effect of a Shared Book-Reading Intervention on the Story Retelling and Phonemic Awareness of a Third Grader with Disabilities

ABSTRACT

Children with disabilities often demonstrate difficulties in code-focused and meaning-focused domains of literacy. Best practice indicates that skills within these domains should be taught together. The current study used principles of ABAB single-case experimental design to monitor the development of narrative retelling and phonemic awareness in a 3rd-grade child identified by her school as a child with disabilities. This child participated in a shared book-reading program that included discussions of the storybook text, a graphic organizer, and explicit instruction on phonemic awareness skills using words contained within the text. Results indicated significant improvements across both skills corresponding to instruction. Paired-samples t tests corroborated these findings. These findings support the use of interactive shared reading for simultaneously teaching code-focused and meaning-focused skills to children with disabilities. Results also support the use of graphic organizers for improving narrative retelling skills for children with disabilities.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Arnold Olszewski

Arnold Olszewski, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology at Miami University. His research focuses on developing and evaluating language and literacy interventions for young children. Arnold Olszewski was at the School of Education, University of Cincinnati, when this work was completed.

Ying Guo

Ying Guo, PhD, is an associate professor in the School of Education, University of Cincinnati. Her research interests include the prevention of early reading and writing difficulties, response to intervention, and literacy instruction for children with special needs.

Allison Breit-Smith

Allison Breit-Smith, PhD, is a language and literacy researcher whose teaching and research interests focus on emergent literacy experiences within the home and school settings. Specifically, her research emphasizes shared book reading between adults (parents and teachers) and young children and designing reading interventions to improve children’s language and literacy outcomes.