ABSTRACT
Like many Title 1 schools in the United States, the host site for this study in rural South Carolina represents a widespread literacy crisis in our public education system. In this particular school, only 20% of 3rd graders demonstrated proficient reading skills. Although extremely effective precision teaching-based literacy intervention programs have been developed in the private sector, such as the Fit Learning™ model, the extensive time and related costs of training classroom teachers in those methods prohibit struggling schools on tight budgets. As such, the current study sought to develop and test the feasibility of a truncated version of the Fit Learning™ model, dubbed Fit Lite™. Fourteen students identified by the school as "high risk" for literacy struggles were instructed in the Fit Lite™ model in their after-school program. With expert oversight and only 1 week of training, a group of 4 implementers with no prior experience using precision teaching or implementing Fit Lite™ produced promising reading improvements. Over the course of approximately 12 weeks, the 14 students improved by an average of 16 percentile points against the national average on standardized progress-monitoring tools. Details of the Fit Lite™ model, results achieved in this study, and considerations for future replications are described.
ABSTRACT
In higher education, instruction that incorporates effective performance skills training is vital to equipping pre-service teachers with the tools they will use to educate children. This study evaluated the effects of behavioral skills training (BST) on performance of evidence-based practices by undergraduate pre-service special education teachers. A pre-post design was used to evaluate performance during role-play. BST sessions produced higher levels of correct performance than baseline measures across all seven participants. We discuss limitations of these results with suggestions for future research, along with recommendations for incorporating BST into university settings.
