Title: The Effects of the Mastery of Auditory Matching of Component Sounds to Words on the Rate and Accuracy of Textual and Spelling Responses
Description: Textual responding or a see print and say sound response, often called "decoding," is a key component of reading. Teaching letter sounds and how to say these sounds together as words is a repertoire that allows students to become independent readers (McGuiness, 2004). However, some students have difficulty with blending letter sounds to read words (Carnine, 1997). Spelling is the reciprocal process to textual responding (McGuiness, 2004). To spell, an individual must segment component sounds in a word to write the correct graphemes. In two experiments, the experimenter tested the effects of the acquisition of matching component phoneme sounds to the words they comprise and vise-versa using an experimenter designed computer-based auditory match to sample (MTS) instructional program on textual responding and spelling of words with taught phonemes, and the rate of acquisition of new textual responses. Participants in Experiment I included 6 kindergarten students and 3 preschool students who required many instructional trials to meet textual responding objectives.

Participants in Experiment II were 2 students (one kindergartener and one second grader) diagnosed with autism and 3 kindergarten students. Participants did not read words composed of letter sounds they had mastered. Results of Experiments I and II demonstrated a functional relation between the auditory matching program and textual responding and rates of learning for all participants. Results are discussed from the perspective of the Verbal Behavior Developmental Theory (VBDT), in terms of the importance of verbal developmental cusps and the joining of listener and speaker repertoires in textual responding and spelling.