PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

This article presents an intervention study to enhance the sight word vocabulary of students with intellectual disabilities. The instruction involved repeated word reading, systematic analysis and synthesis of the focused words, and reading connected text that incorporated these words. The study was conducted as part of a comprehensive literature project centered around the children's novel "Emil and the Detectives," which was adapted specifical ly for this group of students. To assess the learning progress, three sets of text-related sight words were collected twice a week from six students belonging to two classes, utilizing single case multiple baseline studies over a period of ten weeks. The students, aged 11;5 to 16;2 years, possessed basic reading skills and had IQ scores ranging from 57 to 66. The analyses revealed moderate learning effects among the students, with a considerable degree of variation. However, the changes observed in both level and trend were statistically significant. The findings suggest that an instructional approach that combines repeated word reading, systematic working with words and text reading can be an effective strategy for enhancing the acquisition of written language skills among students with intellectual disabilities. The study acknowledges its limitations and discusses the implications of the results, while also highlighting avenues for further research.