AbstractsEducation Research & Administration

Based upon literacy statistics presented by the American Bar Association (1975) supported by grant (73-ED-99-0012) from the National Institute of Corrects, and the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, U.S. Department of Justice, research was undertaken to determine treatment efficacy of traditional methodology vs. special education methods which used a Language Master whole word approach. Treatment of juvenile delinquents as a special education population has been advocated by Mesinger (1976). The population selected for comparison exhibited many of the characteristics noted by Strauss (1947). Special education methods have been employed based upon the findings of Kennedy (1954) and also due to an increased number of commitments for substance abuse. From a population of 448, fifteen pairs were found to be comparable in pretest scores on Gates-MacGinitie, WRAT, Essential Vocabulary List, Otis-Lennon, age, sex, ethnic background and socio-economic status. Subjects were assigned either to Phonics or to Multi-modality treatment. Both groups received reading instruction from the same reading teacher. Subjects in both groups were given candy treats when they won Bingo???s in skill reinforcement games. Results indicated that the Multi-modality group showed statistically significant gains at the .01 on Essential Vocabulary posttest and gains significant at .05 level on Gates-MacGinitie posttest. The Phonics group showed a slight, but not statistically significant gain over the Multi-modality group on WRAT posttest.