The Effects of Teacher Presentation Rate and Praise on Ld Students' Oral Reading Performance

S ummary . Four learning disabled students were taught beginning reading with a Direct Instruction programme. The teacher systematically varied the rate of instructional presentation (rapid pace vs. slow pace) and frequency of praising (praise vs. no praise). A modified reversal design was used to evaluate both the isolated and interactive effects of the individual instructional components. Experimentation lasted 25 school days. The results indicated that increases in teacher presentation rate and increased use of praise lead to improvement in levels of on‐task behaviour and correct student responding. Each of the variables in isolation has an effect. Praise appears to be more powerful than presentation rate. The combination of the two variables has the most powerful effect. These findings extend the research of earlier studies to learning disabled students.