Research question

RQ1. What achievement differences exhibited on letter reading accuracy and rate among students who attend Accurate and Automatic Letter Naming 

(AALN) instruction and those who attend regular instruction (RI)?     

 RQ2.What is the difference on word reading fluency among students who attend AALNinstruction and those who attended the RI?

  RQ3.What is the difference on non-word reading among students from AALN

Instruction and RI?

RQ4. Is there a long term effect on reading comperhension for students who participated in AALN instruction?

                              Theoretical approach

The theoretical approach chosen for this study is the model of automaticity.  The model of automaticity theory from LaBerge and Samuels (1974) was adapted to the language nature of Amharic orthography.  According to Samuels (2006), automaticity theory deals in reading fluency at basic reading level (word reading) where fluency is recognized as the ability to decode and comprehend concurrently. This theory emphasized fluency to begin at word reading level. However, in the orthographically consistent language (Amharic), fluency at word reading is the collection of automaticity at letter naming. Alphabet learning seems a school tradition in most schools around the world followed by word decoding however, automatic letter naming is rarely recognized as basic for fluency at word level. Hence, this research design includes accurate and automatic letter-name intervention which results in automaticity at word level and in turn contributes to word reading fluency and comprehension.

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