This investigator sought to determine whether a reorganized Direct Instruction Reading Mastery (1995) sequence would result in greater numbers and rates of emergent textual responses using a pre-test and posttest, and multiple probe single case design comparing two independent treatments across 3-matched pairs of subjects. Direct Instruction's Reading Mastery sequence (Linear Multiple Exemplar Instruction), was compared with a rearranged sequence (Spiral Multiple Exemplar Instruction) to teach beginning phonemic reading to preschool children. The dependent variables were numbers and rates of acquisition of mastered and abstracted outcomes. Two 3½ year old boys, two 4 years old girls, and two 4½ year old boys were taught to textually respond to two to six letter phonemes, phoneme combinations and words by teaching four core reading responses. Three children were taught using the Spiral procedure while their respective matched pairs were taught using the Linear procedure. Initial pre-tests and final posttests of 140 textual stimuli were conducted. Test probes were presented throughout instruction immediately following each learned textual stimulus, for the purpose of exposing any potential derived abstractions. Results showed the Spiral sequence yielded greater numbers of emergent responses and better maintenance.

Key words: Phonemic Reading, Derived Abstraction, Emergent Learning, Multiple Exemplar Instruction, Direct Instruction, Stimulus Equivalence, Preschool Children.