Visual-motor instruction and reading achievement

The purpose in this study was to investigate the effects of visual-motor instruction on the reading achievement of students who demonstrated visual-motor deficits. The study was directed toward discovering whether or not improving visual-motor skill efficiency levels would improve reading achievement. To investigate the problem a sample of 86 kindergarten students, 67 first grade students, and 63 second grade students diagnosed as having visual and/or motor deficits was selected.

Each grade sample was classified into three groups according to whether or not they were low achievers (Chapter-I), average achievers (Nonchapter-I), or total grade.

Following visual-motor instruction, the t-test was used to compare the mean reading scores of the actual posttest to the de rived posttest reading scores. An alpha level of .05 was selected as the level of significance.

Computation of the t-test indicated that visual-motor instruction had a significant effect on reading achievement scores for every group in each grade except the first grade Chapter-I and Nonchapter-I students. Therefore, the original hypothesis that there would be no significant difference on a standardized reading test between student's actual posttest mean and the expected posttest mean was not supported. It also appeared that visual-motor instruction was equally effective for low achievers and average achievers.

To determine if the difference between the actual posttest mean and the expected posttest mean was of educational value, a comparison was made between the national norm group standard deviation, for each grade level, and the difference of the actual and expected posttest mean. If the difference between these two means exceeds or equals one-third of the national norm group standard deviation, it can be considered to have educational value. This comparison indicated that the difference between the actual and expected posttest mean for each group in kindergarten was large enough to be considered educationally valuable. The first and second grade differ ences, however, were not large enough to indicate any educational value.