2026 Volume 40 Issue 2 Pages 99-110
Study objective: To examine effects and social validity of a sequential stimulus pairing (SSP) procedure for teaching reading and writing kanji characters to sixth-grade students in a regular elementary school. Design: One-group pretest-posttest design. Both classes received instruction in kanji Set A with the sequential stimulus pairing procedure and kanji Set B with the regular procedure concurrently. Setting: Two 6th-grade classrooms at a public elementary school. Participants: A total of 62 students (22 boys, 40 girls) in the two classes. Intervention: In the sequential stimulus pairing procedure, kanji characters were presented one by one in sequence on a large monitor at the front of the classroom. Each kanji and its pronunciation were then presented for 3 s, followed by an idiom containing the kanji and its pronunciation for 2 s, and corresponding pictures for 1.5 s. In the regular instructional procedure, writing was assigned as homework. Measures: The number of correct answers on the reading and writing tests was totaled for five weeks, and the results of the pretests, posttests, and follow-up tests for the sequential stimulus pairing procedure and the regular instructional procedure were compared. For each measure, the median score of the two classes was used in the analysis. Results: The test results of the 49 children who had at least 60% attendance were analyzed. The number of correct responses in reading and writing increased in both conditions, however the social validity results indicated that the sequential stimulus pairing procedure was less burdensome for the children and more acceptable to them and their teachers than the regular instructional procedure. Conclusions: The sequential stimulus pairing procedure could be effective as a first-tier support for a classwide approach. It may also be useful as an instructional option for children who have difficulty with repetitive writing practice.
