Acquisition of nontargeted information during small‐group instruction

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Abstract
In this article, we describe an investigation in which a teacher taught four students with moderate mental retardation to read sight words using a progressive time‐delay procedure. Definitions of the target words were presented incidentally in the consequent statement. Through the small‐group arrangement, students had the opportunity to learn through observation the other students' target words and incidental information. All students acquired their target words and at least 50% of the incidental and observational words and definitions to which they were exposed. We interpret these data as suggesting that teachers should systematically include related nontargeted information in their instruction and provide opportunities for observational learning to occur.