Sample records for advanced reading skills

Describes a reading-skill-building curriculum that prepares students to handle the reading in the Advanced Placement Spanish Literature course, a course that treats the works of Borges, Garcia Lorca, Matute, Neruda, and Unamuno. Suggests techniques and texts that aid in the teaching of these skills. (SED)

This paper evaluates three teaching approaches to improving sight-readingskills against a control in a large-scale study of advanced pianists. One hundred pianists in four equal groups participated in newly developed training programmes (accompanying, rhythm, musical style and control), with pre- and post-sight-reading tests analysed using…

Attention plays a critical role in information processing. Its adequate functioning is required for correct development of complex cognitive abilities and regular scholastic progress. Children with attention deficits often have difficulties in reading, writing, and arithmetic. The present study investigated interactions among readingskills, overall scholastic performance as rated by teachers, and components of attention: visual reaction time, simple immediate span of attention, and selectivity. The sample was 98 students in the first and second years of public junior high school (age range 11-14 years, M = 12.6, SD = 1.2), i.e., with expected already well-established reading. Reading was evaluated using Comprehension, Accuracy, and Speed tests. Overall scholastic performance was obtained by means of teachers' ratings. Simple Reaction Time, Digit Span, and Color-Word Interference, included in a multitask computerized test, assessed attention. Analysis confirmed the hypothesis that the readingskills are strongly predictive of the Scholastic Assessment rated by the teachers. High scholastic ratings were correlated with Reading Speed and Accuracy rather than Reading Comprehension. Poor readers showed worse performances on the Digit Span test which measures simple immediate span of attention. Good and poor readers obtained a similar score on the Color-Word Interference task. This observation seems to contrast with the more common interpretation of this effect, suggesting that reading is an automatic process and, therefore, the semantic dimension overcomes the controlled perceptual one. According to other studies, an alternative explanation is suggested. In conclusion, present results confirm the hypothesis of a strong link among reading speed and accuracy, scholastic assessment as rated by teachers, simple immediate span of attention, and visual reaction time. PMID:15974348

A popular response among high school teachers and leaders facing students reading far below grade level, the authors claim, is to adopt back-to-basics packaged programs that focus on discrete skills with little attention to critical reading and writing. The authors express concern that reliance on such programs keeps older struggling readers from…

Fifteen reading-disabled boys, classified according to reading subskill deficits, formed three subgroups: Oral Reading, Associative, and Sequential. On the rationale that training procedures emphasizing accuracy and speed of response to letters, syllables, and words would improve readingskills, the children were trained daily for two and one-half months. Two schedules of testing and training allowed for an untrained control group and a follow-up group. The results indicated that the computer-assisted training procedures were not only effective in improving component readingskills, but in addition there was a transfer of training to achievement measures of reading word recognition. This study lends support to the hypothesis that training according to subgroup classification, using training procedures which incorporate an application of the automaticity theory and a combination of task-analytic and process-oriented models, is an effective training approach for reading-disabled children. PMID:24243467

A study correlating Nelson-Denny Reading Test scores with American College Testing Program Assessments (ACT) indicates that readingskill can be predicted accurately from the ACT social studies reading and English usage subtests. (MSE)

Many studies have examined reading and reading development. The majority of these studies, however, focused on oral reading rather than on the more dominant silent reading mode. Similarly, it is common practice to assess oral reading abilities rather than silent reading abilities in schools and in diagnosis of reading impairments. More important, insights gained through examinations of oral reading tend to be generalized to silent reading. In the current study, we examined whether such generalizations are justified. We directly compared oral and silent reading fluency by examining whether these reading modes relate to the same underlying skills. In total, 132 fourth graders read words, sentences, and text orally, and 123 classmates read the same material silently. As underlying skills, we considered phonological awareness, rapid naming, and visual attention span. All skills correlated significantly with both reading modes. Phonological awareness contributed equally to oral and silent reading. Rapid naming, however, correlated more strongly with oral reading than with silent reading. Visual attention span correlated equally strongly with both reading modes but showed a significant unique contribution only to silent reading. In short, we showed that oral and silent reading indeed are fairly similar reading modes, based on the relations with reading-related cognitive skills. However, we also found differences that warrant caution in generalizing findings across reading modes. PMID:25173643

We hypothesised that college students take reading speed into consideration when evaluating their own readingskill, even if reading speed does not reliably predict actual readingskill. To test this hypothesis, we measured self-perception of readingskill, self-perception of reading speed, actual readingskill and actual reading speed to…

This study investigated whether transfer from L2 to L1 in reading occurs, and if so, which reading sub-skills are transferred into L1 reading. The aim is to identify the role of second language readingskills in L1 readingskills by means of transfer. In addition, the positive effects of the second language transfer to the first language in the…

Teachers at all grade levels need to recognize the importance of instruction in consumer reading and decision making skills. The definitions and prerequisites of a literate consumer underscore the importance of reading and reasoning skills development for making effective decisions. Consumer educators must also recognize that economic…

This report describes a program for improving the development of students' readingskills. The targeted population consisted of students in kindergarten, first, and second grades. The classrooms were located in adjoining lower socioeconomic areas. The problem of poorly developed readingskills was documented through data collected by the teacher…

The terms "readingskill" and "reading strategy" are central to how we conceptualize and teach reading. Despite their importance and widespread use, the terms are not consistently used or understood. This article examines the current and historical uses of the terms, defines them, and describes their differences, similarities, and relationships.…

Reading is a learned skill that is likely influenced by both brain maturation and experience. Functional imaging studies have identified brain regions important for skilledreading, but the structural brain changes that co-occur with reading acquisition remain largely unknown. We investigated maturational volume changes in brain reading regions and their association with performance on reading measures. Sixteen typically developing children (5-15 years old, 8 male, mean age of sample=10.06 ±3.29) received two magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans, (mean inter-scan interval =2.19 years), and were administered a battery of cognitive measures. Volume changes between time points in five bilateral cortical regions of interest were measured, and assessed for relationships to three measures of reading. Better baseline performances on measures of word reading, fluency and rapid naming, independent of age and total cortical gray matter volume change, were associated with volume decrease in the left inferior parietal cortex. Better baseline performance on a rapid naming measure was associated with volume decrease in the left inferior frontal region. These results suggest that children who are better readers, and who perhaps read more than less skilled readers, exhibit different development trajectories in brain reading regions. Understanding relationships between reading performance, reading experience and brain maturation trajectories may help with the development and evaluation of targeted interventions. PMID:24407200

An important aspect of learning to read is efficiency in accessing different kinds of linguistic information (orthographic, phonological, and semantic) about written words. The present study investigates whether, in addition to the integrity of such linguistic skills, early progress in reading may require a degree of cognitive flexibility in order to manage the coordination of this information effectively. Our study will look for evidence of a link between flexibility and both word reading and passage reading comprehension, and examine whether any such link involves domain-general or reading-specific flexibility. As the only previous support for a predictive relationship between flexibility and early reading comes from studies of reading comprehension in the opaque English orthography, another possibility is that this relationship may be largely orthography-dependent, only coming into play when mappings between representations are complex and polyvalent. To investigate these questions, 60 second-graders learning to read the more transparent French orthography were presented with two multiple classification tasks involving reading-specific cognitive flexibility (based on words) and non-specific flexibility (based on pictures). Readingskills were assessed by word reading, pseudo-word decoding, and passage reading comprehension measures. Flexibility was found to contribute significant unique variance to passage reading comprehension even in the less opaque French orthography. More interestingly, the data also show that flexibility is critical in accounting for one of the core components of reading comprehension, namely, the reading of words in isolation. Finally, the results constrain the debate over whether flexibility has to be reading-specific to be critically involved in reading. PMID:24966842

This paper describes a program for improving readingskills at the beginning of first grade so that a rapid acquisition of skills will enhance students' ability to succeed in their respective basal programs. The targeted population used a first grade in a suburban school (Site A) and a first grade in a mid-sized, Midwestern city school (Site B).…

According to Ur (1996, 120), "of all the four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), speaking seems intuitively the most important." Indeed, whether for business or pleasure, a primary motivation to learn a second language is to be able to converse with speakers of that language. However, in addition to being an important skill,…

Literary readingskills in a second language (L2) are essential for student success at the advanced levels of collegiate language instruction. This article introduces an instructional approach that fosters the development of L2 literary readingskills through creative writing activities. First, the article identifies those skills that language…

The present study aimed at developing the necessary critical readingskills and social skills of the Egyptian EFL second year preparatory school students, through a proposed program based on using reading circles strategy. The study participants were 44 students from Sohag Experimental Preparatory School in Sohag Governorate. Instruments of the…

This study examined the cognitive skills associated with early reading development when children were taught by different types of instruction. Seventy-nine children (mean age at pre-test 4;10 (0.22 S.D.) and post-test 5;03 (0.21 S.D.)) were taught to read either by an eclectic approach which included sight-word learning, guessing from context and…

Georgia State Dept. of Education, Atlanta. Office of Instructional Services.

Although the guide was designed to accompany an instructional television series, it contains teacher-developed activities on map and globe skills which can be selected and adapted to the needs of elementary students independent of the series. Geographic concepts include direction, the globe, boundaries, hemispheres, scale, latitude, longitude, and…

It has been well established that poor readingskills in the first grades of primary school can lead to poor readingskills in all coming years. A reading acceleration program (RAP) known to improve readingskills in adults and children with and without reading difficulties (RD) was tested for its effect on children in second grade with standard…

This book contains more than 200 one-page exercises designed to give adults practice in basic reading and handwriting skills. The exercises are arranged according to the areas with which they deal: visual discrimination; letter recognition; manuscript practice and sequence; script practice; numeral writing; initial consonants; final consonants;…

The purposes of the study were to determine whether phonic analysis training could be used to prepare children to be successful on the Auditory Analysis Test (AAT) of phonic skills and to then relate phonic knowledge to reading performance. Subjects were 40 first graders in suburban Pittsburgh who had attended kindergarten together. A group of 16…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of readingskill and reading modality (oral versus silent) on reading comprehension. A normative sample of sixth-grade students (N = 74) read texts aloud and silently and then answered questions about what they read. Skill in word reading fluency was assessed by the Test of Word Reading…

English reading comprehension skill development was examined in a group of 87 native Spanish-speakers developing English literacy skills, followed from fourth through fifth grade. Specifically, the effects of Spanish (L1) and English (L2) oral language and word readingskills on reading comprehension were investigated. The participants showed average word readingskills and below average comprehension skills, influenced by low oral language skills. Structural equation modeling confirmed that L2 oral language skills had a large, significant effect on L2 reading comprehension, whereas students' word-level readingskills, whether in L1 or L2, were not significantly related to English reading comprehension in three of four models fitted. The results converge with findings from studies with monolinguals demonstrating the influence of oral language on reading comprehension outcomes, and extend these findings by showing that, for language minority learners, L2 oral language exerts a stronger influence than word reading in models of L2 reading. PMID:21243117

Describes a technique for beginning levels of an approach to teaching readingskills to students of English as a second language. Considers three readingskills--scanning, skimming, and reading for deeper comprehension. The technique uses a reading objectives grid which describes the types and objectives of questions to ask. (SED)

Prosodic reading, or reading with expression, is considered one of the hallmarks of fluent reading. The major purpose of the study was to learn how reading prosody is related to decoding and reading comprehension skills. Suprasegmental features of oral reading were measured in 2nd- and 3rd-grade children (N = 123) and 24 adults. Reading…

This guide is designed to help teachers, staff members responsible for teacher training, and reading supervisors provide better reading instruction. The skills that lead to mature reading are arranged on eight levels of developmental sequence. Level A is concerned with developing prereading skills. Levels B to D treat initiating and developing…

A teacher used classics of children's literature to teach critical readingskills. Although scoring above the national average on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS), the teacher's fourth-grade gifted students exhibited problems with critical readingskills. A literature unit involving whole language strategies and using Beverly Cleary's "The…

Background: According to research, adolescent readingskills tend to be poor, and increased pressure from Federal legislation has been placed on educators to improve these skills. Research lacks on business teacher educators' preparation to provide readingskill instruction. Purpose: The research purpose was to better understand the perceptions of…

The ability to read music fluently is fundamental for undergraduate music study yet the training of sight-reading is often neglected. This study compares approaches to sight-reading and accompanying by students with extensive sight-reading experience to those with limited experience, and evaluates the importance of this skill to advanced pianists…

A small change in how teachers and parents read aloud to preschoolers may provide a big boost to their readingskills later on, a new study found. That change involves making specific references to print in books while reading--such as pointing out letters and words on the pages, showing capital letters, and showing how they read from left to…

The purposes of the study were to determine whether third grade children mark linguistic focus features in their reading prosody and whether strong marking of these linguistic focus features might comprise an aspect of expressive reading typical of skilled, fluent reading. Children read a passage targeting information focusing aspects of prosody…

Research on reading has tried, and failed, to account for wide disparities in readingskill even among children taught by the same method. Why do some children learn to read easily and quickly while others, in the same classroom and taught by the same teacher, don't learn to read at all? In "Language Development and Learning to Read", Diane…

This study investigated the effects of hypnosis on the learning of readingskills and academic skills. The general hypothesis was that hypnotic suggestions related to the curriculum of a course for improvement of academic and study skills would facilitate students' academic skill learning. Ninety-three male and female students enrolled in a course…

In July and August of 1980, material writers at the University of California-Los Angeles designed a course that would focus on the various reading and writing skills that science scholars would need for successful graduate study in the United States. The scholars were advanced learners of English from various science fields, and the course was to…

Does learning to read influence one's visual skill? In Study 1, kindergartners from Hong Kong, Korea, Israel, and Spain were tested on word reading and a task of visual spatial skill. Chinese and Korean kindergartners significantly outperformed Israeli and Spanish readers on the visual task. Moreover, in all cultures except Korea, good readers…

This article presents the results of a lexical decision experiment in which the base frequency (BF) effect is explored in reading disabled children and skilled readers. Three groups of participants were created. The first group was composed of children with reading disorders, the second group of skilled readers matched with the first group for…

Despite ample research into the language skills of children with specific reading disorder no studies so far have investigated whether there may be a difference between expressive and receptive language skills in this population. Yet, neuro-anatomical models would predict that children who have specific reading disorder which is not associated…

The purpose of this study was to investigate differences between readers with different levels of comprehension skill when engaging in a causal questioning activity during reading, and the varied effects on inference generation. Fourth-grade readers (n?=?74) with different levels of comprehension skillread narrative texts aloud and were asked…

This study had three main aims. First, we examined to what extent listening comprehension, vocabulary, grammatical skills and verbal short-term memory (VSTM) assessed prior to formal reading instruction explained individual differences in early reading comprehension levels. Second, we examined to what extent the three common component skills,…

Although there is evidence for a close link between the development of oral vocabulary and reading comprehension, less clear is whether oral vocabulary skills relate to the development of word-level readingskills. This study investigated vocabulary and literacy in 81 children aged 8 to 10 years. In regression analyses, vocabulary accounted for…

Prosodic reading, or reading with expression, is considered one of the hallmarks of fluent reading. The major purpose of the study was to learn how reading prosody is related to decoding and reading comprehension skills. Suprasegmental features of oral reading were measured in 2nd- and 3rd-grade children (N = 123) and 24 adults. Reading comprehension and word decoding skills were assessed. Children with faster decoding speed made shorter and less variable intersentential pauses, shorter intrasentential pauses, larger sentence-final fundamental frequency (F0) declinations, and better matched the adult prosodic F0 profile. Two structural equation models found evidence of a relationship between decoding speed and reading prosody as well as decoding speed and comprehension. There was only minimal evidence that prosodic reading was an important mediator of reading comprehension skill. PMID:19777077

Reading bestows enjoyment and enlightenment. It unlocks the unknown. It is a complex cognitive activity that is indispensable for the kind of knowledge society. So the students of today's world must know how to learn from reading and to enter the present literate society. One who reads can lead others to light. People who read can be free because…

Possessing generic or employability skills is vital in the current labour market. The vocational education and training (VET) sector, like other education sectors, must ensure its clients gain and develop generic skills. This volume of readings summarises NCVER managed research into generic skills undertaken in 2001 and 2002. The work covers four…

Through a process of refinement and field testing, a working committee of seven states, under the direction of the National Committee of State Directors of Migrant Education Programs, developed a list of readingskills/concepts that are both generic and universal. Each skill is a base, essential concept. Most skills or subskills in any reading…

The aim of this paper is to determine relation between PISA ReadingSkills and ICT use skills of Turkish students. In this study are four variables such as joy/like Reading, use of Libraries, Online Reading and Plausible value in reading which are dealt with as indications of readingskills. It constitutes six variables such as attitude towards…

The purpose of this study was to compare the word processing and reading comprehension skilled in and less skilled readers. Forty-nine, 2nd graders (26 skilled and 23 less skilled readers) participated in this study. They were tested with two experiments assessing their processing of isolated real word and pseudoword pairs as well as their reading…

This book is presented for teachers who do not use a reading course and who wish to produce their own material as well as for individuals developing materials for tailor-made courses. Various types of reading comprehension exercises are described and classified. The exercise-types suggested can be adapted for all reading levels. The book begins…

We investigated whether high-skill readers skip more words than low-skill readers as a result of parafoveal processing differences based on readingskill. We manipulated foveal load and word length, two variables that strongly influence word skipping, and measured readingskill using the Nelson-Denny Reading Test. We found that readingskill did…

A system designed to provide a framework for the individualization of reading instruction is discussed. The heart of the system is a mastery checklist of readingskills for each child which provides teachers with a means for discovering the specific skill needs of their students. Initially, the system depended upon individual assessment exercises…

Liberal arts students are expected to graduate college with fully developed critical reading and writing skills. However, for a variety of reasons these skills are not always as well developed as they might be--both during and upon completion of college. This paper describes a reading assignment that was designed to increase students'…

In a longitudinal intervention study, the effects of three intervention strategies on the readingskills of children with reading disabilities in Grade 2 were analyzed. The interventions consisted of computerized training programs: One bottom-up intervention aimed at improving word decoding skills and phonological abilities, the second…

Limited literacy contributes to suboptimal care and outcomes for patients. The Institute of Medicine noted that future work in health literacy should consider multiple literacy skills. However, lacking empirical evidence of the relationship between different literacy skills, readingskills are often used as proxies of literacy in research and practice. Using a community-based sample of 618 individuals residing in Boston, MA and Providence, RI, we conducted a principal component analysis on measures of four literacy skills: reading, numeracy, oral (speaking) and aural (listening) to examine whether and to what extent literacy can, or should, be represented by a single measure. The first principal component represented overall literacy and could only explain 60% of the total variation in literacy skills within individuals. The second principal component differentiated between numeracy/reading and the oral/aural exchange. While reading and numeracy best represent overall literacy, patients’ relative strengths may vary. Those with moderate reading ability may have high oral and aural language skills. Conversely, people who have difficulties speaking with or understanding a provider may read well. Effective communication with patients should rely on both the oral exchange and written health information, and not rely on a single literacy skill. PMID:21916699

FAME is an acronym for a four-course program titled Foundations, Adventures, Mastery, and Explorations. Reading Is FAME is a research-based, developmental reading program for adolescents reading below grade level. The program incorporates a series of four courses designed for students in grades 7-12. The FAME curriculum helps students by…

The ten articles in this yearbook were drawn from Arizona State University's Annual Reading Conference. The first two articles present different perspectives on current research in the teaching of reading comprehension, the third offers a systematic plan for teaching comprehension to remedial readers, and a fourth looks at reading as a tool for…

Recent technological advances in neuroanatomy and neurophysiology have unearthed structural and functional patterns in the brain that can be associated with severe reading disabilities. As a response, this paper examines several computer-driven technologies whose capabilities shed light on brain-related issues germane to reading, with the intent…

Elementary and middle school children were given a large battery of tests evaluating reading subskills and reading-related cognitive abilities. These measures were used to define latent representing skills and abilities believed to be important components of reading comprehension. Hypothesized relationships among these constructs were specified…

This paper addresses the controversial issues of improving the readingskills of young learners through technology-assisted reading programmes. On reporting the results of primary school learners from grade 2 to grade 7 who participated in a computer-based reading programme for seven months, we try to answer the critical questions of whether…

The relationship between readingskills in earlier grades and achieving "Proficiency" on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) grade 8 reading assessment was examined by establishing a statistical link between NAEP and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS) grade 8 reading assessments using data from a common…

Background: According to the "Simple View of Reading" (Hoover and Gough 1990), individual differences in reading comprehension are accounted for by decoding skills and listening comprehension, each of which makes a unique and specific contribution. Aims: The current research was aimed at testing the Simple View of Reading in individuals with…

Describes the use of cloze procedures to investigate the readingskills and reading habits of Open University (United Kingdom) reservees (potential undergraduate students). Discusses correlations between reading habits and other student characteristics and identifying reservees at risk based on the results of cloze tests. (Author/LRW)

Although many children with reading difficulty (RD) are reported to struggle with mathematics, little research has empirically investigated whether this is the case for different types of RD. This study examined the mathematics skills of third graders with one of two types of RD: dyslexia (n = 18) or specific reading comprehension difficulty (n =…

This guide outlines a model that adult educators can use to construct a test for their adult students, regardless of subject area, that is written at the students' reading level. The problems that written tests pose for trade and technical students in further education (FE) who have poor readingskills and the drawbacks of using commercially…

Junior high school teacher Mary Rice designs a consumer research unit that cultivates students' critical reading and thinking skills. As students learn how to develop and revise criteria for evaluating the reliability of online information, they read customer reviews, research products, and present their findings orally.

A study examined whether the reading comprehension of students with rich domain-specific knowledge will be better than that of students without it and whether assessed general skills will be correlated significantly with reading comprehension performance for students without specific knowledge, but negligible for the students with much specific…

Reading comprehension is a critical skill for school success. Struggling readers can benefit from computer-assisted instruction that utilizes components of effective instruction (e.g., frequent practice, immediate feedback). The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of Headsprout Comprehension, a computer-assisted reading program, on…

This article features FAST-R, or Formative Assessments of Student Thinking in Reading, a new assessment tool that measures critical-readingskills. FAST-R was developed by the the nonprofit Boston Plan for Excellence (BPE), a local education foundation, to provide teachers with information about what students are thinking when they try to find…

One of the major objectives of all schools is to help each student become an independent reader. By necessity then, the teacher, the materials utilized in the teaching process, and the classroom organization used must help students learn and gain proficiency in applying basic readingskills to the reading of all types of materials. To achieve the…

This set of transparency masters provides information on a study of 52 adolescents with behavior disorders. The study assessed the value of teaching basic readingskills to at-risk 8th- to 10th-graders who were reading below the 4th grade level. Students were divided into three groups based on IQ level. The adolescents attended a foundation course…

Twenty children with mental retardation (MR), age 7-12, completed a phonological readingskills program over approximately 10 weeks. As a result of the instruction, they were better able to sound out learned and transfer words compared to a control group matched on age, IQ, nonword reading, language comprehension, and phonemic awareness. Final…

This report describes an action research project designed to improve readingskills of first grade students. The targeted population consisted of two elementary classrooms located in a small, rural Mid-Western town. The problem of difficulty memorizing reading vocabulary words was documented through parent and student surveys and a document…

The importance of surgeons' nontechnical skills is gaining widespread recognition as a critical element of high-quality and safe surgical care. This article reviews the knowledge base on training and assessing surgeons, and operating room (OR) teams, in nontechnical aspects of their performance. Nontechnical skills are defined in the context of the OR and key assessment instruments that have been developed to capture these skills are reviewed. Key developments that have taken place in the past decade on formal skills training are discussed, and recommendations to further advance nontechnical skills and team-based training and assessment in surgery are presented. PMID:26210977

The aim of this study is to improve the readingskills of the students having difficulty in reading through an enrichment reading program. The current study was conducted by means of one-subject research technique and between-subjects multiple-baseline levels model belonging to this technique. The study was carried out with three participants from…

This article describes the need for, and the structure and contents of, a reading program to help support children disadvantaged by reading difficulties. The program, delivered by trained and supported volunteers, lasts for 15 weeks. It uses a novel dual approach which aims to improve students' readingskills and simultaneously enhance their…

This project describes a program designed to improve the music reading abilities of second grade children. The intention is to discover the best possible method of teaching students basic rhythmic and melodic skills. When combined, these skills will not only increase students' understanding of the language of music, but will also increase…

This paper presents an empirical study investigating the relationship between vocabulary size and the skills of listening, reading and writing in English as a foreign language (EFL). The participants were 88 EFL learners from lower secondary education whose language skills were assessed as part of the national school leaving examination in…

This module is the seventh of 10 in the Essential Communication and Documentation Skills curriculum. It develops reading on the job, a workplace literacy skill identified as being directly related to the job of the direct care worker. The curriculum is designed to improve the competence of New York State Division for Youth direct care staff using…

Designed for students who already have some facility in map reading, but who would like to develop their skills in a game situation. Objectives are for students to develop and practice the skills of using scale, grid location, symbols, and direction. Includes a list of materials, rules, and modifications. (Author/JK)

This exploratory study identified underlying skill and ability differences among subgroups of adolescent and young adult struggling readers (N = 290) overall and in relation to a fluency-based instructional grouping method. We used principal axis factoring of participants' scores on 18 measures of reading-related skills and abilities identified in…

There appears to be a close and probably causal relationship between early variations in phoneme skills and later readingskills in typically developing children, though the pattern in children with Down Syndrome is less clear. We present the results of a 2-year longitudinal study of 49 children with Down Syndrome (DS) and 61 typically developing…

In this brief article, the author discuses how teachers across the curriculum and across grade levels can help students improve their readingskills and become more independent learners. The goal is to help students learn the subject matter while simultaneously helping them improve communication and reasoning skills necessary to learn the…

Focusing upon reading problems and their identification, this handbook presents guidelines, procedures, techniques, and prescriptions for teaching basic readingskills to students who need assistance in becoming mature readers. The skills focused upon in the handbook are those of comprehension, oral reading, reading readiness, silent reading,…

The key to economic and social development lies in the knowledge and skill base of human capital. This report, presented to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, calls for vigorous action on the part of the Government of Canada, in concert with the provinces and territories, to protect the Canadian economy from a skills shortage…

Many gifted preschoolers are self-taught readers. This was confirmed by more than 200 parents in a 2011 study at Oregon State University focusing on young children's reading experiences. The purpose of the study was to determine how parents of gifted children and gifted students perceived the children's learning-to-read process, their early school…

We surveyed students enrolled in Introductory Psychology courses about their text marking preferences and analyzed the marking in their textbooks. Low-skill readers report more reliance on highlighting strategies and actually mark their texts more than better readers. In addition, low-skilled readers prefer to buy used, previously marked texts…

This study is part of a broader project that has the goal of developing cognitive and neuro-cognitive profiles of adolescent and young adult readers whose educational and occupational prospects are constrained by their limited literacy skills. The study explores relationships among reading related abilities in participants aged 16 to 24 years spanning a wide range of reading ability. Two specific questions are addressed: (1) Does the Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986) capture all non-random variation in reading comprehension? (2) Does orally-assessed vocabulary knowledge account for variance in reading comprehension, as predicted by the Lexical Quality Hypothesis (Perfetti & Hart, 2002)? A comprehensive battery of cognitive and educational tests was employed to assess phonological awareness, decoding, verbal working memory, listening comprehension, reading comprehension, word knowledge, experience with print. In this heterogeneous sample, decoding ability clearly plays an important role in reading comprehension. Gough and Tunmer’s Simple View of Reading gives a reasonable fit to the data, though it does not capture all of the reliable variance in reading comprehension as predicted. Orally assessed vocabulary knowledge captures unique variance in reading comprehension even after listening comprehension and decoding skill are accounted for. We explore how a specific connectionist model of lexical representation and lexical access can account for these findings. PMID:17518215

In this article, we are concerned with the role of colors in reading written texts. It has been argued that colored overlays applied above written texts positively influence both reading fluency and reading speed. These effects would be particularly evident for those individuals affected by the so called Meares-Irlen syndrome, i.e., who experience eyestrain and/or visual distortions – e.g., color, shape, or movement illusions – while reading. This condition would interest the 12–14% of the general population and up to the 46% of the dyslexic population. Thus, colored overlays have been largely employed as a remedy for some aspects of the difficulties in reading experienced by dyslexic individuals, as fluency and speed. Despite the wide use of colored overlays, how they exert their effects has not been made clear yet. Also, according to some researchers, the results supporting the efficacy of colored overlays as a tool for helping readers are at least controversial. Furthermore, the very nature of the Meares-Irlen syndrome has been questioned. Here we provide a concise, critical review of the literature. PMID:25120525

Hyperlexia is characterized by spontaneous and early acquisition of readingskills, manifested before the age of five, without any formal education. Expressive and receptive language deficit, excellent memory, delayed language skills, echolalia, perseverations, and difficulty to understand verbal contexts, are common symptoms in individuals with hyperlexia and global developmental disorders, including Asperger's syndrome. The aim of this study was to describe the readingskills of individuals with hyperlexia. The participants were six boys with a history of hyperlexia, perceived by relatives before 36 months of life, chronologically aged between four years and four months to five years and two months. The following evaluation procedures were applied: interview with the parents or responsible guardians, communicative behavior observation, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), recognition of alphabet letters and numbers, School Performance Test, text reading, and reading comprehension. The participants showed different performances in the PPVT, and recognized letters, numbers and isolated words. There was difficulty in answering the writing subtest; the majority did not understand the text that they read and all of them demonstrated recognition of letters and numbers. Some participants were able to read words and texts. However, all participants presented alterations in other areas of language development, such as receptive vocabulary, communicative behavior and understanding of the material read, in addition to altered behaviors of social adaptation, both interactive and restrictive. PMID:24408490

This study investigates the concurrent predictors of adolescent reading comprehension (literal, inferential) for fiction and non-fiction texts. Predictors were examined from the cognitive (word identification, reading fluency), psychological (gender), and ecological (print exposure) domains. Print exposure to traditional and digital texts was surveyed using a diary method of reading habits. A cross-sectional sample of 312 students in early (11-13 years) or middle adolescence (14-15 years) participated from a range of SES backgrounds. Word identification emerged as a strong predictor of reading comprehension across adolescence and text genres. Gender effects favouring female students were evident for reading frequency but not for readingskill itself. Reading habits also differed, and comprehension advantages were observed among females for fiction and males for non-fiction. Age effects emerged for reading frequency, which was lower in middle adolescence. Although more time was spent on digital than on traditional texts, traditional extended text reading was the only reading habit to predict inference-making in comprehension and to distinguish skilled from less skilled comprehenders. The theoretical and educational implications of these results are discussed. PMID:26094956

Studies show that advanced database skills are important for students to be prepared for today's highly competitive job market. A common task for database administrators is to insert a large amount of data into a database. This paper illustrates how an up-to-date, advanced database topic, namely bulk insert, can be incorporated into a database…

The beneficial effects of musical training are not limited to enhancement of musical skills, but extend to language skills. Here, we review evidence that musical training can enhance reading ability. First, we discuss five subskills underlying reading acquisition-phonological awareness, speech-in-noise perception, rhythm perception, auditory working memory, and the ability to learn sound patterns-and show that each is linked to music experience. We link these five subskills through a unifying biological framework, positing that they share a reliance on auditory neural synchrony. After laying this theoretical groundwork for why musical training might be expected to enhance readingskills, we review the results of longitudinal studies providing evidence for a role for musical training in enhancing language abilities. Taken as a whole, these findings suggest that musical training can provide an effective developmental educational strategy for all children, including those with language learning impairments. PMID:24309256

This short-term longitudinal study investigated the relationships between students' reading self-concept, goals for reading, and reading fluency skill over the course of the second grade year. Second-grade children (N = 185) were administered the Test of Word Reading Efficiency, the second-grade Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills,…

The compensatory-encoding model (CEM) postulates that readers whose decoding of words or verbal working memory capacities is inefficient can compensate so that literal comprehension of text is not deleteriously affected. However, the use of compensations may draw cognitive resources away from higher level reading activities such as comprehension…

This report describes a project for increasing parental involvement through the existing reading program. The targeted first and second grade students lived in growing rural, Midwestern, low to middle class communities located in north central Illinois. The problem was noted in literature by researchers who found that parents had a very limited…

This study describes a program designed to increase student achievement in reading. The targeted population consisted of two first grade classes and one second grade class in a small central Illinois community. The median household income was in the lower range. Evidence of the existence of the problem included the April 2000 standard testing…

It is well documented that good readingskills may be dependent upon adequate dorsal stream processing. However, the degree to which dorsal stream deficits play a causal role in reading failure has not been established. This study used coherent motion and visual frequency doubling to examine whether dorsal stream sensitivity measured before the…

Background: Poor comprehenders have difficulty comprehending connected text, despite having age-appropriate levels of reading accuracy and fluency. We used a longitudinal design to examine earlier reading and language skills in children identified as poor comprehenders in mid-childhood. Method: Two hundred and forty-two children began the study at…

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of three computerized interventions on the readingskills of children with reading disabilities in Grade 2. This longitudinal intervention study included five test sessions over 1 year. Two test points occur before the intervention, and three afterwards. The last follow-up was conducted 1…

A well-established principle in the literature on learning, which maintains that variability of practice enhances long-term retention, served as the foundation of a summer program intended to ameliorate readingskills in incoming freshmen. During a 4-week period, students received reading instruction in the context of four areas: humanities,…

A total of 26 preschools and day care centers in Saint Leo, Florida indicated the extent to which they were involved in teaching prereading and readingskills, when a questionnaire listing 50 reading and related activities was sent to 54 local centers. Respondents were instructed to indicate whether they engaged in the listed activities…

Previous research on the reading abilities of Deaf individuals from various cultural groups suggests that Black Deaf and Hispanic Deaf individuals lag behind their White Deaf peers. The present study compared the readingskills of Black Deaf and White Deaf individuals, investigating the influence of American Sign Language (ASL), culture, family…

Although wealth of empirical researches have covered the impact of crucial, indispensable role readingskills play in the development of individuals' mental faculties through the acquisition of knowledge in a particular language, scientific works on the assessment of the relationship(s) between pre-reading activities (consisting of games, puzzle…

Using Piagetian spatial conceptual development theory and Bruner's theory of concept formation, discusses major issues underlying children's inability to perform well on map skill tasks. Mapping problems covered include teachers' inability to use maps, curricular issues, poor instructional practices, and the use of commercial maps. (DST)

This study reports an evaluation of the effect of computer-based cognitive and linguistic training on college students' reading and writing skills. The computer-based training included a series of increasingly challenging software programs that were designed to strengthen students' foundational cognitive skills (memory, attention span, processing speed, and sequencing) in the context of listening and higher level reading tasks. Twenty-five college students (12 native English language; 13 English Second Language), who demonstrated poor writing skills, participated in the training group. The training group received daily training during the spring semester (11 weeks) with the Fast ForWord Literacy (FFW-L) and upper levels of the Fast ForWord Reading series (Levels 3-5). The comparison group (n = 28) selected from the general college population did not receive training. Both the training and comparison groups attended the same university. All students took the Gates MacGinitie Reading Test (GMRT) and the Oral and Written Language Scales (OWLS) Written Expression Scale at the beginning (Time 1) and end (Time 2) of the spring college semester. Results from this study showed that the training group made a statistically greater improvement from Time 1 to Time 2 in both their readingskills and their writing skills than the comparison group. The group who received training began with statistically lower writing skills before training, but exceeded the writing skills of the comparison group after training. PMID:23533100

This study reports an evaluation of the effect of computer-based cognitive and linguistic training on college students’ reading and writing skills. The computer-based training included a series of increasingly challenging software programs that were designed to strengthen students’ foundational cognitive skills (memory, attention span, processing speed, and sequencing) in the context of listening and higher level reading tasks. Twenty-five college students (12 native English language; 13 English Second Language), who demonstrated poor writing skills, participated in the training group. The training group received daily training during the spring semester (11 weeks) with the Fast ForWord Literacy (FFW-L) and upper levels of the Fast ForWord Reading series (Levels 3–5). The comparison group (n = 28) selected from the general college population did not receive training. Both the training and comparison groups attended the same university. All students took the Gates MacGinitie Reading Test (GMRT) and the Oral and Written Language Scales (OWLS) Written Expression Scale at the beginning (Time 1) and end (Time 2) of the spring college semester. Results from this study showed that the training group made a statistically greater improvement from Time 1 to Time 2 in both their readingskills and their writing skills than the comparison group. The group who received training began with statistically lower writing skills before training, but exceeded the writing skills of the comparison group after training. PMID:23533100

Although phonemic awareness is a well-known factor predicting early reading development, there is also evidence that Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) is an independent factor that contributes to early reading. The aim of this study is to examine phonemic awareness and RAN as predictors of reading speed, reading comprehension and spelling for children with reading difficulties. It also investigates a possible reciprocal relationship between RAN and readingskills, and the possibility of enhancing RAN by intervention. These issues are addressed by examining longitudinal data from a randomised reading intervention study carried out in Sweden for 9-year-old children with reading difficulties (N = 112). The intervention comprised three main elements: training of phonics, reading comprehension strategies and reading speed. The analysis of the data was carried out using structural equation modelling. The results demonstrated that after controlling for autoregressive effects and non-verbal IQ, RAN predicts reading speed whereas phonemic awareness predicts reading comprehension and spelling. RAN was significantly enhanced by training and a reciprocal relationship between reading speed and RAN was found. These findings contribute to support the view that both phonemic awareness and RAN independently influence early phases of reading, and that both are possible to enhance by training. PMID:24803174

Approaches and materials which are used to develop the vocabulary of high risk students at the University of Southern Colorado, an open enrollment university, are described in this paper. A basic skillsreading course is required of students scoring below the 22nd percentile on the Cooperative English Test and a developmental reading course is…

We investigated word-level reading circuits in skilled deaf readers (N=14; mean reading age=19.5years) and less skilled deaf readers (N=14; mean reading age=12years) who were all highly proficient users of American Sign Language. During fMRI scanning, participants performed a semantic decision (concrete concept?), a phonological decision (two syllables?), and a false-font control task (string underlined?). No significant group differences were observed with the full participant set. However, an analysis with the 10 most and 10 least skilled readers revealed that for the semantic task (vs. control task), proficient deaf readers exhibited greater activation in left inferior frontal and middle temporal gyri than less proficient readers. No group differences were observed for the phonological task. Whole-brain correlation analyses (all participants) revealed that for the semantic task, reading ability correlated positively with neural activity in the right inferior frontal gyrus and in a region associated with the orthography-semantics interface, located anterior to the visual word form area. Reading ability did not correlate with neural activity during the phonological task. Accuracy on the semantic task correlated positively with neural activity in left anterior temporal lobe (a region linked to conceptual processing), while accuracy on the phonological task correlated positively with neural activity in left posterior inferior frontal gyrus (a region linked to syllabification processes during speech production). Finally, reading comprehension scores correlated positively with vocabulary and print exposure measures, but not with phonological awareness scores. PMID:27448530

Examined relations among phonological awareness, music perception skills, and early readingskills in 100 preschoolers. Found that music skills correlated significantly with both phonological awareness and reading development. Music perception skills contributed unique variance in predicting reading ability, even when variance due to phonological…

The present study examines the extent to which adolescents' reading affect (reading motivation) and behaviour (reading habits) predict different components of reading (word reading, comprehension, summarisation and text reading speed) and also adds to the limited research examining group differences (gender, age, ability) in adolescents' reading…

The oral Red Cloud Reading Test provides a complete analysis of reading level and skills for American Indian students in grades 1-7 or for high school and adult students reading at or below high school levels. The test determines the basic and recreational reading levels, identifies reading problems, determines reading speeds, and analyzes the…

The present study examines the effect of dialogic reading (DR) on the promotion of Arabic phonological awareness skills (including syllable awareness, rhyme awareness, and phoneme awareness) of Egyptian kindergarteners. The participants were 67 children enrolled in the second level of kindergarten (ages 5-6), assigned to an experimental group…

Examines the influence of word meanings on lexical processing in high- and low-skill readers. States that rated context availability was a significant predictor of lexical decision times and word reading accuracy beyond nonsemantic factors. Finds that ability to retrieve meanings of low-context-availability words easily is an important component…

Reading music notation with fluency is a complex skill requiring well-founded instruction by the music teacher and diligent practice on the part of the learner. The task is complicated by the fact that there are multiple ways to notate a given rhythm. Beginning music students typically have their first encounter with enrhythmic notation when they…

Research was conducted at Bucks County Community College, Newton, Pennsylvania, during the 1969-70 academic year to determine the effects of special reading and study skills instruction combined with counseling on the success rate of "high-risk" students. A course, which involved 2 hours of instruction per week plus 1 additional hour of…

Although readingskills are critical for the success of individuals with intellectual disabilities, literacy has received little attention in fragile X syndrome (FXS). This study examined the literacy profile of FXS. Boys with FXS (n = 51; mean age 10.2 years) and mental age-matched boys with typical development (n = 35) participated in…

This book of readings on innovation was commissioned by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) and looks at the relationship between skills, innovation and industry. In November 2010, the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) held a forum in Sydney on the relationship between innovation and…

A review of research concerning the nature of text organization skills that contribute to reading comprehension ability reveals two distinct categories of studies: (1) those in which texts have been manipulated so as to facilitate spontaneous syntactic-semantic organization by the reader, and (2) those in which readers have received training or…

Research findings have suggested that reading deficits and problem behaviors are positively related. This synthesis investigated how reading interventions impact behavioral/social skill outcomes by reviewing studies that included (a) a reading intervention without behavioral/social skill components, (b) behavioral/social skill dependent variables, and (c) students in Grades K-12. Fifteen articles were evaluated by the type of reading intervention, associations between positive reading effects and behavioral/social skill outcomes, and The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) determinants of study ratings. Findings suggested that reading interventions tended to have positive reading outcomes, while behavioral/social skill outcomes were small or negative. Research did not suggest an association between improved reading and behavioral performance, regardless of the WWC study determinants rating. Implications include reading instruction may not be sufficient to improve behavioral and social skill outcomes. Additional research is warranted to investigate the long-term impact of reading on behavioral and social skill outcomes. PMID:25548392

The primary task of all teachers at all grade levels in all disciplines should be to identify the poor reader and find assistance for that student. "Sink or swim" thinking, which permits nonreaders to advance through the school grade hierarchy and into society, must be phased out of the educational consciousness of the nation. Recent research has…

To measure the effectiveness of the Basic Skills Education Program (BSEP) reading curriculum--eight readingskill modules employing military job-specific reading materials and used by the U.S. Army in Europe (USAREUR)--and to provide information for improving it, a study examined 183 soldiers from 38 European posts who were enrolled in the BSEP…

Children's skill at recoding graphemes to phonemes is widely understood as the driver of their progress in acquiring reading vocabulary. This recoding skill is usually assessed by children's reading of pseudowords (e.g., "yeep") that represent "new words." This study re-examined the extent to which pseudoword reading is, itself, influenced by…

A summary of presentations on the teaching of readingskills in English to speakers of other languages. Topics included the focus on different kinds of skills, use of discourse analysis, and reading as realization of an underlying communicative process. (AMH)

This short-term longitudinal study investigated the relationships between students' reading self-concept, goals for reading, and reading fluency skill over the course of the second grade year. Second grade children (N=185) were administered the Test of Word Reading Efficiency, the second grade Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, and an adapted version of Motivation to Read Profile at the beginning, middle, and end of the school year. Results showed that students' goals for reading were related to reading self-concept, but unrelated to reading fluency. In addition, reading self-concept was significantly related to reading fluency at each time point. Latent-variable path analysis was used to test four potential relationships between students' reading self-concept and reading fluency skill: (a) an independence model; (b) a skill development model; (c) a self-enhancement model; and (d) a reciprocal effects model. Support for a reciprocal model was found between students' reading fluency skill and reading self-concept over the second grade year. This finding also indicated that students' reading self-concept begins to influence their reading achievement earlier than previous research had indicated. Implications for educational practice and future research will also be discussed. PMID:20300541

This study examined the effects of children's readingskills and interest in reading-related tasks on teacher perceptions of children's literacy skills (reading and spelling) and the respective individualized support for children during the first two years of formal schooling. The participants were 334 children and their classroom teachers.…

The main purpose of this study is to define the effect of the juvenile fiction on secondary school students' readingskills. In the study; 6th grade students', reading juvenile fiction, attitudes to reading, reading speed, comprehension ability of what's read are examined. The group of students reading juvenile fiction is compared…

In a longitudinal intervention study, the effects of three intervention strategies on the readingskills of children with reading disabilities in Grade 2 were analyzed. The interventions consisted of computerized training programs: One bottom-up intervention aimed at improving word decoding skills and phonological abilities, the second intervention focused on top-down processing on the word and sentence levels, and the third was a combination of these two training programs (n = 25 in each group). In addition, there were two comparison groups, 25 children with reading disabilities who received ordinary special instruction and 30 age-matched typical readers. All reading disabled participants completed 25 training sessions with special education teachers. All groups improved their readingskills. The group who received combined training showed higher improvements than the ordinary special instruction group and the typical readers. Different cognitive variables were related to treatment gains for different groups. Thus, a treatment combining bottom-up and top-down aspects of reading was the most effective in general, but individual differences among children need to be considered. PMID:21383105

The authors review five major findings in reading comprehension and their implications for educational practice. First, research suggests that comprehension skills are separable from decoding processes and important at early ages, suggesting that comprehension skills should be targeted early, even before the child learns to read. Second, there is…

Many children fail to acquire basic readingskills. The current evidence base for supplementary reading instruction indicates that explicit, systematic and intensive instruction in the early years for children considered to be "at-risk" of reading difficulties can have significant and preventative effects on readingskills. However,…

This study extends the literature on the component skills involved in oral reading fluency. Dominance analysis was applied to assess the relative importance of seven reading-related component skills in the prediction of the oral reading fluency of 272 adult literacy learners. The best predictors of oral reading fluency when text difficulty was…

This study aimed at identifying important skills for reading comprehension in Chinese dyslexic children and their typically developing counterparts matched on age (CA controls) or reading level (RL controls). The children were assessed on Chinese reading comprehension, cognitive, and reading-related skills. Results showed that the dyslexic…

Does alphabetic-phonetic writing start with the proper name and how does the name affect reading and writing skills? Sixty 4- to 5 1/2-year-old children from middle SES families with Dutch as their first language wrote their proper name and named letters. For each child we created unique sets of words with and without the child's first letter of…

Are children's understanding of mental states (understanding of mind) related to their notating skills, that is, their ability to produce and read written marks to convey information about objects and number? Fifty-three preschoolers and kindergarteners were presented with a dictation task where they produced some written marks and were later…

This paper has three goals. First, it describes the broader research on summer reading loss. Second, it discusses how research and development efforts informed the key components of Project READS (Reading Enhances Achievement During Summer), a scaffolded voluntary summer reading intervention for children in grades 3 to 5. The second part of the…

A study was conducted to determine the effects of the "Cherry Hill Study Skills Program" on eighth grade students' reading comprehension and study skills. The "Cherry Hill Study Skills Program" is a process oriented course dealing with the sequential development of nine specific skills deemed essential to the retrieval and retention of information…

This study is a follow-up on a previous study of the effects of 2 beginning reading programs implemented in 1st grade. In the previous study, 40 1st-grade students who were matched based on their Concepts About Print Test (Clay, 1979) and Phonological Segmentation Fluency from the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS; Good &…

This article describes the word readingskills in English and Spanish for a sample of 244 Spanish-speaking, English-learning (hence, bilingual) students in first grade and presents a predictive model for English word readingskills. The children in the study were assessed at the end of kindergarten and first grade, respectively. Data were gathered with 3 subtests of the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery and a researcher-developed phonological awareness task. Results showed that, on average, children's English word readingskills were similar to monolingual norms whereas their Spanish word readingskills averaged 1 SD below the mean. English vocabulary, English phonological awareness, and Spanish word readingskills in kindergarten were found to be significant predictors of English word readingskills in first grade. Educational implications for screening language and readingskills and promising areas for targeted instruction for this population are discussed. PMID:20396623

Previous research on the reading abilities of Deaf individuals from various cultural groups suggests that Black Deaf and Hispanic Deaf individuals lag behind their White Deaf peers. The present study compared the readingskills of Black Deaf and White Deaf individuals, investigating the influence of American Sign Language (ASL), culture, family characteristics, reading experience, and education. (The descriptor Black is used throughout the present article, as Black Deaf individuals prefer this term to African American. For purposes of parallel construction, the term White is used instead of European American.) It was found that Black Deaf study participants scored lower on measures of both reading and ASL. These findings provide implications for possible interventions at the primary, secondary, and college levels of education. PMID:21305979

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of three computerized interventions on the readingskills of children with reading disabilities in Grade 2. This longitudinal intervention study included five test sessions over 1 year. Two test points occur before the intervention, and three afterwards. The last follow-up was conducted 1 year after the first measurement. One hundred thirty children in Grade 2 participated in the study. Three groups of children with reading difficulties received computerized training programmes: one aimed at improving word decoding skills and phonological abilities, the second focused on word and sentence levels and the third was a combination of these two training programmes. A fourth group received ordinary special instruction. In addition, there was one comparison group with age-matched typical readers. All groups improved their readingskills. The group that received combined training showed greater improvement than the one with ordinary special instruction and the group of typical readers at two follow-ups. The longitudinal results indicate additional positive results for the group that received the combined training, the majority of students from that group being no longer judged to be needing special education 1 year after the intervention. PMID:23338977

The present study investigates the effects of syllable awareness on the word-reading process of students reading in a highly transparent orthography (Turkish). The participants were 90 second graders belonging to one of two distinct levels of syllable-awareness skills (50 with poor syllable-awareness skills and 40 with proficient…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate the impact of the READ 180 reading intervention program upon the affective and cognitive readingskills of 21 struggling ninth grade at-risk students at a Title I high school in Southern California. There was minimal qualitative analysis of the READ 180 program at the secondary level…

A source localization analysis was carried out to provide brain functional and structural assessments of individuals with poor readingskills. Standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography was used to locate sources of P2 and P3 event-related potential components in normal readers and in poor reader children performing a cued continuous performance task. Cue-elicited P2 sources in the right superior parietal gyrus were smaller in 37 poor readers than in 40 normal readers. Poor readers showed a higher P3 activation in response to a false target in frontal and frontorbital regions than normal readers. These results suggest that reading disabilities may be attributed to failures in attentional focalization for incoming stimuli. PMID:19996811

This report contains three papers discussing skill hierarchy approaches to reading instruction. Jana Mason presents an historical and theoretical review of the notion of a readingskills hierarchy, relates it to three major types of reading programs currently in use, and argues that it is instructionally advantageous to construct a decoding…

This newsletter focuses on the importance of reading and writing skills in all educational and career pathways. It includes a variety of strategies for integrating reading and writing skills across the curriculum--in academic, career/technical and fine arts courses--in ways that improve student achievement in reading and writing and in the content…

The purpose of the current study was to explore the relationship between prosody, which is the expressive quality of reading out loud, and reading comprehension in adults with low literacy skills compared to skilled readers. All participants read a passage orally, and we extracted prosodic measures from the recordings. We examined pitch changes…

This study examined the reading interest and emergent literacy skills of 31 children with Down syndrome (DS) ages 7 to 13. Parents completed questionnaires on their children's interest in reading, home literacy environments, and parental beliefs about reading. Children were then assessed on their cognitive and emergent literacy skills.…

This procedures manual reports on the Young Adult Reading Project, which provides a combination of job preparation, literacy skills, and self-esteem to improve reading, math, and job readiness skills for Lexington, Kentucky residents aged 16-21 who read below the eighth-grade level. Tutors are trained to design lessons based on students' goals.…

Although previous research has shown cognitive skills to be important predictors of reading ability in children, the respective roles for genetic and environmental influences on these relations is an open question. The present study explored the genetic and environmental etiologies underlying the relations between selected executive functions and cognitive abilities (working memory, inhibition, processing speed, and naming speed) with 3 components of reading ability (word reading, reading comprehension, and listening comprehension). Twin pairs drawn from the Colorado Front Range (n = 676; 224 monozygotic pairs; 452 dizygotic pairs) between the ages of 8 and 16 (M = 11.11) were assessed on multiple measures of each cognitive and reading-related skill. Each cognitive and reading-related skill was modeled as a latent variable, and behavioral genetic analyses estimated the portions of phenotypic variance on each latent variable due to genetic, shared environmental, and nonshared environmental influences. The covariance between the cognitive skills and reading-related skills was driven primarily by genetic influences. The cognitive skills also shared large amounts of genetic variance, as did the reading-related skills. The common cognitive genetic variance was highly correlated with the common reading genetic variance, suggesting that genetic influences involved in general cognitive processing are also important for reading ability. Skill-specific genetic variance in working memory and processing speed also predicted components of reading ability. Taken together, the present study supports a genetic association between children's cognitive ability and reading ability. (PsycINFO Database Record PMID:26974208

This paper presents a behavioral model for conceptualizing advancedreading comprehension as a "higher order" behavior class. Also discussed are strategies and tactics utilized by an artificially intelligent adaptive tutoring and testing software system designed to shape such comprehension skills while also teaching subject-specific "content" to…

Phonological awareness is the ability to attend to and recognize the sound structure of a language. This skill is known to be important for learning to spell and read and a lack of phonological awareness skills is linked with reading difficulties. Previous research has shown phonological awareness training improves phonological awareness skills,…

Although there is a growing body of literature on the development of readingskills of Spanish-speaking language minority children, little research has focused on the development of writing skills in this population. This study evaluated whether children's Spanish early readingskills (i.e., print knowledge, phonological awareness, oral language)…

A study to determine the role of oral language and readingskills in the transfer from two years of reading in Spanish to reading in English had as subjects 191 fourth grade students in a bilingual education program. Students were tested and classified as efficient and non-efficient readers. It was found that: (1) there is a relationship between…

A formative design experiment methodology was employed to investigate the acquisition of early readingskills for high school English language learners (ELLs) beginning to read English. A fundamental challenge facing high school ELLs entering schools in the United States for the first time is learning how to read. While there is considerable…

This practicum was designed to use directed reading thinking activity strategies to teach reading comprehension skills to middle grades language arts students who frequently failed to make passing scores in reading comprehension exercises. The program included three specific strategies. The first strategy was to teach the students higher-order…

We assessed the reading and reading-related skills (phonemic awareness and phonological short-term memory) of deaf children fitted with cochlear implants (CI), either exposed to cued speech early (before 2 years old) (CS+) or never (CS-). Their performance was compared to that of 2 hearing control groups, 1 matched for reading level (RL), and 1…

The current study employed a meta-analytic approach to investigate the relative importance of component readingskills to reading comprehension in struggling adult readers. A total of 10 component skills were consistently identified across 16 independent studies and 2,707 participants. Random effects models generated 76 predictor-reading comprehension effect sizes among the 10 constructs. The results indicated that six of the component skills exhibited strong relationships with reading comprehension (average rs ≥ .50): morphological awareness, language comprehension, fluency, oral vocabulary knowledge, real word decoding, and working memory. Three of the component skills yielded moderate relationships with reading comprehension (average rs ≥ .30 and < .50): pseudoword decoding, orthographic knowledge, and phonological awareness. Rapid automatized naming (RAN) was the only component skill that was weakly related to reading comprehension (r = .15). Morphological awareness was a significantly stronger correlate of reading comprehension than phonological awareness and RAN. This study provides the first attempt at a systematic synthesis of the recent research investigating the readingskills of adults with low literacy skills, a historically understudied population. Directions for future research, the relation of our results to the children's literature, and the implications for researchers and adult basic education programs are discussed. PMID:25350926

This study examined the effectiveness of nonprofessional tutors in a phonologically based reading treatment similar to those in which successful reading outcomes have been demonstrated. Participants were 23 first graders at risk for learning disability who received intensive one-to-one tutoring from noncertified tutors for 30 minutes, 4 days a week, for one school year. Tutoring included instruction in phonological skills, letter-sound correspondence, explicit decoding, rime analysis, writing, spelling, and reading phonetically controlled text. At year end, tutored students significantly outperformed untutored control students on measures of reading, spelling, and decoding. Effect sizes ranged from .42 to 1.24. Treatment effects diminished at follow-up at the end of second grade, although tutored students continued to significantly outperform untutored students in decoding and spelling. Findings suggest that phonologically based reading instruction for first graders at risk for learning disability can be delivered by nonteacher tutors. Our discussion addresses the character of reading outcomes associated with tutoring, individual differences in response to treatment, and the infrastructure required for nonprofessional tutoring programs. PMID:15495399

Many low-skill readers have problems with visual word recognition. In particular, low-skill readers show a substantial nonword reading deficit that is attributed to deficits in sub-lexical processing. In this study, I examined whether the nonword deficits of German 14-year-old low-skill readers were associated with inefficient use of multi-letter…

This study investigated how gifted children with dyslexia might be able to mask literacy problems and the role of possible compensatory mechanisms. The sample consisted of 121 Dutch primary school children that were divided over four groups (typically developing [TD] children, children with dyslexia, gifted children, gifted children with dyslexia). The test battery included measures of literacy (reading/spelling) and cognitive abilities related to literacy and language (phonological awareness [PA], rapid automatized naming [RAN], verbal short-term memory [VSTM], working memory [WM], grammar, and vocabulary). It was hypothesized that gifted children with dyslexia would outperform children with dyslexia on literacy tests. In addition, a core-deficit model including dyslexia-related weaknesses and a compensational model involving giftedness-related strengths were tested using Bayesian statistics to explain their reading/spelling performance. Gifted children with dyslexia performed on all literacy tests in between children with dyslexia and TD children. Their cognitive profile showed signs of weaknesses in PA and RAN and strengths in VSTM, WM, and language skills. Findings indicate that phonology is a risk factor for gifted children with dyslexia, but this is moderated by other skills such as WM, grammar, and vocabulary, providing opportunities for compensation of a cognitive deficit and masking of literacy difficulties. PMID:24935885

Despite the efficiency with which language users typically process spoken language, a growing body of research finds substantial individual differences in both the speed and accuracy of spoken language processing potentially attributable to participants' literacy skills. Against this background, the current study took a look at the role of word readingskill in listeners' anticipation of upcoming spoken language input in children at the cusp of learning to read; if readingskills affect predictive language processing, then children at this stage of literacy acquisition should be most susceptible to the effects of readingskills on spoken language processing. We tested 8-year-olds on their prediction of upcoming spoken language input in an eye-tracking task. Although children, like in previous studies to date, were successfully able to anticipate upcoming spoken language input, there was a strong positive correlation between children's word readingskills (but not their pseudo-word reading and meta-phonological awareness or their spoken word recognition skills) and their prediction skills. We suggest that these findings are most compatible with the notion that the process of learning orthographic representations during reading acquisition sharpens pre-existing lexical representations, which in turn also supports anticipation of upcoming spoken words. PMID:24955519

This article presents a synergistic reading comprehension program to help minority adults from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds improve their readingskills in preparation for academics, standardized testing, and medical school. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

During a health supervision visit, the father of a 7.5-year-old African American second-grader asked about his son's progress in reading. He was concerned when, at a recent teacher-parent conference to review Darren's progress, the teacher remarked that Darren was not keeping up with readingskills compared with others in his class. She said that he had difficulty sounding out some words correctly. In addition, he could not recall words he had read the day before. The teacher commented that Darren was a gregarious, friendly child with better-than-average verbal communication skills. His achievement at math was age-appropriate; spelling, however, was difficult for Darren, with many deleted letters and reversals of written letters. A focused history did not reveal any risk factors for a learning problem in the prenatal or perinatal periods. Early motor, language, and social milestones were achieved on time. Darren had not experienced any head injury, loss of consciousness, or chronic medical illness. He had several friends, and his father denied any behavioral problems at home or at school. His teacher completed a DSM-IV-specific behavioral survey for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It did not show any evidence of ADHD. Darren's father completed 1 year of college and is currently the manager of a neighborhood convenience store. His mother had a high school education; she recalled that she found it difficult to complete assignments that required reading or writing. She is employed as a waitress. Darren does not have any siblings. The pediatrician performed a complete physical examination, the results of which were normal, including visual acuity, audiometry, and a neurological examination. It was noted that Darren seemed to pause several times in response to questions or commands. On two occasions, during finger-nose testing and a request to assess tandem gait, directions required repetition. Overall, he was pleasant and seemed to enjoy the visit. His

Research Findings: This study explored the association between the home literacy environment (HLE), conceptualized as comprising parents' reading beliefs and home literacy practices, and preschoolers' readingskills and reading interest. It also identified factors in the HLE that predict emerging reading competence and motivation to…

This course is designed to enhance reading and writing skills. It is tied to an interactive computer program (The New Reading Disc) that provides opportunities for reading, hearing sentences read, and writing letters and memos. Special emphasis is placed on workers' understanding of the importance of their jobs and how they fit into the total…

Prominent models of word reading concur that the development of efficient word reading depends on the establishment of lexical orthographic representations in memory. In turn, word readingskills are conceptualised as supporting the development of these orthographic representations. As such, models of word reading development make clear…

The purpose of the current study was to explore the relationship between prosody, which is the expressive quality of reading out loud, and reading comprehension in adults with low literacy skills compared to skilled readers. All participants read a passage orally, and we extracted prosodic measures from the recordings. We examined pitch changes and how long readers paused at various points while reading. Finally, for the adults with low literacy skills, we collected information on decoding, word recognition, and reading comprehension. We found several interesting results. First, adults with low literacy skills paused longer than skilled readers and paused at a substantially greater number of punctuation marks. Second, while adults with low literacy skills do mark the end of declarative sentences with a pitch declination similar to skilled readers, their readings of questions lack a change in pitch. Third, decoding and word recognition skills were related to pauses while reading; readers with lower skills made longer and more frequent and inappropriate pauses. Finally, pausing measures explained a significant amount of variance in reading comprehension among the adults with low literacy skills. PMID:23687406

Although many English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teachers know that reading and writing have an effect on each other, research on reading and writing have developed independently and have not greatly influenced each other or reading/writing pedagogy. Teachers must determine the best way to encourage more effective learning in which the reciprocal…

Readingskills in hearing children are closely related to their phonological processing skills, often measured using a nonword repetition task in which a child relies on abstract phonological representations in order to decompose, encode, rehearse in working memory and reproduce novel phonological patterns. In the present study of children who are deaf and have cochlear implants, we found that nonword repetition performance was significantly related to nonword reading, single word reading and sentence comprehension. Communication mode and nonverbal IQ were also found to be correlated with nonword repetition and readingskills. A measure of the children’s lexical diversity, derived from an oral language sample, was found to be a mediating factor in the relationship between nonword repetition and readingskills. Taken together, the present findings suggest that the construction of robust phonological representations and phonological processing skills may be important contributors to the development of reading in children who are deaf and use cochlear implants. PMID:21666763

Background Nurses require certain skills for progression in their field. Identifying these skills can provide the context for nursing career advancement. Objectives This study aimed to identify the skills needed for nurses’ career advancement. Materials and Methods A qualitative approach using content analysis was adopted to study a purposive sample of eighteen nurses working in teaching hospitals affiliated with the Qazvin, Shahid Beheshti, and Iran Universities of Medical Sciences. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews, and analyzed using conventional content analysis. Results The three themes extracted from the data included interpersonal capabilities, competency for career success, and personal capacities. The results showed that acquiring a variety of skills is essential for career advancement. Conclusions The findings showed that personal, interpersonal, and functional skills can facilitate nurses’ career advancement. The effects of these skills on career advancement depend on a variety of conditions that require further studies. PMID:27556054

Certain aspects of the reading process have suggested that second language readingskills are determined to some extent by native language readingskills. Some of this research is reviewed here and an experiment is described in which the readingskills in Spanish and English of three groups of Spanish speakers learning English are compared.…

Individuals' readingskills are critical for their educational development, but variation in readingskills is known to be large. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the role of spontaneous brain activity at rest in individual differences in readingskills in a large sample of participants (N=263). Specifically, we correlated individuals' word-readingskill with their fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (fALFF) of the whole brain at rest and found that the fALFFs of both the bilateral precentral gyrus (PCG) and superior temporal plane (STP) were positively associated with readingskills. The fALFF-reading association observed in these two regions remained after controlling for general cognitive abilities and in-scanner head motion. A cross-validation confirmed that the individual differences in word-readingskills were reliably correlated with the fALFF values of the bilateral PCG and STP. A follow-up task-based fMRI experiment revealed that the reading-related regions overlapped with regions showing a higher response to sentences than to pseudo-sentences (strings of pseudo-words), suggesting the resting-state brain activity partly captures the characteristics of task-based brain activity. In short, our study provides one of the first pieces of evidence that links spontaneous brain activity to reading behavior and offers an easy-to-access neural marker for evaluating readingskill. PMID:25896801

Used as an integral part of the migrant student skills system operated by the Migrant Student Record Transfer System (MSRTS), the readingskills list contains a catalog of readingskills typical of the K-12 grade range. This catalog includes a sample of the MSRTS transmittal record which permits teachers to report the readingskills being worked…

This work assesses one specific aspect of the relationship between auditory rhythm cognition and language skill: regularity perception. In a group of 26 adult participants, native speakers of 11 different native languages, we demonstrate a strong and significant correlation between the ability to detect a “roughly” regular beat and rapid automatized naming (RAN) as a measure of language skill (Spearman's rho, −0.47, p < 0.01). There was no such robust relationship for the “mirror image” task of irregularity detection, i.e., the ability to detect ongoing small deviations from a regular beat. The correlation between RAN and regularity detection remained significant after partialling out performance on the irregularity detection task (rho, −0.41, p, 0.022), non-verbal IQ (rho, −0.37, p < 0.05), or musical expertise (rho, −0.31, p < 0.05). Whilst being consistent with the “shared resources model” in terms of rhythm as a common basis of language and music, evolutionarily as well as in individual development, the results also document how two related rhythm processing abilities relate differently to language skill. Specifically, the results support a universal relationship between rhythmic regularity detection and readingskill that is robust to accounting for differences in fluid intelligence and musical expertise, and transcends language-specific differences in speech rhythm.

A substantial body of evidence points to a cue-based direct-access retrieval mechanism as a crucial component of skilled adult reading. We report two experiments aimed at examining whether poor readers are able to make use of the same retrieval mechanism. This is significant in light of findings that poor readers have difficulty retrieving linguistic information (e.g., Perfetti, 1985). Our experiments are based on a previous demonstration of direct-access retrieval in language processing, presented in McElree et al. (2003). Experiment 1 replicates the original result using an auditory implementation of the Speed-Accuracy Tradeoff (SAT) method. This finding represents a significant methodological advance, as it opens up the possibility of exploring retrieval speeds in non-reading populations. Experiment 2 provides evidence that poor readers do use a direct-access retrieval mechanism during listening comprehension, despite overall poorer accuracy and slower retrieval speeds relative to skilled readers. The findings are discussed with respect to hypotheses about the source of poor reading comprehension. PMID:26528212

The purpose of the present study was to determine the efficacy of using music as a remedial strategy to enhance the readingskills of second-grade students and students who have been identified as having a specific learning disability (SLD) in reading. First, an intensive short-term music curriculum was designed to target reading comprehension and vocabulary skills at the second grade level. The curriculum was then implemented in classrooms at two public schools in the Southeast. Readingskills were evaluated pre and post curriculum intervention via the vocabulary and reading comprehension subtests of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test for second grade. Analysis of pre/posttest data revealed that students with a specific disability in reading improved significantly from pre to post on all three subtests: word decoding (p = .04), word knowledge (p = .01), reading comprehension (p = .01), and test total (p = .01). Paired t-tests revealed that for 2nd grade students, both treatment and control classes improved significantly from pre to post on the subtests word decoding, word knowledge, and test total. While both classes made gains from pre to post on the subtest, reading comprehension, neither improved significantly. Analysis of Covariance revealed that the treatment class made greater gains pre to post than the control class on all 3 subtests (Including reading comprehension), and significantly greater gains on the subtest, word knowledge (p = .01). PMID:17419662

This study compares the reading performance of adolescent and adult neoliterates in Burkina Faso who participated in one of three experimental educational programs with the reading performance of neoliterates who took part in a standard (control) educational program. The experimental programs involved training in phonological awareness, training in the rapid identification of reading material and an approach that involved both phonological-awareness and rapid-reading training. Results show that students enrolled in the experimental programs made greater gains in readingskills than did students enrolled in the standard educational programs.

A series of studies are reviewed that identify markers in the "event-related potentials" related to differences in the development of language and readingskills. In addition, home environment and other variables that influence the intellectual environment are linked with predictions of language and readingskill development. (Contains…

This article describes the word readingskills in English and Spanish for a sample of 244 Spanish-speaking, English-learning (hence, bilingual) students in first grade and presents a predictive model for English word readingskills. The children in the study were assessed at the end of kindergarten and first grade, respectively. Data were gathered…

The study aims at identifying the difficulties affecting the student in the area of reading comprehension skill in English language curricula, measuring the differences in English language teachers' attitudes towards difficulties that seventh grade students face in reading comprehension skill for English language according to personal variables.…

Designed to give adult and teenage students additional practice in listening to, speaking, reading, and writing the patterns of English presented in "Laubach Way to Reading: Skill Book 1," this workbook gives practice in 14 skill areas, all of which are important in mastering English. The workbook includes exercises on singular and plural forms of…

One goal of this longitudinal study was to examine whether the predictors of readingskills in Grade 3 would differ between English as a second language (ESL) students and native English-speaking (L1) students. Phonological processing, syntactic awareness, memory, spelling, word reading, and lexical access skills were assessed in kindergarten and…

This article reports on a study that examines the effects of metacognitive reading strategy instruction on reading performance of adult ESL learners with limited English and literacy skills. The strategy instruction was implemented over a period of four months with a group of 18 learners who were enrolled in a high beginning literacy course in an…

In recent years, researchers, educators, and policy makers have called for a new generation of reading comprehension assessments (e.g., Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2008). Advocates of this movement argue for a deeper type of reading assessment, one that captures students' ability to not only understand single texts in isolation but…

Are there multiple ways to be a skilled reader? To address this longstanding, unresolved question, we hypothesized that individual variability in using semantic information in reading aloud would be associated with neuroanatomical variation in pathways linking semantics and phonology. Left-hemisphere regions of interest for diffusion tensor imaging analysis were defined based on fMRI results, including two regions linked with semantic processing – angular gyrus (AG) and inferior temporal sulcus (ITS) – and two linked with phonological processing – posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) and posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG). Effects of imageability (a semantic measure) on response times varied widely among individuals and covaried with the volume of pathways through the ITS and pMTG, and through AG and pSTG, partially overlapping the inferior longitudinal fasciculus and the posterior branch of the arcuate fasciculus. These results suggest strategy differences among skilled readers associated with structural variation in the neural reading network. PMID:24735993

The purpose of this paper is to construct a comprehensive review of the research literature in the reading of western staff notation. Studies in music perception, music cognition, music education and music neurology are cited. The aim is to establish current knowledge in music-reading acquisition and what is needed for further progress in this…

This study is a large-scale exploration of the influence that individual readingskills exert on eye-movement behavior in sentence reading. Seventy-one non-college-bound 16-24 year-old speakers of English completed a battery of 18 verbal and cognitive skill assessments, and read a series of sentences as their eye-movements were monitored.…

According to research in educational psychology, advance organizers lead to better learning and recall of information. In this research, the authors explored advance organizers from a business perspective, where larger documents are read under time pressure. Graphic and verbal advance organizers were manipulated into six versions of an advisory…

The Pepper Visual Skills for Reading Test was assessed as a measure of reading ability with meaningful text in 38 adults with macular degeneration; scores were compared with assessment made using the Gray Oral Reading Test, a previously standardized assessment. The test's validity was confirmed. (Author/JDD)

Reading proficiency is the goal of many local and national reading initiatives. A key component of these initiatives is accurate and reliable reading assessment. In this high-stakes testing arena, the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) has emerged as a preferred measure for identification of students at risk for reading…

Despite the importance of literacy skill training for incarcerated youth, a very limited number of empirically based research studies have examined reading instruction in correctional facilities. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the Fast ForWord computer-assisted reading program improved the reading and spelling abilities of…

The utility of Chinese tone processing skill in detecting children with English reading difficulties was examined through differences in a Chinese tone experimental task between a group of native English-speaking children with reading disabilities (RD) and a comparison group of children with normal reading development (NRD). General auditory…

A pragmatic randomised controlled trial was used to investigate the effects of two forms of shared reading on children's language and literacy skills. Parents of 80 children in the preparatory year of school participated in an eight-week home reading intervention. Families were assigned to one of three groups: dialogic reading (DR), dialogic…

Word readingskills and reading-related language and cognitive correlates were examined in Swedish 10-15-year-olds with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The full group with ASD did not differ statistically from an age-matched comparison group in word reading, but a poor-readers subgroup was identified who displayed severe difficulties. Normal…

Twenty-two children (ages 6-10) with Down syndrome were tested for receptive language, cognitive function, oral reading, and phonological awareness. Re-assessment 9 months later found better oral reading was associated with superior phoneme segmentation skills. Also, early segmentation ability appeared to predict later nonword reading, but not the…

This report describes a program for improving the readingskills of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students. The targeted population consists of 19 ESL students, ranging in age from 7-10 years, in a western suburb of a large metropolitan city in Illinois. The problem of poor reading ability was documented through low reading scores on the STAR…

This study examined the effects of an early reading intervention on preschool-age dual language learners' (DLL) early literacy skills. Instruction in phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge was embedded in interactive reading strategies, also known as dialogic reading. A single subject multiple baseline across subjects design was applied to…

This study investigated relationships among cortical thickness in the left-hemisphere reading network, and readingskill and experience in adult nonimpaired readers. Given the relationship between print exposure and reading, it is possible that print exposure is related to cortical structure. The pattern of correlations indicated that individuals…

We analysed word reading and spelling in French adults with low levels of literacy (A-IL). As well as examining phonological and lexical processes, we explored the relationship between literacy and oral language skills. Fifty-two adult literacy students were compared with reading level-matched pupils in Years 1-3 of primary school on reading tasks…

Successfully solving mathematical word problems requires both mental representation skills and reading comprehension skills. In Realistic Math Education (RME), however, students primarily learn to apply the first of these skills (i.e., representational skills) in the context of word problem solving. Given this, it seems legitimate to assume that students from a RME curriculum experience difficulties when asked to solve semantically complex word problems. We investigated this assumption under 80 sixth grade students who were classified as successful and less successful word problem solvers based on a standardized mathematics test. To this end, students completed word problems that ask for both mental representation skills and reading comprehension skills. The results showed that even successful word problem solvers had a low performance on semantically complex word problems, despite adequate performance on semantically less complex word problems. Based on this study, we concluded that reading comprehension skills should be given a (more) prominent role during word problem solving instruction in RME. PMID:26925012

Successfully solving mathematical word problems requires both mental representation skills and reading comprehension skills. In Realistic Math Education (RME), however, students primarily learn to apply the first of these skills (i.e., representational skills) in the context of word problem solving. Given this, it seems legitimate to assume that students from a RME curriculum experience difficulties when asked to solve semantically complex word problems. We investigated this assumption under 80 sixth grade students who were classified as successful and less successful word problem solvers based on a standardized mathematics test. To this end, students completed word problems that ask for both mental representation skills and reading comprehension skills. The results showed that even successful word problem solvers had a low performance on semantically complex word problems, despite adequate performance on semantically less complex word problems. Based on this study, we concluded that reading comprehension skills should be given a (more) prominent role during word problem solving instruction in RME. PMID:26925012

To determine if a relationship existed between physical skills and achievement in reading, mathematics, and listening comprehension of fifth-grade students, a study evaluated 334 fifth-graders in Starkville, Mississippi, on 20 physical fitness, motor fitness, and sports skills, as well as the Stanford Achievement Tests. The physical skills test…

In recent decades, the science of reading acquisition, processes, and individual differences in general and special populations has been continuously advancing through interdisciplinary research in cognitive, psycholinguistic, developmental, genetic, neuroscience, cross-language studies, and experimental comparison studies of effective…

Background The relationships between auditory processing and reading-related skills remain poorly understood despite intensive research. Here we focus on the potential role of musical experience as a confounding factor. Specifically we ask whether the pattern of correlations between auditory and reading related skills differ between children with different amounts of musical experience. Methodology/Principal Findings Third grade children with various degrees of musical experience were tested on a battery of auditory processing and reading related tasks. Very poor auditory thresholds and poor memory skills were abundant only among children with no musical education. In this population, indices of auditory processing (frequency and interval discrimination thresholds) were significantly correlated with and accounted for up to 13% of the variance in reading related skills. Among children with more than one year of musical training, auditory processing indices were better, yet reading related skills were not correlated with them. A potential interpretation for the reduction in the correlations might be that auditory and reading-related skills improve at different rates as a function of musical training. Conclusions/Significance Participants’ previous musical training, which is typically ignored in studies assessing the relations between auditory and reading related skills, should be considered. Very poor auditory and memory skills are rare among children with even a short period of musical training, suggesting musical training could have an impact on both. The lack of correlation in the musically trained population suggests that a short period of musical training does not enhance reading related skills of individuals with within-normal auditory processing skills. Further studies are required to determine whether the associations between musical training, auditory processing and memory are indeed causal or whether children with poor auditory and memory skills are less

Some important approaches to reading instruction and assessment, as well as influential theories of reading, are based on the assumption that reading fluency is necessary for good comprehension. However, this may not always be the case. This article takes another look at the relationship between word reading fluency and comprehension. It also…

The aim of this study was to examine unique and common causes of problems in reading and arithmetic fluency. 13- to 14-year-old students were placed into one of five groups: reading disabled (RD, n = 16), arithmetic disabled (AD, n = 34), reading and arithmetic disabled (RAD, n = 17), reading, arithmetic, and listening comprehension disabled…

Effects of orthographic transparency were examined by comparing children learning to read in Albanian, Welsh, and English. Twenty Year 1 Albanian children were given a reading test consisting of a 100-word stratified sample of decreasing written frequency. They were able to read accurately 80% of the words; reading latency was a direct effect of…

There are a high number of students who struggle with reading comprehension beyond the primary grades and understanding the skills involved in successful reading comprehension continues to be a topic of investigation. The Simple View of Reading (SVR) is a viable theory of reading that suggests reading comprehension results from developing skills…

In hearing children, readingskills have been found to be closely related to phonological awareness. We used several standardized tests to investigate the reading and phonological awareness skills of 27 deaf school-age children who were experienced cochlear implant users. Approximately two-thirds of the children performed at or above the level of their hearing peers on the phonological awareness and reading tasks. Reading scores were found to be strongly correlated with measures of phonological awareness. These correlations remained the same when we statistically controlled for potentially confounding demographic variables such as age at testing and speech perception skills. However, these correlations decreased even after we statistically controlled for vocabulary size. This finding suggests that lexicon size is a mediating factor in the relationship between the children’s phonological awareness and readingskills, a finding that has also been reported for typically developing hearing children. PMID:22057983

The essential first step for a beginning reader is to learn to match printed forms to phonological representations. For a new word, this is an effortful process where each grapheme must be translated individually (serial decoding). The role of phonological awareness in developing a decoding strategy is well known. We examined whether beginning readers recruit different skills depending on the nature of the words being read (familiar words vs. nonwords). Print knowledge, phoneme and rhyme awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological short-term memory (STM), nonverbal reasoning, vocabulary, auditory skills, and visual attention were measured in 392 prereaders 4 and 5 years of age. Word and nonword reading were measured 9 months later. We used structural equation modeling to examine the skills-reading relationship and modeled correlations between our two reading outcomes and among all prereading skills. We found that a broad range of skills were associated with reading outcomes: early print knowledge, phonological STM, phoneme awareness and RAN. Whereas all of these skills were directly predictive of nonword reading, early print knowledge was the only direct predictor of word reading. Our findings suggest that beginning readers draw most heavily on their existing print knowledge to read familiar words. PMID:23892335

Current Arabic reading instruction places strong emphasis on orthographic skills and little emphasis on phonological and morphological skills. Yet, the role of each skill in reading development in Arabic is not well understood. The purpose of this literature review was to examine the degree to which children learning to read in Arabic use…

This study aimed at determining whether an intervention game developed for strengthening phonological awareness has a remediating effect on readingskills and central auditory processing in 6-year-old preschool children with difficulties in reading-related skills. After a 3-hour training only, these children made a greater progress in reading-related skills than did their matched controls who did mathematical exercises following comparable training format. Furthermore, the results suggest that this brief intervention might be beneficial in modulating the neural basis of phonetic discrimination as an enhanced speech-elicited mismatch negativity (MMN) was seen in the intervention group, indicating improved cortical discrimination accuracy. Moreover, the amplitude increase of the vowel-elicited MMN significantly correlated with the improvement in some of the reading-skill related test scores. The results, albeit obtained with a relatively small sample, are encouraging, suggesting that reading-related skills can be improved even by a very short intervention and that the training effects are reflected in brain activity. However, studies with larger samples and different subgroups of children are needed to confirm the present results and to determine how children with different dyslexia subtypes benefit from the intervention. PMID:22364735

Young children entering school with poor oral vocabulary skills may be “doubly disadvantaged.” Their poor oral vocabulary skills will likely impede their attempts to become proficient readers while also possibly increasing the frequency of their problem behaviors. Dialogic Reading is a scientifically-validated shared storybook reading intervention that is known to boost at risk children's oral vocabulary skills. As such, use of Dialogic Reading is one potential way to help children avoid both later reading failure and the negative outcomes associated with poor behavior. In this article, we detail both (a) a research-based rationale for using Dialogic Reading and (b) Dialogic Reading's set of procedures and prompts. PMID:25960623

Early reading and spelling development share foundational skills, yet spelling assessment is underutilized in evaluating early reading. This study extended research comparing the degree to which methods for scoring spelling skills at the end of kindergarten were associated with readingskills measured at the same time as well as at the end of first grade. Five strategies for scoring spelling responses were compared: totaling the number of words spelled correctly, totaling the number of correct letter sounds, totaling the number of correct letter sequences, using a rubric for scoring invented spellings, and calculating the Spelling Sensitivity Score (Masterson & Apel, 2010b). Students (N=287) who were identified at kindergarten entry as at risk for reading difficulty and who had received supplemental reading intervention were administered a standardized spelling assessment in the spring of kindergarten, and measures of phonological awareness, decoding, word recognition, and reading fluency were administered concurrently and at the end of first grade. The five spelling scoring metrics were similar in their strong relations with factors summarizing reading subskills (phonological awareness, decoding, and word reading) on a concurrent basis. Furthermore, when predicting first-grade readingskills based on spring-of-kindergarten performance, spelling scores from all five metrics explained unique variance over the autoregressive effects of kindergarten word identification. The practical advantages of using a brief spelling assessment for early reading evaluation and the relative tradeoffs of each scoring metric are discussed. PMID:24495494

The role of suprasegmental information in reading processes is a growing area of interest, and sensitivity to lexical stress has been shown to explain unique variance in reading development. However, less is known about its role in skilledreading. This study aimed to investigate the acoustic features of suprasegmental information using a same/different cross-modal matching task. Sixty-four adult participants completed standardized measures of reading accuracy, reading speed, and comprehension and performed an experimental task. The experimental task required the participants to identify whether non-speech acoustic sequences matched the characteristics of written words. The findings indicated differences in responses depending on where the lexical stress was required for the word. Moreover, evidence was found to support the view that amplitude information is part of the word knowledge retrieval process in skilledreading. The findings are discussed relative to models of reading and the role of lexical stress in lexical access. PMID:23704860

Case Studies to AdvanceSkills and Employability is a project designed to introduce a vocational dimension into academic curriculum. Key employability skills are developed as students work on real-life case situations in such areas as public sculpture, waste management, human organizations, and environmental issues. (SK)

This teaching module concerns acquisition of reading-study (i.e., work-type reading) skills in grades K-6. Such skills include locating information, evaluating material, organizing and summarizing data, returning essentials of what is read, and flexibility (adjusting rate to purpose). Upon completion of this module, participants should be able to…

The importance of readingskills to academic achievement, job acquisition and future success is well documented. Most of the research on reading interventions focuses on children in primary schools but many children start secondary school with very poor readingskills and schools require evidence-based interventions to support these children. The…

This study investigated transfer of reading-related cognitive skills between learning to read Chinese (L1) and English (L2) among Chinese children in Hong Kong. Fifty-three Grade 2 students were tested on word reading, phonological, orthographic and rapid naming skills in Chinese (L1) and English (L2). The major findings were: (a) significant…

Many English as a foreign language (EFL) students fail to be effective readers because they lack knowledge of vocabulary and appropriate reading strategies. We believe that teaching proper reading strategies can help second-language learners overcome their reading problems, especially when the instruction begins in elementary school. Effective…

Executive functions, including inhibition, have been implicated in children's reading ability. This study investigates whether children's performance on an inhibition task is more indicative of reading ability than a measure of another executive function, that is, planning. Fifty-three male participants were administered a reading test and tests…

There are few tests that assess reading comprehension in adults, but these tests are needed for a comprehensive assessment of reading disorders (RD). "The Nelson-Denny Reading Test" (NDRT) has a long-passage reading comprehension component that can be used with adolescents and adults. A problem with the NDRT is that reading comprehension test…

Purpose The relationship between phonological awareness, overall language, vocabulary, and nonlinguistic cognitive skills to decoding and reading comprehension was examined for students at 3 stages of literacy development (i.e., early elementary school, middle school, and high school). Students with histories of speech sound disorders (SSD) with and without language impairment (LI) were compared to students without histories of SSD or LI (typical language; TL). Method In a cross-sectional design, students ages 7;0 (years; months) to 17;9 completed tests that measured reading, language, and nonlinguistic cognitive skills. Results For the TL group, phonological awareness predicted decoding at early elementary school, and overall language predicted reading comprehension at early elementary school and both decoding and reading comprehension at middle school and high school. For the SSD-only group, vocabulary predicted both decoding and reading comprehension at early elementary school, and overall language predicted both decoding and reading comprehension at middle school and decoding at high school. For the SSD and LI group, overall language predicted decoding at all 3 literacy stages and reading comprehension at early elementary school and middle school, and vocabulary predicted reading comprehension at high school. Conclusion Although similar skills contribute to reading across the age span, the relative importance of these skills changes with children’s literacy stages. PMID:23833280

Reading is a critical life skill in the modern world. The neural basis of reading incorporates a distributed network of cortical areas and their white matter connections. The cerebellum has also been implicated in reading and reading disabilities. However, little is known about the contribution of cerebellar white matter pathways to major component skills of reading. We used diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) with tractography to identify the cerebellar peduncles in a group of 9–17 year old children and adolescents born full term (n=19) or preterm (n=26). In this cohort, no significant differences were found between fractional anisotropy (FA) measures of the peduncles in the preterm and full term groups. FA of the cerebellar peduncles correlated significantly with measures of decoding and reading comprehension in the combined sample of full term and preterm subjects. Correlations were negative in the superior and inferior cerebellar peduncles and positive in the middle cerebellar peduncle. Additional analyses revealed that full term and preterm groups demonstrated similar patterns of reading associations within the left SCP, MCP and left ICP. Partial correlation analyses showed that distinct sub-skills of reading were associated with FA in segments of different cerebellar peduncles. Overall, the present findings are the first to document associations of microstructure of the cerebellar peduncles and the component skills of reading. PMID:25504986

This two-year longitudinal study contributes to the debate between the school readiness and emergent literacy approaches, individuating early markers for reading, spelling, and mathematical skills. Two hundred and two Italian children participated in this study (M age = 5.6years, SD = 0.3). In kindergarten, a wide range of children's domain-general and domain-specific skills were assessed through standardized tests. In primary school, children's reading, spelling, and mathematical competences were assessed through standardized tests. Results showed that domain-specific predictors contribute to the explanation of reading, spelling, and mathematical performances more than domain-general predictors do. Each primary school skill is mainly predicted by their respective domain-specific kindergarten skill, although some cross-domain relations exist, for example, phonological awareness contributing to both reading and mathematical performances. PMID:27154371

The physical education department of the Pennsylvania Advancement School of Philadelphia has established a reading and communication skill project that uses the appeal of sports to help students improve their basic skills. (Author)

The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of an Orton-Gillingham-based reading instruction system, the Barton Reading and Spelling System (BRSS; Barton 2000), that was used as a supplemental reading instruction program for increasing the lower-level readingskills of a group of adolescents with persistent reading problems. Nine…

Two experiments investigated the effects of sources of strategy information on children's acquisition and transfer of reading outcomes and strategy use. Children with readingskill deficiencies received comprehension instruction on main ideas. In the first experiment, the final sample comprised 33 students (21 fourth graders, 12 fifth gaders)…

This study examined whether boys and girls in the early school years differed in reading and related skills, and their rates of progress. Gender ratios were calculated to ascertain whether there were more boys than girls who struggle with different facets of reading, and whether the variability of boys' scores resulted in more boys being…

Cloze testing is a widely-used procedure to test learners' reading comprehension in learning a language, but little is known if it can really improve learners' reading comprehension skills. This paper attempts to seek answers to this question by comparing the cloze test scores of two groups of students (Experimental versus Control) undertaking…

The purpose of the present study was to explore the contribution of phonological and general language skills to reading fluency of pointed and unpointed Hebrew scripts. Reading, language and memory tasks were performed by 48 fifth-grade monolingual native Hebrew speakers. Results showed that the most marked predictor for both pointed and unpointed…

A computer-assisted reading program was implemented in the VESL (Vocational English as a Second Language) Center at Hacienda La Puente Adult Schools (California), which provides support services to adult special needs vocational students. The purpose of the program was to improve the technical readingskills of the vocational students. The basic…

Children with profound deafness are at risk for serious reading difficulties. Multiple factors affect their development of readingskills, including use of cochlear implants. Further, multiple factors influence the overall success that children experience with their cochlear implants. These factors include the age at which they receive an implant,…

Purpose: To examine the etiology of the relationship between preschool speech and language, and later readingskills. Method: One thousand six hundred seventy-two children from the Twins Early Development Study (B. R. Oliver & R. Plomin, 2007) were given a comprehensive speech and language assessment at 4 1/2 years. Reading was assessed at 7, 9,…

This paper looks at reading in French immersion and how learning French is seen more as a skill rather than a social practice that could be examined through a more critical lens. Most of the teachers often teach students how to read but rarely will they discuss the role of French in Canadian society and how this is manifested in the texts they…

The present study examined the relationship between reading (i.e., rapidity and accuracy) and writing competences (i.e., fluency, accuracy, and composition skills) of Italian children in the first and second grade. The performance of seventy-five children was longitudinally assessed over a 2-year period. Results demonstrated that reading and…

Using a unique and very rich PISA dataset from Denmark, we show that the immigrant concentration in the school influences reading and math skills for both immigrant children and native children. Overall, children in schools with a high immigrant concentration score lower on reading and math test scores. The negative effects associated with…

Pressure on music educators to accommodate reading initiatives in their schools continues to challenge genuine music-learning experiences. Children are taken out of music classrooms for additional reading time, although mounting research informs us of the value of music as a formidable avenue for developing crucial auditory skills needed for…

A dearth of research has investigated the language preference of bilingual childhood populations and its subsequent relationship to readingskills. The current study evaluated how a sequential bilingual student's choice of language, in a particular environmental context, predicted reading ability in English and Spanish. The participants were…

Within the framework of foreign language teaching and learning, reading strategies, depth of vocabulary knowledge and text inferencing skills have not been researched extensively. This study tries to fill this gap by analyzing the effects of reading strategies used by Turkish EFL learners and their depth of vocabulary knowledge on their text…

This study examined how text features (i.e., cohesion) and individual differences (i.e., readingskill and prior knowledge) contribute to biology text comprehension. College students with low and high levels of biology knowledge read two biology texts, one of which was high in cohesion and the other low in cohesion. The two groups were similar in…

The readingskill development of anglophone kindergarten children in French immersion programs in Canada is the subject of the two papers included in this document. The first paper describes a study that examined the English reading ability of both kindergarten and first grade children in immersion programs and compared the results with those of…

This study examined expressive vocabulary and its relationship to readingskills for 232 native English-speaking adults who read between the third- and fifth-grade levels. The Boston Naming Test (BNT) was used to measure expressive vocabulary. Participants scored lower than the normative sample of adults on all aspects of the test; they had fewer…

The authors examine the reading profile in children with Down syndrome by comparing the nonword decoding skills in children with Down syndrome and typically developing children matched for word recognition level. Journal articles published before 04.05.2010 were identified by using the keyword Down* cross-referenced to "reading", "literacy",…

An action research study implemented a program for improving the reading ability of first-grade students who enter school with low reading readiness skills. The targeted population came from a mid-size, middle-class town in northern Illinois that has experienced recent growth and socioeconomic changes. The problem was evidenced by teacher…

In this article, the authors reexamine and duplicate research conducted more than 20 years ago to learn if the simple act of sharing literature with kindergarten children through a nurturing dialogic approach will support children's development of literacy skills, including a love of reading. Dialogic reading is based on: (1) child participation;…

This study examined the effects of a computer-based early reading program (Headsprout Early Reading) on the oral language and early readingskills of at-risk preschool children. In a pretest-posttest control group design, 62 children were randomly assigned to receive supplemental instruction with Headsprout Early Reading (experimental group) or…

The effectiveness of using the Language Master to emphasize readingskills with 10 students (ages 7 to 13 years) in a special class for the mentally retarded was evaluated. Nine behavioral objectives were formulated in the areas of improved word recognition, improved understanding of basic concepts, and improved word attack skills. The…

Developed to facilitate the teaching/learning process, this guide corresponds to the Adult Basic Education (ABE) ReadingSkills Workbook Level I, and may be used as an answer book, as well as a reference manual. It contains concise explanations of the various skills presented, suggested teaching strategies, answers to workbook exercises, and a…

The study examined: (a) the role of phonological, grammatical, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) skills in reading and spelling development; and (b) the component processes of early narrative writing skills. Fifty-seven Turkish-speaking children were followed from Grade 1 to Grade 2. RAN was the most powerful longitudinal predictor of reading…

This paper used meta-analysis to synthesize the relation between visual skills and Chinese reading acquisition based on the empirical results from 34 studies published from 1991 to 2011. We obtained 234 correlation coefficients from 64 independent samples, with a total of 5,395 participants. The meta-analysis revealed that visual skills as a…

Test wiseness programs and computer assisted study skills instruction (CASSI) were found to be valuable resources for college reading and study skills instructors and students at St. Cloud State University (Minnesota). Two booklets on test wiseness cues were reorganized and used as computer programs to allow the information to be presented outside…

A topic of student interest, earthquakes, is used as a vehicle for teaching reading and research skills in a California junior high school. Students develop geography skills by labeling fault lines on maps of the Pacific Basin, California, and San Francisco; develop their vocabulary by preparing a list of words about earthquakes; and practice word…

Finds a significant relationship between the acquisition of word and pseudoword readingskills, working memory, and syntactic awareness skills within and across the three languages among a group of Israeli-Arab students ages 14-15 years. Notes that trilingualism of this nature seems not to have negative consequences for the development of oral…

Problem Statement: The aim of the first five years of primary school is to teach and help the students develop basic skills as stated in the Primary School Language Program and Guide. Creative thinking and intertextual reading are among these skills, and it is important to give these to the students during language courses. Purpose of Study: The…

Readingskills in hearing children are closely related to their phonological processing skills, often measured using a nonword repetition task in which a child relies on abstract phonological representations in order to decompose, encode, rehearse in working memory and reproduce novel phonological patterns. In the present study of children who are…

Puerto Rico State Dept. of Education, Hato Rey. Office of Special Education.

As part of the special education curriculum developed by the Puerto Rico Department of Public Instruction, this teacher's guide (in Spanish) presents a basic curriculum for readingskills. The curriculum is designed so that the defined skills will meet the needs of children with disabilities. The form in which teachers and other professionals will…

Students diagnosed with autism demonstrate a deficit in communication skills, which affects their literacy skills. Federal legislation mandates that students with disabilities receive a free appropriate public education, be taught how to read, and have access to the general education curriculum. Students with autism are being included more in the…

Investigated the effect of using tape-recorded aural models for home practice on selected sight-reading and performance skills of sixth-grade clarinet students. The tape recordings had no observed effects on the selected music skills, nor did the students using them complete more music exercises, as had been hypothesized. (Author/SJL)

Although phonemic awareness is a well-known factor predicting early reading development, there is also evidence that Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) is an independent factor that contributes to early reading. The aim of this study is to examine phonemic awareness and RAN as predictors of reading speed, reading comprehension and spelling for…

Recent studies refuting the effectiveness of advance organizers in preparing students to comprehend text material have not met the conditions necessary for advance organizers to succeed. According to the assimilation theory, which holds that people learn by chaining what is known to what is to be learned, the following conditions must be met for…

Prepared by the Wisconsin Research and Development Center for Cognitive Growth, the Wisconsin Design for ReadingSkill Development (Design) contains several components. The field study evaluation of the Word Attack element in terms of attainment of objectives is reported in this conference paper. All children in grades 1 to 3 of two Wisconsin…

Millions of adults in the United States lack the necessary literacy skills for most living wage jobs. For students from adult learning classes, we used a lexical decision task to measure their knowledge of words and we used a decision-making model (Ratcliff's, 1978, diffusion model) to abstract the mechanisms underlying their performance from their RTs and accuracy. We also collected scores for each participant on standardized IQ tests and standardized reading tests used commonly in the education literature. We found significant correlations between the model's estimates of the strengths with which words are represented in memory and scores for some of the standardized tests but not others. The findings point to the feasibility and utility of combining a test of word knowledge, lexical decision, that is well-established in psycholinguistic research, a decision-making model that supplies information about underlying mechanisms, and standardized tests. The goal for future research is to use this combination of approaches to understand better how basic processes relate to standardized tests with the eventual aim of understanding what these tests are measuring and what the specific difficulties are for individual, low-literacy adults. PMID:26550803

This study assessed the reading, language, and memory skills of 56 bilingual Arab-Canadian children age's 9-14. English was their main instructional language, and Arabic was the language spoken at home. All children attended a Heritage Language Program in Toronto where they were taught to read and write Arabic. The children were administered word and pseudo-word reading, language, and working memory tests in English and Arabic. The majority of the children showed at least adequate proficiency in both languages. There was a significant relationship between the acquisition of word and pseudo-word reading working memory, and syntactic awareness skills in the two languages. The poor readers in Arabic had lower scores on all linguistic tasks, except the visual task. There were no significant differences between bilingual English Arabic children and monolingual English-speaking children on the reading, language, and memory tasks. However, bilingual English Arabic children who had reading problems in English had higher scores on English pseudo-word reading and spelling tasks than monolingual English-speaking children with reading disabilities, probably because of positive transfer from the regular nature of Arabic orthography. In this case, bilingualism does not appear to have negative consequences for the development of language readingskills in both languages--Arabic and English--despite the different nature of the two orthographies. PMID:12599919

Middle school classrooms are a natural laboratory where the relationships between science, reading, and writing can be developed and strengthened to provide a foundation for students' learning and future career success. Teachers do not need to know "everything" about science and reading to raise student achievement. Rather, they need to know a few…

A study compared reading-achievement level of 40 children with deafness who received the Nucleus multichannel cochlear implants between ages 2 and 13 with that of children with deafness without cochlear implants. Nearly one half of children with cochlear implants were reading at or within 8 months of grade level. (Author/CR)

Harold Herber's self-paced, self-teaching book, "Teaching Reading in the Content Area," can be used by social studies teachers to develop lessons that help students read, write, and think. A sample U.S. history lesson which uses techniques from Herber's book to help students learn about the Declaration of Independence is presented. (RM)

The factors necessary for implementing and maintaining an individualized adult reading lab are outlined briefly in this paper. Teaching approaches that make the lab suitable for remedial readers, as well as how the individualized approach can help the student beyond the basics of reading are discussed under the heading of components. Suggestions…

Intended to help reading teachers match pupil needs and deficiencies with specific instructional materials, this volume contains more than 2,000 print and audiovisual instructional materials for reading instruction. Citations, which include objectives, grade level, publisher, and format, are grouped into the following sections: (1) developing the…

Modeled after Project PAVE (Corn et al., 2003) in Tennessee, Project Magnify is designed to test the idea that students with low vision who use individually prescribed magnification devices for reading will perform as well as or better than students with low vision who use large-print reading materials. Sixteen students with low vision were…

The Reading Assistance Program at San Jose State University was introduced through the aid of credential candidates from the reading specialist, educational counseling, and bilingual-multicultural specialist programs. Low-achieving university freshmen were taught in small groups using the jigsaw technique in which each student is given a piece of…

Read Across America Day was created by the National Education Association in 1998. This column presents suggestions for classroom activities that can be used to celebrate this day. Suggestions include: (1) Making a Read Across America flag; (2) Taking pictures of staff with their favorite books; and (3) Sending out ballots asking students and…

This study investigated the effectiveness of behavior modification techniques used in a 16-week summer remedial reading program for primary-level students. Ten elementary teachers enrolled in an introductory graduate course in diagnostic and remedial reading received eight hours of training in the use of behavior management techniques:…

Written primarily for coaches and physical education instructors, this booklet also may be used by reading teachers to diversify their programs and motivate students to read. The ideas and exercises presented are intended to combine the forces of intellectual and physical activity and have been developed through actual teaching. Chapters discuss…

The current study developed a taxonomy of readingskills and compared this taxonomy with skills being trained in 30 commercially available software programs designed to teach emergent literacy or literacy-specific skills for children in preschool, kindergarten, and Grade 1. Outcomes suggest that, although some skills are being trained in a…

This Taxonomy was designed to assist the instructor or reading specialist in the identification and location of specific instructional materials that can be used for remediation of skill deficiencies. The Taxonomy was developed by the White Plains Adult Education Center, and a description of the Center's program and method of integrating the…

This study examined concurrent and longitudinal relations for the Get Ready to Read! (GRTR) emergent literacy screener. This measure, within a battery of oral language, letter knowledge, decoding, and phonological awareness tests, was administered to 204 preschool children (mean age = 53.6, SD = 5.78; 55% male) from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Subgroups were reassessed at 6 months and 16 and 37 months later. Results indicate strong relations between the GRTR and the literacy and language assessments. Long-term follow-up indicated that the screener was significantly related to some reading-related measures, including decoding skills. These results support the utility of the GRTR as a brief, valid measure of children's emergent literacy skills. The GRTR holds promise as a tool useful for educators, parents, and others in regular contact with preschool children to help determine those who may be at risk for later reading difficulties and could benefit from intervention and focused instruction in emergent literacy. PMID:19074622

Time is limited. Teachers often struggle to address the diverse needs of learners in their classrooms, especially when faced with academic and social skills concerns. Finding effective ways to teach social skills in the context of academic instruction makes sense. Books by Dr. Seuss provide a variety of high-interest stories that can be used to…

Discussion of the educational system for black children in South Africa focuses on a project that was developed to teach map skills to elementary students. Topics addressed include unqualified teachers and the need for teacher training; producing affordable instructional materials; and spatial and visual perception skills. (Contains 12…

As computer technology developed, hypertexts emerged as an influential environment for developing language skills. This study aims to evaluate a text prepared in a hypertextual environment and its effects on academic success and comprehension skills. In this study, "preliminary test final test control group experimental pattern" was used…

Multinomial stepwise logistic regression analyses were used to establish the most robust set of risk factors that would best predict low basic readingskills (i.e., a standard score less than 85 on the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test-Revised Basic ReadingSkills cluster) of kindergarten and first-grade children at risk for emotional and behavioral…

The core deficit underlying developmental dyslexia (DD) has been identified in difficulties in dynamic and rapidly changing auditory information processing, which contribute to the development of impaired phonological representations for words. It has been argued that enhancing basic musical rhythm perception skills in children with DD may have a positive effect on reading abilities because music and language share common mechanisms and thus transfer effects from the former to the latter are expected to occur. A computer-assisted training, called Rhythmic Reading Training (RRT), was designed in which reading exercises are combined with rhythm background. Fourteen junior high school students with DD took part to 9 biweekly individual sessions of 30 min in which RRT was implemented. Reading improvements after the intervention period were compared with ones of a matched control group of 14 students with DD who received no intervention. Results indicated that RRT had a positive effect on both reading speed and accuracy and significant effects were found on short pseudo-words reading speed, long pseudo-words reading speed, high frequency long words reading accuracy, and text reading accuracy. No difference in rhythm perception between the intervention and control group were found. Findings suggest that rhythm facilitates the development of readingskill because of the temporal structure it imposes to word decoding. PMID:26500581

The core deficit underlying developmental dyslexia (DD) has been identified in difficulties in dynamic and rapidly changing auditory information processing, which contribute to the development of impaired phonological representations for words. It has been argued that enhancing basic musical rhythm perception skills in children with DD may have a positive effect on reading abilities because music and language share common mechanisms and thus transfer effects from the former to the latter are expected to occur. A computer-assisted training, called Rhythmic Reading Training (RRT), was designed in which reading exercises are combined with rhythm background. Fourteen junior high school students with DD took part to 9 biweekly individual sessions of 30 min in which RRT was implemented. Reading improvements after the intervention period were compared with ones of a matched control group of 14 students with DD who received no intervention. Results indicated that RRT had a positive effect on both reading speed and accuracy and significant effects were found on short pseudo-words reading speed, long pseudo-words reading speed, high frequency long words reading accuracy, and text reading accuracy. No difference in rhythm perception between the intervention and control group were found. Findings suggest that rhythm facilitates the development of readingskill because of the temporal structure it imposes to word decoding. PMID:26500581

Inadequate sleep undermines many cognitive functions, including memory, concentration, and attention, which are vital in everyday activities. We hypothesized that poor quality or shorter sleep length may impair reading-related skills, resources, and outcomes, specifically verbal working memory span, verbal efficiency, and reading comprehension. Contrary to the hypotheses, neither short sleep length nor self-reported sleep quality were related to readingskills performance. However, longer sleep times were significantly related to lower verbal efficiency, and participants with the poorest sleep quality fared significantly better on the reading comprehension task than participants with moderate sleep quality. Given the paucity of research examining sleep and reading specifically, as well as these surprising data, more research in this area is warranted. PMID:26483928

The students' communication skills in English have improved after introducing Extensive Reading courses into the curriculum of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department. The students' average TOEIC scores, which used to be far lower than the ones of students in other educational institutions, have increased in recent two years. The students who used to avoid learning English have welcomed extensive reading of graded readers for foreign learners and books for native children of English. This is because the extensive reading causes less stress and it is enjoyable. The students who have read more than 0.2 million words of English texts have faster reading speed and more confidence in reading. They seem to change their reading style from English-to-Japanese translation (and comprehension in Japanese) to direct comprehension in English. Their listening comprehension is also improved. Extensive reading is an effective educational method to improve English communication skills of engineering students, and it also becomes a useful method of continuous education for engineers in need of improving their skills.

Despite the recent attention to text reading fluency, few studies have studied the construct of oral reading rate and accuracy in connected text in a model that simultaneously examines many of the important variables in a multi-leveled fashion with young readers. Using Structural Equation Modeling, this study examined the measurement and…

Suggestions are provided for parents of ways in which they can use the television to encourage and improve their child's reading. Activities include: discussing television characters; watching television specials geared for the child's age; and researching favorite television stars. (CB)

These selected readings are designed to supplement James Gillespie's "Modern Livestock and Poultry Production" (2nd edition) as the the student reference for the advanced dairy unit. Readings are provided for 18 lessons. Topics include profitability of the dairy enterprise; production costs for dairy; comparative advantages of dairy; milk…

A practicum developed and implemented an integrated reading program to raise reading vocabulary and comprehension scores and reading attitudes in a fourth-grade classroom. A classroom of 23 students was used to implement the program. A standard diagnostic test was used to record pre- and post-test scores in vocabulary and comprehension, and a…

In the present study, it was aimed to explore effects of repeated reading fluency intervention with performance based feedback on a student with reading difficulty. In the research, it was studied with a student having reading difficulties determined prior to intervention. During the intervention which lasted 38 hours, the activities including…

According to gender stereotypes, reading is for girls. In this study, we investigated the role of preschool teachers in transmitting such gendered expectations. We suggest that boys are less motivated to read in preschool, and less competent in reading 1 year later in primary school, if their preschool teacher holds a traditional gender role attitude than if the teacher has egalitarian beliefs. In 135 independent dyads of a female preschool teacher (N = 135) and one boy (n = 65) or one girl (n = 70) we measured teacher's gender role attitude, child's reading related motivation as well as precursors of readingskills in preschool, and child's readingskills at the end of first grade in primary school. As expected, the more traditional preschool teachers' gender role attitude was, the weaker was boys' motivation to (learn to) read while girls' motivation was unrelated to teachers' gender role attitude. In either gender, motivation in preschool predicted readingskills at the end of first grade. PMID:26379592

According to gender stereotypes, reading is for girls. In this study, we investigated the role of preschool teachers in transmitting such gendered expectations. We suggest that boys are less motivated to read in preschool, and less competent in reading 1 year later in primary school, if their preschool teacher holds a traditional gender role attitude than if the teacher has egalitarian beliefs. In 135 independent dyads of a female preschool teacher (N = 135) and one boy (n = 65) or one girl (n = 70) we measured teacher's gender role attitude, child's reading related motivation as well as precursors of readingskills in preschool, and child's readingskills at the end of first grade in primary school. As expected, the more traditional preschool teachers' gender role attitude was, the weaker was boys' motivation to (learn to) read while girls' motivation was unrelated to teachers' gender role attitude. In either gender, motivation in preschool predicted readingskills at the end of first grade. PMID:26379592

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" (Engelmann, Haddox, & Bruner, 1983), on the acquisition and maintenance of readingskills by a six-year-old female with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Cognitive Disorder, and Mixed Receptive Language Disorder. The skills evaluated for…

Discusses several ways to evaluate reading and writing skills in a whole language classroom, including evaluation checklists, holistic evaluation of writing, and miscue analysis. Provides a literacy development checklist for reading and writing. (MM)

This study examined, in 180 children aged from 6 to 9?years, to what extent irregular word reading and spelling were predicted by vocabulary knowledge, reading frequency, orthographic processing and nonword readingskill. Consistent with models of reading highlighting the quasi-regular nature of irregular words, it was found that nonword reading…

Skill supply chains apply a chain strategy to human resources to make the labor market more efficient. They link the multiple skill levels in a given labor market within a network of recruitment pathways for employers and advancement pathways for workers. Skill supply chains are based on employers' actual skill needs and on the principle that…

Studies of the relationship between creativity and specific reading disabilities have produced inconclusive results. We explored their relationship in a sample of 259 college students (age range: 17 to 38 years-old) from three Chilean universities. The students were tested on their verbal ability, creativity, and insight. A simple linear regression was performed on the complete sample, and on high- and low-achievement groups that were formed based on reading test scores. We observed a significant correlation in the total sample between outcomes on the verbal ability tasks, and on the creativity and insight tasks (range r =. 152 to r =. 356, ps reading comprehension and phonological awareness tasks were the best predictors of performance on creativity and insight tasks (range β = .315 to β = .155, ps reading disability is associated with better performance on creative tasks. Instead, higher verbal ability was found to be associated with higher creativity and insight. PMID:26055787

This study describes a program designed to increase student academic performance through the use of reading strategies. The targeted population consists of third and fourth grade students in three separate communities located in northern Illinois. All three communities are part of one major metropolitan area, and the status of family income ranges…

In order to successfully complete any college-level courses, English Language Learner (ELL) students must be able to read and comprehend a large volume of academic information. However, many instructors are completely overwhelmed in teaching their respective subject areas and are academically unprepared to teach ELL students appropriate reading…

This study examined the effectiveness of a multisensory phonics-based reading remediation program for adolescent delinquents classified as poor readers living at a residential treatment center. We used a pretest--posttest control group design with random assignment. The treatment group participated in a 30-hr multisensory phonics reading…

A vocabulary improvement project, comprised of three components, was initiated at Del Mar College (DMC) in Corpus Christi, Texas, in spring 1991. Component 1 consisted of a baseline study of vocabulary knowledge among students in two levels of remedial reading classes. The test instrument measured content-specific vocabulary in English/literature,…

Sight-reading while playing a mallet instrument can present serious obstacles for the developing percussionist. Many young players who have solid snare drum technique usually cite fear of playing the wrong note as the number-one hurdle to overcome in order to begin making real progress. Greg Byrne, associate director of bands at the University of…

The primary goal of this study was to examine the word identification domain of the Simple View of Reading in participants with Down syndrome (DS) by comparing them to participants with typical development (TD) matched on word identification ability. Two subskills, phonological recoding and orthographic knowledge, were measured. Results revealed…

The shape of a word pronunciation time distribution supplies information about the dynamic interactions that support reading performance. Speeded word-naming pronunciation and response time distributions were collected from 20 sixth grade Dutch students with dyslexia and 23 age-matched controls. The participants' pronunciation times were…

The basic deficits underlying the severe and persistent reading difficulties in dyslexia are still highly debated. One of the major topics of debate is whether these deficits are language specific, or affect both verbal and non-verbal stimuli. Recently, Ahissar and colleagues proposed the "anchoring-deficit hypothesis" (Ahissar, Lubin,…

The boundary paradigm was used to investigate individual differences in the extraction of lexical information from the parafovea in sentence reading. The preview of a target word was manipulated so that it was identical (e.g., "sped"), a higher frequency orthographic neighbor ("seed"), a nonword neighbor ("sted"), or…

In the late 1980s, three steps were added to the incremental pay scale for teachers in all Australian state and territory education authorities. The original intent of this AdvancedSkills Teacher (AST) concept was to provide an alternative career path for teachers wishing to remain primarily in a teaching role, a career path comparable in status…

The Machine Tool AdvancedSkills Technology Program (MAST) is a geographical partnership of six of the nation's best two-year colleges located in the six states that have about one-third of the density of metals-related industries in the United States. The purpose of the MAST grant is to develop and implement a national training model to overcome…

This report provides the recommendations made by the Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC) to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health based from its examination on the health and human resources issues in Canada. Colleges are the advancedskills educators of choice. Aligned with the needs of employers, and operating on the…

The development of advanced writing skills has been neglected in schools of the United States, with even some college graduates lacking the level of ability required in the workplace (National Commission on Writing, 2003, 2004). The core problem, we argue, is an insufficient degree of appropriate task practice distributed throughout the secondary…

Senior medical students (n=23), family practitioners (n=16), general practitioners (n=41), and family practice educators (n=7) analyzed 12 sets of radiographs. Mean score across all groups was 73%, with no significant differences among groups. Experiential training did not appear to improve diagnostic skill. (Contains 17 references.) (SK)

A program designed to support English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students' achievement when mainstreamed into eighth grade literature and composition classes is described. The approach was implemented in a suburban school, in which some ESL students lacked the skills to achieve at grade level in regular composition and literature classes. A high…

One of the most common characteristics prison inmates typically share is unsuccessful educational experiences including dropping out of school, repeating grades, and not gaining basic literacy skills. The most recent National Assessment of Adult Prison Literacy Survey (NAAPLS) by the U.S. Department of Education indicates that large disparities in…

The role of spelling recognition was examined in word readingskills and reading comprehension for dyslexic and nondyslexic children. Dyslexic and nondyslexic children were matched on their raw word reading proficiency. Relationships between spelling recognition and the following were examined for both groups of children: verbal ability, working…

Reading disorders are a growing concern facing schools. Observational studies have shown that without intervention, the reading issues will be maintained over time. More specifically, phonological processing deficits, the most basic of readingskills, will remain without mediation. Early intervention in the form of individual and group tutoring…

This study examined the relations between reading-related cognitive skills and word reading development of Chinese children with dyslexia in their Chinese language (L1) and in English (L2). A total of 84 bilingual children--28 with dyslexia, 28 chronological age (CA) controls, and 28 reading-level (RL) controls--participated and were administered…

Low socioeconomic status (SES) has been repeatedly linked with decreased academic achievement, including lower reading outcomes. Some lower SES children do show skills and scores commensurate with those of their higher SES peers, but whether their abilities stem from the same systems as high SES children or are based on divergent strategies is unknown. We here investigated a potential interactive relationship between SES and real-word readingskill in the white matter in 42 typically developing children. SES was determined based on parental education; readingskill and age were not significantly related to SES. There was a significant neural interaction: Clusters in the bilateral inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), left superior longitudinal fasciculus, and left corticospinal tract demonstrated interactive skill-SES relationships in fractional anisotropy. Follow-up analyses demonstrated that higher SES children showed a positive relationship between fractional anisotropy, reflecting tract coherence, and readingskill in left hemisphere tract clusters, whereas lower SES children showed a positive relationship in the right hemisphere homologues. Broadly, the ILF has been demonstrated to support orthographic skill on the left and more general visuospatial processing on the right, so high reading achievement in lower SES children may rely on supplementary visuospatial processing more than for higher SES readers. This pattern is consistent with previous work reporting low SES children's environments to include less rich verbal experience, which may lead them to disproportionately draw on visuospatial skills for success. Further, these results indicate that group SES differences may be best described by an adaptive, not a deficit, model. PMID:27412229

Over the past decades, the relation between readingskills and eye movement behavior has been well documented in English-speaking cohorts. As English and German differ substantially with regard to orthographic complexity (i.e. grapheme-phoneme correspondence), we aimed to delineate specific characteristics of how reading speed and reading comprehension interact with eye movements in typically developing German-speaking (Austrian) adolescents. Eye movements of 22 participants (14 females; mean age = 13;6 years;months) were tracked while they were performing three tasks, namely silently reading words, texts, and pseudowords. Their readingskills were determined by means of a standardized German reading speed and reading comprehension assessment (Lesegeschwindigkeits- und -verständnistest für Klassen 6−12). We found that (a) readingskills were associated with various eye movement parameters in each of the three reading tasks; (b) better readingskills were associated with an increased efficiency of eye movements, but were primarily linked to spatial reading parameters, such as the number of fixations per word, the total number of saccades and saccadic amplitudes; (c) reading speed was a more reliable predictor for eye movement parameters than reading comprehension; (d) eye movements were highly correlated across reading tasks, which indicates consistent reading performances. Contrary to findings in English-speaking cohorts, the readingskills neither consistently correlated with temporal eye movement parameters nor with the number or percentage of regressions made while performing any of the three reading tasks. These results indicate that, although readingskills are associated with eye movement patterns irrespective of language, the temporal and spatial characteristics of this association may vary with orthographic consistency. PMID:26727255

Over the past decades, the relation between readingskills and eye movement behavior has been well documented in English-speaking cohorts. As English and German differ substantially with regard to orthographic complexity (i.e. grapheme-phoneme correspondence), we aimed to delineate specific characteristics of how reading speed and reading comprehension interact with eye movements in typically developing German-speaking (Austrian) adolescents. Eye movements of 22 participants (14 females; mean age = 13;6 years;months) were tracked while they were performing three tasks, namely silently reading words, texts, and pseudowords. Their readingskills were determined by means of a standardized German reading speed and reading comprehension assessment (Lesegeschwindigkeits- und -verständnistest für Klassen 6-12). We found that (a) readingskills were associated with various eye movement parameters in each of the three reading tasks; (b) better readingskills were associated with an increased efficiency of eye movements, but were primarily linked to spatial reading parameters, such as the number of fixations per word, the total number of saccades and saccadic amplitudes; (c) reading speed was a more reliable predictor for eye movement parameters than reading comprehension; (d) eye movements were highly correlated across reading tasks, which indicates consistent reading performances. Contrary to findings in English-speaking cohorts, the readingskills neither consistently correlated with temporal eye movement parameters nor with the number or percentage of regressions made while performing any of the three reading tasks. These results indicate that, although readingskills are associated with eye movement patterns irrespective of language, the temporal and spatial characteristics of this association may vary with orthographic consistency. PMID:26727255

There is some evidence for a role of music training in boosting phonological awareness, word segmentation, working memory, as well as reading abilities in children with typical development. Poor performance in tasks requiring temporal processing, rhythm perception and sensorimotor synchronization seems to be a crucial factor underlying dyslexia in children. Interestingly, children with dyslexia show deficits in temporal processing, both in language and in music. Within this framework, we test the hypothesis that music training, by improving temporal processing and rhythm abilities, improves phonological awareness and readingskills in children with dyslexia. The study is a prospective, multicenter, open randomized controlled trial, consisting of test, rehabilitation and re-test (ID NCT02316873). After rehabilitation, the music group (N = 24) performed better than the control group (N = 22) in tasks assessing rhythmic abilities, phonological awareness and readingskills. This is the first randomized control trial testing the effect of music training in enhancing phonological and reading abilities in children with dyslexia. The findings show that music training can modify reading and phonological abilities even when these skills are severely impaired. Through the enhancement of temporal processing and rhythmic skills, music might become an important tool in both remediation and early intervention programs.Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02316873 PMID:26407242

There is some evidence for a role of music training in boosting phonological awareness, word segmentation, working memory, as well as reading abilities in children with typical development. Poor performance in tasks requiring temporal processing, rhythm perception and sensorimotor synchronization seems to be a crucial factor underlying dyslexia in children. Interestingly, children with dyslexia show deficits in temporal processing, both in language and in music. Within this framework, we test the hypothesis that music training, by improving temporal processing and rhythm abilities, improves phonological awareness and readingskills in children with dyslexia. The study is a prospective, multicenter, open randomized controlled trial, consisting of test, rehabilitation and re-test (ID NCT02316873). After rehabilitation, the music group (N = 24) performed better than the control group (N = 22) in tasks assessing rhythmic abilities, phonological awareness and readingskills. This is the first randomized control trial testing the effect of music training in enhancing phonological and reading abilities in children with dyslexia. The findings show that music training can modify reading and phonological abilities even when these skills are severely impaired. Through the enhancement of temporal processing and rhythmic skills, music might become an important tool in both remediation and early intervention programs. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02316873 PMID:26407242

A study examined whether ACT subtest scores can be used to predict readingskills, as measured by the Nelson-Denny Reading Test, with a degree of accuracy that would support their use as a screening device for college placement. ACT test scores of 2,431 students were used to predict Form C Nelson-Denny raw scores. ACT test scores from 3,016…

The authors report a systematic meta-analytic review of the relationships among 3 of the most widely studied measures of children's phonological skills (phonemic awareness, rime awareness, and verbal short-term memory) and children's word readingskills. The review included both extreme group studies and correlational studies with unselected samples (235 studies were included, and 995 effect sizes were calculated). Results from extreme group comparisons indicated that children with dyslexia show a large deficit on phonemic awareness in relation to typically developing children of the same age (pooled effect size estimate: -1.37) and children matched on reading level (pooled effect size estimate: -0.57). There were significantly smaller group deficits on both rime awareness and verbal short-term memory (pooled effect size estimates: rime skills in relation to age-matched controls, -0.93, and reading-level controls, -0.37; verbal short-term memory skills in relation to age-matched controls, -0.71, and reading-level controls, -0.09). Analyses of studies of unselected samples showed that phonemic awareness was the strongest correlate of individual differences in word reading ability and that this effect remained reliable after controlling for variations in both verbal short-term memory and rime awareness. These findings support the pivotal role of phonemic awareness as a predictor of individual differences in reading development. We discuss whether such a relationship is a causal one and the implications of research in this area for current approaches to the teaching of reading and interventions for children with reading difficulties. PMID:22250824

This study examined the resources and instructional strategies effective middle school science teachers use to improve content area readingskills. Reading instruction in the middle school years should follow the natural cognitive progression that occurs in the adolescent brain from learning to read to reading to learn. Scientific reading is a different type of reading than most middle school students are accustomed to. It is important to understand that students will continue to be expected to read non-fiction critically for success in the 21st century. Effective teachers know this, and they perceive themselves as teachers of reading regardless of the content area in which their expertise lies. This qualitative research study was conducted at a rural middle school with three science teachers who employ before, during, and after literacy strategies when reading the textbook content with their students. The methodologies used in this study were interviews, observations, and document collection. The results of this study revealed the students' reading difficulties perceived by the teacher participants, the literacy strategies used by the teacher participants, the instructional resources the teacher participants used to improve comprehension, and the need for professional development in content area literacy.

These instructor's materials consist of a handbook directed to the teacher and 33 worksheets teachers can use with adult students in order to use the cloze procedure to assess how readily they can read materials of differing complexity. The handbook introduces the materials by considering such questions as What is meant by reading?, How could…

The study evaluated the effect of repeated reading on reading speed among 36 Finnish-speaking poor readers in Grades 4 to 6. A switching replications design was applied: Group A (n = 20) received training first, and during this period Group B (n = 16) acted as a control group. After a midpoint test, the design was switched. The training material…

Fluent readers can read connected text with accuracy, automaticity, and prosody. Without practice, automaticity cannot develop in reading, and readers must focus their attention on decoding, limiting their ability to simultaneously comprehend. Researchers have traditionally assumed that fluency and comprehension have a unidirectional relationship…

This study investigated how measures of decoding, fluency, and comprehension in middle school students overlap with one another, whether the pattern of overlap differs between struggling and typical readers, and the relative frequency of different types of reading difficulties. The 1,748 sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students were oversampled for struggling readers (n = 1,025) on the basis of the state reading comprehension proficiency measure. Multigroup confirmatory factor analyses showed partial invariance among struggling and typical readers (with differential loadings for fluency and for comprehension), and strict invariance for decoding and a combined fluency/comprehension factor. Among these struggling readers, most (85 %) also had weaknesses on nationally standardized measures, particularly in comprehension; however, most of these also had difficulties in decoding or fluency. These results show that the number of students with a specific comprehension problem is lower than recent consensus reports estimate and that the relation of different reading components varies according to struggling versus proficient readers. PMID:24000271

We tested the hypothesis that syntactic and narrative comprehension of a natural sign language can serve as the linguistic basis for skilledreading. Thirty-one adults who were deaf from birth and used American Sign Language (ASL) were classified as skilled or less skilled readers using an eighth-grade criterion. Proficiency with ASL syntax, and…

This study is a large-scale exploration of the influence that individual readingskills exert on eye-movement behavior in sentence reading. Seventy one non-college-bound 16–24 year-old speakers of English completed a battery of 18 verbal and cognitive skill assessments, and read a series of sentences as their eye movements were monitored. Statistical analyses were performed to establish what tests of reading abilities were predictive of eye-movement patterns across this population and how strong the effects were. We found that individual scores in rapid automatized naming and word identification tests (i) were the only participant variables with reliable predictivity throughout the time-course of reading; (ii) elicited effects that superceded in magnitude the effects of established predictors like word length or frequency; and (iii) strongly modulated the influence of word length and frequency on fixation times. We discuss implications of our findings for testing reading ability, as well as for research of eye-movements in reading. PMID:21709808

A number of experiments have shown that, in skilled adult readers, a small increase in interletter spacing speeds up the process of visual word recognition relative to the default settings (i.e., judge faster than judge). The goal of the present experiment was to examine whether this effect can be generalized to a more ecological scenario: text reading. Each participant read two stories (367 words each) taken from a standardized reading test. The stories were presented with the standard interletter spacing or with a small increase in interletter spacing (+1.2 points to default) in a within-subject design. An eyetracker was used to register the participants' eye movements. Comprehension scores were also examined. Results showed that, on average, fixation durations were shorter while reading the text with extra spacing than while reading the text with the default settings (237 vs. 245 ms, respectively; η2 =. 41, p = .01). However, the number of fixations (while nonsignificant) was slightly higher in the text with extra spacing than in the text with the default spacing, and cancelled out the effect of interletter spacing in total reading times (F < 1). Comprehension scores were similar in the two spacing conditions (F < 1). Thus, at least for skilled adult readers, interletter spacing does not seem to play a consistently facilitative role during text reading. PMID:27210581

Improving hospital care for frail older people requires expertise, leadership and resources as these patients have multiple complex needs. One innovative solution to providing the skilled care necessary is to train experienced nurses to become advanced nurse practitioners (ANPs). Such roles encompass activity previously undertaken by medical staff, together with leadership, teaching, research and service development. Skills specific to caring for older people, such as comprehensive geriatric assessment, are also required. This article discusses the need for ANPs in this clinical area, a pilot that is under way in one acute trust to develop these roles, and the potential benefits and challenges that may accompany this development. PMID:24787943

The shape of a word pronunciation time distribution supplies information about the dynamic interactions that support reading performance. Speeded word-naming pronunciation and response time distributions were collected from 20 sixth grade Dutch students with dyslexia and 23 age-matched controls. The participants' pronunciation times were modeled and contrasted with a lognormal inverse power-law mixture distribution. Identical contrasts were also conducted on the same participants' response time distributions derived from flanker, color-naming, and arithmetic tasks. Results indicated that children with dyslexia yield slower, broader, and more variable pronunciation time distributions than their age-matched counterparts. This difference approximated a self-similar rescaling between the two group's aggregate pronunciation time distributions. Moreover, children with dyslexia produced similar, but less prominent trends toward slower and more variable performance across the three non-reading tasks. The outcomes support a proportional continuum rather than a localized deficit account of dyslexia. The mixture distribution's success at describing the participants' pronunciation and response time distributions suggests that differences in proportional contingencies among low-level neurophysiological, perceptual, and cognitive processes likely play a prominent role in the etiology of dyslexia. PMID:25079036

This collaborative action research aimed to explore some classroom-based assessment strategies to assess the readingskills of young children. This article presents the findings of the pre-intervention stage as part of an action research study where a teacher's perception and practice of assessing the readingskills of young learners were…

Readingskills at age 7-8 years were examined in a community-representative sample of 21 screened and clinically examined children with language delay (LD) followed prospectively from 2.5 years of age. The present study aimed to (1) determine whether these children with a history of LD had deficits in basic readingskills, i.e. decoding and…

This study examined the effect of instruction in science process skills on teachers' achievement in reading, testing the hypothesis that teachers' reading comprehension can be improved significantly through the use of science process skills. Pre- and in-service teachers enrolled in competency based science methods courses formed the two groups for…

Technical characteristics of the Reading Essential Skill Screener--Preschool Version (RESS-P) were studied using four independent samples of boys and girls aged 3-5 years. A decision efficiency study (N = 91) resulted in a total predictive value (TPV) of .85 when compared with the criterion of teacher report/judgment of emerging literacy at-risk…

We used event-related brain potentials to clarify the role of phonology in activating the meanings of high-frequency words during skilled silent reading. Target homophones ("meet") in sentences such as "The students arranged to meet in the library to study" were replaced on some trials by either a high-frequency homophone mate ("meat") or a…

This pilot study compared two approaches for teaching rhythm readingskills to first-grade children. Two intact first-grade classes participated in six lessons focusing on simple rhythms (4 beats using eighth and quarter notes). The lessons were based on the same musical materials; only the approach was varied. After random assignment, Class 1…

Purpose: The relationship between phonological awareness, overall language, vocabulary, and nonlinguistic cognitive skills to decoding and reading comprehension was examined for students at 3 stages of literacy development (i.e., early elementary school, middle school, and high school). Students with histories of speech sound disorders (SSD) with…

Parental discipline practices, parent-child shared book reading and children's emergent literacy skills were assessed among 76 parents and their children in the summer before the children started Kindergarten. Parents provided narrative responses to open-ended questions about how they would handle common discipline challenges with children and…

There is increasing evidence of a relationship between orthographic processing skill, or the ability to form, store and access word representations, and reading ability. Empirical research to date has not, however, clarified the direction of this relationship. We examined this question in a three-year longitudinal study of children from Grades 1…

This study explored developmental differences in children's segmentation skills of VC and CV syllables (e.g., /af/ and /fa/) in relation to their early reading abilities. To this end, we followed a subgroup of Dutch speaking prereaders who participated in Geudens and Sandra (2003, Experiment 1), and replicated the segmentation task in first grade,…

Reports research which investigated the effects of microcomputer technology on the acquisition of writing and readingskills in 32 deaf children. The learning mechanism underlying the instructional system used is responsive, interactional and exploratory, reflective of the way most children acquire a first language. (SED)

The lexical quality hypothesis assumes that skilled readers rely on high quality lexical representations that afford autonomous lexical retrieval and reduce the need to rely on top-down context. This experiment investigated this hypothesis by comparing the performance of adults classified on reading comprehension and spelling performance. "Lexical…

This study explored the relationship among pre-readingskills, language proficiency, and visual perceptual abilities in 150 children who had been exposed to both English and Arabic (mean age 70 months). Information regarding language proficiency was gathered indirectly through reports from teachers and parents and directly through children's test…

The purpose of the current study is to investigate the correlation between students' reading levels and mathematical problem solving skills. The present study was conducted in line with a qualitative research method, i.e., the phenomenological method. The study group of the current research is composed of six third grade students with different…

A serendipitous observation resulted in an examination of the effectiveness of using a computer aided design course to improve high school student's strategic readingskills. Conducted in a 3 month semester period, the study relied on teacher observations, student questionnaires, and personal interviews. More than 75% of the students in the…

Research Findings: This research investigated the associations among children's preliteracy skills, mothers' education, and mothers' beliefs about shared-reading interactions for 45 Appalachian families. These variables were studied for lower income, primarily European American, families residing in a geographically isolated, small, rural…

A longitudinal study is reported aiming at analysing niche characteristics in the classroom of skilled readers and children with reading and writing disabilities. Thirteen children are studied during their 1st and 4th years at school. The result is described using the concepts "capacity," "opportunity" and "interest." Capacity means the children's…

Reading-related skills of youth with intellectual disability (ID) were compared with those of typically developing (TD) children of similar verbal ability level. The group with ID scored lower than the TD group on word recognition and phonological decoding, but similarly on orthographic processing and rapid automatized naming (RAN). Further,…

This paper reports on one experiment in which we investigated the relationship between reading and signing skills. We administered a vocabulary task and a story comprehension task in Sign Language of the Netherlands and in written Dutch to a group of 87 deaf children from bilingual education programs. We found a strong and positive correlation…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of classroom performance assessment on the EFL students' basic and inferential readingskills. A pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was employed in the study. The subjects of the study consisted of 64 first-year secondary school students in Menouf Secondary School for Boys at Menoufya…

This study examined the relations among socioeconomic status (SES), early phonological processing, vocabulary, and reading in 262 children from diverse SES backgrounds followed from ages 4 to 9 in Beijing, China. SES contributed to variations in phonological skills and vocabulary in children's early development. Nonetheless, early phonological and…

This study proposes an innovative instructional method for enhancing critical readingskills. Students enrolled in an undergraduate neuroscience course offered at the University of Toronto Scarborough reported that they often experience difficulty in analyzing and interpreting empirical and review journal articles. Our research focuses on student…

We studied 52 parent-child dyads reading an alphabet book to examine the nature of children's miscues and parents' feedback, and whether miscues and feedback were related to each other and to preliteracy skills. Letter knowledge, phonological awareness, and expressive vocabulary were assessed in 5-year-old nonreaders who were also audiotaped…

The purpose of this study is to determine how behavioral symptoms of inattention predict rapid automatized naming (RAN) performance and readingskills in typically developing children. Participants included 104 third- and fourth-grade children from different elementary schools in mid-Michigan. RAN performance was assessed using the four Rapid…

The aim of this study to explore primary school teachers' views towards critical readingskills and their perceptions of competence. The participants are 25 teacher candidates who are fourth year students studying in the Department of Primary School Education at the Education Faculty of Adiyaman University. Adopting a qualitative data…

The objective of the present study was to examine the contribution of lexical and nonlexical processes to skilledreading and spelling in Persian. Persian is a mixed orthography that allows one to study within one language characteristics typically found in shallow orthographies as well as those found in deeper orthographies. 61 senior high-school…

This article gives a short overview based on the "EU High Level Group of Experts on Literacy" (HLWG) report to address issues and challenges in Europe on improving literacy competencies in schools. Furthermore, an analysis is conducted focusing on the promotion of reading and early literacy skills in schools taking into account…

Low socioeconomic status (SES) has been repeatedly linked with decreased academic achievement, including lower reading outcomes. Some lower SES children do show skills and scores commensurate with those of their higher SES peers, but whether their abilities stem from the same systems as high SES children or are based on divergent strategies is…

This study examined relationships between pre-tested early literacy skills and post-tested reading achievement in 52 kindergarten and 39 first-grade children. An archival data set was available for statistical analysis. Data analysis was completed in three stages: Participants' entry-level literacy and language scores were compared on two…

Reading instruction based on the acquisition of basic skills has produced a basic level of literacy in children, but such minimal levels of literacy are no longer sufficient for students required to deal effectively with complicated literary and informational material encountered in upper elementary, middle, and high school texts. Research in the…

Two experiments aimed at extending the principles of paired-associates learning transfer to the acquisition of readingskills are reported. Approximately 15 first graders were randomly assigned to each of the 10 treatment conditions. In the first experiment, four types of letter training were compared to two control conditions. The experimental…

The aim of this study was to explore the effect of metacognitive strategy in improving reading comprehension skills through children's literature of literary quality. A quasi-experimental study was carried out in a private secondary school in a city located Middle Black Sea region of Turkey. Two classes were randomly chosen as the study group, and…

The authors investigated the effects of a 5-week note-taking skills instructional program on note-taking and reading comprehension performance of elementary students. The participants included 349 fourth-grade students from 2 elementary schools in Taiwan. The Note-Taking Instruction group received approximately 40 min of note-taking skills…

Surveying the existing situation and considering the pilot study conducted by the researcher, it was clear that there is a problem concerning weaknesses in critical reading and translation skills aside from the lack of political awareness on the part of fourth year EFL majors at the Faculty of Education, Helwan University. The majority of…

Sight reading is a functional skill which is essential for all musicians involved in particular fields of western classical music culture. In the last decade, expertise theory has shown that time spent on activities is a good predictor for later achievement in a domain. However, this study is based on the hypothesis that general and elementary…

We examined testing's ability to enhance adult spelling acquisition, relative to copying and reading. Across 3 experiments in which testing with feedback was compared with copying, the spelling improvement after testing matched that following the same amount of time spent copying. A potent testing advantage, however, was observed for spelling words free-recalled. In the fourth experiment, a large testing advantage for both word free recall and spelling was observed, versus reading. Subjects also generally preferred testing and rated it as more effective than copying or reading. The equivalent performance of testing and copying for spelling contrasts with prior work involving children and suggests that retrieval practice may not be the only effective mechanism for spelling skill acquisition. Rather, we suggest that the critical learning event for spelling is focused study on phoneme-to-grapheme mappings for previously unlearned letter sequences. For adults with extensive spelling expertise, focused study is more automatic during both copying and testing with feedback than for individuals with beginning spelling skills. Reading, however, would not be expected to produce efficient focused study of phoneme-to-grapheme mappings, regardless of expertise level. Overall, adult spelling skill acquisition benefits both from testing and copying, and substantially less from reading. PMID:26460674

The present longitudinal study investigated the relationship between pre-school semantic skills (vocabulary, comprehension and sentence construction), phonological awareness and later word decoding and reading comprehension skills. More than 200 Danish children were followed from a speech therapist screening at the age of three, through a phonological group screening at six, word decoding tests in Grade 2, sentence reading tests in Grades 3, 4, and 6, and to a text reading test in Grade 9 (age 16). The predictor variables consisted of both standardized test results, professional ratings, and a factor of interest in books. The results showed that both the semantic variables and interest in books at the age of three and the phonological variables at the age of six predicted reading development significantly at the age of 16. In addition the results demonstrated changing main effect from semantic and phonological variables on reading development. Phonological awareness at the age of 6 seemed to have the greatest influence on reading at the beginning of Grade 2 compared to the semantic variables at the age of three. On all other measures in time, the semantic variables had the greatest influence. PMID:15918368

This study examined the effects of peer-mediated oral reading fluency instruction and narrative texts on the reading fluency and comprehension skills of adolescent struggling readers in an alternative high school setting over a period of 10 weeks. The results of this study indicate that peer-mediated repeated reading appears to be the most…

The ability of 100 second-grade boys and girls to self-correct oral reading errors was studied in relationship to visual-form perception, phonic skills, response speed, and reading level. Each child was tested individually with the Bender-Error Test, the Gray Oral Paragraphs, and the Roswell-Chall Diagnostic Reading Test and placed into a group of…

A longitudinal study of 113 children (ages 3-10), including 35 with poor readingskills, found both socioeconomic status, Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment scores, and reading achievement scores were related to reading abilities, but preschool environment measures were more strongly and consistently related to and predictive of…

A study tested a method for developing reading fluency with third-grade Hill Tribe children in a welfare school in Chiang Mai, a city located in northern Thailand. Most of the students were bilingual, speaking their native tongues and Thai, their second language. Only 18.7% of the Hill Tribe population can read Thai, and many students fail to…

Exposure to print is a significant predictor of vocabulary growth and declarative knowledge in normally achieving readers (Stanovich, West, & Harrison, 1995). Research has also shown that initial differences in print exposure can be used to predict differences in reading comprehension in children studied ten years after initial assessment…

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the code-related features used in current methods of writing instruction in kindergarten classrooms transfer reading outcomes for kindergarten students. We randomly assigned kindergarten students to 3 instructional groups: a writing workshop group, an interactive writing group, and a control group.…

Examined the joint and unique predictive significance of emergent literacy skills for later emergent literacy skills and reading in two samples of preschoolers. Structural equation modeling revealed significant developmental continuity of these skills, particularly for letter knowledge and phonological sensitivity from late preschool to early…

This study of 4- to 6-year-olds had 2 aims: first, to determine how lower level comprehension skills (receptive vocabulary and grammar) and verbal memory support early higher level comprehension skills (inference and literal story comprehension), and second, to establish the predictive power of these skills on subsequent reading comprehension.…

These selected readings are designed to supplement James Gillespie's "Modern Livestock and Poultry Production" (2nd edition) as the student reference for the advanced beef unit. The 15 lessons build on Agricultural Science I and II competencies. Topics of the 15 lessons are: importance of the beef enterprise; cost of beef production; types of…

The role of student attention for predicting kindergarten word reading was investigated among 432 students. Using SWAN behavior rating scores, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis, which yielded three distinct factors that reflected selective attention. In this study, we focused on the role of one of these factors, which we labeled attention-memory behaviors, for predicting reading performance. Teacher ratings of attention predicted word reading above and beyond the contribution of phonological awareness and vocabulary knowledge. In addition, the relations between four teacher practices and attention ratings for predicting reading performance were examined. Using HLM, significant interactions between student attention and teacher practices observed during literacy instruction were found. In general, as ratings of attention improved, better kindergarten word reading performance was associated with high levels of classroom behavior management. However, by mid-year, better word reading performance was not associated with high levels of teacher task- orienting. A significant three-way interaction was also found among attention, individualized instruction, and teacher task re-directions. The role of regulating kindergarten student attention to support beginning word readingskill development is discussed. PMID:22207616

The role of student attention for predicting kindergarten word reading was investigated among 432 students. Using Strengths and Weaknesses of ADHD Symptoms and Normal Behavior Rating Scale behavior rating scores, the authors conducted an exploratory factor analysis, which yielded three distinct factors that reflected selective attention. In this study, the authors focused on the role of one of these factors, which they labeled attention-memory, for predicting reading performance. Teacher ratings of attention-memory predicted word reading above and beyond the contribution of phonological awareness and vocabulary knowledge. In addition, the relations between four teacher practices and attention ratings for predicting reading performance were examined. Using hierarchical linear modeling, the authors found significant interactions between student attention and teacher practices observed during literacy instruction. In general, as ratings of attention improved, better kindergarten word reading performance was associated with high levels of classroom behavior management. However, better word reading performance was not associated with high levels of teacher task orienting. A significant three-way interaction was also found among attention, individualized instruction, and teacher task redirections. The role of regulating kindergarten student attention to support beginning word readingskill development is discussed. PMID:22207616

This study examined the skills predicting early reading development when children were taught by a synthetic phonics approach. Eighty five children taught to read by systematic synthetic phonics were assessed on reading and cognitive assessments prior to reading instruction (average age 4 years, 7 months), 6 months later (5 years, 1 month), and 73…

Children who are poor readers usually experience troublesome school careers and consequently often suffer from secondary emotional and behavioural problems. Early identification and prediction of later reading problems thus are critical in order to start targeted interventions for those children with an elevated risk for emerging reading problems. In this study, behavioural precursors of reading were assessed in nineteen (aged 6.4 ± 0.3 years) non-reading kindergarteners before training letter-speech sound associations with a computerized game (Graphogame) for eight weeks. The training aimed to introduce the basic principles of letter-speech sound correspondences and to initialize the sensitization of specific brain areas to print. Event-related potentials (ERP) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were recorded during an explicit word/symbol processing task after the training. Readingskills were assessed two years later in second grade. The focus of this study was on clarifying whether electrophysiological and fMRI data of kindergarten children significantly improve prediction of future readingskills in 2nd grade over behavioural data alone. Based on evidence from previous studies demonstrating the importance of initial print sensitivity in the left occipito-temporal visual word form system (VWFS) for learning to read, the first pronounced difference in processing words compared to symbols in the ERP, an occipito-temporal negativity (N1: 188-281 ms) along with the corresponding functional activation in the left occipito-temporal VWFS were defined as potential predictors. ERP and fMRI data in kindergarteners significantly improved the prediction of readingskills in 2nd grade over behavioural data alone. Together with the behavioural measures they explained up to 88% of the variance. An additional discriminant analysis revealed a remarkably high accuracy in classifying normal (n=11) and poor readers (n=6). Due to the key limitation of the study

There is a recent interest in volunteer tutoring programs and research has suggested effectiveness in improving readingskills. Previous research found that the Help One Student to Succeed (HOSTS) volunteer tutoring program increased reading fluency and comprehension over a 5-month interval (Burns, Senesac, & Symington, 2004). The current study…

THIS TEACHING GUIDE IS DESIGNED FOR USE WITH GIFTED PUPILS AT GRADES FIVE AND SIX WHO ARE READING TWO OR MORE LEVELS ABOVE THEIR GRADE PLACEMENT. THE GUIDE ALSO PROVIDES GUIDANCE FOR THE STUDY OF BIOGRAPHY THROUGH SCIENCE LITERATURE. SUCH READINGSKILLS AS ANALYZING THE AUTHOR'S PURPOSE, HIS ORGANIZATION, PERSONALITY AND STYLE, UNDERSTANDING…

The findings of a meta-analysis of the effect of reading instruction on the readingskills of students with or at risk of behavioral disorders (BD) are reported. The goal of the synthesis was to extend the work of Coleman and Vaughn by (a) detailing independent variables and outcome measures for each study, (b)including studies sampling from…

This study examined the relation between emergent literacy skills, teachers' reports of behavioral problems, and word reading achievement in a community sample of French students. Family background was investigated and included familial antecedents of reading difficulties (Fa/Rd) and parents' educational level. The analyses explored the pattern of…

The goal of this study was to longitudinally examine relationships between early factors (child and mother) that may influence children's phonological awareness and readingskills 3 years later in a group of young children with cochlear implants (N = 16). Mothers and children were videotaped during two storybook interactions, and children's oral language skills were assessed using the "Reynell Developmental Language Scales, third edition." Three years later, phonological awareness, readingskills, and language skills were assessed using the "Phonological Awareness Test," the "Woodcock-Johnson-III Diagnostic Reading Battery," and the "Oral Written Language Scales." Variables included in the data analyses were child (age, age at implant, and language skills) and mother factors (facilitative language techniques) and children's phonological awareness and reading standard scores. Results indicate that children's early expressive oral language skills and mothers' use of a higher level facilitative language technique (open-ended question) during storybook reading, although related, each contributed uniquely to children's literacy skills. Individual analyses revealed that the children with expressive standard scores below 70 at Time 1 also performed below average (<85) on phonological awareness and total reading tasks 3 years later. Guidelines for professionals are provided to support literacy skills in young children with cochlear implants. PMID:18417463

The goal of this study was to longitudinally examine relationships between early factors (child and mother) that may influence children's phonological awareness and readingskills 3 years later in a group of young children with cochlear implants (N = 16). Mothers and children were videotaped during two storybook interactions, and children's oral language skills were assessed using the “Reynell Developmental Language Scales, third edition.” Three years later, phonological awareness, readingskills, and language skills were assessed using the “Phonological Awareness Test,” the “Woodcock–Johnson-III Diagnostic Reading Battery,” and the “Oral Written Language Scales.” Variables included in the data analyses were child (age, age at implant, and language skills) and mother factors (facilitative language techniques) and children's phonological awareness and reading standard scores. Results indicate that children's early expressive oral language skills and mothers’ use of a higher level facilitative language technique (open-ended question) during storybook reading, although related, each contributed uniquely to children's literacy skills. Individual analyses revealed that the children with expressive standard scores below 70 at Time 1 also performed below average (<85) on phonological awareness and total reading tasks 3 years later. Guidelines for professionals are provided to support literacy skills in young children with cochlear implants. PMID:18417463

Literacy expectations for persons with cognitive impairments, including impairments caused by traumatic brain injury (TBI), have remained quite low. Some researchers have suggested that educators move from a focus on teaching functional skills to teaching basic readingskills in a manner similar to instruction for nondisabled learners. The purpose…

This packet contains five lesson plans designed to teach reading and writing skills to grocery store employees. The lesson plans were developed, using the Laubach literacy method, for a workplace literacy project at Carr Grocery Store in Anchorage, Alaska. The lesson plans, which are correlated with Laubach skills books levels 1-2, include…

Because Chinese character learning typically relies heavily on rote character copying, we tested independent copying skill in third- and fourth-grade Chinese children with and without dyslexia. In total, 21 Chinese third and fourth graders with dyslexia and 33 without dyslexia (matched on age, nonverbal IQ, and mother's education level) were given tasks of copying unfamiliar print in Vietnamese, Korean, and Hebrew as well as tests of word reading and writing, morphological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), and orthographic processing. All three copying tasks distinguished dyslexic children from nondyslexic children with moderate effect sizes (.67-.80). Zero-order correlations of the three copying tasks with dictation and reading ranged from .37 to .58. With age, Raven's, group status, RAN, morphological awareness, and orthographic measures statistically controlled, the copying tasks uniquely explained 6% and 3% variance in word reading and dictation, respectively. Results suggest that copying skill itself may be useful in understanding the development and impairment of literacy skills in Chinese. PMID:21641000

Mothers’ literacy skills are emerging as a key determinant of children’s health and survival in low-income contexts, with emphasis on the cognitive and psychological agency that literacy skills provide. This work has clearly established a strong association between mothers’ reading skills—a key subcomponent of broader literacy and language skills—and child mortality. However, this relatively nascent literature has not yet considered how broader social structures condition the process. In Nigeria and in sub-Saharan Africa more broadly, gender-based social inequality constrains many mothers’ decision-making power over children’s health matters; this structural feature may condition the association between mothers’ readingskills and child mortality. This paper uses data from the 2003 Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey (N = 12,076) to test the conditionality of the relationship between mothers’ readingskills and child survival on mothers’ decision-making power, highlighting how structural realities should factor more heavily into this individual-action-oriented literature. Among Nigerian children whose mothers have decision-making power, mothers’ readingskills convey a 27 percent lower risk of child mortality; however, for children whose mothers lack decision-making power, mothers’ readingskills do not yield a significant survival advantage. Overall, these findings support the need for future work to further analyze how broader social structures condition the benefits of mothers’ readingskills for children’s health. PMID:24161100

The purpose of this study was to extend previous studies on the influence of environmental measures on intelligence scores by examining how proximal and distal measures of children's environments in the preschool period and in the primary-grade period are related to their performance on reading achievement tests. Reading performance was explored using two approaches. The first approach involved the identification of children within a longitudinal sample who had poor readingskills at 8 years of age. The second approach used the full range of reading scores to explore whether factors influencing poor reading were different from those influencing good reading. Participants were 113 children, including 35 children with poor readingskills, who were part of a longitudinal study of cognitive development. Socioeconomic status (SES), Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) scores at 3 and 10 years of age, and school-administered and individually administered reading achievement scores were obtained. Both SES and HOME scores were found to be related to reading abilities, but preschool environment measures were more strongly and consistently related to and predictive of reading scores. Differences in the patterns of correlations and the results of the predictive models were found between the full sample and the poor readers. Variables other than proximal and distal measures of the environment are involved in the development of readingskills. PMID:15490892

Sixty percent of American high schools offer one or more Advanced Placement courses, and several thousand Advanced Placement teachers serve as Readers or graders of Advanced Placement exams each year. This study was conducted to determine the characteristics of teachers who choose to participate in Advanced Placement Environmental Science Readings and determine how these teachers view the Reading experience as a form of professional development. This study was conducted with teacher participants at the June 2004 Advanced Placement Environmental Science Reading. Sixty of the 114 teacher participants completed a survey regarding their education background, age, experience level, educational philosophy, involvement in professional development opportunities, perceptions of the professional benefits of the Reading, and the influence of the Reading experience on their pedagogical practices. Semi-structured interviews were then conducted with a subset of 18 teacher participants to determine their perceptions regarding the professional benefits of the Reading experience, its potential to serve as a professional development activity, and perceived changes in their pedagogical practices resulting from participation in the Reading process. Results indicate that APES Reading teacher participants are experienced, effective teachers from many parts of the country. These teachers participate in ongoing professional development activities, can delineate components of effective professional development, strongly believe that effective professional development occurs at the APES Reading, and report that their pedagogical practice has improved as a result of participation in the APES Reading. Considering the crucial role teachers play in the educational process, it is important to pursue this additional avenue of professional development in order to further improve APES teacher effectiveness.

This twin study examined the relative contributions of genes and environment on 2nd language reading acquisition of Chinese-speaking children learning English. We examined whether specific skills-visual word recognition, receptive vocabulary, phonological awareness, phonological memory, and speech discrimination-in the 1st and 2nd languages have distinct or overlapping genetic and environmental origins. A sample of 279 Chinese twin pairs with a mean age of 6 years was tested. Univariate twin analyses were used to identify sources of individual variations in reading abilities and related cognitive-linguistic skills in Chinese and English, respectively. They were used to show both similar and distinctive patterns in these skills across Chinese and English. Bivariate Cholesky decomposition analyses indicated genetic overlaps between all parallel Chinese and English variables, as well as shared environmental overlaps in receptive vocabulary and phonological awareness. The phenotypic correlations between 1st and 2nd language skills previously observed in cross-linguistic studies could be explained by the shared genetic and environmental influences found in this twin study. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved). PMID:25221842

Visual word recognition performance of first graders (mean age: 6.6 years) through fifth graders (mean age: 10.8 years) was investigated using an experimental technique that is known to elicit the "viewing position effect" in skilled readers. The results showed that this effect, which consists of a systematic variation of performance as a function of fixation position within words, emerged early at the end of the 1st year of reading instruction. Visual field asymmetries in recognizing individual letters in words were also observed starting from first grade. Effects of word familiarity were obtained as early as in second grade. In contrast to skilled readers, children showed a marked word-length effect, which persisted through the first 5 years of instruction. No other qualitative differences between beginning and skilled readers were apparent. Hence, the basics of readingskills, as measured by the present technique, seem to be attained very early during acquisition. Further experience mainly reduces the time a reader needs to extract visual information from print. PMID:10788306

Fine motor skills have long been recognized as an important foundation for development in other domains. However, more precise insights into the role of fine motor skills, and their relationships to other skills in mediating early educational achievements, are needed to support the development of optimal educational interventions. We explored concurrent relationships between two components of fine motor skills, Fine Motor Precision and Fine Motor Integration, and early reading and maths development in two studies with primary school children of low-to-mid socio-economic status in the UK. Two key findings were revealed. First, despite being in the first 2 years of primary school education, significantly better performance was found in reading compared to maths across both studies. This may reflect the protective effects of recent national-level interventions to promote early literacy skills in young children in the UK that have not been similarly promoted for maths. Second, fine motor skills were a better predictor of early maths ability than they were of early reading ability. Hierarchical multiple regression revealed that fine motor skills did not significantly predict reading ability when verbal short-term memory was taken into account. In contrast, Fine Motor Integration remained a significant predictor of maths ability, even after the influence of non-verbal IQ had been accounted for. These results suggest that fine motor skills should have a pivotal role in educational interventions designed to support the development of early mathematical skills. PMID:27303342

Fine motor skills have long been recognized as an important foundation for development in other domains. However, more precise insights into the role of fine motor skills, and their relationships to other skills in mediating early educational achievements, are needed to support the development of optimal educational interventions. We explored concurrent relationships between two components of fine motor skills, Fine Motor Precision and Fine Motor Integration, and early reading and maths development in two studies with primary school children of low-to-mid socio-economic status in the UK. Two key findings were revealed. First, despite being in the first 2 years of primary school education, significantly better performance was found in reading compared to maths across both studies. This may reflect the protective effects of recent national-level interventions to promote early literacy skills in young children in the UK that have not been similarly promoted for maths. Second, fine motor skills were a better predictor of early maths ability than they were of early reading ability. Hierarchical multiple regression revealed that fine motor skills did not significantly predict reading ability when verbal short-term memory was taken into account. In contrast, Fine Motor Integration remained a significant predictor of maths ability, even after the influence of non-verbal IQ had been accounted for. These results suggest that fine motor skills should have a pivotal role in educational interventions designed to support the development of early mathematical skills. PMID:27303342

This paper introduces the concept of "reading resilience": students' ability to read and interpret complex and demanding literary texts by drawing on advanced, engaged, critical readingskills. Reading resilience is a means for rethinking the place and pedagogies of close reading in the contemporary literary studies classroom. Our…

The cognitive model of reading comprehension (RC) posits that RC is a result of the interaction between decoding and linguistic comprehension. Recently, the notion of decoding skill was expanded to include word recognition. In addition, some studies suggest that other skills could be integrated into this model, like processing speed, and have consistently indicated that this skill influences and is an important predictor of the main components of the model, such as vocabulary for comprehension and phonological awareness of word recognition. The following study evaluated the components of the RC model and predictive skills in children and adolescents with dyslexia. 40 children and adolescents (8–13 years) were divided in a Dyslexic Group (DG; 18 children, MA = 10.78, SD = 1.66) and control group (CG 22 children, MA = 10.59, SD = 1.86). All were students from the 2nd to 8th grade of elementary school and groups were equivalent in school grade, age, gender, and IQ. Oral and RC, word recognition, processing speed, picture naming, receptive vocabulary, and phonological awareness were assessed. There were no group differences regarding the accuracy in oral and RC, phonological awareness, naming, and vocabulary scores. DG performed worse than the CG in word recognition (general score and orthographic confusion items) and were slower in naming. Results corroborated the literature regarding word recognition and processing speed deficits in dyslexia. However, dyslexics can achieve normal scores on RC test. Data supports the importance of delimitation of different reading strategies embedded in the word recognition component. The role of processing speed in reading problems remain unclear. PMID:25506331

The cognitive model of reading comprehension (RC) posits that RC is a result of the interaction between decoding and linguistic comprehension. Recently, the notion of decoding skill was expanded to include word recognition. In addition, some studies suggest that other skills could be integrated into this model, like processing speed, and have consistently indicated that this skill influences and is an important predictor of the main components of the model, such as vocabulary for comprehension and phonological awareness of word recognition. The following study evaluated the components of the RC model and predictive skills in children and adolescents with dyslexia. 40 children and adolescents (8-13 years) were divided in a Dyslexic Group (DG; 18 children, MA = 10.78, SD = 1.66) and control group (CG 22 children, MA = 10.59, SD = 1.86). All were students from the 2nd to 8th grade of elementary school and groups were equivalent in school grade, age, gender, and IQ. Oral and RC, word recognition, processing speed, picture naming, receptive vocabulary, and phonological awareness were assessed. There were no group differences regarding the accuracy in oral and RC, phonological awareness, naming, and vocabulary scores. DG performed worse than the CG in word recognition (general score and orthographic confusion items) and were slower in naming. Results corroborated the literature regarding word recognition and processing speed deficits in dyslexia. However, dyslexics can achieve normal scores on RC test. Data supports the importance of delimitation of different reading strategies embedded in the word recognition component. The role of processing speed in reading problems remain unclear. PMID:25506331

Students from Turkish-speaking families are the largest minority language group in Germany. Yet, little is known about this group's literacy development. Using data from a 3-year longitudinal study, we examined whether the same base readingskills are involved in early reading comprehension of 100 Turkish-German bilingual and 69 German…

Background: The phenotypic and genetic associations between decoding skills and ADHD dimensions have been documented but less is known about the association with reading comprehension. The aim of the study is to document the phenotypic and genetic associations between reading comprehension and ADHD dimensions of inattention and…

The Read Aloud strategy is uniquely suitable for the preschool classroom. On the peripheral, the Read Aloud is a natural, relaxed activity. With the increase of accountability and assessments in formal education (Meier, 2003), it has become more crucial for educators to prevent interruptions in the acquisition of emergent skills by preschoolers.…

The purpose of this program evaluation was to examine the effects of "Phono-Graphix," an intensive tertiary-level reading intervention, on the basic readingskills of 16 students aged 6 to 17 years who received special education services. Instruction was delivered one-on-one or in small groups of two or three students. Instruction lasted 8 weeks.…

This study evaluated the impact of a comprehensive reading program enhanced with sign language on the literacy and language skills of three elementary school students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Students received individual and small group comprehensive reading instruction for approximately 55 minutes per session. Reading…

Ten first grade students, participating in a Tier II response to intervention (RTI) reading program received an intervention of video self modeling to improve decoding skills and sight word recognition. The students were video recorded blending and segmenting decodable words, and reading sight words taken directly from their curriculum…

Many children with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) have considerable difficulty learning basic readingskills. Increasing evidence suggests individuals with IDD may benefit from instruction incorporating components of reading found to be effective for typically developing children. However, little research into reading…

By the time children leave primary school there is a large socio-economic gap in their reading proficiency. There are a number of potential explanations for this socio-economic gap and in this paper we investigate the role of three particular genes and gene-environment interactions in determining children's readingskills, using the Avon…

This paper examines current programs of reading/study skills instruction at two-year colleges. The paper is divided into three sections: a review of literature relating to the subject; analysis and evaluation of the research and programs surveyed; and implications for organizing and developing a reading improvement program. A bibliography is…

The validity of two measures of English reading comprehension was examined across three different groups of English language learners (ELLs; 64 Portuguese, 66 Spanish and 65 Cantonese). All three groups were achieving within the average range in second grade. An exploratory principal components analysis of readingskills was carried out to…

Problems in the reading and study skills of students in City University of New York (CUNY) community colleges are the subject of this report. Questionnaires asking for information on factors related to these problems were completed by 496 CUNY students. Results indicate that, among other things: (1) there is a high correlation between reading and…

This study investigated the role of early literacy and behavioral skills in predicting the improvement of children who have experienced reading difficulties in 1st grade. The progress of 146 low-income children whose reading scores in 1st grade were below the 30th percentile was examined to determine (a) how the poorest readers in 1st grade…

This study focuses on the effectiveness and advantages of using an explicit phonics based reading program in kindergarten through second grade. The methods of decoding words that teachers introduce to the beginning readers must prove to be effective in introducing and building readingskills. Most recent studies have revisited and concurred with…

Although studies of long-term outcomes of children born preterm consistently show low intelligence quotient (IQ) and visual-motor impairment, studies of their performance in language and reading have found inconsistent results. In this study, we examined which specific language and readingskills were associated with prematurity independent of the…

The main objective of the present study was to examine the contribution of phonological and orthographic skills to Persian reading and spelling. The Persian language is of interest because it has very consistent grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences, but somewhat inconsistent phoneme-to-grapheme correspondences. Reading, spelling, phonological, and…

This study investigated the relations of early working-memory abilities (phonological and visual-spatial short-term memory [STM] and complex memory and episodic buffer memory) and later developing readingskills. Sixty Hebrew-speaking children were followed from kindergarten through Grade 5. Working memory was tested in kindergarten and reading in…

The analysis of individual learning styles and the application of the results of the analyses to realistic learning situations are the basic goals of a Wisconsin college reading and study skills program. In the 1-year required program, beginning college students deficient in reading hear a series of lectures on effective study habits, reading…

The following article reports the findings of a qualitative evaluation of an online extensive reading program in German as a foreign language. Designed for advanced learners, it differs from traditional extensive reading programs in two important aspects: students read online instead of printed materials, and there was no teacher preselection to…

The aim of present research was to describe the relation of six-year-old children's attention and reading readiness skills (general knowledge, word comprehension, sentences, and matching) with their auditory reasoning and processing skills. This was a quantitative study based on scanning model. Research sampling consisted of 204 kindergarten…

An assessment analysis was performed to determine whether sets of items designed to measure three different subskills of reading comprehension of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBSs) did, in fact, distinguish among these subskills. The three major skills objectives were: (1) facts; (2) generalizations; and (3) inferences. Data from…

The achievement score gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged children at school entry is a major problem in education today. Identifying the skills critical for school readiness is an important step in developing interventions aimed at addressing these score gaps. The purpose of this study is to compare a number of school readiness skills with an eye toward finding out which are the best predictors of later academic achievement in math, reading, and science. The predictors were early reading, math, general knowledge, socioemotional skills, and motor skills. Data were obtained from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study of 1998 (NCES, 1998) database. While controlling for an extensive set of family characteristics, predictions were made across five years - from the end of kindergarten to the end of fifth grade. Consistent with current findings, reading and math skills predicted later achievement. Interestingly, general knowledge, attention, and fine motor skills also proved to be important predictors of later academic achievement, but socioemotional skills were not. The findings were interpreted from a neurobiological perspective involving the development of self-regulation. These school entry skills are used to predict later achievement in reading, math, and science. I argued that in addition to acquiring early academic knowledge, children need to regulate the use of this knowledge to meet academic goals.

This study investigated four widely-used early literacy skills indicators in reflecting growth toward first-grade text readingskills. Examining the progress of 101 students across kindergarten and first grade, Letter Naming Fluency (LNF) and Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF) were more accurate than Initial Sounds Fluency and Phoneme Segmentation…

The purpose of the Basic Skills portion of this project was to improve the reading and mathematics skills of students in the Junior High Schools Transition program, grades 7 through 9, in 27 junior high schools and 4 middle or extended elementary schools. The goal of the Mathematics Teacher Resources Development portion of the project was to…

This twin study examined the relative contributions of genes and environment on 2nd language reading acquisition of Chinese-speaking children learning English. We examined whether specific skills—visual word recognition, receptive vocabulary, phonological awareness, phonological memory, and speech discrimination—in the 1st and 2nd languages have distinct or overlapping genetic and environmental origins. A sample of 279 Chinese twin pairs with a mean age of 6 years was tested. Univariate twin analyses were used to identify sources of individual variations in reading abilities and related cognitive–linguistic skills in Chinese and English, respectively. They were used to show both similar and distinctive patterns in these skills across Chinese and English. Bivariate Cholesky decomposition analyses indicated genetic overlaps between all parallel Chinese and English variables, as well as shared environmental overlaps in receptive vocabulary and phonological awareness. The phenotypic correlations between 1st and 2nd language skills previously observed in cross-linguistic studies could be explained by the shared genetic and environmental influences found in this twin study. PMID:25221842

Objective: To investigate working memory (WM), phonological skills, lexical skills, and reading comprehension in adults with Usher syndrome type 2 (USH2). Design: The participants performed tests of phonological processing, lexical access, WM, and reading comprehension. The design of the test situation and tests was specifically considered for use with persons with low vision in combination with hearing impairment. The performance of the group with USH2 on the different cognitive measures was compared to that of a matched control group with normal hearing and vision (NVH). Study Sample: Thirteen participants with USH2 aged 21–60 years and a control group of 10 individuals with NVH, matched on age and level of education. Results: The group with USH2 displayed significantly lower performance on tests of phonological processing, and on measures requiring both fast visual judgment and phonological processing. There was a larger variation in performance among the individuals with USH2 than in the matched control group. Conclusion: The performance of the group with USH2 indicated similar problems with phonological processing skills and phonological WM as in individuals with long-term hearing loss. The group with USH2 also had significantly longer reaction times, indicating that processing of visual stimuli is difficult due to the visual impairment. These findings point toward the difficulties in accessing information that persons with USH2 experience, and could be part of the explanation of why individuals with USH2 report high levels of fatigue and feelings of stress (Wahlqvist et al., 2013). PMID:25859232

This study aimed to enhance third and fourth graders’ text comprehension at the situation model level. Therefore, we tested a reading strategy training developed to target inference making skills, which are widely considered to be pivotal to situation model construction. The training was grounded in contemporary literature on situation model-based inference making and addressed the source (text-based versus knowledge-based), type (necessary versus unnecessary for (re-)establishing coherence), and depth of an inference (making single lexical inferences versus combining multiple lexical inferences), as well as the type of searching strategy (forward versus backward). Results indicated that, compared to a control group (n = 51), children who followed the experimental training (n = 67) improved their inference making skills supportive to situation model construction. Importantly, our training also resulted in increased levels of general reading comprehension and motivation. In sum, this study showed that a ‘level of text representation’-approach can provide a useful framework to teach inference making skills to third and fourth graders. PMID:26913014

This study aimed to enhance third and fourth graders' text comprehension at the situation model level. Therefore, we tested a reading strategy training developed to target inference making skills, which are widely considered to be pivotal to situation model construction. The training was grounded in contemporary literature on situation model-based inference making and addressed the source (text-based versus knowledge-based), type (necessary versus unnecessary for (re-)establishing coherence), and depth of an inference (making single lexical inferences versus combining multiple lexical inferences), as well as the type of searching strategy (forward versus backward). Results indicated that, compared to a control group (n = 51), children who followed the experimental training (n = 67) improved their inference making skills supportive to situation model construction. Importantly, our training also resulted in increased levels of general reading comprehension and motivation. In sum, this study showed that a 'level of text representation'-approach can provide a useful framework to teach inference making skills to third and fourth graders. PMID:26913014

This study examined the development of literacy skills in children in a district that used a Response to Intervention (RTI) model. The district included children whose first language was English and children who were learning English as a second language (ESL). Tasks measuring phonological awareness, lexical access, and syntactic awareness were administered when the children entered school in kindergarten at age 5. Reading, phonological processing, syntactic awareness, memory, and spelling were administered in grade 7. When the children entered school, significant numbers of them were at risk for literacy difficulties. After systematic instruction and annual monitoring of skills, their reading abilities improved to the extent that only a very small percentage had reading difficulties. The results demonstrated that early identification and intervention and frequent monitoring of basic skills can significantly reduce the incidence of reading problems in both the ESL and language majority children. PMID:21044539

Children ages 7 to 14 years listened to seven tokens, /ga/ to /ka/ synthesized in equal steps from 0 to 60 ms along the voice onset time (VOT) continuum, played in continuous rhythm. All possible changes (21) between the seven tokens were presented seven times at random intervals, maintaining the rhythm. Children were asked to press a button as soon as they detected a change. Maps of the seven tokens, constructed from multidimensional scaling of reaction times, indicated two salient dimensions: one phonological and the other acoustic/phonetic. Better reading, spelling, and phonological processing skills were associated with greater relative weighting of the phonological as compared to the acoustic dimension, suggesting that children with reading difficulty and associated deficits may underweight the phonological and/or overweight the acoustic information in speech signals. This task required no training and only momentary memory of the tokens. That an analysis of a simple task coincides with more complex reading tests suggests a low-level deficit (or shift in listening strategy). Compared to control children, children with reading disabilities may pay more attention to subtle details in these signals and less attention to the global pattern or attribute. [Supported by NIH Grant 1 RO1 HD35938 to JIB.

The main aim of this study was to examine the relationship between language skills (vocabulary knowledge and phonological awareness), nonverbal cognitive processes (attention, memory and executive functions) and reading comprehension in deaf children. Participants were thirty prelingually deaf children (10.7 ± 1.6 years old; 18 boys, 12 girls), who were classified as either good readers or poor readers by their scores on two reading comprehension tasks. The children were administered a rhyme judgment task and seven computerized neuropsychological tasks specifically designed and adapted for deaf children to evaluate vocabulary knowledge, attention, memory and executive functions in deaf children. A correlational approach was also used to assess the association between variables. Although the two groups did not show differences in phonological awareness, good readers showed better vocabulary and performed significantly better than poor readers on attention, memory and executive functions measures. Significant correlations were found between better scores in reading comprehension and better scores on tasks of vocabulary and non-verbal cognitive processes. The results suggest that in deaf children, vocabulary knowledge and nonverbal cognitive processes such as selective attention, visuo-spatial memory, abstract reasoning and sequential processing may be especially relevant for the development of reading comprehension. PMID:25240218

Individuals with a history of specific language impairment (SLI) often have subsequent problems with readingskills, but there have been some discrepant findings as to the developmental time course of these skills. This study investigates the developmental trajectories of readingskills over a 9-year time-span (from 7 to 16 years of age) in a…

This study examined the relations between reading-related cognitive skills and word reading development of Chinese children with dyslexia in their Chinese language (L1) and in English (L2). A total of 84 bilingual children-28 with dyslexia, 28 chronological age (CA) controls, and 28 reading-level (RL) controls-participated and were administered measures of word reading, rapid naming, visual-orthographic skills, and phonological and morphological awareness in both L1 and L2. Children with dyslexia showed weaker performance than CA controls in both languages and had more difficulties in phonological awareness in English but not in Chinese. In addition, reading-related cognitive skills in Chinese contributed significantly to the ability to read English words, suggesting cross-linguistic transfer from L1 to L2. Results found evidence for different phonological units of awareness related to the characteristics of the different languages being learned, supporting the psycholinguistic grain size and linguistic coding differences hypotheses. PMID:19897734

This report documents a standard-setting study to determine recommended minimum scores (cut scores) needed on the Core and Advanced iSkills[TM] assessments for examinees to be considered at a foundational level of ICT literacy skill. Two foundational levels--one for each iSkills assessment--had been specified previously by the National ICT…

This 2-year longitudinal study sought to identify a developmental pattern of Chinese and English readingskills in children with and without dyslexia from 6 to 8years of age. Three groups of 15 children each-those with dyslexia, age-matched (AM) controls, and reading-matched (RM) controls-participated. Dyslexia was diagnosed at 8years of age. All children were tested on phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), morphological awareness, word reading, and vocabulary knowledge in both Chinese and English and also speed of processing skill. AM controls outperformed the group with dyslexia on all measures except for phonological awareness, English word reading, and vocabulary. However, those with dyslexia and AM controls developed at a similar rate across all reading-related skills from 6 to 8years of age. Compared with the RM controls, the group with dyslexia scored higher in phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and vocabulary knowledge in both Chinese and English and also in English word reading but scored similarly in RAN. Children with dyslexia, thus, manifested clear difficulties in Chinese vocabulary knowledge, morphological awareness, and RAN as well as general speed of processing, representing a developmental lag in cognitive skills. Among these, RAN deficits are likely to be the most severe deficits in Chinese children with dyslexia. PMID:24530801

This report evaluates Project CABES (Career Advancement through Bilingual Education Skills) during its second year of extension of a federal funding cycle at New York's Seward Park High School. The major goal of Project CABES was to provide career advancementskills to 250 Hispanic 9th- through 12-grade students of limited English proficiency…

This practicum project developed and implemented a program to teach young children reading readiness skills before they entered first grade. A target group of 20 students ranging in age from 4 to 6 years old in an elementary school kindergarten class was established for the program. During the 12-week implementation, the target group participated…

This study investigates the relation between Spanish and English early literacy skills in kindergarten and first grade, and English oral reading fluency at the end of first and second grade in a sample of 150 Spanish-speaking English language learners. Students were assessed in kindergarten, first, and second grades on a broad bilingual academic…

In this study, we examined the longitudinal relations between frequency and features of reading experiences within the preschool classroom to children's language and literacy outcomes in kindergarten and 1st grade. Frequency refers to the number of shared reading sessions conducted each week as measured by teachers' written reading logs recorded across the academic year. Features refers to teachers' extratextual talk about literal, inferential, or print or phonological topics as assessed by analysis of 6 videotaped readings of narrative and informational texts collected across the preschool year. Participants were 28 preschool teachers and 178 children. The children were largely at risk and randomly selected from among those in each classroom to complete longitudinal assessments. In preschool, results showed that the frequency of classroom shared reading was positively and significantly related to children's receptive vocabulary growth, as was the inclusion of extratextual conversations around the text; only extratextual conversations related to children's preschool literacy growth. There was no evidence of differential influences of these experiences for children; that is, the relationship between frequency or features and children's language and literacy development was not moderated by children's initial skill level. Longitudinally, extratextual talk during preschool shared reading remained associated with children's vocabulary skills through kindergarten, with trends toward significance extending to 1st grade literacy skills. The frequency of preschool shared reading was not a significant predictor of longitudinal outcomes. PMID:23066674

This learning module, one of a series of 127 performance-based teacher education learning packages focusing on specific professional competencies of vocational teachers, deals with the task of assisting students in developing technical readingskills. Addressed in the individual learning experiences included in the module are the following topics:…

A recognised aim of science education is to promote critical engagement with science in the media. Evidence would suggest that this is challenging for both teachers and pupils and that science education does not yet adequately prepare young people for this task. Furthermore, in the absence of clear guidance as to what this means and how this may be achieved it is difficult for teachers to develop approaches and resources that address the matter and that systematically promote such critical engagement within their teaching programmes. Twenty-six individuals with recognised expertise or interest in science in the media, drawn from a range of disciplines and areas of practice, constituted a specialist panel in this study. The question this research sought to answer was "what are the elements of knowledge, skill, and attitude which underpin critical reading of science-based news reports?" During in-depth individual interviews the panel were asked to explore what they considered to be essential elements of knowledge, skills, and attitude which people need to enable them to respond critically to news reports with a science component. Analysis of the data revealed 14 fundamental elements which together contribute to an individual's capacity to engage critically with science-based news. These are classified in five categories "knowledge of science", "knowledge of writing and language", "knowledge about news, newspapers and journalism", "skills", and "attitudes". Illustrative profiles of each category along with indicators of critical engagement are presented. The implications for curriculum planning and pedagogy are considered.

Background Preterm children are at risk for executive function (EF) problems, which have been linked to behavior and learning problems in full term children. In this study, we examine the relationship between EF and functional outcomes in preterm children. Aims To evaluate (1) EF skills of 9- to 16-year-old children born across the spectrum of gestational age (GA), (2) relationship of degree of prematurity to EF skills, and (3) contributions of EF skills to two functional outcomes--reading scores and parent-rated child function. Method Preterm children <36 weeks gestation (n=72) were compared to full term children (n=42) of similar age, gender and SES, on measures of EF, reading, and parent-ratings of child function. Multiple regression models evaluated contributions to EF skills and functional outcomes. Results Compared to full term controls, preterm children had poorer EF performance on a complex planning and organization task and did not increase planning time as task difficulty increased. Their spatial memory capacity was not different. GA contributed to EF skills, but was mediated by IQ. EF contributed to the variance in readingskills but did not add to the variance in reading when IQ was considered. EF skills significantly contributed to the variance in parent-rated child function, but IQ did not. Conclusion EF skills contribute to measures of functional outcome in this high-risk population. The use of EF skills as an early marker for learning and functional problems and as a target for intervention in children born preterm warrants future study. PMID:21849240

The purpose of this article is to provide a commentary on the current state of several measurement issues pertaining to curriculum-based measures of reading (R-CBM). We begin by providing an overview of the utility of R-CBM, followed by a presentation of five specific measurements considerations: (a) the reliability of R-CBM oral reading fluency…

An action research study described and evaluated a program for motivating students to read and to take more responsibility for their learning. The targeted population consisted of second- and fourth-grade students in rural-suburban communities west of Chicago, Illinois. Students' lack of motivation related to reading and failure to become…

Focusing on the reading-thinking-learning process, the classrooms in which such processes occur, and the means for studying these processes, this book presents essays on teaching, learning, and assessing the reading process. The first section contains essays on learning contexts that are interactive and participatory, while essays in the second…

This study investigated the mind-reading abilities of 19 adults with Asperger syndrome and 19 typically developing adults. Two static mind-reading tests and a more naturalistic empathic accuracy task were used. In the empathic accuracy task, participants attempted to infer the thoughts and feelings of target persons, while viewing a videotape of…

The paper presents a knowledge-based framework for skills and talent management based on an advanced matchmaking between profiles of candidates and available job positions. Interestingly, informative content of top-k retrieval is enriched through semantic capabilities. The proposed approach allows to: (1) express a requested profile in terms of both hard constraints and soft ones; (2) provide a ranking function based also on qualitative attributes of a profile; (3) explain the resulting outcomes (given a job request, a motivation for the obtained score of each selected profile is provided). Top-k retrieval allows to select most promising candidates according to an ontology formalizing the domain knowledge. Such a knowledge is further exploited to provide a semantic-based explanation of missing or conflicting features in retrieved profiles. They also indicate additional profile characteristics emerging by the retrieval procedure for a further request refinement. A concrete case study followed by an exhaustive experimental campaign is reported to prove the approach effectiveness.

The present study investigated the relationship between Chinese readingskills and metalinguistic awareness skills such as phonological, morphological, and orthographic awareness for 101 Preschool, 94 Grade-1, 98 Grade-2, and 98 Grade-3 children from two primary schools in Mainland China. The aim of the study was to examine how each of these metalinguistic awareness skills would exert their influence on the success of reading in Chinese with age. The results showed that all three metalinguistic awareness skills significantly predicted reading success. It further revealed that orthographic awareness played a dominant role in the early stages of reading acquisition, and its influence decreased with age, while the opposite was true for the contribution of morphological awareness. The results were in stark contrast with studies in English, where phonological awareness is typically shown as the single most potent metalinguistic awareness factor in literacy acquisition. In order to account for the current data, a three-stage model of reading acquisition in Chinese is discussed. PMID:24809477

This study examined the discrimination of English vowel contrasts in real and novel word-pairs by 21 children: 11 bilingual Spanish/English- and 10 monolingual English-speaking children, 8-12 years of age (M=10; 6; Mdn=10; 4). The goal was to determine if children with poor readingskills had difficulty with discrimination, an essential factor in reading abilities. A categorial discrimination task was used in an ABX discrimination paradigm: A (the first word in the sequence) and B (the second word in the sequence) were different stimuli, and X (the third word in the sequence) was identical to either A or to B. Stimuli were produced by one of three different speakers. Seventy-two monosyllabic words were presented: 36 real English and 36 novel words. Vowels were those absent from the inventory of Spanish vowels. Discrimination accuracy for the English-speaking children with good readingskills was significantly greater than for the bilingual-speaking children with good or poor readingskills. Early age of acquisition and greater percentage of time devoted to communication in English played the greatest role in bilingual children's discrimination and readingskills. The adjacency of vowels in the F1-F2 acoustic space presented the greatest difficulty.

Spelling-sound transparency varies across orthographies. This aspect was found to have implications for the strategy of reading, but whether reading of different orthographies also relies differently on cognitive skills is yet unclear. This question was examined mainly by cross-participant-and-language investigations in which orthographic variation is hard to isolate. This work examined this topic using a within-participant-and-language study design. Hebrew readers in Grades 3 and 4 were longitudinally tested because in these grades they are engaged in reading three forms of script, transcribing the same language and varying in spelling-sound relations, as they gradually progress from reading a transparent orthography to reading an opaque one. Phonological awareness explained a considerable amount of variance in accuracy in reading all forms of script across these two years. The relations of morphological awareness with accuracy in reading the three forms of script were similar; however, the results suggested that these may be associated with the course of transition. Phonological awareness and rapid naming were similarly related to fluency in reading all forms of script when equivalent proficiencies in reading of these scripts were achieved. At this stage, the relations of vocabulary with fluency in reading and comprehension of the transparent and opaque forms of script were also much alike. Phonological memory explained a modest, but significant, amount of variance in comprehension of the unpointed script alone. These results suggest that, apart from phonological memory, the cognitive skills tested in this study serve as a common cognitive infrastructure in reading orthographies varying in spelling-sound transparency. PMID:24448518

This study of English as a second language (ESL) reading textbooks investigates cohesion in reading passages from 27 textbooks. The guiding research questions were whether and how cohesion differs across textbooks written for beginning, intermediate, and advanced second language readers. Using a computational tool called Coh-Metrix, textual…

For accurate reading comprehension, readers must first learn to map letters to their corresponding speech sounds and meaning and then they must string the meanings of many words together to form a representation of the text. Furthermore, readers must master the complexities involved in parsing the relevant syntactic and pragmatic information necessary for accurate interpretation. Failure in this process can occur at multiple levels and cognitive neuroscience has been helpful in identifying the underlying causes of success and failure in reading single words and in reading comprehension. In general, neurobiological studies of skilledreading comprehension indicate a highly overlapping language circuit for single word reading, reading comprehension and listening comprehension with largely quantitative differences in a number of reading and language related areas. This paper reviews relevant research from studies employing neuroimaging techniques to study reading with a focus on the relationship between readingskill, single word reading, and text comprehension. PMID:23662034

There are currently multiple paths through which genetic counselors can acquire advanced knowledge and skills. However, outside of continuing education opportunities, there are few formal training programs designed specifically for the advanced training of genetic counselors. In the genetic counseling profession, there is currently considerable debate about the paths that should be available to attain advancedskills, as well as the skills that might be needed for practice in the future. The Association of Genetic Counseling Program Directors (AGCPD) convened a national committee, the Committee on Advanced Training for Certified Genetic Counselors (CATCGC), to investigate varied paths to post-master's training and career development. The committee began its work by developing three related grids that view career advancement from the viewpoints of the skills needed to advance (skills), ways to obtain these skills (paths), and existing genetic counselor positions that offer career change or advancement (positions). Here we describe previous work related to genetic counselor career advancement, the charge of the CATCGC, our preliminary work in developing a model through which to view genetic counselor advanced training and career advancement opportunities, and our next steps in further developing and disseminating the model. PMID:26739839

The eye-hand span (EHS) is the separation between eye position and hand position when sight-reading music. It can be measured in two ways: in notes (the number of notes between hand and eye; the 'note index'), or in time (the length of time between fixation and performance; the 'time index'). The EHSs of amateur and professional pianists were compared while they sight-read music. The professionals showed significantly larger note indexes than the amateurs (approximately four notes, compared to two notes), and all subjects showed similar variability in the note index. Surprisingly, the different groups of pianists showed almost identical mean time indexes (ca. 1 s), with no significant differences between any of the skill levels. However, professionals did show significantly less variation than the amateurs. The time index was significantly affected by the performance tempo: when fast tempos were imposed on performance, all subjects showed a reduction in the time index (to ca. 0.7 s), and slow tempos increased the time index (to ca. 1.3 s). This means that the length of time that information is stored in the buffer is related to performance tempo rather than ability, but that professionals can fit more information into their buffers. PMID:10643087

Many educators believe that solid modeling software has made teaching two- and three-dimensional visualization skills obsolete. They claim that the visual tools built into the solid modeling software serve as a replacement for the CAD operator's personal visualization skills. They also claim that because solid modeling software can produce…

The aim of the present study was investigate the relationship between working memory and reading and mathematical skills in 55 children diagnosed with developmental coordination disorder (DCD). The findings indicate a pervasive memory deficit in all memory measures. In particular, deficits observed in visuospatial short-term and working memory tasks were significantly worse than in the verbal short-term memory ones. On the basis of these deficits, the sample was divided into high and low visuospatial memory ability groups. The low visuospatial memory group performed significantly worse on the attainment measures compared to the high visuospatial memory group, even when the contribution of IQ was taken into account. When the sample was divided into high and low verbal working memory ability groups, verbal working memory skills made a unique contribution to attainment only when verbal IQ was taken into account, but not when performance IQ was statistically controlled. It is possible that the processing demands of the working memory tasks together with the active motor component reflected in the visuospatial memory tasks and performance IQ subtest both play a crucial role in learning in children with DCD. PMID:17010988

The assessment of early literacy skills during the kindergarten year can provide useful information about student performance in prereading skills, which are predictors of later reading achievement. This study examined the use of fluency-based prompts of student phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, and oral reading at the end of kindergarten…

Presents a longitudinal study that aims to further understanding of reasons for social class differences in growth of decoding and reading comprehension skills from beginning kindergarten through children's fourth grade year. Finds that the reasons for social class differences in growth of readingskills depended on the time interval that was…

This research investigates the effectiveness of the Instrumental Enrichment Approach on the enhancement of the reading comprehension skills of learners with English Language Learning Difficulties. It aims at identifying the reading comprehension skills required for preparatory stage English language learners, re-develop and teach sample materials…

This article addresses the lack of outcome-based research on the integration of technology into pedagogy at the undergraduate college level. It describes a study performed at a Midwestern university, testing the relative effectiveness of paper and electronic topographic maps for teaching map-readingskills, and considers the relationship between…

Through this exploratory study the authors investigated the effects of primary language support delivered via computer on the English reading comprehension skills of English language learners. Participants were 28 First-grade students identified as Limited English Proficient. The primary language of all participants was Spanish. Students were…

This research investigated the concurrent association between early readingskills and phonological awareness (PA), print knowledge, language, cognitive, and demographic variables in 101 five-Year-Old Children with prelingual hearing losses ranging from mild to profound who communicated primarily via spoken language. All participants were fitted…

An interactive multimedia program to facilitate the acquisition of reading, writing, and overall communication skills in children with significant language delays was developed and evaluated in Sweden with two studies. Participating in the first study were 11 children (ages 6 to 13) with autism, 9 children (mean age 13) with mixed disabilities,…

Compared to skilled adult readers, children typically make more fixations that are longer in duration, shorter saccades, and more regressions, thus reading more slowly (Blythe & Joseph, 2011). Recent attempts to understand the reasons for these differences have discovered some similarities (e.g., children and adults target their saccades…

The goal of this study was to longitudinally examine relationships between early factors (child and mother) that may influence children's phonological awareness and readingskills 3 years later in a group of young children with cochlear implants (N = 16). Mothers and children were videotaped during two storybook interactions, and children's oral…