儿童听写困难研究综述

听写困难是儿童学习障碍的一种,是指在没有阅读障碍病史的情况下儿童特定拼写技能明显落后的现象。已有研究发现,听写困难儿童在字形表征、形音联结强度、语音表征、语义表征与听写正常儿童存在着显著差异,未来研究应注重对听写困难纵向发展的研究、制定听写技能的发展常模、探明听写过程中各环节的转换机制和神经生理基础及影响听写活动的相关因素。     

From letter names to word reading: The nascent role of sublexical fluency

Information processing theory suggests that sublexical fluency skills are important to word reading development, but there are few supportive data. This study investigated if sublexical fluency (letter name fluency, letter sound fluency, and phoneme segmentation fluency) contributed to the development of word reading and spelling in 92 kindergarten children. The pattern of findings suggests that, as early as kindergarten, sublexical fluency skills explain a small, but significant, amount of unique variance in literacy outcomes when also considering the influence of accuracy in these skills. Also, growth in sublexical fluency skills is related to both word reading and spelling proficiency at the end of kindergarten. We suggest that knowledge of early literacy skill development may be enhanced by attention to sublexical fluency and that these skills, specifically letter sound fluency, may provide the mechanism that supports early word reading and spelling.     

The associations among preschool children’s growth in early reading,executive function,and invented spelling skills

The purpose of the present study was to examine associations among children’s emergent literacy (early reading), language, executive function (EF), and invented spelling skills across prekindergarten. Participants included 123, primarily African American, 4-year-old children enrolled in a variety of prekindergarten settings. In addition to describing the concurrent and longitudinal relations between children’s emergent literacy, EF, and invented spelling skills, this study investigated associations among children’s growth in these targeted skills and explored potential indirect effects from children’s EF to invented writing skill. Multiple regression analyses suggested that although early reading skills were significantly and concurrently associated with invented spelling skills, children’s phonological awareness was the only early reading skill predictive of later invented spelling skills. Children’s EF was not concurrently or longitudinally associated with invented spelling after controlling for early reading skills. However, regression analyses of children’s residual scores suggested that children’s EF skill at the beginning of the semester was predictive of their later invented spelling skills through children’s letter-sound knowledge.     

The Developmental Dynamics of Literacy Skills During the First Grade

The aim of the study was to investigate prospective relationships between reading and writing performance during the first grade of primary school. The data was collected from 83 Finnish‐speaking children who were examined four times on reading, spelling, and productive writing skills during the first grade. At the beginning of the school year, they were also tested on initial reading skill. The results showed that reading and spelling manifested a reciprocal relationship during the first semester: reading performance increased subsequent spelling proficiency, and spelling skills enhanced subsequent reading. Later on, however, reading predicted spelling in a less reciprocal association. In turn, productivity of writing predicted subsequent reading performance during the first grade although the reverse was not true. The results suggest that it may be important to emphasize the support which compositional writing may offer to the development of reading.     

The precursors of double dissociation between reading and spelling in a transparent orthography

Research and clinical practitioners have mixed views whether reading and spelling difficulties should be combined or seen as separate. This study examined the following: (a) if double dissociation between reading and spelling can be identified in a transparent orthography (Finnish) and (b) the cognitive and noncognitive precursors of this phenomenon. Finnish-speaking children (n?=?1963) were assessed on reading fluency and spelling in grades 1, 2, 3, and 4. Dissociation groups in reading and spelling were formed based on stable difficulties in grades 1–4. The groups were compared in kindergarten phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, letter knowledge, home literacy environment, and task-avoidant behavior. The results indicated that the double dissociation groups could be identified even in the context of a highly transparent orthography: 41 children were unexpected poor spellers (SD), 36 were unexpected poor readers (RD), and 59 were poor in both reading and spelling (RSD). The RSD group performed poorest on all cognitive skills and showed the most task-avoidant behavior, the RD group performed poorly particularly on rapid automatized naming and letter knowledge, and the SD group had difficulties on phonological awareness and letter knowledge. Fathers’ shared book reading was less frequent in the RD and RSD groups than in the other groups. The findings suggest that there are discernible double dissociation groups with distinct cognitive profiles. This further suggests that the identification of difficulties in Finnish and the planning of teaching and remediation practices should include both reading and spelling assessments.     

Metalinguistic contributions to reading and spelling in second and third grade students

Minimal research has been conducted on the simultaneous influence of multiple metalinguistic, linguistic, and processing skills that may impact literacy development in children who are in the process of learning to read and write. In this study, we assessed the phonemic awareness, morphological awareness, orthographic awareness, receptive vocabulary, and rapid naming abilities of second and third grade students (N?=?56) and determined how these abilities predicted the children??s reading and spelling skills. Regression analyses revealed that morphological awareness was the sole unique contributor to spelling and, together with orthographic awareness, uniquely contributed to word recognition. Morphological awareness also was significantly related to reading comprehension. The results add to a growing literature base providing evidence that early literacy development is influenced by morphological awareness, an ability that has received considerably less educational attention. Additionally, the findings point to the importance of tapping into multiple sources of metalinguistic knowledge when providing instruction in reading and spelling.     

The Development of Reading Skills in Children With English as a Second Language

One goal of this longitudinal study was to examine whether the predictors of reading skills 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 in Grade 3. The results indicated that in kindergarten, the ESL group had significantly lower scores on phonological processing, syntactic awareness, spelling, and memory for sentences tasks. However, in Grade 3, the ESL group performed in a similar way to the L1 group except on the syntactic awareness task. The combination of the two kindergarten measures, memory for sentences and Oral Cloze, and the combination of phonological processing and letter identification all contributed equally to predicting the L1 students' word-reading skills. However, for ESL students, letter identification and phonological processing made much larger contributions to predicting Grade 3 reading ability. Another goal of this study was to assess the procedures used to identify reading disability in the ESL and L1 student sample. Performance on two measures—letter identification and phonological awareness in kindergarten—predicted whether students would be classified in Grade 3 as at risk or having typical reading development for the ESL and L1 groups. The ESL children developed strong reading skills, and their status as ESL speakers did not put them at risk for reading difficulties in Grade 3. ESL students were not at any particular risk for reading difficulties after 4 years in Canadian schooling with an adequate balanced literacy program.     

Rhythm production at school entry as a predictor of poor reading and spelling at the end of first grade

Rhythm plays an organisational role in the prosody and phonology of language, and children with literacy difficulties have been found to demonstrate poor rhythmic perception. This study explored whether students’ performance on a simple rhythm task at school entry could serve as a predictor of whether they would face difficulties in word reading and spelling at the end of grade 1. The participants were 479 Norwegian 6-year-old first graders randomized as controls in the longitudinal RCT on track (n = 1171). Rhythmic timing and pre-reading skills were tested individually at school entry on a digital tablet. On the rhythm task, the students were told to tap a drum appearing on the screen to two different rhythms (2 Hz paced and 1.5 Hz paced). Children’s responses were recorded as they tapped on the screen with their index finger. Significant group differences were found in rhythm tapping ability measured at school entry, when groups were defined upon whether children went on to score above or below the 20th percentile reading and spelling thresholds in national assessment tests at the end of grade one. Inclusion of the school-entry rhythmic tapping measure into a model of classification accuracy for above or below threshold reading and spelling improved accuracy of classification by 6.2 and 9.2% respectively.     

Development of Poor and Better Readers During the Elementary School

The goal of this longitudinal study was to describe the average development of word recognition, reading comprehension, vocabulary and spelling of poor and better readers during the elementary school period and to determine whether the differences between these readers increase over a period of 6 years of elementary education. Poor and better readers were defined to belong to the lowest 30% and to the higher 70% of a longitudinal sample, respectively. It appeared that for word recognition the developmental curves for the groups were very distinct and followed similar patterns. For reading comprehension, vocabulary and spelling, the developmental curves showed similar patterns with decreasing differences across grades, however. Clear seasonal effects were found for reading comprehension, vocabulary and spelling, while the seasonal effect for word recognition was restricted to the early grades. It appeared that students with initially poor abilities in word recognition and reading comprehension showed greater improvement over time on reading comprehension, vocabulary and spelling than students with initially better abilities in word recognition and reading comprehension. These findings contradict the existence of a Matthew effect for these skills. For word recognition, a clear differential effect could not be found: the groups did not differ systematically in mean development. The gap between the poor and better decoders did not widen over time for this skill; so a Matthew effect for word recognition was not supported.     

Contributions of morphological skill to children’s essay writing

Morphological skills have previously been found to reliably predict reading skill, including word reading, vocabulary, and comprehension. However, less is known about how morphological skills might contribute to writing skill, aside from its well-documented role in the development of spelling. This correlational study examines whether morphological skill, as measured by a sentence generation task tapping both derivational morphology and meta-syntactic skills, predicts performance on a standardized essay writing task for fifth- and eighth-grade U.S. students (N = 233), after controlling for grade level, comprehension, and writing fluency. Multilevel analyses indicated that morphological skill and writing fluency were each uniquely predictive of essay quality, and this finding was consistent regardless of whether accurate spelling was required in the morphological task. Our results suggest that morphological skills play an important role in writing, as has been previously documented in reading and spelling.     

Modeling the response of normally achieving and at-risk first grade children to word reading instruction

The purpose of this study was to identify important subject characteristics that predicted individual differences in responsiveness to word reading instruction in normally achieving and at-risk first grade children. This was accomplished by modeling individual word and nonword reading growth, and the correlates of change in these skills, in first grade students during two different phases of the school year. In the first phase of the study (October–January), word and nonword reading skill was modeled in normally achieving and at-risk children. Results of growth modeling indicated significant group differences in word and nonword reading growth parameters. A combination of phonemic awareness skill, advanced graphophoneme knowledge, and initial word/nonword reading skill predicted word and nonword reading growth in the control group, whereas, a combination of rapid naming speed, letter sound knowledge, and phonemic awareness skill predicted word and nonword reading growth in the at-risk group. In the second phase of the study (January–April), a subgroup of the at-risk subjects who exhibited limited growth in word reading skills during the first phase of the study was enrolled in 12 weeks of small group reading intervention designed to improve reading skills. Results of growth modeling indicated significant increases in word and nonword reading growth rates in this group during the intervention phase. Only rapid naming speed uniquely predicted word and nonword reading growth in the group of subjects receiving intervention.     

Intervention Provided to Linguistically Diverse Middle School Students with Severe Reading Difficulties

This study investigated the effectiveness of a multicomponent reading intervention implemented with middle school students with severe reading difficulties, all of whom had received remedial and/or special education for several years with minimal response to intervention. Participants were 38 students in grades 6-8 who had severe deficits in word reading, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. Most were Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs) with identified disabilities. Nearly all demonstrated severely limited oral vocabularies in English and, for ELLs, in both English and Spanish. Students were randomly assigned to receive the research intervention (n = 20) or typical instruction provided in their school's remedial reading or special education classes (n = 18). Students in the treatment group received daily explicit and systematic small-group intervention for 40 minutes over 13 weeks, consisting of a modified version of a phonics-based remedial program augmented with English as a Second Language practices and instruction in vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension strategies. Results indicated that treatment students did not demonstrate significantly higher outcomes in word recognition, comprehension, or fluency than students who received the school's typical instruction and that neither group demonstrated significant growth over the course of the study. Significant correlations were found between scores on teachers' ratings of students' social skills and problem behaviors and posttest decoding and spelling scores, and between English oral vocabulary scores and scores in word identification and comprehension. The researchers hypothesize that middle school students with the most severe reading difficulties, particularly those who are ELLs and those with limited oral vocabularies, may require intervention of considerably greater intensity than that provided in this study. Further research directly addressing features of effective remediation for these students is needed.     

Linguistic awareness skills in grade one children in a French immersion setting

This study examined the ability of children in French immersion and English programs to analyze the internal structure of spoken words in relation to their early reading and spelling abilities in English. Thirty-two children in the first grade were given a modified version of the Auditory Analysis Test, and reading and spelling tasks that included both real words and non-words. Results indicated that French immersion children were more proficient than their English program peers at explicitly analyzing spoken words and that the groups did not differ when reading and spelling orthographically regular real words and non-words. The English program children performed better than their French program peers only when reading orthographically irregular English words. These results demonstrate that second language learning enhances metalinguistic awareness and help to explain why children in immersion programs do not experience long-term difficulty in acquiring English written language skills.     

Contributions of Emergent Literacy Skills to Name Writing, Letter Writing, and Spelling in Preschool Children

The purpose of this study was to examine which emergent literacy skills contribute to preschool children's emergent writing (name-writing, letter-writing, and spelling) skills. Emergent reading and writing tasks were administered to 296 preschool children aged 4-5 years. Print knowledge and letter-writing skills made positive contributions to name writing; whereas alphabet knowledge, print knowledge, and name writing made positive contributions to letter writing. Both name-writing and letter-writing skills made significant contributions to the prediction of spelling after controlling for age, parental education, print knowledge, phonological awareness, and letter-name and letter-sound knowledge; however, only letter-writing abilities made a significant unique contribution to the prediction of spelling when both letter-writing and name-writing skills were considered together. Name writing reflects knowledge of some letters rather than a broader knowledge of letters that may be needed to support early spelling. Children's letter-writing skills may be a better indicator of children's emergent literacy and developing spelling skills than are their name-writing skills at the end of the preschool year. Spelling is a developmentally complex skill beginning in preschool and includes letter writing and blending skills, print knowledge, and letter-name and letter-sound knowledge.     

Targeting phonological representations can help in the early stages of reading in a non‐dominant language

It is not known whether children who are struggling with reading in a non‐dominant language will respond better to a phonological intervention or to one that addresses oral proficiency. Multilingual seven‐to nine‐year‐olds showing reading difficulty in a non‐dominant language, English, were given a three‐week intervention in phonological skills or in language proficiency and were compared with two control groups (one with reading difficulties and one with no reading difficulties) who received a non‐language based intervention. The group receiving the explicit phonological instructions showed significantly better gain in reading and spelling measures than the language proficiency and reading difficulties control group, but did not reach the levels of the noreading‐difficulty group. The phonological intervention was particularly effective for children with the lowest single‐word reading scores. We suggest that the intervention helped to catalyse the fine‐tuning of the phonological domain, making phonological representations optimally available for decoding, phonological manipulations and literacy development.     

The spelling strategies of francophone dyslexic students

The development of spelling skill is a very difficult task for students with dyslexia. Spelling in French involves the consideration of various types of knowledge, procedures and strategies. This study aims to describe the spelling strategies of 32 dyslexic students (DYS) aged from 8 to 12 years and to establish links between spelling strategies and spelling skill. Students had to spell 24 dictated words and provide comments on the strategy employed for each word. The performances of DYS were compared to 25 children of the same chronological age (CA) and of 24 children of the same reading age (RA). The results show that phonological strategies are the most commonly used by all groups of participants. If no particular strategy is related to the spelling skill of DYS, visuo-orthographic strategy generally accounts for the spelling skill results of CA and RA.     

Developmental dyslexia: Related to specific or general deficits?

The present study was designed to examine the question of whether developmental dyslexia in 12-year-old students at the beginning of secondary education in the Netherlands is confined to problems in the domain of reading and spelling or also is related to difficulties in other areas. In particular, hypotheses derived from theories on phonological processing, rapid automatized naming, working memory, and automatization of skills were tested. To overcome the definition and selection problems of many previous studies, we included in our study all students in the first year of secondary special education in a Dutch school district. Participants were classified as either dyslexic, garden-variety, or hyperlexic poor readers, according to the degree of discrepancy between their word recognition and listening comprehension scores. In addition, groups of normal readers were formed, matching the poor readers in either reading age or chronological age. A large test battery was administered to each student, including phonological, naming, working memory, speed of processing, and motor tests. The findings indicate that dyslexia is associated with deficits in (1) phonological recoding, word recognition (both in their native Dutch and in English as a second language), and spelling skills; and (2) naming speed for letters and digits. Dyslexia was not associated with deficits in other areas. The results suggest that developmental dyslexia, at the age of 12, might be (or might have become) a difficulty rather isolated from deficiencies in other cognitive and motor skills.     

Sources of variance in curriculum‐based measures of silent reading

Curriculum‐Based Measurement silent reading (CBM‐SR) items have been found to be reliable and valid for measuring reading comprehension skills This generalizability study reports the findings from administration of three CBM‐SR passages to fifth through eighth grade students in one school district. Using Repeated Measures Analyses of Variance (RMANOVA) procedures, the statistical probability of performance on the CBM‐SR task as a differential indicator of reading comprehension skill was found to be significant among students in different grade levels and between students who did and did not receive special education services. Follow‐up analyses were conducted using generalizability theory to estimate the amount of variance in CBM‐SR scores from individual score differences, grade levels, and special education status. The results indicated that on two of the passages, variability in CBM‐SR scores came primarily from grade level differences in scores on the tasks, while on the third passage, the differences were most attributable to individual differences in scores, regardless of grade level or special education services. Implications for the use of CBM‐SR items for routine assessment of students' reading skills are discussed. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 40: 363–377, 2003.     

Mentoring teachers in systematic phonics instruction: effectiveness of an intensive year-long program for kindergarten through 3rd grade teachers and their students

Teaching systematic phonics effectively to beginning readers requires specialized knowledge and training which many primary grade teachers lack. The current study examined effects of a year-long mentoring program to improve teachers’ knowledge and effectiveness in teaching phonics and the extent that it improved students’ achievement in reading and spelling. Teachers in urban, lower SES schools completed a 45 h course followed by 90 h of in-school training. Mentors (N = 29) worked with kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade teachers (N = 69) twice a week for 30 weeks during the year. Each visit included a 45 min prep period plus 45 min of modeling and feedback in the classroom. Mentors taught teachers how to provide systematic phonics instruction to their students (N = 1,336). Monthly ratings by mentors revealed that teachers improved their phonics teaching skills with many reaching the highest ratings by May. Teachers who were non-native speakers of English took a bit longer to learn the English sound system for letters, mainly because they lacked sufficient knowledge of English sounds and had to learn them. Given the increasing diversity of the teacher work force, future research is needed to study this difficulty, its solution, and impact on students. Teachers’ agreement with principles of phonics instruction remained strong or increased from fall to spring. Students’ reading and spelling skills showed large gains during the year and far exceeded effect sizes from comparable data sources. Students met grade-level expectations at the end of kindergarten and first grade but fell short in second and third grades. General education students outperformed bilingual/ELL and special needs students although all subgroups made large gains. Findings reveal the effectiveness of an intensive mentoring model of professional development applied to a subject that is difficult to teach and to a student population known for lower reading achievement. Findings point to the need for better pre-service teacher preparation coupled with appropriate curricula and PD from districts in order to improve students’ reading achievement.     

Labels Needn't Stick: "At-Risk" First Graders Rescued With Appropriate Intervention

The Orton-Gillingham(r) and TouchMath(r) systems of instruction were implemented to improve language and mathematics skill development for 6- and 7-year-olds in a 1st-grade classroom. After 2 years of intervention, the participants were found to be no longer in need of special education services. All the participants showed marked improvement in reading scores on the Wide Range Achievement Test-III. The students who were considered to be at risk for reading and mathematics difficulties at the beginning of their 1st-grade year were no longer in need of special education services at the end of their 2nd-grade year.