Semantic and Phonological Ability to Adjust Recoding: A Unique Correlate of Word Reading Skill?

This study addresses whether reading involves a process termed semantic and phonological ability to adjust recoding (SPAAR). It was hypothesized that SPAAR helps readers link inaccurate pronunciations to lexical entries (e.g., spynitch to spinach). Psychometric properties of the Mispronunciation Correction Task (MCT), a measure of SPAAR, were investigated using a sample of 206 elementary-age children. The 25-item MCT appeared to measure a single construct, and the items discriminated well across the range of ability. Based on a sample of 94 children, construct validity analyses indicated that phonological awareness and decoding skill predicted MCT performance. Hierarchical regressions were used to test the relationship between SPAAR and word reading. After controlling for other skills, SPAAR showed a relationship with both timed and untimed word reading. Phonological awareness did not. These data suggest that SPAAR may be a reading-related ability involving phonological processing and some form of semantic processing.     

The Growth of Phonological Awareness by Children With Reading Disabilities: A Result of Semantic Knowledge or Knowledge of Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondences?

According to the Lexical Restructuring Model (Metsala & Walley, 1998 Metsala, J. L. and Walley, A. C. 1998. “Spoken vocabulary growth and the segmental restructuring of lexical representation: Precursors to phonemic awareness and early reading ability”. In Word recognition in beginning literacy, Edited by: Metsala, J. L. and Ehri, L. C. 89–120. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.  [Google Scholar]), children move from holistic representations of words, to syllabic representations, and finally to phonemic representations through a restructuring process driven by their developing lexical base. In contrast, the psycholinguistic grain size theory put forth by Ziegler and Goswami (2005) Ziegler, J. C. and Goswami, U. 2005. Reading acquisition, developmental dyslexia, and skilled reading across languages: A psycholinguistic grain size theory.. Psychological Bulletin, 131: 3–29. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] suggests that the awareness of individual phonemes is not possible without direct literacy instruction. The purpose of this study was to examine whether semantic knowledge and/or knowledge of grapheme/phoneme correspondences influenced the acquisition of word-blending skills by a sample of children with a reading disability. Participants were 211 second-grade and third-grade students from public elementary schools who were assigned to a reading intervention. Hierarchical Linear Modeling techniques were used to model individual growth curves of word-blending skills. Overall, findings support the psycholinguistic grain size theory of reading and suggest that instruction in the relationship between orthographic patterns and their corresponding sounds is necessary for the development of phonological awareness.     

Reading to young children: A head-start in life?

This paper investigates the importance of parents reading to their young children. Using Australian data we find that parental reading to children at age 4–5 has positive and significant effects on reading skills and cognitive skills (including numeracy skills) of these children at least up to age 10 or 11. The effects on skills more closely related to reading and language are larger than those on skills such as numeracy skills. However, all findings in relation to reading and other cognitive skills are persistent and robust to a wide range of sensitivity analyses. Although reading to children is also correlated with children's non-cognitive skills, after accounting for the endogeneity of reading to children, no causal effect remains.     

Theory of Mind: a Hidden Factor in Reading Comprehension?

Theory of mind is the understanding that other people have mental states that drive their actions and that those mental states can be different from one’s own. Without understanding theory of mind and being able to take others’ perspectives, it could be difficult for children to read and understand narrative texts. This paper posits that children’s understanding of others’ minds may be a potential missing piece in current accounts of reading comprehension. Indeed, the typical progression of children’s theory of mind abilities across childhood is closely aligned with the development of narrative processing skills. Furthermore, emerging evidence shows that both narrative processing and theory of mind are predictive of children’s reading comprehension, both concurrently and longitudinally. We present a possible explanation for why such a link exists and propose a causal framework of this relation in which increased ToM leads to increased understanding of and inferencing about characters’ mental states. Understanding characters’ mental states then leads to better reading comprehension. The framework makes novel, testable predictions and provides directions for future research.     

Actors,Poor or Funny?

Someplaysaresosuccessfulthattheyrunforyearsonend.Inmanyways,thisis1forthepooractorswhoarerequiredtogoonrepeatingthesame2nightafternight.Onewould3themtoknowtheirpartsbyheartand4haveanycausestofalter(结巴).Yet5isnotalwaysthecase.Afamousactorina6successfulplaywasoncecastintheroleofanaristocrat7hadbeenimprisonedinBastillefortwentyyears.Inthelastactagaoler(监狱看守)wouldalwayscome项精练     

Homeschooling in Brazil: A Matter of Rights or a Political Debate?

ABSTRACT

This article presents an analysis of the right to education in Brazil in light of the growing number of Brazilian families practicing homeschooling. The debate is recent in Brazil. Here we present an analysis of international literature on homeschooling, Brazilian literature on the right to education, and an appraisal of lawsuits against Brazilian families for teaching their children at home. In light of truancy regulations and the evolution of a right to education in Brazil, homeschooling creates legal and political challenges.     

Reading religion in Norwegian textbooks: are individual religions ideas or people?

Different religions are treated in different ways in Norwegian sixth form textbooks. We carried out an exhaustive content analysis of the chapters devoted to individual religions in textbooks for the Religion and Ethics course currently available in Norway, using rigorous indicators to code each word, image and question according to whether they were treated the religion as a set of ideas or a group of people. After adjusting for trends in the different kinds of data (word, image, question), we found that Buddhism and Christianity receive significantly more attention for their ideas than Hinduism, Islam and Judaism, which are treated more as people. This difference cannot be explained by the national syllabus or the particularities of the individual religions. The asymmetry also has implications for the pupils’ academic, moral and pedagogical agency for which teachers play a critical role in compensating.     

A Witch or a Son?

Itwashotthatday．Mr．Smithwasworkingonhisfarmwhilehissonwasplayingbythelake．Themandidn＇tfindtheboyfellintothewateruntilhewasgoinghomeforlunch．Hehurriedtopulltheboyoutofthelake，itwastoolate．Theboydiedtwohoursago！Themanandhiswifewereverysad．Awitch?inanothervillageheardofitandwentthereandsaidshecouldmaketheirson＇ssoul?comebackagain，sothathecouldtalktohismother．Ofcourse，shehadtopayherwell．Thewomanmissedhersonverymuchandagreed．Puttingalotofmoneyinherpocket，thewitchclosedhereyesands…     

A Doctor or a Butcher?

Pig studied at a college (大学). His par-ents were poor, so he had to do odd jobs(临时工)during the holidays to pay for his educa-tion. He did not mind working hard.     

Reading, Intensive or Extensive?

Introduction One of the most striking things about teaching in China is that considering the tremendous intrinsic motivation of so many learners and the lengths to which they are prepared to go to try to learn English, their level in some areas (for example, speaking and listening)is often surprisingly low. What can be held mainly responsible for the comparatively low level and slow development of Chinese students in English learning is the traditional teaching method of intensive reading. Chinese readers     

Phonological processing deficits in specific reading disability and specific language impairment: same or different?

The aim of this study was to determine if phonological processing deficits in specific reading disability (SRD) and specific language impairment (SLI) are the same or different. In four separate analyses, a different combination of reading and spoken language measures was used to divide 73 children into three subgroups: poor readers with average spoken language (SRD), poor readers with poor spoken language (SRD + SLI) and average readers with poor spoken language (SLI). These groups were compared on five phonological processing measures. The SRD group had deficits in neural representations of phonemes, phoneme discrimination, phoneme awareness and rapid naming. The SRD + SLI group had more severe deficits than the SRD group on half of these measures, as well as phonological short‐term memory. Children with SLI were free from phonological processing deficits. Thus, phonological processing deficits were the same or different in SRD and SLI, depending on how SRD and SLI were defined, and how phonological processing was measured.     

How Specific are Specific Comprehension Difficulties? An Investigation of Poor Reading Comprehension in Nine-Year-Olds

This study explores the incidence of poor comprehenders, that is, children identified as having reading comprehension difficulties, despite age-appropriate word reading skills. It supports the findings that some children do show poor reading comprehension, despite age-appropriate word reading, as measured with a phonological coding test. However, the proportion of poor comprehenders was smaller than the frequently reported 10–15%, and smaller yet, when average sight word recognition, measured with an orthographic coding test, was also set as a criterion for word reading skill. Compared to average comprehenders, the poor comprehenders’ orthographic coding and daily reading of literary texts were significantly below those of average readers. This study indicates that a lack of reading experience, and likewise, a lack of fluent word reading, may be important factors in understanding 9-year-old poor comprehenders’ difficulties.     

Does Training in Syllable Recognition Improve Reading Speed? A Computer-Based Trial With Poor Readers From Second and Third Grade

Repeated reading of infrequent syllables has been shown to increase reading speed at the word level in a transparent orthography. This study confirms these results with a computer-based training method and extends them by comparing the training effects of short syllables and long frequent and infrequent syllables, controlling for rapid automatized naming. Our results, based on a sample of 150 poor readers of Finnish, showed clear gains in reading speed regarding all trained syllables, but a transfer effect to the word level was evident only in the case of long infrequent syllables. Rapid automatized naming was associated with initial reading speed, but not with the training effect.     

Can an Advance Organizer Technique Compensate for Poor Reading Conditions?

In Experiment 1, 201 college students read both a literary and a technical text either in an advance organizer condition or a non-organizer control condition. Results failed to support the hypothesis that an organizing schema would help subjects with good reasoning skills compensate for poor memory skills or information overload caused by speeded reading conditions. In Experiment 2, data from a sample of 189 college subjects demonstrated that real-world distractions do cause significant learning decrements but failed to support predictions that an organizer would aid distractible students and would compensate for distracting study conditions. Findings suggest that the organizer technique does not help compensate for processing deficits related to information overload or distracting study conditions.     

Noticeable Focuses in Reading a Text

This paper discusses the relationship between commanding those basic information contained in a text and the final purpose of comprehending in a text-reading process.By using the main topic and the central meaning that all texts have as two main examples,the author mainly illustrates what a reader should pay attention to in reading a text.     

Reading the Multimodal Ologies: New Literacy Challenges or Old Wine in New Bottles?

In this article, the Ologies series of books are interrogated with a focus on whether they present new challenges for the reader or merely require previously acquired skills. The multimodal texts are unusual in that they combine non-fiction with fantasy while including tactile elements such as flaps, pull-outs and items to stroke. Ways of approaching multimodal texts are discussed with reference to the work of Kress, van Leeuwen and Moss. Finally, reference is made to Mackey’s research on multimodal platforms, applying her terms ‘playing the text’, the notion of ‘performance’ and ‘engaging in the rules of the game’. The conclusion leaves the question posed in the title open and suggests further research into actual readers will reveal more.     

Reading practice in Irish primary classrooms: too simple a view of reading?

This article investigates issues surrounding the adoption of the ‘simple view’ of reading. While this theory of the reading process has recently been espoused as the official view of early reading instruction in England, a recent Irish study, discussed in this article, indicated that this view of reading is also widespread among Irish teachers. This article argues that a less simple view of reading recognising the importance of cognitive flexibility, metacognition and explicit comprehension strategy instruction in reading needs to be promoted among all educators. A lack of emphasis on such explicit reading comprehension instruction has been found to be a common thread in research conducted in the United States, in England and in Ireland and is often linked to reading underachievement. Hence, the authors conclude that the implementation of a more holistic and inclusive ‘balanced’ model of reading development is immediately imperative in reading classrooms, both in Ireland and internationally.     

Native Language Self-Concept and Reading Self-Concept: Same or Different?

In assessing verbal academic self-concept with preadolescents, researchers have used scales for students’ self-concepts in reading and in their native language interchangeably. The authors conducted 3 studies with German students to test whether reading and German (i.e., native language) self-concepts can be treated as the same or different constructs. Compared with other facets of academic self-concept, reading self-concept was more highly related to reading test scores (Study 1) and German self-concept to German grades (Study 2). In Study 3, reading and general school self-concepts demonstrated similar relations to German grades. The findings of the 3 studies, albeit indirect, supported the specificity matching principle and caution researchers against applying reading and native language self-concept scales uncritically to infer verbal self-concept.     

Monitoring comprehension in a foreign language: Trait or skill?

Metacognition and Learning - Success in higher education is highly dependent on students’ ability to efficiently read and comprehend large amounts of text in the speaker’s first/native...