Examining Reading Development and Reading Disability in English Language Learners: Potential Contributions from Functional Neuroimaging

Neuroimaging studies have suggested that across different written languages, skilled reading behavior is supported by similar, largely left hemisphere (LH), networks. In addition, recent studies of reading disability (RD) in monolingual readers, conducted in several languages, suggest a common neurobiological signature for this syndrome (disruption of LH posterior regions that support fluent reading). Thus, at the neurobiological level of analysis, reading and its disorders appear to be more similar than dissimilar across languages. In this article, we consider the neurobiology of reading development and RD in English language learners (ELL). There is some evidence suggesting that fluent bilingual readers tend to engage primarily overlapping circuits for both L1 and L2. There is, however, a paucity of neurobiological research on both reading development and RD in this population. Using the existing research on RD as a starting point, we consider in this article how developmental neuroimaging techniques might be applied to (1) help identify RD readers in the ELL populations, and (2) provide neurobiological outcome measures to help evaluate the efficacy of different approaches to the teaching of reading in English.     

Fluency Transfer: Differential Gains in Reading Speed and Accuracy Following Isolated Word and Context Training

While fluent reading is recognized as a primary goal of educational instruction, the methods that best promote the development of fluency remain unclear. Two experiments are reported that examined increases in reading fluency of a novel passage following two types of training. In the context training condition, children learned to read a set of target words in a story context, while in the isolated word training condition, fluency with a target word set was gained from a computerized word naming game. Transfer of fluency to reading these words in a new context was then measured by gains in reading speed, accuracy, and comprehension of a novel story. Results indicated that young readers showed speed benefits on transfer stories following both context and isolated word training, but the increases were larger following context training.     

The Influence of Reading Expertise in Mirror‐Letter Perception: Evidence From Beginning and Expert Readers

The visual word recognition system recruits neuronal systems originally developed for object perception which are characterized by orientation insensitivity to mirror reversals. It has been proposed that during reading acquisition beginning readers have to “unlearn” this natural tolerance to mirror reversals in order to efficiently discriminate letters and words. Therefore, it is supposed that this unlearning process takes place in a gradual way and that reading expertise modulates mirror‐letter discrimination. However, to date no supporting evidence for this has been obtained. We present data from an eye‐movement study that investigated the degree of sensitivity to mirror‐letters in a group of beginning readers and a group of expert readers. Participants had to decide which of the two strings presented on a screen corresponded to an auditorily presented word. Visual displays always included the correct target word and one distractor word. Results showed that those distractors that were the same as the target word except for the mirror lateralization of two internal letters attracted participants' attention more than distractors created by replacement of 2 internal letters. Interestingly, the time course of the effects was found to be different for the 2 groups, with beginning readers showing a greater tolerance (decreased sensitivity) to mirror‐letters than expert readers. Implications of these findings are discussed within the framework of preceding evidence showing how reading expertise modulates letter identification.     

A developmental approach to reading disability: accuracy and speed criteria of normal and deficient reading skill

The constructs of accuracy and speed were adopted as performance criteria against which to define 2 clinical samples of disabled readers. Accuracy-disabled subjects had failed to achieve reliable age-appropriate word recognition skills. Rate-disabled readers were age-appropriate in word recognition accuracy but deficient in reading speed. These disabled readers were compared to fluent normal children selected to be reading at the same level of accuracy as the rate-disabled subjects but at a significantly faster rate. All aspects of the accuracy-disabled subjects' reading systems proved deficient, and these children were less able to learn new sound-symbol associations in a task simulating initial reading acquisition. The rate-disabled subjects exhibited a basic deficit in word recognition speed, compromised accuracy when reading in context, and compromised spelling when competing visual patterns were available. A multidimensional oral language impairment was found to accompany the accuracy disability, while the rate disability appeared restricted to language in its visible form and the naming of visual representations. A visual naming speed impairment was associated with both profiles of deficient reading skill.     

Effects of Contextual Constraints and Non-fixated Words in a Simple Reading Task

An experiment is reported which investigates the perceptual span available to skilled readers in a single fixation. After adult readers had listened to an incomplete sentence they were presented tachistoscopically with a word which they were to name aloud. Congruency between sentence and word facilitated naming, but the presence of an unattended word in the right visual field confounded this relationship. If the unattended word was also congruent, then the naming response was further facilitated, but a congruent unattended word interfered with the naming of an incongruent attended word. This relationship did not hold for unattended words which were presented in the left visual field, and which did not appear to have been processed for meaning. An effect of an unattended word upon the naming of a fixated word suggests that skilled readers recognize the meanings of more words than are fixated. Skilled readers may use the meanings of words ahead of fixation to enrich their interpretation of the text, or use those words more simply as markers to guide future eye-movements to the location of the next useful fixation.     

Lexical decision with left,right and center visual field presentation: a comparison between dyslexic and regular readers by means of electrophysiological and behavioral measures

This study examined the differences in processing between regular and dyslexic readers in a lexical decision task in different visual field presentations (left, right, and center). The research utilized behavioral measures that provide information on accuracy and reaction time and electro-physiological measures that permit the examination of brain activity during cognitive processing. Two groups of university students, regular and dyslexic readers, were matched on age, gender, intelligence, socioeconomic status, and handedness. A lexical decision task was used in order to examine the processes during word recognition. Subjects were required to decide whether a sequence of letters constituted a real word existing in spoken language or whether the stimulus seen was not an accurate word. For the behavioral measures, it was found that the dyslexics read slower and with more errors than the regular readers. Moreover, the ERP components appeared later in dyslexics as compared to regular readers in this task. The performance of the dyslexics improved and even approached that of the regular readers when the stimuli were presented to the left visual field. Thus, it seems that the dyslexics were relying more on their right hemisphere for linguistic processing, whereas the regular readers were relying more on their language areas in the left hemisphere.     

Reading in an Alphasyllabary: Implications for a Language Universal Theory of Learning to Read

We report the associations between phonological awareness and orthographic knowledge in readers of alphasyllabic Kannada. Less fluent 9- to 12-year-olds with lower orthographic knowledge were at floor on phoneme tasks, but more fluent readers, with greater orthographic knowledge, showed significant phonemic awareness. Orthographic knowledge, phoneme awareness, and RAN were independent predictors of reading rate and, together with syllable awareness, predicted individual differences in reading accuracy. Taken together, we suggest that increasing alphasyllabic literacy promotes a dual representation at the syllable and phoneme level and that the analytic processes involved in acquiring orthographic knowledge and mappings with phonology are a universal aspect of reading development across languages.     

Reading processes of English sentences in Japanese and Canadian students

Native skilled, non-native skilled, and non-native non-skilled English readers read English texts and their reading times of words were measured. The results showed that reading times of native skilled readers were independent from the word length, word location, and grammatical word classification compared to non-native readers. Reading times of nouns strongly correlated with reading skill of readers. Although non-native skilled readers comprehended text meanings well, however the pattern of reading time of words was still different from those of native reader.     

Building Reading Fluency in Developmental Readers

An increasing number of college students enrolling with poor reading fluency and comprehension skills pose a significant challenge to the college reading field in the absence of a strong understanding of the construct of reading fluency and its instruction. In order to contribute to this area of college reading, this article discusses instructional components that have been found to be effective in previous research in terms of their effectiveness and applicability for building fluent reading skills in struggling college readers.     

Reading Development and Attention to Letters in Words

Four groups of Dutch readers, (a) beginners, second grade elementary school students with 2 years of reading experience, (b) advanced readers, sixth grade elementary school students with 6 years of reading experience, (c) expert readers, university students with 14 years of reading experience, and (d) poor readers, aged 13 years with 2 years of delay in reading skill, were presented with short stories followed by multiple-choice text comprehension questions. Participants were asked to read the stories for meaning and to circle the letter t whenever it occurred in the text. Five types of detection locations were defined: (1) verb suffix, (2) noun final, (3) intra word, second letter, (4) intra word, prefinal letter, and (5) definite article, final t. Differential detection patterns as a function of reading development were obtained. Beginning readers did not differ in detecting the final t in verbs and nouns, whereas expert readers showed a strong attentional bias to verb suffixes as compared with noun endings. Expert readers missed more intra word letters. In all groups prefinal letters were detected better than second letters in words, thus suggesting a general attentional bias for orthographic information in the second part of Dutch words. The t in the definite article was missed most often in all groups, which suggests sensitivity to word frequency at early stages in reading development. Poor readers did not show differential performance patterns as compared to the other reading groups. The overall developmental pattern can be characterized as a shift from attention for single letter information to attention for more complex morphological information in text. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.     

试论流畅阅读及流畅阅读者的培养

阅读在语言学习中扮演着极其重要的作用,阅读教学的最终目的是培养流畅的阅读者。探讨了流畅阅读的特点,分析了流畅阅读对读者的素质要求,提出了流畅阅读者的培养方案,对阅读教学及流畅阅读者的培养具有一定的借鉴作用。     

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.     

Improving Word Recognition for Children with Reading Difficulties

Immediate word recognition is widely accepted as an important skill in developing fluent reading, but many of the most common words appearing in texts present particular problems to some children with reading difficulties. Roger Merry, a senior lecturer in education at the University of Leicester, and Irene Peutrill, a special needs teacher at Uplands Infant and Junior Schools in Leicester, describe a technique for helping such children, and provide experimental evidence of its effectiveness.     

CUE SYSTEM UTILIZATIONS AMONG OLDER READERS

The effects of writing style upon mature older readers’ reading comprehension are considered. Two narrative historical selections, the first emotive and abstract and the second nonemotive and concrete, were employed. Miscue analysis was used to evaluate the efficiency with which each reader used reading strategies across the five systems that cue meaningful comprehension. Miscues were analyzed at the word, clause, sentence, and intersentence levels. In addition, interview schedules were employed to identify readers’ perceptions of preferred reading strategies and to permit a comparison with actual performance. The findings indicate that mature older readers are consistent in cue system utilization. A preference for the word cue system influenced both the use of cues from other systems and comprehension. Use of the word‐level cue system is inversely related to the use of the other available cue systems. Preference for cues within words also appears to be inversely related to comprehending effectiveness. The subjects’ perceptions of the reading process and their actual reading performance appeared to determine patterns of cue system use more clearly than did the differences in materials. As a result, those developing materials intended for use in programs with older persons should not only be concerned with the content and quality of those materials but also the skills and perceptions of those who will use the materials.     

The Process of Stress Assignment in Reading Aloud: Critical Issues From Studies on Italian

In polysyllabic languages the assignment of stress is crucial for understanding the reading process. Here we review empirical evidence, drawn mainly from studies on Italian, and discuss critical issues in understanding reading. We first discuss the lexical and sublexical mechanisms responsible for stress assignment and propose that the former is based on item-specific knowledge and the latter on the statistical-distributional knowledge that readers have acquired about their language. Then we examine the idea that stress and phonemes pertain to two dimensions of the word, which can be placed at two different representational levels. Finally, we analyze the effects of stress assignment on word articulation, a promising field for future investigation. These issues are addressed by reviewing the studies conducted in adult and young readers to outline the developmental trajectory of stress assignment and discuss how it operates in the reading system.     

Same Same,but Different: Word and Sentence Reading in German and English

The current study compared eye fixation patterns during word and sentence processing in a consistent and an inconsistent alphabetic orthography. German and English children as well as adults matched on word reading ability read matched sentences while their eye fixation behavior was recorded. Results indicated that German children read in a more small-unit plodder-like style with more diligent first-pass reading and less rereading. In contrast, English children read in a more large-unit explorer-like style with a greater tendency to skip words, and more regressions. It is important that these cross-linguistic processing differences largely persisted in the adult readers. Orthographic consistency thus influences both local word recognition and global sentence processing in developing and skilled readers.     

The Contribution of Visual Sensitivity,Phonological Processing,and Nonverbal IQ to Children's Reading

It has been suggested that the differences observed for dyslexic readers compared to normal readers on tasks measuring visual sensitivity may simply be the result of differences between the two groups in general cognitive ability and/or attentional engagement. One common way to accommodate this proposal is to match normal and dyslexic readers on IQ. However, an explicit test of this suggestion is to take normal and dyslexic readers who differ on IQ—where IQ would be expected to explain reading ability—and determine if visual sensitivity can still account for reading skill, even when IQ is taken into account. In this study we explored the relative contributions of nonverbal IQ, visual sensitivity as measured by sensitivity to the frequency doubling illusion, and phonological and irregular word reading to reading ability. Visual sensitivity explained a significant amount of variance in reading ability, over and above nonverbal IQ, accounting for 6% of the unique variance in reading ability. Moreover, visual sensitivity was related primarily to irregular word reading rather than to nonsense word decoding. This study demonstrates that low-level visual sensitivity plays an intrinsic role in reading aptitude, even when IQ differences between normal and dyslexic readers are contrived to maximize the contribution of IQ to reading skill. These results challenge the suggestion that impaired visual sensitivity may be epiphenomenal to poor reading skills.     

Reading in Arabic orthography: The effect of vowels and context on reading accuracy of poor and skilled native Arabic readers

This study investigated the effect of Arabic vowels and Arabic context on reading accuracy of poor and skilled native Arabic readers reading narrative stories and newspaper articles. Central to this study is the belief that reading theory today should consider additional variables, especially when explaining the reading process in Arabic orthography among poor and skilled readers. This orthography has not been studied: reading theory today is the sum of conclusions from studies conducted in Latin orthography. The subjects were 109 tenth-grade native Arabic speakers, 39 of them poor readers and 70 skilled readers. Subjects had to read Arabic narrative stories and newspaper articles. There were four reading conditions for each text type: vowelized text, unvowelized text, vowelized word naming, and unvowelized word naming. The results showed that vowels and contexts were important variables to facilitate word recognition in poor and skilled readers in Arabic orthography. A new Arabic reading model for skilled readers is suggested.     

Orthographic Neighborhood-Size Effects on the Reading Aloud of Italian Children With and Without Dyslexia

This study examines the effects of orthographic neighborhood size (N-size) in relationship with word frequency on the reading aloud of children with and without dyslexia whose language has a consistent orthography. Participants included 22 Italian fourth-grade children with dyslexia and 44 age-matched typically developing readers. Children with dyslexia read low-frequency words with high N-size faster than words that had no neighbors; by contrast, typically developing readers showed no N-size effects, irrespective of word frequency. The facilitating effect of N-size on low-frequency word reading in children with dyslexia indicates that they benefit from lexical activation spreading from dense neighborhoods.