Auditory Morphological Knowledge Among Children With Developmental Dyslexia

The aim of the present study is to examine the morphological knowledge of readers with developmental dyslexia compared to chronological age and reading-level matched controls. The study also analyzes the errors dyslexics make and their metamorphological awareness compared to controls. Participants included 31 seventh-grade dyslexic children and two matched control groups of normal readers: 34 seventh graders matched for chronological age and 32 third graders matched for reading age. Two tasks were administered via the auditory modality—morphological priming and morphological analogies task. We also performed error analysis and a metamorphological interview. Our analyses reveal that although dyslexics perform equally to chronological age matched controls on the priming task and similarly to reading-level matched controls on the morphological analogies task, their errors and metamorphological awareness are qualitatively different.     

Pronouncing new words aloud during the silent reading of text enhances fifth graders?? memory for vocabulary words and their spellings

An experiment with random assignment examined the effectiveness of a strategy to learn unfamiliar English vocabulary words during text reading. Lower socioeconomic status, language minority fifth graders (M?=?10?years, 7?months; n?=?62) silently read eight passages each focused on an unknown multi-syllabic word that was underlined, embedded in a meaningful context, defined, depicted, and repeated three times. Students were grouped by word reading ability, matched into pairs, and randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In the strategy condition, students orally pronounced the underlined words during silent reading. In the control condition, students penciled a check if they had seen the underlined words before but did not say the words aloud. Results of ANOVAs showed that the oral strategy enhanced vocabulary learning (ps?<?.01), with poorer readers showing bigger effect sizes than better readers in remembering pronunciation-meaning associations and spellings of the words. In a second experiment, 32 fifth graders from the same school described the strategies they use when encountering unfamiliar words in context. Better readers reported more word-level strategies whereas poorer readers reported more text-based strategies. Our explanation is that application of the word-level strategy of decoding new words aloud strengthened connections between spellings, pronunciations, and meanings in memory compared to silent reading of new words, particularly among poor readers who were less skilled and less likely to use this strategy unless instructed to do so.     

Automatic activation of phonological code during visual word recognition in children: a masked priming study in grades 3 and 5

The present study aimed to investigate the development of automatic phonological processes involved in visual word recognition during reading acquisition in French. A visual masked priming lexical decision experiment was carried out with third, fifth graders and adult skilled readers. Three different types of partial overlap between the prime and the target were contrasted: orthographic and phonological overlap (O+P+; ren-RENDRE [give] pronounced /?ɑ?/-/?ɑ?d?/ respectively), orthographic overlap (O+P?; re-RENDRE pronounced /??/-/?ɑ?d?/ respectively), or without orthographic and phonological overlap with the beginning of the target, namely unrelated (UR; pi-RENDRE pronounced /pi/-/?ɑ?d?/, respectively). The number of letters was controlled throughout the priming conditions. The results showed an interaction between grade and priming condition in children. In third graders, the results displayed a masked phonological priming effect (the O+P+ condition was compared to the O+P? condition) but not a masked orthographic priming effect (the O+P? condition was compared to the UR condition). On the contrary, in fifth graders, the results showed a masked orthographic priming effect but not a masked phonological priming effect. Adult skilled readers displayed the same pattern as fifth graders. These results are interpreted in the multiple-route model of reading development.     

A reading level match study of nonword reading skills in poor readers with varying IQ.

This study evaluated the hypothesis that poor readers are characterized by poor nonword reading skills, but that a specific deficit, as opposed to a developmental lag, in nonword reading will be found only in subjects whose reading is discrepant from intellectual ability. To test this hypothesis, we measured nonword reading skills in 93 (64 male, 29 female) third-grade poor readers and 54 (37 male, 17 female) fifth-grade poor readers (with and without reading/IQ discrepancies) who were matched to 147 (81 male, 66 female) nondisabled first graders on word identification skills. Results showed third- and fifth-grade poor readers to be significantly more impaired than word-identification level match first graders on all measures on nonword reading. These findings were not related to the verbal IQ level within the poor reader groups and, thus, provide strong evidence for a deficit in nonword reading skills that is not explained by verbal intelligence.     

Conservation Comes of Age

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of instruction in environmental education on the attitudes of elementary school children toward the environment. One class of third graders was provided with two hours of environmental education instruction. A comparable class of third graders served as a control group. Both classes were pre- and posttested using an author-designed environmental attitude questionnaire. Analyses of these data showed that 1) the experimental group had significantly improved attitudes on a pre-post basis and 2) this same group had significantly more positive attitudes toward the environment when compared with the control group. When tested again as fifth graders, the experimental group remained significantly more positive toward the environment than the fifth grade control group.     

Predictors of reading delay in deaf adolescents: the relative contributions of rapid automatized naming speed and phonological awareness and decoding

Deaf readers often fail to achieve age-appropriate reading levels. In hearing children, two cognitive factors correlated with reading delay are phonological awareness and decoding (PAD) and rapid automatized naming (RAN) of visual material. In this study we explored the contribution of these factors to reading and reading delay in a sample of deaf students (N = 49, mean age 13 years) whose reading age (RA) was around 7 years. Although PAD performance was poor in the deaf students compared with RA-matched hearing controls, it nevertheless correlated with their RA. Whether tested in sign or speech, RAN was much faster in the deaf group than in RA-matched hearing controls but showed no direct relationship with reading level or reading delay. We conclude that in contrast to PAD, which is a factor in both deaf and hearing reading achievement, RAN may be only indirectly related to reading in deaf students.     

Specific Reading Comprehension Disability: Major Problem,Myth, or Misnomer?

The goal of the present study was to test three competing hypotheses about the nature of comprehension problems of students who are poor in reading comprehension. Participants in the study were first, second, and third graders, totaling nine cohorts and over 425,000 participants in all. The pattern of results was consistent across all cohorts: Less than 1 percent of first‐ through third‐grade students who scored as poor in reading comprehension were adequate in both decoding and vocabulary. Although poor reading comprehension certainly qualifies as a major problem rather than a myth, the term specific reading comprehension disability is a misnomer: Individuals with problems in reading comprehension that are not attributable to poor word recognition have comprehension problems that are general to language comprehension rather than specific to reading. Implications for assessment and intervention are discussed.     

Effects of explicit instruction on the acquisition of students’ science inquiry skills in grades 5 and 6 of primary education

In most primary science classes, students are taught science inquiry skills by way of learning by doing. Research shows that explicit instruction may be more effective. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of explicit instruction on the acquisition of inquiry skills. Participants included 705 Dutch fifth and sixth graders. Students in an explicit instruction condition received an eight-week intervention of explicit instruction on inquiry skills. In the lessons of the implicit condition, all aspects of explicit instruction were absent. Students in the baseline condition followed their regular science curriculum. In a quasi-experimental pre-test–post-test design, two paper-and-pencil tests and three performance assessments were used to examine the acquisition and transfer of inquiry skills. Additionally, questionnaires were used to measure metacognitive skills. The results of a multilevel analysis controlling for pre-tests, general cognitive ability, age, gender and grade level indicated that explicit instruction facilitates the acquisition of science inquiry skills. Specifically on the performance assessment with an unfamiliar topic, students in the explicit condition outperformed students of both the implicit and baseline condition. Therefore, this study provides a strong argument for including an explicit teaching method for developing inquiry skills in primary science education.     

Phonological contribution during visual word recognition in child readers. An intermodal priming study in Grades 3 and 5

This study investigated the phonological contribution during visual word recognition in child readers as a function of general reading expertise (third and fifth grades) and specific word exposure (frequent and less‐frequent words). An intermodal priming in lexical decision task was performed. Auditory primes (identical and unrelated) were used in order to directly activate phonological codes independently of orthographic processing. Overall, the results revealed a widespread phonological priming effect in both grades. There was a significant interaction between grade, priming condition and frequency, revealing that the impact of frequency on identity priming differed between grades. In third grade, the results indicated that the priming effect was greater for less‐frequent than for frequent words. In fifth grade, priming effects were similar for both frequent and less‐frequent words. These findings indicate that print and speech processing systems are interconnected in young readers. Moreover, phonological codes play an important role in word recognition throughout reading development.     

Why does children's generosity increase with age: susceptibility to experimenter influence or altruism?

This study evaluated whether age differences in children's generosity are due to increasing altruistic motivation or increasing susceptibility to experimenter influence strategies. 282 first, third, and fifth graders voted on how to spend a gift of money under 1 of 5 instructional sets--3 levels of experimenter influence, peer influence, or no influence, or no influence. Voting choices (in increasing order of generosity according to experimenter-defined scoring weights) were splitting up the money equally among class members, buying something for their class, buying something for their school, or giving the money to poor children. Voting choices also were scored according to empirically derived weights based on rankings provided by an independent sample of 50 first, third, and fifth graders. Both scoring systems indicated that fifth graders were more generous than younger children, but only under high levels of experimenter demand, and peer influence did not increase children's generosity. Furthermore, first graders appeared more generous when the child-derived rather than the experimenter-derived scoring system was used. Thus generalizations regarding age differences in generosity observed in laboratory experiments may require qualification, specifying the degree and type of experimenter influence involved.     

Lexical decision and oral reading by poor and normal readers

The primary goal of this study was to compare a paper-and-pencil version of the lexical decision task, which can be administered groupwise, with reading aloud a differently ordered list of the same words and pseudowords. Participants were first and second graders (“normal readers”) and students from schools for children with learning difficulties. On the average, the latter “poor readers” scored at the same oral reading level as the normal readers, but were older. The correlation between both tasks appeared to be high and both tasks had comparable correlations with third variables, suggesting that performance is determined by the same processes. Because the lexical decision task showed little evidence for guessing, it may be an — even better — alternative for oral reading. No differences between participant groups were found that point to different reading strategies. Error analysis, however, indicates that the poor readers probably have a specific problem in the oral reading of pseudowords.     

Children's use of response confidence in the processing of instructional feedback

The main purpose of the present study was to extend a model of instructional feedback (Kulhavy & Stock, 1989) to elementary school children. Forty-five third and fifth graders (third graders, N = 21; fifth graders, N = 24) read text passages, answered questions, and either rated response confidences for each question or used an imagery strategy. Although differences were not found between treatment groups, analyses of response patterns revealed differential age effects. Response patterns for fifth graders were similar to those of college populations; however, these patterns did not emerge for third graders.     

Orthographic processing abilities of adolescents with dyslexia

This study investigated the orthographic processing abilities of reading disabled adolescents (RD), normal readers matched on chronological age (CA), and younger normal readers matched on reading age (RA). The mean age for the three groups were 14 years 2 months, 13 years 8 months, and 10 years respectively. Four experimental measures were adapted from prior research. These include homophone choice accuracy (after Stanovich, West, and Cunningham 1991), orthographic choice accuracy and speed (after Olson et al. 1989), and rapid serial naming of letters (after Denckla and Rudel 1976). In addition, a new test of orthographic processing is introduced (from Hultquist 1996) which assesses the speed and accuracy of reading high frequency words when presented within strings of consonants (embedded) and when presented alone (nonembedded). The RD group displayed greater difficulty than the CA-matched normal readers on five of the six measures, and performed worse than the RA-matched younger readers on four of the six tasks. Error analyses revealed that the RD group had specific difficulty processing consonant blends when reading embedded words.     

Contribution of discourse and morphosyntax skills to reading comprehension in Chinese dyslexic and typically developing children

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 children performed significantly less well than the CA controls but similarly to RL controls in most measures. Results of multiple regression analyses showed that word-level reading-related skills like oral vocabulary and word semantics were found to be strong predictors of reading comprehension among typically developing junior graders and dyslexic readers of senior grades, whereas morphosyntax, a text-level skill, was most predictive for typically developing senior graders. It was concluded that discourse and morphosyntax skills are particularly important for reading comprehension in the non-inflectional and topic-prominent Chinese system.     

Relationships among Special Education Teachers' Knowledge,Instructional Practice and Students' Performance in Reading Fluency

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among (1) special education teachers’ knowledge for teaching reading fluency, (2) the specific instructional practices they used in fluency instruction, and (3) gains of students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) on a performance measure of oral reading fluency (ORF). Analyses based on multilevel linear modeling and analysis of covariance indicated that for 42 special education teachers teaching third, fourth, and fifth graders with SLD in intensive reading groups, teachers’ knowledge for teaching reading fluency predicted student gains on ORF measures, but did not predict their instructional practice. Furthermore, teacher practice did not predict student gains on ORF. Practical implications and future research are discussed.     

Cross-language transfer of insight into the structure of compound words

Cross-language transfer of awareness of the structure of compound words was investigated among native speakers of Chinese who were learning English as a second language. Chinese fifth graders received instruction in the morphology of four types of compound words in either Chinese or English. They then completed both the Chinese and English versions of a compound word structure analogy task. Compared with children who received no instruction, children who received instruction in Chinese were able to transfer knowledge they had acquired of compound types in Chinese to comparable types in English. Reverse transfer from English to Chinese was found among children with high reading proficiency.     

Using portfolios: a way to improve performance and self-esteem with poor readers?

The main questions answered by the intervention of using portfolios during reading and spelling lessons were: do poor readers in the intervention condition perform better and do they show a higher self-esteem than poor readers in the control condition? A post-hoc design was used to compare an intervention group with a control group. The independent variable was using portfolios as part of reading and spelling instruction. The dependent variables were literacy skills, conceptual knowledge on reading and writing, and self-esteem. Intelligence score was used as a covariable. The study included 92 students from grade 3 (six to seven-year-olds) from two schools providing regular education. The results on the quantitative measurements indicated that using portfolios did not improve performance with reading and spelling and self-esteem. The qualitative findings with respect to the 14 poor readers of the participating subjects revealed that their reading performance and self-esteem decreased further in both conditions. It is argued that teachers should explicitly use portfolios as a way to evaluate and discuss performance with poor readers so as to better understand the student's level of instruction and feelings of competence, and actually apply that knowledge during instruction.     

Effect of phonological and morphological awareness on reading comprehension in Hebrew-speaking adolescents with reading disabilities

This research explored phonological and morphological awareness among Hebrew-speaking adolescents with reading disabilities (RD) and its effect on reading comprehension beyond phonological and word-reading abilities. Participants included 39 seventh graders with RD and two matched control groups of normal readers: 40 seventh graders matched for chronological age (CA) and 38 third graders matched for reading age (RA). We assessed phonological awareness, word reading, morphological awareness, and reading comprehension. Findings indicated that the RD group performed similarly to the RA group on phonological awareness but lower on phonological decoding. On the decontextualized morphological task, RD functioned on par with RA, whereas in a contextualized task RD performed above RA but lower than CA. In reading comprehension, RD performed as well as RA. Finally, results indicated that for normal readers contextual morphological awareness uniquely contributed to reading comprehension beyond phonological and word-reading abilities, whereas no such unique contribution emerged for the RD group. The absence of an effect of morphological awareness in predicting reading comprehension was suggested to be related to a different recognition process employed by RD readers which hinder the ability of these readers to use morphosemantic structures. The lexical quality hypothesis was proposed as further support to the findings, suggesting that a low quality of lexical representation in RD students leads to ineffective reading skills and comprehension. Lexical representation is thus critical for both lexical as well as comprehension abilities.     

Using concept mapping to improve poor readers’ understanding of expository text

The present study examined whether the use of concept mapping is more effective in teaching expository material in comparison to a traditional, lecture only, approach. Its objective was threefold. First, to determine if multimedia concept mapping produces differential learning outcomes compared to digital text-based concept mapping. Secondly, to compare the above experimental approaches to traditional teaching and finally to demonstrate if there are significant differences in the level of satisfaction reported by children under the three instructional approaches used. Thirty fifth grade children participated from which three groups of poor readers were formed, matched on age, gender and reading ability. The two experimental groups were taught with the use of digital text-based and multimedia concept maps respectively and the control group was subjected to the traditional teaching method of expository material. Each group had three sessions of instruction on three different expository texts. The results indicated that concept mapping can be an effective means for teaching expository content. However, there were no differential learning outcomes when adding multimedia elements to concept maps. Moderate satisfaction was reported for all three approaches. The findings coincide with the body of literature emphasizing the importance of concept mapping in the learning and instruction of children with reading difficulties. The study’s results inform potential educators on the use of multimedia with poor readers in elementary school.     

Using Self-Generated Drawings to Solve Arithmetic Word Problems

Abstract

In this article, two intervention studies are described that were set up to investigate whether encouraging elementary students to generate drawings of arithmetic word problems facilitates problem-solving performance. The interventions consisted of 60 to 90 min of practice and showed the usefulness of self-generated drawings for solving word problems. The subjects in the first study were first and second graders, and in the second study, fifth graders. The results indicated that the fifth graders improved problem solutions after the intervention, whereas the first and second graders did not. Unlike the first and second graders, the fifth graders generated lots of drawings of word problems. The findings suggest that the nature of the difficulties children experience when solving arithmetic word problems influences their decision to generate drawings.