The Effects of Grade Level and Reading Ability on Children’s Miscue Patterns

Abstract

This study investigated the miscue patterns of 120 high and low ability readers in Grades 2, 4, and 6. The subjects’ miscues were analyzed with the Qualitative Analysis System, yielding percentages for the following variables: (a) graphic similarity, (b) acceptability in context, and (c) contextually unacceptable miscues, self-corrected. Results revealed that the percentage of miscues acceptable in context increased as a function of both grade level and reading ability. In addition, there were statistically significant grade X ability interactions for the other two miscue variables. It was concluded that both grade level and reading ability should be taken into consideration when interpreting children’s miscue patterns. The instructional implications of these findings are discussed.     

Assessing Direct Contributions of Morphological Awareness and Prosodic Sensitivity to Children’s Word Reading and Reading Comprehension

We examined the independent contributions of prosodic sensitivity and morphological awareness to word reading, text reading accuracy, and reading comprehension. We did so in a longitudinal study of English-speaking children (N = 70). At 5–7 years of age, children completed the metalinguistic measures along with control measures of phonological awareness and vocabulary. Children completed the reading measures 2 years later. Morphological awareness but not prosodic sensitivity made a significant independent contribution to word reading, text reading accuracy, and reading comprehension. The effects of morphological awareness on reading comprehension remained after controls for word reading. These results suggest that morphological awareness needs to be considered seriously in models of reading development and that prosodic sensitivity might have primarily indirect relations to reading outcomes.     

The Effects of a Comprehensive Early Literacy Project on Preschoolers’ Language and Literacy Skills

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a federally funded early literacy project that aimed to promote the school readiness skills of preschool-age children from low income families. Through daily, explicit, and systematic instruction, the project targeted to improve preschoolers’ oral language skills, phonological awareness, print awareness, and alphabet knowledge that aligned with the existing curriculum of the local school district. Data were collected through multiple sources at the individual child level, classroom level, and from the family/home environment. Significant gains were found between pre- and post-tests in child outcomes, classroom environments, instructional practices, parent attitudes toward early literacy, and family involvement in literacy activities. Additionally, classroom organization was identified as a significant predictor for children’s receptive language skills. Limitations of the current study and implications for future research as well as instructional practices were discussed.     

The Effects of Verbal Mediation Training on the Problem‐Solving Skills of Children with Partial Sight and Children without Visual Impairments

Thirty children with partial sight and 30 children with unimpaired sight aged between 8 and 12 years were randomly assigned to either verbal mediation or visual mediation training regimes. Participants were asked to complete four variations of the Tower of Hanoi puzzle and success on the task was judged on the basis of the number of moves and time taken to complete the puzzles. Children with visual impairments had some difficulty in adjusting to the requirements of the problem‐solving tasks. However, on the final and most difficult of the tasks (a four‐disc problem), the children with impaired sight performed very much like participants without visual impairments. The effect of verbal mediation training was superior to that of visual mediation training in the final trials of the four‐disc problem‐solving period for both children with partial sight and children without visual impairments.     

Children’s Expressive Language Skills and Their Impact on the Relation Between First- and Second-Language Phonological Awareness Skills

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the cross-language relations between the phonological awareness (PA) skills of preschool children learning more than one language are dependent upon their first- and second-language oral language skills. Four hundred sixty-six Spanish-speaking language minority children participated in this study. Results indicated that the relation between children’s first- and second-language PA skills varied as a function of their first- and second-language oral language skills. This effect was language specific such that only oral language skills in the same language as the PA outcome moderated the relations between children’s first- and second-language PA skills. This study helps extend findings from prior research on the cross-language transfer of PA.     

Structural and Process Quality of Danish Preschools: Direct and Indirect Associations With Children’s Growth in Language and Preliteracy Skills

Structural quality in childcare centers is considered a precondition for process quality, which in turn is related to children’s outcomes. However, the evidence on relations between structural and process quality is mixed. Moreover, despite strong theoretical claims, empirical evidence supporting the indirect relation of structural features through process quality on child outcomes is scarce. The current study contributes to the knowledge by (a) investigating the direct relations of structural teacher and classroom features with growth in children’s language and preliteracy skills in a sample of more than 3,000 children, (b) studying the associations of process quality with children’s outcomes using the widely used Classroom Assessment Scoring System Pre-K observational measure among more than 400 teachers, and (c) testing indirect effects of structural quality through process quality on growth in children’s skills. Process quality was generally directly positively associated with gains in children’s language and preliteracy skills, whereas structural quality showed few direct relations. In addition, the average level of children’s initial language and preliteracy skills were positively related to gains, as was classrooms’ proportion of non-Danish children (indirectly through process quality). The results illustrate the complexities of relations between structural and process quality and children’s outcomes and warrant further research.     

Reader,Word, and Character Attributes Contributing to Chinese Children’s Concept of Word

Concept of word—the awareness of how words differ from nonwords or other linguistic properties—is important to learning to read Chinese because words in Chinese texts are not separated by space, and most characters can be productively compounded with other characters to form new words. The current study examined the effects of reader, word, and character attributes on Chinese children’s concept of word in text. A total of 164 fifth-grade Chinese children participated in this study. Concept of word was measured by children’s lexical decisions about words and nonwords embedded in strings of characters. Cross-classified multilevel logistic models showed that reader attributes, including reading comprehension, vocabulary knowledge, and morphological awareness, interacted with certain word or character attributes in predicting children’s lexical decisions about words or nonwords. This study sheds light on the complex relationships between reader, word, and character attributes in the formation of concept of word in Chinese.     

Teachers’ Perceptions of the Use of Computer Assisted Language Learning to Develop Children’s Reading Skills in English as a Second Language in the United Arab Emirates

This study investigated ESL teachers’ perceptions regarding the use of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) in teaching reading to children. A random sample of 145 teachers participated in the study by completing a survey developed by the researchers. To explore the situation in depth, 16 teachers were later interviewed. Results indicated that the main purpose of using CALL with children is to help them develop reading strategies and increase their motivation. The most common strategies teachers reported using were computers to: enhance children's reading skills, support children's reading, listen to stories read aloud, recognize letter/sound relationships, and identify letters and beginning sounds of words. Teachers reported that CALL has some benefits, such as providing opportunities for active interaction and differentiated instruction. The main barriers of using CALL are the lack of resources and suitable software and hardware. The study ended with recommendations for further research and instructional improvements.     

Children’s Perspective on Learning: An International Study in Denmark,Estonia, Germany and Sweden

This article explores how some children in Denmark, Estonia, Germany and Sweden describe their perspective on learning. The aim of the international study is to gain knowledge of how preschool children in Sweden, Denmark, Estonia and Germany reflect and perceive their learning in preschool and other surrounding social contexts. The results are based on 51 focus group interviews from 181 children. The results indicate that, in general, children from all four countries seem to be aware of their own learning. One can conclude that encouraging children to think about what they are doing and why they are doing it makes the activities more goal-oriented from the children’s perspective and thus more conscious. Children are able to describe their own perspectives on learning.     

Examining the Relations of the Home Literacy Environments of Families of Low SES with Children’s Early Literacy Skills

This study examined variability of the home literacy environment (HLE) using multiple measures among families of low SES. The relations of the measures to each other and to children’s early oral language skills and print knowledge were reported. Considerable variability of the self-reported HLE items and the Children’s Title Checklist (CTC) but low correlations were found among items. Children’s expressive language skills were predicted by the CTC. The number of storybooks in the home predicted variance within children’s receptive vocabulary. Concepts about Print (CAP) scores were predicted by the primary caregivers’ frequency of shared reading and the age when parents began reading to children. Children’s letter name scores were not associated with any of the HLE measures in this study. The research provides additional information about the HLE within the homes of low SES using multiple measures and how they relate differentially to children’s early language and literacy skills.     

Children’s reading difficulties,language, and reflections on the simple view of reading

Reading comprehension is a complex task which depends on a range of cognitive and linguistic processes. According to the Simple View of Reading, this complexity can be captured as the product of two sets of skills: decoding and linguistic comprehension. The Simple View explains variance in reading comprehension and provides a good framework to guide the classification of reading disorders. This paper discusses how weaknesses in either or both of components of the Simple View are implicated in children’s reading comprehension difficulties. It concludes with reflections on the strengths and limitations of the Simple View as a theoretical and practical framework to guide our understanding of reading comprehension and its development.     

Early Childhood Professional Development: Coaching and Coursework Effects on Indicators of Children’s School Readiness

Research Findings: Effects on children’s school readiness were evaluated for 2 interventions focused on improving teacher–student interactions (coursework, coaching) implemented sequentially across 2 years. Teachers from public prekindergarten programs in 10 locations were assigned randomly to treatment or control conditions in each year. Children’s language behavior was observed during the coaching year: Coaching and the course each had positive impacts on children’s multiword language behavior. Treatment impacts on directly assessed literacy, language, and self-regulation skills were evaluated within an intent-to-treat framework for children taught by the participating teachers in the coaching and postcoaching years. Children demonstrated higher levels of inhibitory control in direct assessments when their teacher had received coaching the prior year. Teachers who received both coursework and coaching reported in the postcoaching year that children in their classrooms demonstrated greater levels of behavioral control. Treatment effects did not differ as a consequence of child, classroom, or program characteristics, and there were no significant effects on directly assessed literacy or language skills. Practice or Policy: Results suggest modest benefits for children’s language behavior and self-regulation for intervention(s) that improve the quality of teacher–child interaction.     

A Perspective of Group Size on Children’s Conditions for Wellbeing,Learning and Development in Preschool

This study explores how group size influences children’s conditions for wellbeing, learning and development in preschool in relation to the intentions in the revised (2010) Swedish preschool curriculum. The study is based on qualitative methods generated from interviews and open-ended questions in a questionnaire. Group size is dependent on three dimensions of preschool teacher’s experiences of group size, constituted of various aspects: preschool teacher qualifications and competence, physical indoor and outdoor environment and the composition of the child group. The dimensions and aspects affect the critical number of children for it to function in a qualitative good manner. If these dimensions and aspects do not interact constructively, teachers and children experience the group as large.     

The Enduring Effects of Early-Learned Ideas and Local Folklore on Children’s Astronomy Knowledge

Research in Science Education - The research described here examined the sources of knowledge of astronomy of children (age 3–18) in China and New Zealand, together with the development of...     

Early Shared Reading,Socioeconomic Status,and Children’s Cognitive and School Competencies: Six Years of Longitudinal Evidence

This study explored longitudinal associations between early shared reading at 2 to 3 years of age and children’s later academic achievement. It examined the mediating role of children’s vocabulary and early academic skills, and the moderating effects of family’s socioeconomic status. Data were drawn from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (n = 4,768). Academic achievement was assessed at 8 to 9 years of age via standardized national test scores of literacy and mathematics achievement. Results indicated that early shared reading was associated with children’s academic achievement directly and indirectly through receptive vocabulary and early academic skills. Also, the frequency of early shared reading predicted the outcome measures, over and above other home learning activities. Associations were stronger among low and middle socioeconomic status groups compared to the high socioeconomic status group. We conclude that shared reading offers unique opportunities for adults to teach young children new words and concepts.     

The Impact of a Therapy Dog Program on Children’s Reading: Follow-up and Extension to ELL Students

An initiative in which therapy dogs were integrated into a school-wide reading curriculum was analyzed to determine the effect on student reading in the program’s second year. Prior research on the first year of this specific program (Kirnan et al. in Early Child Educ J 44(6):637–651) demonstrated improvement in reading scores only for kindergarten students, while interview data revealed increases in positive attitudes and enthusiasm for reading across all grades. In the current study, a series of independent t-tests were conducted for each grade, comparing the second year of the program to a control group. There was a significant difference for kindergarten in the second year, as reading scores were higher for program students compared to those in the control group. Unlike the first year of the program, in the second year there was also a significant mean difference in first grade. For both grades, an analysis of covariance controlling for reading scores prior to program implementation still resulted in a significant main effect for the reading program. Combining the first 2 years of the program yielded a large enough sample for a comparison of ELL students with non-ELL students in kindergarten. These data showed significantly higher reading scores for students enrolled in the dog program relative to the control for both ELL and non-ELL students, again accounting for earlier reading scores. These findings demonstrate the need to analyze at-risk subgroups as well as the need to apply a longitudinal lens in researching both dog-assisted literacy programs and participant progress.     

Investigating Bidirectional Links Between the Quality of Teacher–Child Relationships and Children’s Interest and Pre-Academic Skills in Literacy and Math

This study investigated bidirectional links between the quality of teacher–child relationships and children’s interest and pre-academic skills in literacy and math. Furthermore, differences in the patterns of bidirectionality between boys and girls were explored. Participants were 461 Finnish kindergarteners (6-year-olds) and their teachers (n = 48). Teachers reported their closeness and conflict with each child twice throughout the kindergarten year. Children rated their interest in literacy and math, and were tested on their pre-academic skills. Cross-lagged path models indicated that teacher-perceived conflict predicted lower interest and pre-academic skills in both literacy and math. Results were similar for boys and girls. Implications for reducing conflictual patterns of relationships, together with promoting other factors, are discussed.