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P.G. Aaron (Indiana State University) - The validity of the Component model of reading: Outcome of an instructional procedure.
The Component model of reading derives from the Simple view of reading but is more comprehensive. The Component model encompasses three domains: the cognitive domain, the psychological domain, and the ecological domain. This presentation will focus on the Cognitive domain of the Component model. The Component model proposes that reading problems could be attributed to a deficiency in word recognition skills (decoding) or linguistic comprehension skills. The question whether speed of processing (fluency) should be considered to be an independent component is not clear yet because it may be that speed of processing is closely tied to the ability to recognize written words instantly (sight word reading), an ability which is based on decoding skills. To be effective, remedial instruction should not be fuzzy but should focus on the deficient skill. This proposition was tested by examining the outcomes of a six-year old remedial instructional program. In this program, children receive one hour of reading instruction per day, three days a week. Pretests are given and children are identified as having decoding deficit, comprehension deficit, or both. Children who have decoding deficits are provided phoneme awareness training followed by word recognition and spelling training using the Spalding method of "Writing Road to Reading". Children with comprehension deficits are taught 7 comprehension strategies. Children who have deficits in both components are treated as children with decoding deficit. Over the period of six years, 107 different groups of children from grades 1 through 5 underwent the Component model-based training (treatment group). The pretest and post-test scores of these children in Word attack, and Reading comprehension were compared with the scores of 52 children (control group) who were taught in resource rooms in schools which do not follow the differential instruction based on component model. The data were analyzed statistically using a split-plot ANOVA design. The results show that children who were given word recognition training improved in word attack skills as well as comprehension skills; children who received comprehension strategy training showed significant improvement in reading comprehension even though the improvement was relatively small. When compared to the control group, all these gains were significant. It is concluded that remedial instruction based on the Component model produces positive results thus establishing the validity of the Simple view of reading.
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Monica Abrahamsen (University of Oslo) - The relationship between reading skills, verbal short-term memory and phonological skills
Gathercole and Baddeley (1993) have proposed that verbal short-term memory problems can cause reading difficulties. Hulme and Roodenrhys (1995) have suggested an alternative view: that a common set of phonological representations underpin verbal short-term memory and reading skills. Two training studies are reported, in which the effects of phonological awareness training on verbal short-term memory and reading skills have been assessed in children with poor reading skills. Results show that phonological awareness training has positive effects on both verbal short-term memory and reading skills. This supports that a common set of phonological representations underpin both verbal short-term memory and reading.
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Suzanne Adlof (University of Kansas); Catts, Hugh; Zhang, Xuyang - Kindergarten Prediction of Reading in Early vs. Later Grades
The nature of reading comprehension is known to change over time, with early reading comprehension being determined mainly by word recognition skills, and later reading comprehension being more dependent on higher level language skills. Thus, the predictors of early reading outcomes may differ from those of later reading outcomes. This study used logistic regression analyses to show that kindergarten measures including letter identification and phonological processing were good predictors of second grade reading outcomes, whereas kindergarten measures that included assessment of semantic/syntactic abilities predicted later reading outcomes in children who were expected to be good readers in second grade.
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Stephanie Al Otaiba (Florida State University, Florida Center for Reading Research); Connor, Carol; Lane, Holly - Examining the Relations between Reading Instruction and Student Outcomes in Kindergarten Classrooms in Reading First Schools
This study describes kindergarten Reading First (RF) literacy instruction, exploring the relation between amount of instruction, how this instruction is implemented, and student outcomes, including child X instruction interactions. Our study extends research on expert teaching and effective instruction (e.g., Block, Oaker, & Hurt, 2002; Pressley, Rankin, & Yokoi, 1996; Pressley et al., 2001; Shulman, 1987; Taylor & Pearson, 2002).
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Lori Altmann (University of Florida); Lombardino, Linda; Puranik, Cynthia; Shepard, Kathleen; Eidson, SueAnn - Word and sentence production fluency in dyslexic adults
This study tests the hypothesis that adults with dyslexia have impaired access of phonological representations from semantics which impairs the accuracy and speed of single word reading and sentence generation from printed words. 20 adults with dyslexia completed a constrained sentence production task requiring them to produce sentences that included 3 stimulus words. Responses were scored for fluency, grammaticality and completeness; response times for correct sentences were obtained. Early results suggest that most dyslexic speakers responded slower and less fluently than control subjects, although a small subset performed within normal limits. Sentence generation and single word reading were more highly correlated in dyslexia than in normal readers.
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Alida Anderson (University of Maryland); Wang, Min - The utility of Chinese tone processing skill in detecting children with English reading difficulties
The present study investigates the utility of Chinese tone processing skill in detecting children with English reading difficulties. We examine differences in Chinese tone experimental tasks between a group of native English-speaking children with reading difficulties and a comparison group of normally achieving children. General auditory processing, English phonemic processing and English reading skills are also tested. The nature of the relationship between Chinese tone processing, general auditory processing, English phonological processing and English reading skills are compared between groups. Our hypothesis is that there are differences between groups in Chinese tone processing skill, since previous research has shown that Chinese tone processing skill is associated with English reading skill (Wang et al., 2005, under revision). The findings have implications for assessment and intervention with children who have English reading difficulties.
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Jason Anthony (University of Texas, Health Science Center at Houston); Gunnewig, Susan; Landry, Susan; Swank, Paul - Effectiveness of comprehensive professional development for teachers of at-risk preschoolers.
We compared four professional development (PD) programs for teachers of at-risk preschoolers. PD programs included year-long coursework, classroom application, and collaboration among teachers. Additionally, teachers in two programs received weekly mentoring and teachers in two programs received detailed, instructionally linked feedback on children’s academic progress. The 2x2 (Mentoring by Feedback) design yielded four treatment conditions that were compared to business-as-usual. 187 teachers from 110 schools were randomly assigned to experimental conditions. Mentoring and instructionally relevant feedback on children’s progress had positive effects on teaching quality, classroom environments, and children’s achievement but the most powerful program included the core PD activities, ongoing mentoring, and detailed feedback on children’s academic progress.
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Dorit Aram (Tel Aviv University); Bialistock, Tali - Writing with Young Children: A Comparison between Fathers' and Mothers' Mediation
The study described and compared mothers' and fathers' writing mediation to their preschool children. We videotaped 50 mothers and fathers interacting with their child (M = 59.17 months, SD = 4.77) at home, writing unfamiliar words. The children individually completed three literacy tasks: word writing, letter naming, and phonological awareness. The analyses of the videotapes yielded task-specific mediation measures: grapho-phonemic mediation, printing mediation, demand for precision, and reference to orthography. It also yielded general mediation measures: atmosphere, cooperation, reinforcements, task perception and duration. The findings of the research revealed differences between the fathers' and mothers' mediation characteristics. However the results suggest that families have mediation styles. Moreover, we found correlations between parent's mediation and the children's early literacy.
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Michael Assel (University of Texas, Health Science Center at Houston); Landry, Susan; Swank, Paul; Gunnewig, Susan - Longitudinal investigation of the implementation of two literacy focused curricula (i.e., Let’s Begin with the Letter People and Doors to Discovery) during pre-K and kindergarten: The impact of setting and mentoring.
Two commercial curricula were evaluated against a control condition within each of three settings (HS, Title 1, and Universal pre-K). Schools were randomly assigned to conditions. Half of the teachers within each curricula condition received mentoring. Pre/post-testing during pre-K and follow-up testing in kindergarten was completed on 640 children across multiple outcome measures. Results revealed that the curricula were comparable in terms of children’s gains in the area of language. However, curricula differed in terms of children’s gains in letter knowledge and phonological awareness, which depended on the setting and mentoring conditions. HS classes with a curriculum outperformed HS classes without a curriculum regardless of mentoring. Mentoring appeared more effective in Title 1 and Universal Pre-K. Results will be discussed in relation to the moderating influences of setting characteristics and mentoring.
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Diane August (Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington) - Effective Literacy Instruction for English-language Learners
Unfortunately, research has failed to provide a very complete answer to what constitutes high-quality literacy instruction for language-minority students. However, what is evident from the existing research is that—as is true for language-majority students—instruction that provides substantial coverage of key components of literacy such as phonemic awareness, decoding, oral reading fluency, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and writing, has clear benefits. Some of the instructional research shows that enhanced teaching of these various elements provided an advantage to second-language learners; the more complex programs that were studied typically tried to teach several of these elements simultaneously and were also usually successful. Although second-language literacy instruction should focus on the same curricular components as first-language literacy instruction, the differences in the children’s second-language proficiency make it important to adjust instruction to meet the needs of second-language learners.
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Clara Brandao de Avila (Federal University of Sao Paulo); Batista, A.S.; Lemos, C.M.; Silva, M.A.; Rodrigues, A.N.; Capellini, A.S. - Quantity and Typology of Errors: A comparative analysis of Brazilian students of public and private schools.
The objective of this research was to analyze and compare the typology of errors in word and text reading of students enrolled in a Private (SPS) and in a Public (SPuS) School. 70 children with ages between 6 and 12 years, from 1 st to 4th Grades participated. Reading was assessed through text and a 30-word list. The errors were analyzed according to the Goulandris criteria (2004) and through the Test t of Student. The SPS had fewer errors in text reading in comparison to word. The inverse effect occurred for the reading by 4 th graders, causing a greater number of inappropriate closure errors.
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Thierry Baccino (University of Nice, Sophia-Antipolis); Manunta, Yves - How to Describe the Timeline of Cognitive Processes using Eye-Fixation-Related-Potentials
The paper presents a new methodology for studying cognition that combines on-line eye-movements (EM) and event-related potentials (ERP) to track the cognitive processes that occur during a single eye fixation. This technique called eye-fixation-related potentials (EFRP) has the advantage of coupling accurate time measures from ERPs and the location of the eye on the stimulus, so it can be used to disentangle perceptual/attentional/cognitive factors affecting reading. We tested this new technique to describe the controversial parafoveal-on-foveal effects on reading, which concern the question of whether two consecutive words are processed in parallel or sequentially.
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Doris Baker (University of Oregon) - The Predictive Validity and Decision Utility of a Spanish Early Literacy Measure: the Indicadores Dinámicos del Exito en la Lectura (IDEL)
The dramatic increase in the Spanish-speaking English Language Learner (ELL) population in the United States presents a challenge to teachers and school administrators not used to dealing with a linguistically, culturally, and academically diverse student body. Currently, 80 percent of all Ells are Spanish-speakers (NCES 2005). According to the National Symposium on Learning Disabilities in English Language Learners, the identification and assessment of learning disabilities, and the development and testing of the effectiveness of interventions for learning disabilities in ELLs (McCardle, Mele-McCarthy, & Leos, 2005) are two of the five major themes in dire need of research. Initial results on the reliability and validity of IDEL indicates that this early literacy measure is highly predictable of student reading outcomes at the end of first grade. Early identification of students’ reading skills allows teachers to enhance Spanish literacy interventions, particularly for students who are referred for special education services.
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Michal Balass (University of Pittsburgh); Bolger, Donald; Perfetti, Charles - The Role of Definition and Sentence Context in Vocabulary Learning
This study examined the benefits of context and definitions for learning new word meanings. Participants learned a set of very low frequency English words. For each word, the order in which participants received the definitional information (before first context or after the last context sentences) and the variety of context (the same context presented four times or four different contexts) were manipulated over the course of five learning trials. Following the learning session, a primed lexical decision task was completed. Results indicate that the effects of context on learning word meanings are greatest when the sentence context is varied and is followed by a dictionary definition.
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Jennifer Balogh (Ordinate Corporation) - Predicting Oral Reading Rate and Accuracy from a Subjective Measure of Expressiveness
An oral reading fluency experiment was conducted with 97 fifth grade students to determine whether expressiveness can predict accuracy and reading rate. The results showed that expressiveness predicts both measures, but accounts for more of the variability for rate (r2 = 0.66). Moreover, expressiveness levels follow distinct patterns with regard to pre-established thresholds of accuracy (independent, instructional, and frustration levels) and also percentiles of reading rate norms. Based on the results, a new approach to the assessment of fluency is proposed, called the Reading Grid, which considers accuracy, reading rate, and expressiveness concurrently.
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Amy Barth (University of Kansas); Catts, Hugh - An Investigation of the Reading-related Component Skills That Underlie Reading Fluency for Adolescent Readers
The goal of the present study is to use a latent variable approach to comprehensively examine the reading related component skills that underlie reading fluency of adolescent readers. Measures of word recognition, word reading efficiency, efficiency of phonological access, working memory, phonological awareness, nonverbal cognition, and language comprehension were administered to a sample of 527 eighth grade students participating in a longitudinal study of reading and language impairments. Structural equation modeling will be used to examine the unique contributions of cognition, language, and reading skills to the prediction of Reading Fluency.
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Judith Bekebrede (University of Amsterdam); van der Leij, Aryan; Share, David - Dutch dyslexic adolescents: phonological core/ variable orthographic difference or subtypes?
In a sample of Dutch dyslexic adolescents the phonological core/variable orthographic difference model is investigated to explain heterogeneity of cognitive profiles. After confirmation of this model, it is validated by comparing it to alternative subtype classifications. The phonological core/variable orthographic difference model is compared to operationalisations of the double deficit model and deficits based on the dual route theory. The prediction is that the phonological core/variable orthographic difference model is the best fitting model, because more of the dyslexics will be classified within this model than in the other two.
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Ruth Berman (Tel Aviv University); Ravid, Dorit - Children’s Knowledge of Novel and Traditional Sayings: The Impact of Schooling
The study compares how Hebrew-speaking children cope with two types of proverbial sayings: Sayings that are not established in Hebrew, worded in familiar terms (e.g., the equivalent of English “A caged bird longs for the clouds”) and traditional Hebrew proverbs using high-register language (e.g., “Those that sow in tears, in joy shall reap”). Sixty 4th, 8th, and 11th-grade students were given two different multiple-choice tasks in writing: literal paraphrases and sentence-completion. Age-related differences in results on each task are attributed to the impact of increased literacy on interpreting figurative language and to growing command of a culturally-anchored literate lexicon.
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Rebecca Betjemann (University of Colorado); Keenan, Janice - Is Processing Speed an Independent Component of Reading Comprehension?
We investigated the Simple View of Reading by assessing processing speed in addition to decoding ability and listening as components of reading comprehension. A factor analysis found evidence for a processing speed factor, independent from comprehension and decoding factors. In regression analyses, processing speed did not appear to contribute much variance to reading comprehension after decoding and listening comprehension were accounted for in our entire sample. In the youngest group of children, however, processing speed accounted for more variance than in the older children.
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Joseph Betts (Renaissance Learning, Inc.); McBride, James; Milone, Michael; Hannigan, Eileen - Tracking Students’ Early Literacy Development: A Three-Year Study
This study analyzed the development of early literacy skills over a three-year duration using a cohort-sequential, time-series design. Estimates of literacy skills were gathered at monthly intervals from a random sample of the cohorts from a large user database. The results provide confirmatory evidence of a “slump” in early literacy skills over the summer months between grades. Another important result of this research is the generation of developmental milestones in the mastery of specific early literacy skills known to be important for later reading development. Implications of the results for progress monitoring and program evaluation are also discussed.
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Gina Biancarosa (Harvard Graduate School of Education); Mancilla-Martinez, Jeannette; Christodoulou, Joanna; Snow, Catherine - Exploring the Heterogeneity of English Reading Comprehension Difficulties among Spanish-speaking Middle School Students
This study examines reading comprehension amongst 180 language minority Spanish-English speakers in the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grades at one urban school. Word, non-word, and passage reading speed, vocabulary, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension were assessed. Cluster analysis was used to identify theoretically meaningful sub-groups of struggling comprehenders based on their componential skills. Regression analyses were used to determine how the relationship between reading comprehension and word, non-word, and passage reading skills varied as a function of grade. Implications for research and practice are explored.
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Ulrike Biangardi (University of Washington); McCutchen, Deborah - Morphological and orthographic priming in children and adults
Adult readers (college students), as well as 5th and 8th grade students, were presented with a continual lexical decision priming task, in which target words were preceded by words that were morphologically similar, orthographically similar, or unrelated. Reaction time (RT) was the dependent variable. Repeated measures ANOVA analyses revealed that children showed significant morphological priming effects, with no significant RT difference between orthographic and unrelated conditions. Unlike the children, adults showed a significant inhibition effect in the orthographic condition, replicating effects found in prior studies with adults. Developmental implications are discussed.
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Emily Binks (Texas A&M University); Joshi, R.M.; Graham, L.; Dean, E. - Roadblocks to Reading Acquisition: Is Teacher Knowledge One of Them?
There is overwhelming evidence that perhaps classroom instruction, especially at the early primary grades, might be at the core of the high incidence of literacy problems in the US. It was hypothesized that many classroom teachers are not familiar with the knowledge about language concepts due to an inaccurate presentation of these concepts in (1) the type of instruction received in the colleges of education and (2) the information provided in the textbooks used in the basic literacy courses. Questionnaires were administered to pre-service teachers and university instructors. Popular reading education textbooks were examined. Results and recommendations will be discussed.
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Jay Blanchard (Arizona State University); Christie, Jim; Gorin, Joanna; Atwill, Kim; Millett, Joe; Sheppard, Duane; Cabrera, Jerry; de la Fuentes, Maria Elena - The Influence of a 'Science-based' Preschool Curriculum on Literacy Development in Spanish-speaking Kindergarten Children Learning English
Eighty Spanish-speaking children (L1) learning English (L2) who completed an experimental 'science-based' U.S. Department of Education, Early Reading First curriculum in preschool were compared to controls throughout their kindergarten year. The curriculum centered on instruction for oral and listening language, phonological awareness, print awareness and alphabet knowledge through print-enriched activities. Measures included: receptive vocabulary (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test), phonological awareness and letter-name knowledge fluency (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Literacy Skills, DIBELS), as well as speaking and listening skills (Stanford English Language Proficiency Test). Across time experimental children generally outperformed controls. Causal explanations are suggested.
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Rachael Borley (University of Manitoba); Kruk, Richard - Visual processing components of rapid naming
A model positing connections among lower-level visual processing and rapid naming skills was tested in Grade 1 children. Results showed that wholistic visual attention, selective visual attention, backward visual masking, phonological awareness and IQ are significantly correlated with rapid naming. A path analysis confirmed that a model involving backward masking and phonological awareness predicting rapid naming, and measures of magnocellular functioning and IQ predicting phonological awareness, provided a good fit of the data. Potential explanations of the links relating visual components and RAN are explored in terms of attention and the development of automatic recognition abilities.
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Marie-Line Bosse (Grenoble 2 University); Valdois, Sylviane - Reading acquisition and the visual attentional span: a longitudinal study
The visual attention (VA) span is defined as the amount of distinct visual elements which can be processed in parallel in a multi-element array. Both recent empirical data and theoretical accounts suggest that VA span might be involved in reading acquisition, independently of phonological abilities. This hypothesis was tested on a longitudinal study of 130 children during 3 years. Phonological abilities and VA span were evaluated before the beginning of reading learning, and the children were tested on reading tasks in first and second grade. Regression analyses showed that VA span predicted a significant part of variance on reading, independently of phonological abilities.
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Peter Bowers (Queen's University); Kirby, John - Instruction in morphophonological word structure: Can instruction add transparency to opaque words?
Despite lack of instructional emphasis, morphological awareness (MA) contributes to children’s literacy. Children demonstrate less awareness of morphological cues in “opaque” words where shifts in phonology (do+es à does), spelling (hope/+ingà hoping) or semantics (as+signà assign) mask meaning cues. This intervention study investigates whether morphological instruction improves literacy. Two grade 4/5 classes will be randomly assigned to morphological instruction while two continue with regular instruction. All groups will complete pre- and post-tests on standardized reading and reading-related measures. Standardized, and experimental tests based on the intervention will assess the effect of the instruction on near and far transfer measures.
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Susan Brady (University of Rhode Island and Haskins Laboratories); Gillis, Margie - Studying The Influence of Teacher Attitudes on Response to Professional Development
In an on-going professional development project, we are investigating methods for improving the preparation of first-grade teachers to teach reading. One component is to study whether teachers' initial attitudes toward professional development correspond with their subsequent gains in knowledge about how to teach reading using research-based techniques. To begin to test that hypothesis, an attitude survey was given to a cohort of 65 teachers, along with a teacher knowledge survey, both before and after one year of training. We will report on construct validity for the measures and on the links between teacher attitudes and teacher gains in knowledge.
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Lee Branum-Martin (University of Houston); Francis, David - Heterogeneity in Language Ability among Spanish-speaking English Language Learners: A Latent Class Analysis
This study was designed to examine the heterogeneity in language ability among a large sample of Spanish-speaking children acquiring English. The latent class analysis is based on the assessment of two types of language tasks each administered in Spanish and English to a sample of 1,440 Spanish-speaking children in the primary grades. One measure was a standardized measure of expressive vocabulary and the other was a narrative production task. Given the markedly different nature of the tasks and the differing types of skills tapped by each, the heterogeneity of language ability in the sample – within and across language and as a function of task type – is examined.
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Mario Braun (Freie Universitat Berlin) - The optimal viewing position effect: New evidence from eye tracking research
The optimal viewing position (OVP) effect describes the fact that word identification performance declines with increasing distance of the initial fixation from the centre of a word (O’Regan, 1981). During reading, first fixation durations show an inverse pattern: First fixation durations are longest near the centre of the word but decrease with increasing distance from the centre. In three experiments, eye movements were recorded during OVP tasks to systematically explore the inverse OVP effect. Implications of results on the interplay of visual-perceptual and cognitive processing components are discussed.
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David Braze (Haskins Laboratories, Yale University); Einar Mencl, W; Shankweiler, Donald; Tabor, Whitney; Shutz, Aaron - Reader Skill Differences and Online Reading Behavior: Temporarily Ambiguous Sentences
This study focuses on the apprehension of combinatorial meaning of sentences. We recorded eye-movements (EM) during silent reading of temporarily ambiguous sentences to examine individual differences in gaze patterns as a function of those capacities that support reading comprehension. We collected measures of reading and listening comprehension, decoding skill, verbal memory, vocabulary, and experience with print. Participants were 50 young-adults, 16 to 24 y.o., primarily adult-school and community college students representing a wide range of reading skill. Results indicate that reader skill is positively correlated with sensitivity to the local, moment-to-moment, demands of text comprehension, as evidenced through EM measures.
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Monique Brodeur (University of Quebec); Dion, Eric; Mercier, Julien; Capuano, France; Poulin, Francois; Vinier, Nathalie - Effects of systematic kindergarten phonic activities on readiness for first-grade reading instruction
Systematic kindergarten phonic activities are considered a crucial component of prevention efforts. Unfortunately, there are still too few practical phonic programs with demonstrated effectiveness for this age-group. A large-scale field trial was used to examine the effectiveness of a French adaptation of the Optimize Reading Program (Kame’enui et al., 2002). Students’ phonological awareness (PA) and letter-sounds (LS) knowledge were assessed at beginning and end of kindergarten. These measures were repeated at the beginning of first-grade. At this point, decoding was also tested. Compared with controls, experimental students demonstrated uniformly better PA and LS at the end of kindergarten and first-grade.
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Gail Brown (Assoc of Ind. Schools, NSW, Australia); Cassar, Mary - Classroom implementation of effective instruction in question-answer relationships
This presentation reports treatment integrity data from a study that effectively implemented question-answer relationships (QAR) in year 5 classrooms. Data are reported from the original study and from subsequent implementations in year 2 and year 3. Instructional efficacy is based on both treatment integrity and teacher understanding of QAR concepts. This presentation reports the strengths and weaknesses of collaborating with classroom teachers to implement instructional materials. Empirical and anecdotal evidence document a clear need for ongoing support and mentoring of classroom teachers over a period of time.
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Jennae Bulat (University of California, Berkeley); Cunningham, Anne - The Role of Print Exposure in the Development of Early Literacy Skills Among Kindergarten Students
This study demonstrates the contribution of early reading exposure to the development of orthographic processing and other early literacy skills, introducing a new measure of print exposure: Book Cover Recognition Test. Kindergartner's (n=110) early levels of print exposure accounted for 9.3% of variance in orthographic processing after partialing out age, nonverbal intelligence, and rapid naming ability, and 8.8% of variance in orthographic processing after also partialing out phonological processing ability. Early reading exposure also significantly contributed to vocabulary, comprehension skill, and letter knowledge. This study replicates early literacy patterns but extends the findings to a younger population of students.
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Adriana Bus (Leiden University); de Jong, Maria - An Up-date and Expansion of a Meta-analysis of Parent-child Book Reading
Bus et al.’s (1995) meta-analysis revealed an effect size of d = .59, indicating that book reading explains about 8% of the variance in reading and language measures. Since 1995 the number of studies testing effects of book reading grew exponentially. Besides, animated stories on DVD, the internet or television have their share in children’s literary canon and we wonder whether these new forms of story encounters have similar effects on language and literacy measures. The meta-analysis takes these new studies into account and expands the review by adding new variables such as qualitative aspects of book reading (e.g. interactive reading) and new forms of story encounters.
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Brian Byrne (University of New England); Olson, Richard; Samuelsson, Stefan; Hulslander, Jacqueline; Wadsworth, Sally; Willcutt, Eric; DeFries, John - Learning-based and "static" measures in early literacy: A behavior-genetic analysis
A feature of our longitudinal twin study of literacy development has been the employment of learning based measures alongside standard (or "static") ones. These have included a tightly-scripted routine for teaching phoneme identity at the preschool stage and learning of orthographic patterns at Grade 2. In this presentation I compare the information we have gleaned from the two kinds of tasks, "dynamic" and static, with univariate and multivariate behaviour-genetic analyses. The conclusion is that the learning measures have not behaved in a manner fundamentally different from the more standard methods of assessment, and I discuss two interpretations of this observation. I supplement the analyses with data from an intervention study of young children at familial risk for dyslexia, and suggest that learning-based measures may furnish extra information if the learning period is of a more sustained nature.
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Donna Caccamise (University of Colorado); Snyder, Lynn; Kintsch, Walter - Improving High Stakes Testing Reading and Writing Outcomes through Summarization
This paper discusses a 5 year scale-up project that implemented a reading/writing, technology-driven tutor in grades 5-11, called Summary Street. Research in reading comprehension (e.g., Kintsch 1998) points to summarization as one reading strategy that engages readers to actively process the gist of a text to create a situational model that connects important points of the text with background knowledge, for a deeper understanding of the text. This paper will discuss results of students using this text summarization tool with SES, home literacy practices, and other demographic factors and the impact on reading comprehension scores, including high stakes state standards testing.
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Erin Caffrey (Vanderbilt University); Lemons, Chris - Predicting Reading Growth with Dynamic Assessment
This study examined the validity of a dynamic assessment measure to identify students at-risk for school failure. Participants were 137 kindergarten and first-grade students from an urban school district in the southeastern United States. Student reading ability was assessed during two sessions: a) one with static assessment, and b) one with dynamic assessment. Event-related potential (ERP) data was collected at pre- and post-test on a subset of 50 first-grade participants. Progress monitoring in reading was conducted for 14 weeks using Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM). Static and dynamic assessments were repeated at post-test. Results are discussed in terms of individual differences and predictors of reading growth.
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Kate Cain (Lancaster University); Oakhill, Jane - What happens to poor comprehenders?
Before we can develop effective interventions for poor comprehenders, we need to establish which, if any, skill impairments are fundamental to their reading comprehension deficit, the persistence of the deficit, and the wider implications of early literacy problems. We addressed these issues by following the progress of eight-year-olds with poor reading comprehension and age-appropriate word reading ability. They did not receive any treatment for their problems. Our findings indicate that a single source of poor comprehension is unlikely, comprehension problems were still evident at 11 and 14 years, and that other aspects of language and literacy may suffer over time.
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Claire Cameron (University of Michigan); McClelland, Megan; Connor, Carol - The Head-to-toes Task: Using a behavioral measure of self-regulation to predict emergent literacy, language, and math skills
Self-regulation comprises a developmentally acquired set of skills involved in controlling and directing behavior, and is associated with early academic success, including literacy acquisition. The present study investigated the relation of preschoolers' (n = 310) self-regulation to emergent literacy, vocabulary, and math skill growth. Self-regulation was assessed using a direct behavioral measure. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) revealed that self-regulation predicted growth in letter-word recognition, vocabulary, and math skills over the prekindergarten year, controlling for site (Michigan or Oregon), student gender, and other sociocultural variables. Implications for the role of self-regulation in children's literacy development and their successful transition to kindergarten will be discussed.
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Marketa Caravolas (University of Liverpool) - The foundations of literacy in a consistent orthography: Much like English after all?
The predictors of alphabetic reading and spelling ability were assessed in Czech, a language with a consistent orthography. Czech children (N=75) were assessed between the middle of kindergarten and the end of second grade on measures of LK, PA, RAN, IQ, reading and spelling. Regression analyses indicate that the pattern of prediction is remarkably similar to that found in English: PA and LK are the strongest unique predictors of accuracy in both early literacy skills, while RAN only plays a role in predicting reading speed. However, reading accuracy is acquired quickly and is measurable during a relatively short developmental window.
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Claudia Cardoso Martins (Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil); Fulanete Correa, Marcela; Marchetti, Patricia; Ehri, Linnea - Reading and Spelling Ability of Brazilian Adults with Little or no Formal Education
The study investigated the reading and spelling ability of a group of low SES Brazilian adults with little or no formal education. Seventy-two individuals (Mean Age= 54 years) enrolled in an adult literacy program in a major Brazilian city were administered tests of reading, spelling and arithmetic skills, as well as experimental tasks of phonological skills at the beginning and end of the program. Regardless of reading skill at the beginning of the program, there was little if any progress throughout the school year. Preliminary analyses suggest that participants relied on partial alphabetic cues to learn to read words which may account for the lack of growth in reading and spelling ability across the school year.
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Joanne Carlisle (University of Michigan); Zeng, Ji - Is Reading First an Effective Intervention Over Time for Students’ At-Risk for Reading Difficulties?
For students at risk for serious reading problems, early identification of reading-related difficulties and timely intervention are critical in order to prevent negative outcomes. We examine these factors in the context of Reading First (RF), a program specifically designed for students in schools with high percentages of students at risk for reading problems. An important question is whether the high quality classroom instruction provided by RF offsets risk factors. Results suggest that attending a RF school leads to greater improvement than attending a nonRF school in risk status on Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS). However, we also examined whether number of years in RF (one, two, or three years) affects the probability of RF second graders being in the “at risk: category on DIBELS. Results suggest that RF has a cumulative dosage effect for low risk students but not for at risk students. Follow-up analyses examine the contribution of demographic variables to these results.
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Julia Carroll (University of Warwick); Myers, Joanne - The Development of Phonological Representations
There has been little research into the nature of phonological representations in pre-literate children, though some researchers (Logan, 1992; Storkel, 2002) suggest that children may represent words in terms of phonetic features, rather than as a series of phonemes. If this is true, it may provide an explanation for the non-phonemic strategies some children use to solve phoneme awareness tasks (Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1993). We carried out five different phonological tasks contrasting phoneme based strategies with phonetic feature based strategies (using manner or place of articulation).Preliminary findings suggest that children are sensitive to phonetic features.
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Hugh Catts (University of Kansas); Ellis Weismer, Susan; Zhang, Xuyang; Tomblin, J. B.; Adlof, Suzanne - A further investigation of poor comprehenders and poor decoders.
Research has shown differences in the cognitive-linguistic profiles of children with specific comprehension and specific decoding deficits. In this presentation, we further examine longitudinal data from a large cohort of children followed from kindergarten to 10th grade. Latent class analysis is used to identify classes (subgroups) of children based on individual differences in decoding and reading comprehension abilities. These classes are compared in terms of differences in language and cognition abilities. Results have implications for theories of reading comprehension.
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Hsin-Chin Chen (Texas A&M University); Viad, Jyotsna; Yang, His-Chun; Wu, Jei-Tun - Orthographic and Phonological Neighborhood Density Effects in Word Recognition in Chinese vs. English Readers
It has been claimed that recognition of individual words is influenced by the degree to which the words possess unique vs. shared letters or sounds relative to other words, that is, whether the words have few or several neighbors. In the present research, we directly compared orthographic and phonological neighborhood density effects in Chinese relative to those in English on both lexical decision and naming. Different patterns of results were found in English and Chinese, suggesting that different grapheme-to-phoneme designs of a writing system influence the way readers visually process words and the way orthographic and phonological representations are organized.
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Shu-Li Chen (National Taitung University, Taiwan); Tzeng, Shih-Jay; Hung, Li-Yu; Ko, Hwa-Wei - The relationships between Phonological awareness and Chinese reading abilities
With a data pool of 2840 Taiwanese children, the author explores the relationships between phonological awareness (PA) and Chinese reading abilities. The results showed 4 main findings: 1. PA correlates significantly with reading comprehension and character recognition. 2. Tone awareness also correlates with reading abilities. 3.PA does not increase with age.4. The correlations between PA and reading seem to vary with grade. In first 2 grades, PA correlates more with reading comprehension than with character recognition. However, after third grade, PA correlates more with character recognition. The development of the Chinese PA test will also be reported.
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Becky Chen-Bumgardner (University of Toronto); Luo, Yang; Zhang, Jing - Development of Phonological Strategies in Learning to Reading Chinese
The study investigates the development of two phonological strategies in learning to read Chinese. The phonetic strategy refers to reading a character (°é/ban4/) by naming the phonetic component (°ë/ban4/). The analogy strategy refers reading a character (°é/ban4) by making an analogy to a character (°í/ban4) with the same phonetic component. The study found that the two strategies develop simultaneously. Children can use the strategies as early as in kindergarten before receiving formal literacy instruction, and their performance increases with grade level. Moreover, the phonological strategies are important for character reading.
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Chenxi Cheng (University of Maryland) - Morphological Awareness and Reading Development in Chinese-English Bilingual Children
In this study, we aim to investigate the development of morphological awareness and reading skill in Chinese-English bilingual children from grade 1 to grade 3. We are going to focus on compound morphology in Chinese and English. The design of the study is a 2 (familiarity) x 2 (semantic transparency) x 3 (grade level) design. We expect a main effect of grade and interactions between age and familiarity, age and transparency. Compound morphological awareness will be associated with reading skill in both Chinese and English. We also expect an association between morphological awareness in L1 and reading skill in L2.
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Penny Chiappe (University of California, Irvine); Glaeser, Barbara; Ferko, Doreen - Speech perception, vocabulary and the development of literacy skills in English among Korean- and English-speaking children
This longitudinal study examined the roles of speech perception and phonological processing in literacy development in of 23 native English-speakers (NS) and 27 native Korean-speakers in the first grade. Children completed tasks assessing word recognition, reading comprehension, spelling, phonological awareness, speech perception and receptive vocabulary at the start and end of the school year. Despite weaker performance in vocabulary, KS children’s performance on the literacy measures was superior to that of NS children, and comparable on measures of phonological processing. Speech perception and phonological awareness in autumn explained unique variance in literacy performance at the end of first grade for children from both language groups.
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Naya Choi (Seoul National University); Yoo, An-Jin; Yi, Soon-Hyung - The effect of Korean preschoolers’ visual perception on Hangul words reading
The purpose of this study was to explore the predictability of children’s visual perception on words reading, in connection with the feature of the Korean alphabet ‘Hangul’. The factor analysis confirmed three factors of visual perception, that is, perception about form constancy, direction, and number. The data collected from 252 preschoolers showed that all the sub-tests of this scale, composed of figures, vowels, and consonants, were correlated to words and pseudo-words reading. Regression analysis revealed that perception about form constancy, direction, and number could predict words reading, while perception about the number did not contribute to pseudo-words reading.
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Ellie Clin (Queen's University); Wade-Woolley, Lesly; MacCoubrey, Sharon - What Predicts Growth in L2 Alphabet Knowledge in French Immersion Kindergarten Students?
A strong knowledge of letter names and sounds in pre-readers of alphabetic languages has been shown to be a significant predictor in early reading development in children. Until recently, however, researchers have focused mainly upon this topic in relation to first-language reading acquisition. This study examines the predictive effects of the child’s linguistic environment (eg., number of L1 and L2 books in the home, parents’ competence in the L2) and cognitive and linguistic variables on French Immersion kindergarteners’ development of letter knowledge in the L2. The results of the study will shed light on which aspects of L1 competence and home literacy behaviour are most strongly related to early emergent literacy skills in L2.
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Chris Coleman (University of Georgia); Gregg, Noel; Davis, J. Mark; Hartwig, Jennifer - Dyslexic and Non-Dyslexic Spelling Errors Among University Students
In this study, we analyzed 1,610 spelling errors produced by 130 university students (65 with dyslexia, 65 normally-achieving). The errors came from two sources: (1) a standardized spelling test; and (2) an impromptu essay-writing task. Numerous group- and item-level analyses were conducted, some of which confirmed earlier findings by Evans & Smith (1989) and Bruck (1993). Overall, our investigations were consistent with the view that dyslexia leads to poorer spelling accuracy, plausibility, and knowledge (e.g., morphological awareness). However, data from the essays indicated that adult dyslexics vary in their approach and performance on unconstrained writing tasks.
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Donald Compton (Vanderbilt University); Bigalow, Emily; Elleman, Amy; Lawrence, Jane; Ollinghouse, Natalie; Bauer, Jennifer; Vyning, Jan - Predicting struggling readers' responsiveness to reading comprehension instruction.
There is renewed interest in matching reading interventions to child characteristics in order to optimize treatment responsiveness. Sixty-eight 3rd – 5th grade struggling readers participated in one of three different 25-lesson reading interventions. Groups of struggling readers were assigned to either: 1) decoding only, 2) decoding + traditional (TRAD) comprehension, or 3) decoding + reciprocal teaching (RT) instruction. Employing an ATI approach we predicted responsiveness using treatment group, child attributes (e.g., vocabulary, IQ, word ID skill), and the interaction between the two. Results suggest that child attributes differentially predict responsiveness across the TRAD and RT interventions, suggesting the existence of ATI’s.
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Carol Connor (Florida State University, Florida Center for Reading Research); Morrison, Frederick - The cumulative effect of first and second grade reading instruction on students’ decoding skill growth
Using cross-classified-random-effects models we examined the combined impact of first and second grade language arts instruction on students’ (n=86) decoding skill growth. Overall, the amount of language arts instruction (minutes/day) increased from first to second grade. However, the amount of teacher-managed-code-focused instruction (TMCF) decreased by half from first to second grade. During first grade, students with weaker initial decoding scores demonstrated greater decoding growth in classrooms with more time in TMCF1 instruction while students with stronger initial decoding demonstrated less growth. During second grade all students demonstrated stronger decoding skill growth in classrooms where more time was spent in TMCF2 activities.
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Michael Coyne (University of Connecticut); McCoach, D.Betsy - Direct Vocabulary Instruction during Shared Storybook Reading with Kindergarten Students: A Comparison of Basic Instruction, Extended Instruction, and Incidental Exposure
This poster presents the results of a study evaluating the efficacy of direct vocabulary instruction within storybook reading activities with kindergarten students. A within subjects design was used to compare the effects of basic instruction, extended instruction, and incidental exposure on receptive and expressive measures of target word acquisition. Results revealed statistically and educationally significant differences across conditions favoring extended instruction on all measures. Results of a delayed posttest indicated that instructional effects were maintained after eight weeks. Secondary analyses examined student variables that moderated response to the vocabulary instruction.
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Claudine Crane (University of York); Margaret Snowling; Carroll, Julia; Duff, Fiona; Fieldsend, Elizabeth; Miles, Jeremy; Hulme, Charles - Early intervention at the foundations of reading comprehension.
Following screening of 4-5 year-old children from 20 larger schools in the York area (UK), 160 children were selected on the basis of having poor speech and language development at school entry. Within each school, 4 children were randomly assigned to receive oral language training (including vocabulary and comprehension exercises), 4 to receive an early literacy intervention (including phoneme awareness, print concepts and book reading). The interventions were delivered by trained teaching assistants who taught in both arms of the intervention, daily for two 10-week periods. Findings of the study will be described drawing out implications for theory and practice.
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Jennifer Cromley (Temple University); Azevedo, Roger - Is there more than one way to be a poor reader?
We examined the profiles of background knowledge, inference, strategies, vocabulary, and word reading scores for 9th-grade students who had also completed the Gates comprehension subtest. There were 34 low comprehenders(LC), 42 average comprehenders (AC), 75 above-average comprehenders (AAC) and 21 very high comprehenders (VHC). There were statistically significant differences on all 5 component scores between all groups, with VHC > AAC > AC > LC. In other words, profiles for each group were relatively flat and did not show much overlap. Our findings are highly consistent with Stanovich’s (1986) Matthew Effects and inconsistent with Stanovich’s (1984) interactive-compensatory hypothesis.
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Virginia Cronin (The George Washington University); Chahil, Sandeep; Karajgikar, Jay; Lawson, Beverly - Two-Core Hypothesis and the Stroop Effect
The two-core hypothesis proposes that automaticity and phonology are involved in the development of word reading. The Stroop effect is a test of the automatic quality of word reading. In this longitudinal study, children were divided in to four groups, those high in both naming and phonological awareness, those poor in both abilities, and two groups, high in one ability and low in the other. In grades one through four the groups with one high and one low ability had equivalent levels of word reading, but the low naming group consistently performed more poorly on the Stroop effect. Good phonology seemed to compensate for poor naming in word learning, and supports the two-core hypothesis
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Daniel Daigle (University of Montreal) - The acquisition of double consonants’ legal position in written French: a case of implicit learning in deaf readers
The purpose of this study was to assess the implicit learning by deaf students of a French orthographic rule concerning the legal position of double consonants. The participants were 10-18 years old and were grouped according to their age and reading level. The experimental material consisted of pairs of pseudowords that either respected the legal position of double consonants in French words (e.g. fellut) or not (e.g. felutt). The items were presented on a computer screen. Results show that most subjects demonstrate knowledge of the targeted French orthographic rule because they select significantly more often pseudowords that respect this rule.
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Meredyth Daneman (University of Toronto at Mississauga); Hannon, Brenda; Burton, Christine; Lennertz, Tracy - Individual and age-related differences in shallow semantic processing of text: Evidence from eye movements
Evidence for shallow semantic processing has depended on paradigms that require readers to explicitly report whether they noticed an anomalous noun phrase after reading text such as “The authorities were trying to decide where to bury the surviving injured after the plane crash.” We replicated previous research by showing that readers frequently fail to report the anomaly. In addition, we monitored readers’ eye movements for spontaneous disruptions when encountering the anomaly, and showed how reading skill and aging impact on the time course of anomaly detection. Our results challenge orthodox models of comprehension that assume that semantic analysis is exhaustive and complete.
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J.P. Das (University of Alberta); Georgiou, George; Janzen, Troy - Single and Double-Deficits in Reading: An Analysis of the Effect of Phonological Awareness, Rapid Naming Speed, and Distal Cognitive Processes
The present study examined (a) the contribution of phonological awareness and rapid naming speed on reading ability, (b) the double-deficit hypothesis, and (c) the effects of distal cognitive processes on reading ability. Seventy First Nation Canadian children attending grade 3 and 4 were examined on phonological awareness (PA), rapid naming (RAN), Planning, Attention, Successive, and Simultaneous (PASS) processing, Word Identification, and Word Attack measures. Results indicated that PA and RAN made unique contributions to reading while PASS variables did not contribute significantly, once the effect of PA and RAN was controlled. Finding single and double-deficit subtypes supported the independence of PA and RAN.
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Dana David (Queen's University); Wade-Woolley, Lesly - Lexical Stress and Early Reading Skills in Preschool Children
This study examines the relationship between sensitivity to lexical stress and reading related abilities in preschool children between the ages of 42 – 71 months. Lexical stress sensitivity was measured through an age-appropriate paradigm (Wood, 2004), and measures of letter knowledge, letter-sound knowledge, phonological awareness, reading ability, and vocabulary were taken as well. Results will be discussed in the context of previous research, and related through regression analyses to theories of children’s reading development in terms of models of linguistic stress development.
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Peter de Jong (University of Amsterdam) - Young children’s use of sound similarity in paired associate learning.
Two studies were conducted to test the hypothesis that non-reading kindergarten children can benefit from the sound similarity between stimuli during paired associate learning. In Study 1, pairs of words were learned which differed in the unit (rhyme, first sound or none) that the words had in common. In Study 2, a novel letter sound was associated with a word that did or did not contain the sound. In both studies, also the relation between phoneme awareness and learning performance in the various conditions was examined.
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S. Helene Deacon (Dalhousie University); McGonnell, Melissa; Duncan, Hilary - Morphological processing: Friend or foe for adults with a history of reading difficulties?
The limited existing evidence on morphological knowledge amongst poor readers can be described, at best, as mixed. Some research indicates that it causes no particular difficulties (Leong, 1999); other work marks it as an area of strength (Elbro & Arnbak, 1996) or weakness (Giraudo, 2001). This study will evaluate morphological processing abilities in compensated dyslexics, individuals with a history of reading difficulties with age-appropriate reading comprehension levels. Performance on morphological processing tasks will be compared to that of comprehension matched controls. These results will determine if morphological processing might act as a compensatory mechanism for those with reading difficulties.
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Sylvia Defior (University of Granada); Jimenez-Fernandez, Gracia; Cantos, Inmaculada; Serrano, Francisca - Influence of Spanish Code Features upon Reading Acquisition
The aim of this work was to study the development of literacy taking into account the complexities of the Spanish alphabetic code. Children from first to fourth grade were tested with word and pseudoword reading tasks. Seven different types of orthographic complexity were studied. Results showed a developmental effect across grades. They were also found a complexity and a lexicality effect in all grades. Regarding type of complexity, diacritical mark showed the greater difficulty, followed by contextual influence. Findings are discussed in the framework of cross-linguistic research and practical implications are considered.
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Elizabeth Demont (Louis-Pasteur University, Strasbourg); Daigle, Daniel - The use of phonological information by deaf readers of French: a cross-cultural study
The purpose of the present study was to compare phonological processing in deaf readers of French from Canada and from France. Subjects were matched for age and reading level. Phonological processing (graphophonemic and syllabic) was evaluated with two similarity judgement tasks. Subjects had to determine which of two pseudowords resembled the most a target pseudoword. Results indicate a reading level effect in French and Canadian subjects. Better readers got better scores on both tasks. There was no effect of cultural belonging. Results are discussed in terms of sources of success/failure in deaf students’ reading development in French.
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Peter Dewitz (Educational Consultant, Capital School District, Dover, Delaware); Jones, Jennifer; Leahy, Susan - Reading Comprehension Instruction in Five Basal Reading Programs: Durkin Revisited
Comprehension instruction in five contemporary basal reading programs was examined to determine how they conformed to current research recommendations about effective instruction. The programs were examined from four perspectives. What skills and strategies are being taught? How explicit is the instruction? How much massed and distributed practice, guided practice, is provided for each skill and strategy. How well are research-based strategies like self-questioning, summarizing, narrative structure, main idea and making inferences taught in basal programs compared to original research studies. Results indicate that basal programs offer some direct instruction, minimal guided practice, and a predominance of questioning. The instruction in basal programs lacks the intensive massed practice found in the original research studies for five key strategies.
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Vassiliki Diamanti (University College London); Goulandris, Nata; Stuart, Morag; Campbell, Ruth - Longitudinal Predictors of Reading and Spelling Ability in Greek Dyslexic and Normally Developing Readers.
The study examined the development of literacy skills in twenty-five Greek dyslexic readers and their reading-level and age-level-matched controls over a period of 18 months. Participants were assessed on a large battery of tests, including phoneme awareness, rapid naming, reading and spelling. Concurrent and longitudinal partial correlations revealed that phonological skills play an important role in the development of reading, but mainly in the development of dyslexic and normal readers’ phonological and conventional spelling skills. The longitudinal prediction of naming speed in reading and spelling was evident only among normal readers.
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Beatriz Diuk (University of Buenos Aires); Borzone de Manrique, Ana Maria ; Ledesma, Ruben - Vocabulary knowledge, phonological representations and phonological sensitivity in Spanish-speaking low- and middle-income preschoolers
The aim of this study was to examine the relationships among vocabulary knowledge, phonological representations of lexical items and phonological sensitivity in 79 Spanish-speaking preschool children from middle- and low-income families. These skills are currently considered developmental precursors to reading acquisition and socioeconomic differences in some of them have been identified in several studies. Significant social class differences were obtained on all tasks except syllable matching. Receptive vocabulary predicted rhyme identification. Syllable matching was predicted by a task tapping accuracy of phonological representations. Results were interpreted taking into account environmental factors - opportunities for vocabulary growth, structural characteristics of Spanish and pedagogical intervention.
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Nell Duke (Michigan State University); Pressley, Michael; Fingeret, Lauren; Golos, Deborah; Halladay, Juliet; Hilden, Katherine; Partk, Yonghan; Reynolds, Julia; Zhang, Shenglan - Revisiting the Simple View of Reading
The Simple View of Reading (Gough and Tunmer, 1986) posits that reading comprehension is a function of two components – decoding and listening comprehension. This view has been influential in reading research. However, research in several areas suggests that reading comprehension is better explained with the addition of other components (e.g., Cartwright, 2002; Joshi & Aaron, 2000; Proctor, Carlo, August, & Snow, 2005). There are also reading processes, including reading illustrations, skimming, searching, and hypertext reading, which are captured in the Simple View. Finally, some research identifies individual cases of readers whose difficulties are not explained by the Simple View.
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Linnea Ehri (CUNY Graduate Center); Greenberg, Daphne; Frederick, Laura - Acquisition of Graphophonemic Mappings in Beginning Readers Receiving Systematic Phonics Instruction
A longitudinal study was conducted with 113 first graders to examine the impact of systematic phonics instruction on the acquisition of graphophonemic mapping relations in English written words and the relationship of this metalinguistic skill to the development of reading and spelling skills. The principal task required students to segment words into phonemes, to circle the graphemes corresponding to phonemes, and to cross out silent letters. Students were tested in first and second grades. Results are contrasted to previous findings with students receiving unsystematic phonics instruction to test the transparency hypothesis that phonics instruction enhances students’ awareness of these correspondences.
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Fathi El Ashry (Tanta University and Florida State University); Al Otaiba, Stephanie - A double dilemma for Arab children learn to read Arabic: Diglossia and unvowelled text.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of diglossia and the effects of unvowelled text on children learning to read in Arabic. A computer search was conducted using ERIC to search the database between 1993 and 2005 using the descriptors: Arabic, reading, diglossia, and vowels. A hand search yielded additional articles. While children learning to read in Arabic may encounter a unique set of difficulties, issues related to research methodology in many studies constrain the findings. Implications will be discussed.
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Marla Endler (University of Toronto) - Predictors of reading in early French Immersion
Seventy-one French Immersion (FI) children from dual-track schools were administered phonological awareness tasks, letter identification and reading measures in both English and French at the end of their senior kindergarten year. These same children are part of a longitudinal study that will follow them through to the end of Grade one. Phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge in their first language (English) was predictive of reading in both their first and second language in Senior Kindergarten. This will provide a significant contribution to early reading literature. Implications for teachers include the ability to predict L2 success with L1 measures.
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Ruth Ervin (University of British Columbia); Leung, Simon; Cohen, Robin; MacKay, Leslie - Preliminary Evaluation of a Formative Reading Measure as a Tool for Assesing Risk and Responsiveness to Intervention: Preliminary Findings in Canada
The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) is a research-based, standardized, norm-referenced measure of pre-reading and reading skills (Good, Gruba, & Kaminski, 2002). Within the United States, preliminary findings suggest that the DIBELS measures are predictive of later reading fluency and comprehension, making them useful in screening for risk of reading failure, and facilitating intervention selection and determining responsiveness to intervention (Hosp & Fuchs, 2005; Kame’enui & Simmons, 2001; Shinn, Good, Knutson, Tilly, & Collins, 1992). Despite widespread use and promising empirical support for DIBELS, these systems are not without criticism (e.g., Manzo, 2005) and in need of further validation in international contexts such as Canada and New Zealand (Croft, Strafford, & Mapa, 2000). In this paper, we examine the utility of DIBELS as a formative measure to assess for risk of reading difficulities and responsiveness to targetted reading interventions in Canada. Results are discussed in terms of their practical utility at a class-wide and individual level.
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Adelina Estevez (University of La Laguna); Jimenez, J.E.; Ortiz, M.R.; Rodrigo, M.; Estevez, A.; Guzman, R.; Hernandez-Valle, I.; Garcia, A.I.; Garcia, E.; Diaz, A.; Muneton, M.; Rojas, E.; Rodriguez, C. - Morphological and syntactic processing in normal reading and reading disabilities in Spanish.
The objective in the present study was to assess the acquisition of different psychological processes, such as morphological and syntactic processing in normal reading and reading disabled children, from a developmental perspective (second-grade to sixth-grade). Furthermore, we tested whether children with reading difficulties differ from normal readers on a number of syntactic processing tasks such as, gender, number, word order, use of function words, thematic role assignment and punctuation sings. The experimental procedure consisted in assessing performance on different morphological and syntactic tasks that were presented from a computerized system, SICOLE-R (Jimenez et al., 2002). Preliminary results indicate that when normal and reading disabled groups are compared across age on syntactic processing tasks it indicates that the syntactic processing is affected in reading disabled children.
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Mary Ann Evans (University of Guelph); Mansell, Jubilea; Shaw, Deborah - Parental Styles of Coaching Normally and Slowly Progressing Young Readers and their Effect
63 mother-child dyads (42 Average on the Test of Early Reading Achievement in Kindergarten and 21 Below Average) were observed reading together at grades K, 1 and 2 and children tested each year. Parents were grouped as Word Suppliers and Code Coaxers though cluster analysis. Word Suppliers more often supplied miscued words and less often gave graphophonemic clues. After covarying out the previous year’s achievement, Average readers obtained lower Word Attack scores in Grade1 under a Word Supplier style in Grades K and 1 than under a Code Coaxer style (SS 91 vs 100, eta .17). This effect was more marked for Below Average readers (SS 77 vs 93, eta .33). The results mirror curricular findings on the efficacy of phonics.
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Iuliana Faroga (Sir Wlifrid Laurier University); Gottardo, Alexandra - Training phonological awareness and commonly used words in school in preschool ESL children: Educational implications
The impact of a training program that combined phonological awareness activities with instruction in the alphabetic principle, teaching of Dolch words (May & Rizzardi, 2002) and of commonly used words in school (Scarborough, 2003) was evaluated through a repeated measures design with a control group. The intervention targeted low-income preschool English-as-a-second language children (ESL) as well as middle-class ESL children. The results show that the children participating in the intervention group showed significantly better performance on phonological awareness, Dolch word reading and Scarborough vocabulary than children in the control group. Educational implications of these findings are discussed.
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Amy Feiker Hollenbeck (University of Wisconsin - Madison) - “There’s nothing to think about”: Text processing across genres for individuals with learning disabilities.
Numerous studies have described the different types of processing that occur when typical readers construct meaning across genres; however, limited research has been completed to compare the strategies that children with learning disabilities (LD) use across narratives and exposition. Does a child with LD apply different strategies when approaching different genres of text? What are these strategies, and does the reader benefit from their use? This presentation will describe the results of a study utilizing protocol analysis of think-aloud transcripts to ascertain the processing of individuals with LD when reading narrative and expository texts, and provide implications for research and practice.
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Liory Fern-Pollak (Brunel University) - Word Frequency, String-Length and Lexicality in reading Spanish, English and Hebrew: Effects of Different Levels of Orthographic Transparency on Reading Strategy in Trilinguals
The study was aimed at showing that reading strategies used for Spanish, English and Hebrew can be arranged along an orthographic transparency continuum, parallel to the languages themselves, i.e. reading in Spanish (transparent) predominantly requires sublexical/phonological processing, reading in Hebrew (opaque) involves lexical/semantic processing, and reading in English requires both types. Spanish-Hebrew-English trilinguals performed a word/nonword naming task. Reaction-time and accuracy data were reflective of the orthographic properties of each language, and the predominant reading strategy used. Moreover, trilingual’s English naming patterns resembled that seen the native language, suggesting an influence of L1’s orthographic properties on L2 reading strategy.
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Ruth Fielding-Barnsley (Queensland University of Technology); Hay, Ian - Unravelling the causal interrelationships of early language and reading development
Approaches to teaching reading to young children and to children who have literacy difficulties are often summarised as a choice between either a whole language or a decoding approach. It is maintained in this paper that this either or notion has failed to acknowledge that reading is a dynamic process where the elements of language, metacognition, and phonological skills form an interactive relationship and any weakness in one inhibits reading development. This paper presents language, phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge data associated with 800 children in their first year of formal schooling.
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Lauren Figueredo (University of Alberta); Varnhagen, Connie - Effects of spelling errors on readers’ judgments about job applicants
We investigated expectations regarding a job applicant’s responsibility to proofread text for spelling errors when using a word processor. Undergraduates were asked to read a cover letter for a job application and then rate both the applicant and the cover letter. We manipulated the presence of spelling errors and gender of the applicant. We found that participants’ ratings of the applicant’s abilities suffered when the letter contained spelling errors. Results suggest that perceptions of both a job applicant’s abilities and their written products can be affected by spelling errors. This study highlights the importance of proofreading one’s spelling, especially in professional settings, and accordingly, the need to develop skill at using tools that support this critical process.
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Alexis Filippini (University of California, Santa Barbara); Solari, Emily; Gerber, Michael - Beyond Letter Name Recognition and Early PA Skills: Does Kindergarten Vocabulary Proficiency Predict Later Reading Success for an English Learner Sample?
Project La Patera’s primary purpose was to investigate the cross-linguistic transfer of phonological awareness skills for young English Learners. The project began in July 2000 with a cohort (N=377) of Spanish-speaking kindergarteners in three school districts and twenty-three (23) classrooms. In 2003-2004, follow-up data was collected on over 100 participants in the sample, which are presented in this paper. Data have been analyzed which suggest a clear and consistent relationship between kindergarten early literacy skills and third grade decoding and word reading which is supported by literature indicating the importance of PA skills for decoding (e.g., Durgunoglu, Nagy & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993). However, there is also an emphasis in the literature on the importance of vocabulary for reading comprehension and the interactive nature of the relationship between vocabulary knowledge, decoding and comprehension (e.g. Baker, Simmons & Kameenui, 1995; Carlisle, Beeman, Davis, & Spharim, 1999),). Therefore, this paper addresses the relationship between first grade receptive vocabulary knowledge and fourth grade reading outcomes.
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David Francis (University of Houston); Carlson, Coleen; Iglesias, Aquiles; Miller, Jon - Use of Oral Narrative to Understand Language and Literacy Development in Spanish-Speaking Children
This study was designed to provide insight into the relationship between standardized and naturalistic language measures when administered to Spanish speakers acquiring English. The study was conducted with 4,008 Spanish-speaking children in the primary grades, using standardized measures of English and Spanish vocabulary and an oral narrative procedure conducted in both languages. The analyses focus on the relationship between the tasks - within and across languages - and the factor structure of the skills assessed. The findings suggest the standardized assessments and narrative production tasks tap different, yet strongly related, aspects of oral language, and the relationship between English and Spanish language ability differs as a function of task type.
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Jorgen Frost (University of Oslo); Moller Sorensen, Peer - The Effects of a Comprehensive Reading Intervention Program for Grade Three Children
A group of 37 Norwegian eight-year (yr 3) old children who had scored below the 20th percentile on a national reading test, were offered intensive reading instruction in groups of four during grade three in two periods (10 weeks and 5 weeks). The intervention was delivered by six teachers who received training in a comprehensive reading intervention program, EMMA (Epi-Meta-Mastery-Approach). A control group of 36 children received increased instructional intensity at their schools during the same periods. The intervention group showed gains in comparison to the control group on measures of word and non-word reading, and spelling.
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Susan Galletly (Central Queensland University); Knight, Bruce - Measuring Australian reading achievement using the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS)
Reading accuracy (word-identification) has been largely ignored in Australian reading instruction since the 1980s, and there are no rigorous Australian tests of reading-accuracy of single words. In this study, DIBELS and TOWRE tests are being administered to 450 children in Years 1-3 at two timepoints. Preliminary findings show DIBELS and TOWRE to be valid, reliable measures mapping reading development and predicting children’s achievement on systemic measures. Additionally, USA Kindergarten, Grade 1 and 2 norms have been found inappropriate for Queensland Year 1 and 2 readers, probably due to Queensland reading instruction not occurring until children’s second school year. The Queensland Year 2 children scored as significantly delayed against USA Grade 2 norms (same length of time in school), and significantly advanced against USA Grade 1 norms (same length of formal reading instruction). This difference narrows markedly by midYear 3, and it is considered likely that in endyear testing, Year 3 Qld children will score at equivalent levels to USA Grade 3 levels.
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George Georgiou (University of Alberta); Manolitsis, George; Parrila, Rauno; Stephenson, Kathy - Comparing the effects of cognitive and noncognitive factors on early reading acquisition in English and Greek
This study examines the effects of cognitive and noncognitive factors on early reading acquisition in an orthographically opaque language (English) and in an orthographically transparent language (Greek). Seventy Canadian children and 90 Greek children attending kindergarten were examined in general cognitive ability, phonological sensitivity, rapid naming speed, phonological memory, letter name knowledge, letter sound knowledge, and word reading. The parents of the children responded to a questionnaire that measures parent’s beliefs and home literacy environment and the teachers of the children responded to a questionnaire that measures student’s achievement strategies. In the data analysis, language will be treated as a predictor variable, whereas the interest would also be on the effects of the language by predictor variables interaction terms. Data are currently being analyzed.
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Astrid Geudens (University of Antwerp); Sandra, Dominiek; Nation, Kate; Martensen, Heike - Children’s reliance on the onset-rime structure: A comparison between English- and Dutch-speaking Children’s RECALL ERRORS
It is widely accepted that onsets/rimes form salient syllable constituents. However, our cross-linguistic study in English- and Dutch-speaking prereaders reveals problems for the interpretation of onset/rime effects. In a syllable recall task (e.g., /tEf/, /rIs/, /nAl/), a rime-effect could only be observed for items starting with sonorants. For items starting with obstruents, Dutch- and English speaking prereaders were as likely or less likely to produce recombination errors that broke up the rime (e.g., /tEs/) as errors retaining the rime (e.g., /tIs/). We conclude that children’s sensitivity to rimes may not reflect a fixed perceived structure of spoken syllables. The importance of statistical characteristics and perceptual-phonetic factors are emphasized.
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Esther Geva (University of Toronto) - Oral Language Proficiency and Literacy Development of English Language Learners: Key Findings of the NLP Report
This presentation will focus on results of a recent comprehensive review of research on literacy development in English Language Learners. The presentation will focus on studies that examined in various ways the role of first and second language oral language skills in developing literacy skills in English, being studied as the societal or foreign language. The review focused on studies of elementary and secondary school students. While the effect of second-language oral proficiency on word-level skills is limited, having well developed second language oral proficiency is associated with well developed reading comprehension and writing skills.
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Stephanie Glasney (Florida State University, Florida Center for Reading Research); Schatschneider, Chris; Connor, Carol - Expressive and Receptive Vocabulary Skills Related to Story Comprehension in Preschool Children
This study examined the contribution of receptive and expressive vocabulary to preschoolers’ listening comprehension. Nineteen preschool children were administered two vocabulary measures: The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test. Children were also given a listening comprehensive measure utilizing open-ended and multiple choice questions about two storybooks that were read to the children. Analyses showed that on the multiple choice model, receptive vocabulary was positively associated with multiple choice correct responses but expressive vocabulary was not. In contrast, expressive vocabulary did significantly positively predict preschoolers’ correct responses on open-ended questions but receptive vocabulary did not.
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Lucie Godard (University of Quebec); Fejzo, Anila - Teaching Phonemic Awareness, a Tool to Enhance Morphological Abilities and Vocabulary Acquisition in French as L2 for Native Arabic Speaking Students of 1st Grade.
Many studies have demonstrated the effects of training phonemic awareness on reading development. In this study, we explore the lexical and morphological outcomes resulting from the phonemic training of 1st grade L1Arabic children in a French language school setting. We compared the lexical and morphological gains of participants trained in phonemic awareness over a 12-week period (N = 7) with those of untrained participants in a control group (N = 7) over the same period. Statistical analyses revealed that the members of the experimental group made significantly greater gains in lexical acquisition and morphological accuracy than members of the control group. These findings support the hypothesis that the explicit teaching of phonemic awareness in first grade could improve a variety of language skills in L2 speakers.
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Nina Goodman (Fordham University); Uhry, Joanna - Initial word-attack strategies used by English-speaking first-graders learning Hebrew as a second language
This study identifies initial word attack strategies in English and Hebrew used by English-speaking first-graders learning Hebrew as a second language through an analysis of student reading and student self-reporting. Initial data suggest that students’ word-identification in English (L1) is more fluent than it is in Hebrew (L2). When students attempt to identify unfamiliar words in Hebrew they most often sound out each syllable individually, beginning with the initial consonant-vowel unit. In English, students rely more consistently on the initial phoneme or the complete initial CVC syllable when breaking words into parts. Students also use a greater variety of word-identification strategies when reading an English text.
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Alexandra Gottardo (Sir Wlifrid Laurier University); Geva, Esther; Faroga, Iuliana; Ramirez, Gloria - The influence of first language (L1) category on the development of second language reading: A longitudinal perspective
The contributions of first language (L1) and second language (L2) measures of phonological processing skills and oral language proficiency were examined in L2 learners with Portuguese, Spanish or Chinese as a first language. Concurrent relationships in kindergarten and longitudinal relationships, kindergarten to grade 1 were examined for the combined group and for each language group (Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish L1) separately. Results show language-specific trends based on L1 script and language-universal relations. Therefore, the nature of the relations between L1 and L2 scripts influences the degree to which reading-related skills overlap in young L2 learners.
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Amy Grant (Sir Wlifrid Laurier University); Wilson, Lex; Gottardo, Alexandra - The Role of Exposure to Print in Reading Skills of College Students with and Without Reading Disabilities.
Exposure to print is a significant predictor of vocabulary growth and declarative knowledge (Stanovich, West, & Harrison, 1995). Research shows that initial differences in print exposure predict differences in reading comprehension in children studied ten years after initial assessment (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997). The present study examines the use of print exposure to explore differences in both reading comprehension and vocabulary in a sample of students with well-documented learning disabilities in the area of reading, and a control group without reading disabilities (RD). Preliminary results suggest that exposure to print is more strongly related to reading comprehension in RD participants.
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Noel Gregg (University of Georgia); Coleman, Chris - Evaluating the Written Discourse Complexity of College Writers: Task, Individual, and Writing Experience
The purpose of this session will be to discuss the occurrence of specific linguistic features most frequently used in the expository writing of college writers. Biber’s (1998) corpus-based analysis was used to code specific linguistic features. Two studies are used to illustrate the need to utilize multi-dimensional models in interpreting discourse complexity. One study was conducted using an impromptu timed essay completed by writers with and without disabilities (dyslexia) .The second study represents preliminary results of a large on-going research study. Data was collected through a program using an on-line application called EMMA (electronic markup and management application).
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Bente Hagtvet (University of Oslo); Horn, Erna; Lyster, Solveigh - Preschool oral language skills and variations in early literacy skills: longitudinal relationships in children at familial risk of dyslexia.
Interrelations between “general language skills”, phonological skills and early literacy skills were studied longitudinally in 73 children at familial risk of dyslexia (from early preschool years to to Grade 3). The longitudinal relationship between preschool oral language skills and reading skills at age 7 was studied by path analysis. The main results were as follows: Both receptive and expressive language at age 3 predicted rime awareness at age 5. Receptive language predicted in addition articulation at age 5, and expressive language predicted phoneme awareness at age 6. Rime awareness at age 5 predicted letter knowledge, phoneme awareness and rime awareness at age 6. Phoneme awareness predicted both spelling and reading accuracy at age 7. In addition, articulation at age 5 predicted spelling. Neither rime awareness nor letter knowledge predicted the literacy measures. Results are discussed with reference to developmental and linguistic theory.
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Ellen Hamilton (University of Michigan); Tardif, Twila; Shu, Hua; Jiang, W.; Jingyuan, Huang - Differentiating the role of sound sensitivity and awareness in reading ability for English- and Mandarin-speaking adults.
We investigate the role of phonological processing in reading using a unique cross-cultural approach. In the first phase of experimentation, we explore the relationship between accuracy and reaction time measures on a sound awareness task (where participants are asked to make ¡°same¡± or ¡°different¡± judgments about native and nonnative word pairs (same, different, rhyming, and alliterating pairs)) with performance on a battery of reading measures in English- and Mandarin-speaking adults. Preliminary results demonstrate that there is a main effect of language. English-speaking adults who show less interference are better readers, but there is no relationship between reading and levels of interference for Mandarin-speakers.
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Nicole Harlaar (King's College, London); Plomin, Robert - Accounting for stability in reading achievement in the early school years: Evidence from a twin study
This paper shows how genetic factors may be implicated in the continuity of reading achievement in the early school years. Reading achievement was assessed at ages 7, 9 and 10 in a sample of over 3000 twin pairs, using National Curriculum (NC) teacher assessments. Genetic factors accounted for a substantial proportion of the variance in NC scores at each age and showed substantial stability across ages. Genetic factors also contributed indirectly to the stability of reading achievement through its effects on leisure-time reading experiences. These findings suggest a model accommodating two routes to the stability of early reading achievement differences.
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Margaret Harris (Oxford Brookes University); Moreno, Constanzo - Speech reading and learning to read: a comparison of 8-year-old deaf children with good and poor reading ability
Eight-year-old deaf children, whose reading was age-appropriate (Good Readers), were compared to peers with poor reading and spelling. Overall the two groups differed in the proportion of phonetic errors and syllabic representation in spelling, orthographic awareness and silent speech reading but not speech intelligibility However, individually, only three Good Readers showed strong evidence of phonetic coding in spelling although seven had good representation of syllables; and only four had high orthographic awareness scores. However, all Good Readers were good at speech reading, suggesting that a phonological code derived through lip and tongue movements may underpin reading success for deaf children.
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Gina Harrison (University of Victoria) - Phonological and Orthographic Coding Skills in Adults with Writing Difficulties
Measures of phonological and orthographic coding were administered to 42 adults, 20 with writing difficulties but no reading difficulties, and 22 without difficulties with writing or reading to examine the relationship between these core cognitive processes and writing. Results indicated that adults with writing difficulties were less accurate detecting rhymes in orthographically different words, and were less accurate and slower in responding to a task assessing sight vocabulary than the adults without writing difficulties. Findings are consistent with the view that reading and writing are connected and that skilled writing at a basic level depends on the coordination of salient graphophonemic connections into adulthood.
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Sara Ann Hart (Pennsylvania State University); Petrill, Stephen - Understanding the links between measured environments, reading, and math outcomes: Evidence from a twin study
This study examined the relationship between measures of the home environment, reading, and math skills using a sample of 350 pairs of 8-year-old twins. Results suggested that reading comprehension explained 30% of the variance associated with math skills. Furthermore, the quality of a child’s math homework, mothers’ traditionalism towards education, and the number of hours parents helped with homework each also accounted for about 5% of the variance in math skills. Interestingly, of these environmental variables, only math homework problems accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in math ability after controlling for the effects of reading comprehension.
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Denyse Hayward (University of Alberta); Das, J.P.; Janzen, Troy - “Closing the Gap?” Implementing a classroom-based reading remediation program with Canadian First Nations children who have experienced reading failure for 2-3 years.
The central objective of our study was to evaluate the efficacy of a cognitive-based, classroom-administered reading remediation program; COGENT. Canadian Aboriginal Grade 3 students (N=34) were divided into an experimental group (n=11) and no-risk control group (n=23). Following 30 hours of COGENT instruction, results showed the experimental group made significantly greater gains in all reading measures (ID, Attack, Comprehension) than the no risk control. Further, the experimental group exceeded the standard score improvement per hours of instruction benchmarks suggested by Torgesen (2002) following COGENT. The merits of such a remedial program are discussed in the context of this unique population.
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Lindsay Heggie (Queen's University); Wade-Woolley, Lesly; Goetry, Vincent; Sabourin, Chantal - Children’s use of syllable and rime as orthographic units in reading English
It has been suggested that phonological structures that are salient in different languages drive reading in ways that are consistent with those structures. Accordingly, syllable and rime have been found to be salient units for decoding in French and English, respectively. A language-specific hypothesis would predict that rime but not syllable is a functional unit of reading in English. The current study tests this hypothesis with 49 English-speaking students in grades 2, 3 and 4. Results showed an interaction of frequency with unit size. Implications for onset-rime and syllable as a functional unit for English reading development are discussed.
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Elfrieda Hiebert (University of California, Berkeley); Fisher, Charles - A Comparison of the Effects of Two Types of Phonetically Regular Text On The Fluency and Word Recognition Of First-Grade English Learners
This study examined the effects of two types of phonetically regular text on reading fluency and word recognition among first-grade English Learners. Eighty-one students were randomly assigned to a single-criterion text (SC), multiple-criteria (MC), or control group. Other than differences in the texts read during 40 half hour lessons, the SC and MC groups received similar instruction. Students who read from SC texts gained 2.4 words correct per minute on an informal reading inventory for every week of instruction. The MC group made even greater progress, gaining 2.8 words per week. Control group students gained 2.0 words per week.
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Maartje Hilte (PI Research, VU Amsterdam); Reitsma, Pieter - The effect of segmentation cues in spelling exercises for beginning spellers at risk
Phonemic segmentation is an important, but demanding task for beginning spellers, especially for those who experience phonological difficulties. The present experiment examines the effect of explicit segmented pronunciation as compared to a normal pronunciation or mere orthographic presentation as cues during computer-based exercises in learning to spell. A group of relatively poor spellers from Grade 1 and 2 participated. In Grade 1 a contrast in length (= number of phonemes) was made, and in Grade 2 only syllabic segmentation was employed, contrasting open versus closed syllables. Training is ongoing, but results in terms of pretest – posttest gains as a function of condition will be presented.
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Annemarie Hindman (University of Michigan); Morrison, Frederick - Teacher practices for partnering with parents across the transition to school
Studies of parent-teacher partnership have identified small effects of parent involvement on children's academic and social learning, but this is only half of the picture. To address teachers' contributions, this study explored a) the extent and nature of family involvement strategies utilized by preschool, kindergarten, and first-grade teachers and b) the effects of these strategies on children's cognitive and social skills. Results suggest that amount of outreach was small but increased across the transition to school, as did focus on academics. Outreach was associated with small gains in alphabet and academic knowledge but not decoding, vocabulary, mathematics, or self-regulation.
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Connie Suk-Han Ho (The University of Hong Kong); Leung, Man-Tak; Cheung, Him - Early Language and Rapid Naming Difficulties of Chinese Preschool Children at Familial Risk for Dyslexia
The present study examined whether Chinese preschool children at familial risk for dyslexia had early language and cognitive difficulties. 99 high-risk and 44 low-risk Chinese children of four years old were recruited. It was found that low-risk children performed significantly better than high-risk children in rapid naming and two language measures. More high-risk children had atypical development in articulation than the low-risk children. Both language and rapid naming measures had unique contribution to Chinese character reading over that of age, family’s SES, and English letter naming. These results suggest that Chinese preschool children at familial risk for dyslexia have early difficulties in spoken language and rapid naming.
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Tiffany Hogan (University of Kansas); Catts, Hugh; Storkel, Holly - Word learning in preschool children differing in phonological awareness
Language skills influencing the emergence of phonological awareness are not well understood. Two theories present opposing views on the area of breakdown if phonological awareness is delayed. One focuses on the influence of phonological processing, whereas another posits a link between lexical processing and phonological awareness acquisition. This study investigated both claims using a word-learning paradigm to observe phonological and lexical processing of the same (non)words before, during, and after they enter the lexicon. Results indicate that children with low phonological awareness evidence phonological processing differences that, in turn, influence their subsequent word learning and lexical processing.
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Andrew Holliman (Open University); Wood, Clare; Sheehy, Kieron - The relationship between musical rhythm, speech rhythm and reading development
Speech rhythm and musical rhythm have been independently related to phonological awareness and reading development. However, it is not known whether these measures are assessing different elements of the same skill. One hundred children aged 5 to 7 were given a variety of speech rhythm and musical rhythm tasks along with reading and phonological awareness assessments. The collection of these data is ongoing, but the analysis aims to show the extent to which the two skills are related and can account for variance in reading skills. If the expected results are obtained, it will have important implications for theoretical explanations of phonological development and reading.
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Wes Hoover (South West Educational Development Laboratory) - The Simple view of reading: An overview and implications for instruction
Gough (Gough and Tunmer, 1986; Hoover and Gough, 1990) proposed the Simple view of reading as a description of two necessary and sufficient cognitive capacities underlying skilled reading, namely, decoding and linguistic comprehension. Over the last 15 years, a number of investigations have provided data that speak to the adequacy of this characterization of reading. This presentation will provide an overview of the types of questions posed, the studies conducted, their general findings, and the implications for the simple view. The presentation will conclude with a description of how the simple view can be used to understand the acquisition of reading in two languages, particularly the transfer of skills (both proximal and distal) from reading skill in one language to a second.
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John Hosp (University of Utah); Dole, Janice; Hosp, Michelle - DIBELS as a Predictor of Proficiency on High Stakes Outcome Assessments for At-Risk Readers
Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) is used as an indicator of future reading success and for monitoring student’s progress toward established benchmarks. Researchers have reported that the DIBELS benchmarks may not represent the optimum score needed to predict student success on high stakes assessments. Using ROC over a logistical liner model may provide a better way to determine benchmark scores. For this study, we expand on the literature by using ROC to examine the optimum score on DIBELS for predicting success on high stakes assessments for students in first, second, and third grade who are at-risk.
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Charles Hulme (University of York); Goetz, Kristina; Gooch, Debbie; Adams, John; Snowling, Margaret - Visual-verbal paired associate learning, phoneme deletion ability and learning to read
Two studies examine the relationships between three paired-associate learning (PAL) tasks (visual-visual; verbal-verbal; visual-verbal), phoneme deletion, single word and nonword reading ability. Path analyses showed that both phoneme deletion and visual-verbal PAL were unique predictors of a composite measure of single word reading and of irregular word reading. However, for nonword reading, phoneme deletion was the only unique predictor (and visual-verbal PAL was not a significant predictor). Learning visual- (orthography) to-verbal (phonological) mappings appears to be an important skill for developing word recognition skills in reading.
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Jacqueline Hulslander (University of Colorado, Boulder); Wadsworth, Sally; Olson, Richard - Longitudinal stability of reading skill profiles.
Four-hundred and thirty-six children participating in the Colorado Learning Disabilities Research Center were tested on a range of reading, language, and cognitive skills at two timepoints, 5 to 8 years apart. Single-word reading and nonword reading measures showed stability correlations in the .7 to .8 range, similar to full-scale IQ. Choice tasks measuring component reading skills were also reasonably stable (.55-.7) considering error variance due to guessing. An orthographic-phonological decoding discrepancy score was moderately stable (.5). A decrease in poor readers’ verbal IQ, but not their performance IQ, provided evidence for a “Matthew effect,” despite reading and language scores that regressed toward the control mean.
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Li-Yu Hung (National Taiwan Normal University); Fang, Chin-Ya - The Development of Three Competences of Orthographic Awareness in Chinese Reading
The orthographic process of Chinese reading involve in awareness of logographic, semantic, and phonetic radical. The study aimed to explore the development of these three components of the graded students in Taiwan. There are 3383 students selected from the island of Taiwan, which about 300 students for each grade, from G3 to G9. Since the G1 students was found to achieve 90% of accuracy of the cue-given task of orthographic radical, the orthographic radical was tested without cue while the semantic and phonetic radicals were tested with cue. The development of the awareness of semantic radical showed earlier than that of phonetic radical. The 3rd-grade students achieved the 85% accuracy of semantic awareness while the 5th-grade students did in the phonetic awareness. The difference of grade and gender were found in the three competences and the fluency of the awareness.
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Florian Hutzler (University of Vienna); Braun, Mario; Engl, Verena; Hofmann, Markus; Dambacher, Michael - Recording of brain potentials in real-world reading paradigms
Fixation-related brain potentials (FRPs) utilize eye movements for the recording of brain potentials during the examination of complex visual stimuli such as sentence reading, scene perception and real world paradigms. The general problem with the FRP technique – that constitutes an alternative to event-related potentials (ERPs) – is that up to now it is unknown whether they are valid and reliable measures of cognitive processes. Here we show, exemplified by the well known old/new effect in visual word recognition that brain potentials corresponding to eye fixations during free exploration are as reliable as conventional, though highly restricted ERPs.
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Jukka Hyona (University of Turku); Haikio, Tuomo; Niemi, Pekka - Letter identity span among younger and older readers
The region around an eye fixation from which letter identities are processed was determined using the moving window paradigm. The availability of letter identity information was manipulated by varying the size (7, 11, 15, 19 letters, and whole line) of the window where the text was kept intact (text outside it was replaced by visually similar letters). Several eye movement measures were used as processing indices. The results showed that the letter identity span was 11-15 letters for the 2nd graders, 15 letters for the 4th graders, and more than 19 letters for 6th graders and adults.
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Albrecht Inhoff (State University of New York); Solomon, Matthew - The time course of parafoveal information usage is a function of task demands
We manipulated the ease of sentence reading and we used eye-movement-contingent display changes to control the temporal and spatial visibility of a to-be-fixated (parafoveally visible) target word. The intact target was visible upon its fixation. Examination of target viewing duration as a function of experimental demands and of previously available target information showed that the time line of parafoveal information usage was influenced by the linguistic properties of the target word and by the demands of the reading task. We propose that an attention shift precedes the usage of parafoveally available item information, and that task demands and item properties determine when the attention shift takes place.
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Nancy Jackson (University of Iowa); Hurtig, Richard; Wu, Anna - Can Ordinary Classroom Assignments be Used to Measure Development of Young Children’s Writing?
The Breakthrough to Literacy curriculum includes daily writing assignments that are centered on a different book each week. Assignments progress during the week from pre-writing to a culminating Friday assignment. Sets of Friday assignments were collected monthly from 10 pre-K through Grade 2 classrooms, yielding complete data for about 95 children. Samples were scored for features theoretically linked to the development of writing ability. Measures derived from this scoring were compared for their reliability as indicators of individual and classroom-level growth. Alternative models of development at the classroom level were related to ratings of fidelity of program implementation.
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Marilyn Jager Adams (Soliloquy Learning, Inc.); Curtis, Mary; Strucker, John - Fluency and Vocabulary Instruction for Adult Basic Education Intermediate Readers
In the US, adult intermediate readers (Grade Equivalent 4-8) make up nearly 70% of all Adult Basic Education enrollees. Although proven instructional approaches for assisting adult intermediates are scarce, descriptive research has produced broad agreement on their reading difficulties. For these students, alphabetic basics and decoding are generally in place, but reading fluency and vocabulary are far below norm. We report on the impact of two different approaches to improving adult intermediates' literacy growth, a teacher-managed curriculum, built from an adaptation of the fluency and vocabulary strands of the Boys Town Reading Program, and a computer-managed approach, anchored on Soliloquy Learning's speech-recognition based reading tutor.
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Lara Jakobsons (Florida State University, Florida Center for Reading Research); Connor, Carol; Meadows, Jane - The Impact of Instruction and Engagement on First Graders' Reading Comprehension Skills in Reading First Schools
The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of instruction and engagement on first grade students’ reading comprehension (RC) skills, controlling for length of observation, and entering skills in oral reading fluency (ORF), letter naming fluency (LNF), vocabulary (VOC), and vocabulary by ORF (VOCxORF). Observations in 31 classrooms were conducted in April 2004 as part of Reading First site visits, and five-hundred and six students participated in this study. Results, using HLM, revealed that student engagement significantly predicted RC skill growth. Additionally, a teacher-managed, meaning-focused instruction by VOCxORF interaction related to spring RC.
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Debra Jared (University of Western Ontario); Cormier, Pierre; Levy, Betty Ann; Wade-Woolley, Lesly - Cross-language activation in young bilingual readers
We examined whether young bilingual readers activate representations from one or both languages when reading in one language. The bilinguals were English children in Grades 2 and 3 who were enrolled in French Immersion programs. They were asked to read aloud words presented on a computer screen. Words were English-French cognates (e.g. ANIMAL), interlingual homographs (e.g., COIN), interlingual homophones (e.g., KEY-QUI), and matched control words. The results are relevant to the debate in the adult bilingual literature as to whether lexical activation in bilinguals is language specific or nonspecific.
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Annette Jenner (College of the Holy Cross and Haskins Laboratories); Pugh, Kenneth; Hughes, Danielle; Liang, Sarah; Sandak, Rebecca; Einar Mencl, W.; Frost, Stephen - Comparisons of Orthographic-to-phonologic and Phonologic-to- Consistency Effects across Reading and Spelling
Although reading and spelling tasks require similar cognitive processes they are not two sides to the same coin. Therefore it is important to compare the two directly to understand what cognitive differences exist between the two. The current study explores both orthographic-to-phonologic and phonologic-to-orthographic consistency effects in word recognition and spelling. Preliminary analyses reveal differences in the O-P consistency effect for both accuracy and reaction time across these tasks. These results suggest that for reading tasks O-P consistent words were easier (higher accuracy and faster RT) than inconsistent words. The opposite pattern was seen in the spelling task.
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Abigail Jewkes (University of Michigan); Morrison, Frederick; Connor, Carol - Effects of Preschool on Children’s Literacy, Numeracy, and Self-Regulation Skills: A Cut-off Study
This study involved data from a longitudinal investigation of early literacy in order to disentangle schooling and general developmental effects on children’s academic and behavioral skills. Through the use of Hierarchical Linear Modeling, the results pinpointed the unique contributions of preschool and pre-kindergarten experience on specific aspects of young children’s literacy, numeracy, and self-regulation learning. Furthermore, children’s learning was directly related to classroom activities. These findings will be discussed in relation to preschool instructional practices, including the increasing emphasis on literacy learning prior to kindergarten entry and the need to address social/emotional development along with academic learning.
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Malatesha Joshi (Texas A&M University); B-Gooden, Regina; O-Dean, Emily - An alternative to IQ-Achievement discrepancy-based assessment based on Component Model of reading
The Component model of reading, which is an alternative to the IQ- Achievement discrepancy-based procedure for identifying and treating reading problems in children, will be presented. This Component model of reading is fashioned after the Simple view of reading, but is broader since it includes motivational and environmental factors in addition to the cognitive factors which the simple view stresses. Today's presentation is limited to the cognitive domain of the Component model. An important feature of the Component model is that it targets remedial instruction at the source of the reading difficulty. Following the initial thesis proposed by the Simple view of reading, it was hypothesized that there can be two sources of reading difficulties: poor decoding and poor linguistic comprehension. A potential third candidate is processing speed or fluency. The validity of the Componential model was tested by administering tests of Word attack, Listening comprehension, and Reading comprehension. Reading speed was assessed by asking the children to name 40 letters of the alphabet printed on a sheet of paper. These tests were administered to 204 children from grades 2 through 5. A linear regression model was applied to the scores to examine the contribution made by the three components at various grade levels. Statistical analysis showed that decoding, listening comprehension, and fluency explained approximately 45% at all the four grade levels. Decoding and linguistic comprehension accounted formost of the reading comprehension variance across all the four grades. In contrast, speed (fluency) explained a only a small proportion of the variance seen in reading comprehension. The contribution of fluency peaked at the 3rd and 4th grade levels but declined sharply at the 5th grade level. The results provide support for the Component model (or the Simple View of Reading)
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Laura Justice (University of Virginia); Pence, Khara; Bowles, Ryan; Wiggins, Alice - Test of Four Hypotheses Concerning the Order of Alphabet-Letter Learning
This study tested four hypotheses concerning the order by which children learn the names of individual alphabet letters: (a) own-name advantage, which states that children learn those letters earlier which occur in their own names, (b) letter-name pronunciation effect, which states that children learn earlier those letters for which the name of the letter is in the letter’s pronunciation, (c) letter-order hypothesis, which states that children learn those letters occurring earlier in the alphabet string before those occurring later, and (d) consonant-order hypothesis, which states that letters for which corresponding consonantal phonemes are learned early in development are learned earlier.
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Janina Kahn-Horwitz (Oranim College of Education); Shimron, Joseph; Sparks, Richard; Goldstein, Zahava - Predicting English as a foreign language reading from a longitudinal perspective
This study examined which Hebrew and English literacy related variables predicted English as a foreign language (EFL) word reading and reading comprehension over five years. 77 students who were tested in 4th grade were followed up in 9th grade. Literacy related measures included phonological and morphological awareness, letter knowledge, spelling, word reading, naming speed and vocabulary Hierarchical stepwise regressions resulted in significant contributions of both 4th and 9th grade EFL spelling towards EFL word reading. The latter also predicted reading comprehension. EFL vocabulary strongly predicted EFL reading comprehension. Phonological awareness, measured in Hebrew, predicted both EFL reading measures.
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Ruth Kaminski (University of Oregon) - n/a
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Janice Keenan (University of Denver); Betjemann, Rebecca; Olson, Richard - How comparable are reading comprehension tests?
We often assume that the different tests people use to assess reading comprehension are comparable because all are measuring comprehension. But are they measuring the same cognitive skills? Our research with the Colorado Learning Disabilities Research Center involves testing children on multiple tests and thus allowed us to evaluate 5 reading comprehension tests to determine how comparable they are. Our results show modest correlations among the tests and big differences in how they load on decoding and listening comprehension. It's important to be aware of these test differences because of the implications for diagnosing children with one test versus another.
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Nenagh Kemp (University of Tasmania); Parrila, Rauno - Adults with compensated dyslexia: Do morphological endings pose a spelling problem?
The spelling of inflectional and derivational endings was examined in two groups: college students with a childhood diagnosis of dyslexia now reading within the normal adult range (“compensated dyslexics”) and college students with no such diagnosis. Although matched for spelling ability, compensated dyslexic students made more errors –especially sound-based errors – in spelling the morphological endings (e.g., villainuss for villainous) of both real and novel words than controls. This suggests that some aspects of literacy continue to pose a problem for these students, and that their “normal” literacy levels may hide a number of difficulties that have not been fully compensated.
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Susan Kemp (University of California, Irvine); Chiappe, Penny - Teaching to Read Naturally: Examination of a Fluency Training Program for Third Grade Students
This study examines the effects of two instructional methods of teaching reading fluency, sustained silent reading and repeated reading, on reading fluency, comprehension, and essential reading sub-skills such as phonological awareness, morphological awareness and orthographic knowledge. All 172 (42 EL, 130 NS) third grade students were randomly assigned to either the repeated reading or the sustained silent reading conditions. Students were assessed on measures of reading related skills in September and will be post-tested in February. We will examine each how each fluency method affects reading related skills for NS and EL students.
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Panayiota Kendeou (University of Minnesota); White, Mary-Jane; van den Broek, Paul - A longitudinal investigation of comprehension and basic language skills from 4- to 8-years old
In a longitudinal study we investigated the relation between comprehension and basic language skills, and the degree to which these skills predict later reading comprehension. Structural Equation Modeling demonstrated that comprehension skills (i.e., aural and television comprehension) were relatively independent of basic language skills (i.e., phonological awareness, letter and word identification, vocabulary) at ages 4 and 6. Also, comprehension and basic language skills at age 4 significantly predicted comprehension and basic language skills at age 6, respectively. Most important, both sets of skills at age 6 significantly and independently predicted later reading comprehension at age 8.
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Sarah Kershaw (Florida State University, Florida Center for Reading Research); Schatschneider, Christopher; Connor, Carol - The Relationship Between Oral Comprehension and Reading Fluency as it Relates to Reading Comprehension
The Simple View of Reading (Hoover and Gough, 1990) holds that children’s proficient reading is comprised of listening comprehension and decoding. This study examined the influence of listening comprehension, reading fluency, and decoding on reading comprehension. All measures were collected from 3rd, 7th, and 10th grade Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) measures. The prediction was that replacing decoding with reading fluency in the Simple View model would be more predictive of reading comprehension. Correlated correlation coefficient results revealed that reading fluency is a better predictor of reading comprehension than is reading decoding. Implications will be discussed.
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Alison Kevan (Australian National University); Pammer, Kristen - Visual functioning in preliterate children at familial risk for dyslexia
This paper will report the results of a dorsal stream sensitivity study aimed at determining whether children who are at familial risk for dyslexia demonstrate visual processing deficits before they display any reading failure. The dorsal processing skills of preliterate ‘at-risk’ children will be compared to that of normally developing preliterate children. Higher-order dorsal functioning will be assessed by coherent motion sensitivity and low-level functioning assessed by sensitivity to seeing the frequency doubling illusion. It is predicted that at-risk children will demonstrate dorsal processing deficits before they display any reading impairment, whilst demonstrating comparable ventral processing ability.
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Michael Kieffer (Harvard Graduate School of Education); Lesaux, Nonie - The Role of Morphology in the English Reading Comprehension of Spanish Speakers
This longitudinal study examines the role of derivational morphological analysis (DMA) ability (i.e. the capacity to decompose derived words) in reading comprehension among a cohort of 90 Spanish speakers. Measures include a researcher-created measure of DMA ability and standardized assessments of reading comprehension, oral vocabulary, and word reading fluency. Regression analysis will be used to determine whether DMA ability predicts reading comprehension (controlling for vocabulary and fluency) in the fifth grade year, and whether this relationship differs from that observed in the fourth grade year. Including morphological ability in a model of reading comprehension for Spanish speakers will be addressed.
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Young-Suk Kim (Harvard University) - The contribution of phonological awareness and phonotactic awareness to reading skills in Korean
The current study examined the following research questions for Korean beginning readers: a) a salient intermediate phonological unit (onset-rime analysis vs. body-coda analysis), b) the relationship between phonological awareness and reading skills, c) the relationship between children’s phonotactic awareness and phonological awareness. Data were collected from 144 monolingual 5 year olds in Korea. The results revealed that a) body-coda analysis is more accessible to Korean beginning readers, b) phonological awareness contributed to word reading beyond children’s knowledge in vocabulary and letter names, and c) phonotactic awareness was significantly related to phonological awareness.
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James Kim (University of California); White, Thomas - The Effects of a Voluntary Reading Intervention on Reading Vocabulary and Comprehension: An Experimental Study
The purpose of this experimental study was to examine the effects of a voluntary reading intervention on reading vocabulary and comprehension. Twenty-six teachers and 514 students (grades 3, 4, 5) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: (1) control group, (2) books only, (3) books and fluency training, and (4) books, fluency training, comprehension strategies instruction. Although there were no statistically significant differences between conditions, adding a fluency and comprehension component had a larger effect than the books only and control condition. The results are discussed in terms of the National Reading Panel’s review of voluntary reading interventions. (99 words)
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John Kirby (Queens University) - Naming speed and fluency in learning to read: Evaluation in terms of Simple View of reading
This presentation includes the results of three recent studies. In the first, the role of naming speed in the Simple View of reading was evaluated. It was found that naming speed made an independent contribution to reading comprehension after controlling phonological awareness and the Simple View product term (listening comprehension x decoding); this mainly occurred when decoding was defined as pseudoword reading rather than real word reading. Naming speed’s effect was much stronger for the less able readers, and stronger for the timed measure of reading comprehension. In the second study, naming speed and phonological awareness were used to predict a variety of reading achievement measures between kindergarten and grade 3. Results indicated that naming speed was more important for measures of fluency. In the third study, low achieving grade 2 children received either a phonological awareness or a fluency intervention program. Results indicated that both programs were effective, but that the less able children were more likely to benefit from the phonological awareness program. These results support a model in which both phonological awareness and naming speed play roles, but the roles vary as reading competence develops and depend upon the aspects of reading measures. Speed, whether in naming or reading, has a small but detectable unique effect.
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Katsunori Koatni (National Institute for Communications Technology, Kyoto); Yoshimi, Takehiko; Kutsumi, Takeshi; Sata, Ichiko; Isahara, Hitoshi - Reading Speed and Readability: Second Language Reading
This paper addressed the question of whether reading speed could indicate reading problems of English-as-a-2nd language (EFL) learners. Few studies have undertaken detailed investigations of the reliability and validity of reading speed test for second language reading proficiency. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the reliability of reading speed as to measure reading difficulty. In this experiment, EFL learners completed the Test-of-English-for-International-Communication (TOEIC). Reading speed of each sentence was measured and then examined the correlation with readability scores of the Flesch Kincaid-Reading-Ease. The measured reading speed was found to be significantly correlated with the readability scores.
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Ofra Korat (Bar-Ilan University); Hagalili, Sharon - Relationships between Maternal Attributions, Maternal Mediation, and Children’s Emergent Literacy Level: Comparison between Two Socio-Economic Status Groups
We examined the relationships between mothers’ attributions of their children’s (low SES n = 41; high SES n = 43) emergent literacy levels (ELLs), the children’s ELLs, and maternal reading mediation levels. LSES mothers attributed lower ELLs to their children and exhibited lower mediation levels than HSES mothers; LSES children exhibited lower ELLs than HSES children. Maternal attributions and mediation were related; they were also related to children's ELLs across SES and within the HSES group. SES explained maternal mediation across SES and within the LSES group; HSES children’s ELLs explained their mothers’ mediation levels.
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Fiona Kyle (University of Cambridge); Harris, Margaret; Goswami, Usha - Longitudinal predictors of beginning reading and spelling in deaf and hearing children
Two groups of 5-year-old children (24 with severe/profound hearing loss and 23 hearing) participated in a 3-year longitudinal study. A battery of literacy and language-based tasks was administered every twelve months. The deaf children varied in their preferred communication method. Beginning reading in deaf children was predicted by early alphabetic skills, English vocabulary knowledge and speechreading. In contrast, emerging spelling ability was not significantly related to any of the language skills measured. For the hearing children, alphabetic skills, speechreading and phonological awareness were predictive of both reading and spelling development. The theoretical implications of these findings will be discussed.
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Adele Lafrance (University of Toronto); Geva, Esther - EL1 and ESL Spelling Growth: A Longitudinal Study from Grades 1 to 6
One hundred and sixty-three children from a larger longitudinal project conducted in a Canadian metropolis were administered measures of spelling, phonological awareness, rapid naming and nonverbal ability from Grades 1 to 6. Of the total sample, 29% were monolingual English learners (EL1) (71% female) and 71% were learning English as a Second Language (ESL) (48% female). Both language groups' spelling trajectories from Grades 1 to 3 and from Grades 4 to 6 were similar for normally achieving children as well as for children who are at-risk for reading disability (determined by performance on rapid naming and phonological awareness measures). Theoretical and clinical implications will be discussed.
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Susan Lambrecht Smith (University of Maine); Roberts, J.; Smith, A.B.; Locke, J.; Sullivan, M. - Speech Gestures in Dyslexic Children: From Babble to Words
The purpose of this study is to examine articulatory gestures in the babbling and the emergent lexicon of 22 infants. Of these infants, 15 were at high familial risk of dyslexia, 7 of whom subsequently became dyslexic. Additionally, 7 infants were followed from an age-matched control group. Spontaneous utterances were collected from play sessions recorded from 10 to 24 months. Gestural routines are examined as a function of both stability and differentiation in babbling and early words. Results are considered within a gestural phonology framework.
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Karin Landerl (University of Tuebingen & University of Salzburg); Wimmer, Heinz - Longitudinal development of reading fluency in a consistent orthography
In a longitudinal study, reading and spelling development of 115 German speaking children was followed over nine years. Phonological awareness, naming speed, letter knowledge and basic reading skills were assessed at the beginning of Grade 1. Reading accuracy and fluency and spelling skills were assessed at the end of Grade 1 and in Grades 4 and 9. Especially the high stability of reading fluency was striking: Almost children who were among the 16 % slowest readers at the end of Grade 1 were still dysfluent readers in Grade 9, none of them developed above average reading fluency.
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Nicole Landi (Haskins Laboratories, Yale University) - Behavioral and electrophysiological investigations of semantic processing in skilled and less-skilled comprehenders
Three experiments compared adult skilled and less-skilled comprehenders (matched on low level reading skills) on tasks requiring semantic and phonological processing. The findings from these studies revealed that less-skilled comprehenders generated fewer semantic associates relative to phonological associates in a verbal fluency task and showed reduced categorical priming relative to associative priming in an a semantic priming task. Additionally, electrophysiological records of less-skilled comprehenders differed from skilled readers during a semantic processing task but not during a phonological processing task. These findings suggest that comprehension ability is partially independent of low level reading ability and provide evidence that supports semantic knowledge/semantic processing differences between skilled and less-skilled comprehenders.
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Susan Landry (University of Texas, Health Science Center at Houston); Gunnewig, Susan; Swank, Paul; Anthony, Jason - Integration among early childhood service delivery programs in the context of research proven curricula, progress monitoring, and ongoing professional development: The Texas Early Education Model (TEEM)
In efforts to better meet the needs of a largely unserved population of children at-risk for school failure, states are experimenting with integration among service delivery systems like Head Start, Title 1, and public school PreKindergarten. As the State Center for Early Childhood Development, CIRCLE was legislated to administer such a program in Texas. Beyond sharing of resources among partners, TEEM requires inclusion of an approved curriculum, progress monitoring that informs instruction, ongoing mentoring, and intensive professional develop. Randomized, experimental methods along with multilevel modeling have demonstrated TEEM’s effectiveness on improving instruction, enhancing language- and print-richness of classrooms, and increasing children’s rates of acquiring language and literacy.
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Line Laplante (University of Quebec); Rodrigue, Anne - Spelling Disability with or without Apparent Reading Disorder: Study of Two Contrasted Cases.
Reading and spelling strategies of two dysorthographic children, one case with apparent reading disorder (Type C), the other one without apparent reading disorder (Type B), were analyzed and compared. The results on spelling tasks showed that Type C produced a higher error rate on consistent contextual phonographs than Type B. In reading tasks, Type B subject showed a slower reading speed combined with a lower errors rate in comparison to Type C who reads faster but made more errors. The outcome of this study supports the conclusion that reading strategies could influence the establishment of specific orthographic knowledge in case of developmental written language disorders.
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Mark Lauterbach (City University of New York); Emmons, Michael; Sapio, Melissa; Hacker, Jennifer; Termini, Michael - Long Term School Based Literacy Consultation: A Program Evaluation
The Cooke Center for learning and Development’s literacy consultation program places literacy consultants in inner-city schools that serve populations typically considered at risk. Working with faculty one day a week over the course of the school year the consultant promotes research based assessment and instructional practices. This program evaluation looks at one schools four-year experience with having a consultant. A HLM analysis of data from ongoing DIBELS assessments will be used to analyze improvements in both rate of learning and overall scores. Preliminary analysis of the first three years of the project show promising results in both areas.
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Che Kan Leong (University of Saskatchewan); Tse, Shek Kam; Loh, Ka Yee - Text Inferencing by Chinese Children: Role of Verbal Working Memory, Two-Character Word Reading, RAN and Onset-Rime Segmentation
In this study with 140 nine-year-old (grade 3), 187 ten-year-old (grade 4) and 191 eleven-year-old (grade 5) Chinese children (total 518) in Hong Kong, we hypothesized that verbal working memory followed by two-character word reading would explain a considerable amount of individual variation, together with a small contribution from RAN and onset-rime segmentation, in Chinese text inferencing. Multiple regression analyses generally upheld the hypothesis. Different analyses showed the predominant contribution through the nine- to eleven-year-old children from verbal working memory and also some contribution from the Chinese two-character word reading, mostly in grade 3, to variations in performance in Chinese text comprehension.
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Arne Lervag (University of Oslo) - Modeling growth in reading fluency and rapid naming?
This study investigates the growth of reading fluency and rapid naming in the shallow Norwegian orthography. 193 children were measured four times over a two years period that started three months after the onset of beginning reading instruction and ended twenty-seven months after. Parallel latent variable growth-curve analysis is used to describe the non-linear growth of reading fluency, alphanumeric rapid naming (digits and letters) and non-alphanumeric rapid naming (colours and objects). The main results are that both rapid naming constructs (alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric) are able to explain growth in reading fluency. Reading fluency is on the other hand not able to meaningfully explain the growth in any of the two rapid naming constructs.
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Nonie Lesaux (Harvard Graduate School of Education); Crosson, Amy; Kieffer, Michael - Spanish Speakers’ Reading Comprehension in English
The purpose of this study is to examine, both concurrently and longitudinally, the relationship between oral language and literacy skills as they relate to reading comprehension performance for a group of native Spanish-speakers developing literacy skills in English. The study aims to examine the degree to which native and second language (i.e., Spanish & English) oral language skills and word reading ability predict specific aspects of English reading comprehension performance for 90 Spanish-speaking children who were assessed in both fourth and fifth grade. Analyses were conducted to examine the relationships among component skills – within and across languages- to reading comprehension.
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Valerie LeVasseur (Haskins Laboratories and Community College of Rhode Island); Macaruso, Paul; Shankweiler, Donald - Rereading Phrasally-cued Text Promotes Gains in Reading Fluency
The goal of this study was to bolster reading fluency in second graders by instituting training using the repeated readings method (RR) in conjunction with a text formatting manipulation. We compared RR of text printed with spaces between phrases and clause boundaries corresponding to ends of lines (phrasally-cued text), RR of text printed with conventional layout, and RR of lists of difficult words from text. While each condition had measurable benefit, practice with whole text benefitedfluency and comprehension more than practice with words lists. Reading with natural prosody was most strongly facilitated by RR of phrase-cued text.
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Marjolaine Limbos (University of Toronto); Geva, Esther - Early Identification of Second-Language Students at Risk for Reading Disability
There is a common misconception that assessment of reading disabilities in English as a second language (ESL) students must be delayed for a number of years until oral language skills are developed sufficiently. The purpose of this study was to provide a theoretical and empirical basis for a screening measure for the early identification of ESL learners who may be reading disabled. A battery of measures assessing various domains of reading, memory, cognition and oral language were administered to the participants, which included 339 Grade 1 students (107 English-as-a-first language (L1) and 232 ESL) and 253 Grade 3 students (80 L1 and 173 ESL). Confirmatory factor analyses supported the theoretical constructs of Phonology, Oral Language, Verbal Memory and Reading at Grade 1 and Grade 3. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationship of these constructs to Grade 1 and Grade 3 reading criteria. The results supported the phonological-core deficit model of reading. Theoretical and practical implications of the results will be discussed.
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Siegel Linda (University of British Columbia) - Literacy Difficulties and Language Minority Students
With regard to children educated in special education settings, a major finding is that approaches grounded in very different theoretical models were found to be promising. Examples are behavioral approaches to developing sight word reading and vocabulary, as well as cognitive or learning strategy approaches and more holistic, interactive approaches that encourage thoughtful discussion of ideas. Given the small sample sizes and lack of controls in some of the studies, however, more research is needed to explore the effectiveness of these approaches. In addition, the studies suggest that it is important to consider student background variables in designing instruction. For students who are fluent first speakers of a language other than English, using students’ native language as a means of introducing vocabulary may work better than starting with English, and particular attention to English phonemes that do not exist in the native language may be beneficial for teaching word reading. Finally, researchers have questioned the view of learning abilities and disabilities as being internal to the child rather than acknowledging their powerful interaction with the situational context. In fact, the studies reviewed in this section reveal that, given proper instruction, some language-minority students classified as learning disabled can achieve grade-level norms.
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Endia Lindo (Vanderbilt University ); Compton, Donald - The Impact of Family Background (Social, Human, and Material Capital) on Student Responsiveness to Research-Based Reading Intervention.
This study presents initial results of the effect of family background, comprised of social, human, and financial capital, on struggling readers response to reading intervention. Primary caregivers of students (grades 3-5) participating in the intervention provide information on the family’s background and resources through questionnaires and structured interviews; as well as complete cognitive, reading, and stress/depression measures. These data are used to examine the predictive validity of the family background measure, in comparison to a common socioeconomic measure (i.e., Hollingshead), in identifying treatment resisters. The impact of examining variables beyond traditional cognitive measures to predict responsiveness is discussed.
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Orly Lipka (University of British Columbia); Siegel, Linda - The development of reading comprehension skills of students with English as a second language: The case of students from four different language groups
The reading comprehension skills of children who speak English as a second language from four language groups: Chinese, Farsi, Tagalog and Slavic were examined longitudinally over seven years. The development of reading comprehension as well as word reading, working memory, fluency and linguistic skills were assessed and discussed in grade 3 and grade 6. There were differences in the reading comprehension skills between the language groups over the years. By the end of grade 6, almost all of the students from the language groups performed in a similar way. Early predictors of future reading comprehension are presented. Specific first language characteristic and its influence on the development of reading comprehension skills are discussed.
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Ying Liu (University of Pittsburgh); Wang, Min; Perfetti, Charles; Wu, Suemei; Brubaker, Brian; MacWhinney, Brian - Learning a tonal language by attending to the tone
The tonal feature of Chinese language poses a particular challenge for someone beginning to learn Chinese as a second language. In this study, we tested a learning hypothesis that attending to a visual representation of the acoustic shape of the tone at the same time as hearing the syllable would facilitate learning. We compared three learning conditions in an in-vivo experiment. We found the combination of visual tone contour and pin yin spelling led to better learning of tone information.
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Maaike Loncke (University of Antwerp); Geudens, Astrid; Sandra, Dominiek; Martensen, Heike - Rea - ding, read - ing or reading. Which is the most efficient method for training children to read bisyllabic words?
Well-known curricula for learning to read in Dutch (e.g., Leeslijn, Veilig leren lezen) teach beginning readers to read multisyllabic words by first segmenting them into their constituent syllables. In the present training study, we investigated the benefits of such a segmented presentation. Words were either presented intact or with a segmentation into syllables or morphemes. Children trained with intact presentations made more progress on the reading of bisyllabic words than children trained with segmented presentations -syllables or morphemes. Results and implications will be discussed in relation to the factors reading level and word type.
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Christopher Lonigan (Florida State University, Florida Center for Reading Research); Phillips, Beth; Menchetti, Jeanine - Impact of Preschool Literacy Curricula: Results of a Randomized Trial
Research highlights the significance of the preschool years for becoming a skilled reader; however, an increasing number of children in the United States enter kindergarten with low levels of emergent literacy skills. There is limited data concerning effective curricula to prevent the development of reading problems. The goal of this randomized study was to evaluate the effectiveness of two preschool curricula with an emphasis on pre-literacy skills. This study was part of the US Department of Education supported Preschool Curriculum Evaluation Research. This presentation will report outcome data from the second year of our PCER evaluation, showing significant positive impacts.
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Carol Lord (California State University, Long Beach); Berdan, Robert; Fender, Michael - Stress on Function Words: Different Patterns for Fluent and Non-fluent Readers
The oral reading of non-fluent third grade children in English was compared with that of fluent third graders and adults. Adult readers and fluent children consistently differentiated between content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives) and function words (articles, conjunctions, prepositions, infinitives) by de-stressing the function words. Non-fluent children did not. The failure of non-fluent readers to de-stress function words appears to contribute significantly to the perception that their oral reading is “primarily word-by-word.”
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Maureen Lovett (The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto); De Palma, Maria; Frijters, Jan; Temple, Meredith; Steinbach, Karen - Remediation of reading comprehension and fluency deficits in children with reading disabilities.
Children with confirmed reading disabilities were randomly assigned in groups of 4-8 to one of two research-based remedial interventions (PHAST Comprehension-Focus or PHAST Fluency-Focus) or to a Special Education control condition (total N=144). All groups received instruction an hour a day for a total of 105-125 hours and were assessed before, during, and after their programs. Both PHAST Programs were associated with superior growth in word identification and decoding skills, word and nonword reading fluency, and passage comprehension, with Fluency-trained children demonstrating the best passage comprehension outcomes.
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Paula Luegi (University of Lisbon); Hub Faria, Isabel; Costa, Armanda - Eye movements during text reading: dealing with topic familiarity and syntactic violations".
The present study examines how readers react to different topic texts, similarly structured, and to syntactic violations during reading. The eye movements of twenty Portuguese university students were registered while they read two texts: one concerning a well-known topic, and another concerning a topic distant from the reader's universe of reference, both with or without syntactic violations. Results show that there are higher processing costs in the condition where the unfamiliarity of the topic and the syntactic violations were associated.
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Yang Luo (University of Toronto); Chen, Xi; Zhang, Jing - Development of Visual Skills in Learning to Read Chinese
The present study investigated the development of visual skills in learning to read Chinese in China and Canada. The participants in China included 96 kindergarteners and 41 first graders. The participants in Canada were 32 children from bilingual kindergartens, and 20 children from intermediate Chinese heritage language classes. The results showed that visual skills developed early among children in both countries, but children in Canada outperformed their peers in China at each age level. Moreover, visual skills were significantly correlated with character reading in kindergarteners in China, suggesting that these skills were important for early character reading acquisition.
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Solveig-Alma Lyster (University of Oslo); Hagtvet, Bente - Linguistic and cognitive profiles of dyslexic poor decoders-poor reading comprehenders and poor decoders-good reading comprehenders.
From a total of 135 children at risk for dyslexia 28% of the poorest second grade non word decoders were selected for further linguistic and cognitive analyses. In this sample of 34 dyslexic children 20 had a reading comprehension well below average while 14 had average to high average reading comprehension. Data analyses show that the largest difference between the poor decoders/poor comprehenders and the poor decoders/good comprehenders were on word identification speed and the Denckla and Rudel RAN task as well as on preschool picture naming and verbal IQ. No preschool differences were found on phonological awareness tasks.
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Paul Macaruso (Haskins Laboratories and Community College of Rhode Island); Shankweiler, Donald - Predictors of reading comprehension among young adults
Few studies have examined factors contributing to individual differences in reading skills among young adults outside the university track. This study sought the best predictors of reading comprehension in community college students. Our starting point was Gough and Tunmer’s “Simple View” of reading – word decoding plus listening comprehension skills. While our findings support the centrality of listening comprehension, they also reveal the importance of other factors such as reading fluency, phonological processing of spoken words and verbal working memory in accounting for reading comprehension differences in this sample.
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Kristen MacConnell (Western Washington University) - The Effect of Selected Text Factors on Increasing the Fluency of Second Grade Students At Risk for Reading Difficulties
This presentation will describe an intervention study designed to improve reading fluency for second grade students at-risk for reading difficulties. The intervention’s focus was developing fluency using materials that systematically manipulated the redundancy of phonic elements across text conditions. The overall findings from this study revealed that while exposure to redundant phonic elements in text resulted in increased fluency, the growth as a result of redundancy was not differentially beneficial in comparison to text with low redundancy. These results are important in understanding the development of reading fluency in at risk readers. Results and implications will be discussed.
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Frank Manis (University of Southern California); Nakamoto, Jonathan; Lindsey, Kim - Growth of Word Decoding and Reading Comprehension in English Language Learners
Development of word decoding, oral language comprehension and reading comprehension in English was studied in 212 Spanish-speaking English language learners in grades 3-6. Structural equation modeling indicated decoding and oral language developed along partially distinct tracks, but both influenced sixth-grade reading comprehension. Sixth grade reading fluency acted as a moderator: word decoding significantly predicted reading comprehension for children with low fluency, but not for children with high fluency, and oral language was a stronger predictor of reading comprehension for the high fluency than for the low frequency group. Results support a three-factor version of the Simple View incorporating decoding, fluency, and language comprehension.
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Eva Marinus (University of Amsterdam); de Jong, Peter - The processing of digraphs in dyslexic and normal reading children
Digraphs are graphemes that are composed of two letters. In the present study we used a letter detection task to investigate whether dyslexic and normal reading children process digraphs as perceptual units. Preliminary results show that both groups were slower in detecting a letter within a digraph then in detecting a letter of a single-letter grapheme. Both groups were slowed down to a similar degree, although the dyslexic children were slower in the detection of a letter in a word in general. These results suggest that both dyslexic and normal reading children process digraphs as a unit.
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Sandra Martin-Chang (Mount Allison University ); O'Neil, Sara; Whittleton, Molly - Taking words out of context: New evidence for transfer appropriate processing in word acquisition and retention by Grade 2 students.
The acquisition, retention and transfer of unfamiliar words was examined following flashcard and context training. Each child was trained to read two sets of unknown words; in the context condition, words were read in stories and in the flashcard condition, words were presented in isolation. Results show that both training conditions lead to superior accuracy compared to controls, however, more words were acquired during context training than flashcard training. In contrast, words trained on flashcards were read more accurately in a list containing distracters compared to words trained in context. Theoretical implications are discussed in relation to transfer appropriate processing.
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Genevieve McArthur (Macquarie Center for Cognitive Science); Ellis, Danielle; Atkinson, Carmen; Coltheart, Max - Sound processing deficits in dyslexia and specific language impairment: Can they be fixed?
One hundred children who had dyslexia or specific language impairment (SLI) were tested for their low-level sound discrimination, reading, spoken language, and phonological processing skills. The 27 children who showed a sound discrimination deficit were trained on a computerised sound discrimination programme for 30 minutes per day, 4 days per week, for 6 weeks. They were retested immediately after the training and then again after a 6-week break to see if the sound discrimination training had an immediate or delayed (respectively) effect on their sound discrimination, reading, spoken language, or phonological skills.
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Michael Mckay (Australian Catholic University); Thompson, G. Brian - Grapheme–phoneme and body-rime units in the development of word reading.
This study examined the extent to which the reading of nonwords was (a) achieved by the use of individual grapheme-phoneme units, and (b) achieved by lexicalized body-rime units. Children of word reading levels 6 to 10 years read CVC nonwords with nonlexical _VC bodies and pair-matched nonwords with lexical _VC bodies but identical CV_components. Although there was some use of lexicalized body-rime units throughout all reading levels, the use of individual grapheme-phoneme units was dominant, both at the beginning and subsequent levels. Results are discussed in relation to alternative developmental theories of word reading, including those of Goswami (1993) and Ehri (1999), and recent findings of Bernstein & Treiman (2004).
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Kristen McMaster (University of Minnesota); Kendeou, Panayiota; van den Broek, Paul; Rapp, David - Cognitive Profiles of Struggling, Average, and Good Readers in Elementary, Middle, and High School
In this study, we construct cognitive profiles of struggling, average, and good readers and use these profiles to develop appropriate interventions for struggling readers. 89 4th-, 89 7th-, and 90 9th-graders were identified as struggling, average, or good readers using reading comprehension measures. Next, reading processes were assessed using think-alouds, eye-tracking, and cognitive/language measures. Analyses of think-alouds yielded two subgroups of struggling readers in each grade. One subgroup made reliably more inferences during reading, and one made more text repetitions/paraphrases. Performance on eye-tracking and cognitive/language measures were explored to further understand subgroup differences and develop interventions geared towards improving comprehension.
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Danielle McNamara (University of Memphis); Levinstein, Irwin; Sinclair, Grant; O'Reilly, Tenaha; Ozuru, Yasuhiro; Best, Rachel; Taylor, Roger; Rowe, Michael; Boonthum, Chutima; Pillarisetti, Srinivasa - iSTART: An automated reading strategy tutor that helps students understand difficult texts.
iSTART (Interactive Strategy Training for Active Reading and Thinking) is a reading strategy tutor that uses pedagogical agents to deliver automated, interactive training to use deep-level comprehension strategies. The intervention is based on the advantages of self-explanation in combination with reading strategies such as paraphrasing, making bridging inferences, and generating elaborative inferences. Numerous laboratory and classroom experiments with high-school and college students have indicated that the benefits are most pronounced for low-knowledge and less-skilled students. Our most recent experiments show that training in one domain (science) transfers to improved use of the strategies with texts from other domains (history, literature).
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Amanda Miller (University of Denver); Keenan, Janice - The Influence of Prior Knowledge and Reading Ability on Memory for Text.
Children with reading disability (RD) often have comprehension problems not just when they are reading, but also when they are listening. We replicate this finding and show that it depends on knowledge of the topic. When children with RD had prior knowledge about the passage topic, they were able to retell passages as well as age-matched controls who also had prior knowledge; only when the groups had no prior knowledge did the children with RD show a recall deficit. Prior knowledge interacted with reading ability, providing a benefit only for children with RD.
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Lori Morris (University of Quebec); Sabourin, Chantal - Immersion, Submersion and Drowning: Developing the reading skills of minority language children
Our study assessed the literacy skills of grade 6 to 8 minority language and L1 pupils (N = 242) in three learning contexts: French immersion, French submersion and French L1 with later ESL instruction. All participants completed a series of tests designed to measure their reading and writing ability, their lexical knowledge and their epilinguistic awareness. Results indicate submersion was the context most conducive to the development of nativelike language ability. Immersion education resulted in weak literacy skills in both languages of instruction, with particularly disastrous results in French.
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Robin Morris (University of South Carolina) - Vocabulary Acquisition during Reading: A Comparison of Good and Poor Adult Readers
This experiment examined readers' use of lexically derived information to understand unfamiliar words encountered during silent reading. There were two groups of adult participants, good and poor readers, as assessed by the Nelson Denny Reading Comprehension Test. Their eye movements were monitored as they read sentences that contained an unfamiliar word. The unfamiliar words were either orthographically similar and phonologically dissimilar to a familiar word (choit) or phonologically similar but orthographically dissimilar to a familiar word (foane), or they were orthographically and phonologically unrelated to any familiar word (mube). It was predicted that skilled readers would be more sensitive to phonological relations, while the less skilled readers would show no difference in sensitivity to orthographic or phonological associations.
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Jack Mostow (Carnegie Mellon University); Beck, Joseph - Refined micro-analysis of fluency gains in a Reading Tutor that listens: Wide reading beats rereading -- but not by much
Our SSSR 2005 talk presented a linear model of speedup in word reading between successive encounters in connected text, based on a quarter of a million such encounters. The model indicated that reading a word in a new context contributed more to speedup than re-encountering it in an old context, implying that wide reading builds fluency more than rereading. Our new, improved model uses a growth curve to model word reading time as a function of the number of new-context and old-context encounters of the word. The model indicates that new-context encounters help more than old-context encounters. The difference is statistically reliable but small, which may explain previous difficulties in comparing wide versus repeated reading. The model parameter that estimates the student's total prior exposure to text correlates well with reading proficiency, suggesting that it estimates text exposure better than published estimates based on grade.
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Kate Nation (University of Oxford) - Orthographic learning in context
The self-teaching hypothesis (Share, 1995) proposes that rudimentary decoding skills provide children with a means of translating a printed word into its spoken form; this decoding experience then provides an opportunity to acquire word-specific orthographic information. Share also proposes that the ability to use contextual information to determine exact word pronunciations on the basis of a partial decoding attempt plays an important role in self-teaching. However, direct evidence pointing to a role for contextual support to facilitate self-teaching is lacking. In this paper, we describe two experiments that compare orthographic learning via self-teaching in and out of context in beginning readers.
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Ana Luiza Navas (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil); Ferraz, E. - Comparative study of writing skills in children and adults with the same schooling level
The goal of this study was to investigate the early development of spelling skills in a transparent orthography. In this study we compared the spelling skills of adults and children with similar schooling levels using a single word spelling task. Subjects were instructed to spell different types of stimuli: high-frequency words (HF), low-frequency words (LF) and pseudowords (Pw). Results showed some similarities and some differences in the pattern of spelling errors of adults and children with similar levels of schooling. The main difference was found in the interaction between type of error and word frequency.
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Jessica Nelson (University of Pittsburgh); Reichle, Erik; Perfett, Charles - Orthography and decisions about when to move the eyes during reading
We hypothesized that orthographic knowledge is the most important factor affecting the decisions about when to move the eyes during reading. To test this, participants were taught the spellings and pronunciations, spellings and meanings, or pronunciations and meanings of new (unknown) words and then read sentences containing those words. The eye-tracking results supported our hypothesis: Orthographic training shortened first-fixation durations, gaze durations, and the number of first pass fixations, while the other types of training affected only later measures. These results are discussed in terms of the E-Z Reader model of eye-movement control (Reichle et al., 2003).
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Tom Nicholson (University of Auckland); McGregor, Sarah; Tam, Michelle; Liu, Shumin - Motivational Matthew effects in reading: The good feel happier and the poor feel sadder
The research literature on Matthew effects in reading suggests that success or failure in learning to read may impact not just on academics but also motivation, emotions, peer relationships, and behaviour. The good reader will be motivated to read, will be happier, have higher self-esteem, exhibit positive behaviours in the classroom and in the home, and have positive peer relationships. In contrast, the poor reader will be less motivated to read, feel less happy, have lower self-esteem, have more behavioural problems, and have less positive peer relations. The first study followed a group of children from age 5 to 10 and found little change in reading attitudes. The second study used different measures of reading attitude and found that one particular attitude questionnaire showed a gap between good and poor readers. The third study compared excellent readers with poor readers and found differences in reading attitudes and friendships. The fourth cross-sectional study surveyed a large group of children at ages, 6, 8, and 11 for reading ability, motivation to read, and behaviour and found that average to poor readers had a lower reading self concept than better readers, were less likely to want to read, had a lower mood state, and exhibited peer and conduct problems.
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Marilyn Nippold (University of Oregon); Schwarz, Ilsa; Duthie, Jill - Figurative Expressions in Reading: Mental Imagery as an Index of Comprehension”
Mental imagery was examined in relation to the development of proverb comprehension. Children, adolescents, and young adults (ages 10, 14, and 25 years, respectively) were asked to describe their mental images of 10 concrete proverbs (e.g., Every horse thinks its own pack heaviest, Too many cooks spoil the broth) in writing. Proverb comprehension was then assessed under two conditions, proverbs in isolation and proverbs in context. Performance evidenced age-related improvements, with the gap between isolation and context becoming narrower over time. Discussion will address the hypothesis that peoples’ mental images of proverbs reflect their depth of understanding.
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Abigail Nubla-Kung (Columbia University ); Williams, Joanna; Pollini, Simonne; Stafford, K. Brooke - Teaching the comprehension of cause/effect text to at-risk second-graders.
A program to teach the cause/effect text structure using social studies content was developed. Key instructional components included clue words, questions, graphic organizers, and the close analysis of well-structured texts. Fifteen intact second grade classrooms were randomly assigned to receive (1) the cause/effect program; (2) a more conventional program (same materials but no focus on text structure); or (3) no treatment. Comprehension measures assessed explicit training and transfer effects. On text-structure measures, the cause/effect program was superior to the conventional program and to the control. On measures of social studies content acquisition, the two instructional programs did not differ but were superior to the control. Results replicated earlier work on the compare/contrast structure.
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Jane Oakhill (University of Sussex); Cain, Kate - Prediction of reading comprehension skill in Year 11 from Year 3 measures.
We present the results of a follow up of the children in our longitudinal study, eight years after the initial test point (i.e. from school years 3 to 11), and also explore the concurrent predictors of comprehension skill in the Year 11 pupils. The Year 11 comprehension measure has three subcomponents: Inference making, skimming for information, and vocabulary, and we also have measures of decoding facility and syntactic skills in this age group. Regression analyses are reported in which the relative predictive power of early comprehension skills are assessed once initial vocabulary and verbal IQ have been taken into account.
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Richard Olson (University of Colorado); Lefly, Diane; Byrne, Brian; Samuelsson, Stefan; Corley, Robin; Hulslander, Jacqueline; Wadsworth, Sally; Willcutt, Eric - School and genetic influences on early reading and related skills.
The Colorado Longitudinal Twin Study cohort shows increasing influence of genes and decreasing influence of shared environment on reading and related skills from preschool through the end of second grade. This trend is consistent with the fact that possible environmental influences related to variations in school quality (shared by twins in a family) as assessed by mean 3rd grade reading scores in our Colorado schools correlate at only about .10 with the twins’ reading and spelling skills at the end of 2nd grade. Correlations are stronger (.2 ~ .3) with parents’ years of education, and correlations with mean school performance approach .0 after controlling for parents’ years of education.
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Rosario Ortiz (University of La Laguna); Muneton, M.; Jimenez, J.E.; Guzman, R.; Diaz, A.; Hernandez-Valle, I.; Rodrigo, M.; Estevez, A.; Garcia, A.I.; Garcia, E. - Speech perception development in Spanish children with and without dyslexia.
It is now well-established that there is a causal connection between children's phonological skills and their acquisition of reading and spelling. Here we studied speech perception processes that may underpin the development of phonological skills in primary school children. Dyslexic and control children were given reading tasks and speech perception tasks. The levels of speech perception in different age groups were compared. The type of phonetic contrast (voicing, place and manner of articulation) was analyzed in terms of the number of errors and the response time. The results may contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between speech perception and dyslexia.
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William Owen (University of Northern British Columbia); Aguilera, Laura - Detection and Correction of Spelling Mistakes Across Printed and Computer Formats: The Role of Phonological Recoding
Detecting and correcting mistakes in printed works is an important skill. Essays that contain errors are not well received by the intended audience, therefore, it is important to be able to detect and correct mistakes. The current study extends research by Figueredo and Varnhagen (2004). We examined people’s ability to detect orthographic, phonological, and morphological errors in short essays. A key finding was that subjects ability to detect phonological errors for essays presented on the computer was enhanced when they first read a different essay in printed format. The results are discussed in terms of extant models of reading/speech processing.
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Meghan Parkinson (University of Maryland); Parault, Susan - Reading Motivation and Phonemic Awareness in Beginning Readers
This study investigates the relationship between beginning readers’ reading motivation and phonemic awareness skills. The Motivation to Read Profile (MRP; Gambrell et al, 1996) was used to measure 1st graders’ self-concept as a reader and their value of reading. Additionally, beginning reading skills in phonemic awareness were measured with several subscales of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP, Wagner et al, 1999). Thus, far we have found that 1st graders show variability on the CTOPP measure but not on the MRP, and we suspect that the MRP is not a valid measure of self-concept for this age group.
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Rauno Parrila (University of Alberta); Georgiou, George - Does rapid naming speed measure phonological or orthographic processing?
Previous studies on the components of RAN have shown that pause time is the key component relating RAN to reading. However, what pause time measures is not clear because of its multidimensional nature. We examined the processes that drive the relationship between pause time and reading by contrasting two theories of the RAN-reading relationship: the phonological processing theory and the orthographic processing theory. Forty-eight Canadian children were administered measures of rapid naming speed, phonological processing, orthographic processing, word reading accuracy and word reading fluency in grades 1, 2, and 3. Data are currently analyzed.
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Courtney Patterson (Sir Wlifrid Laurier University); Ferretti, Todd; Gottardo, Alexandra - ERP measures of syntactic processing in children with and without dyslexia
Recent debates in dyslexia research have focused on whether impairments are due to a specific deficit in phonological processing (Helenius et al., 2002) or a more general language impairment which encompasses other areas of linguistic processing such as syntax (Dickenson et al., 2003, Tunmer & Hoover 1992). Dyslexic children will be asked to read and listen to sentences. Visually presented sentences will involve both complex syntactic and phonological processing. Aurally presented sentences will still pose the same level of syntactic complexity, however, without the same phonological difficulty. If syntactic processing accounts for linguistic delays, it is assumed that dyslexic children should perform similarly on the task, regardless of modality. However, if phonological processing is the primary deficit involved in dyslexia, dyslexia children’s performance overall should improve on the auditory task.
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Rufina Pearson (University of British Columbia); Siegel, L. - Treatment effects of a Reading Program in Spanish on Spanish-speaking children with dyslexia
This study examined: Effectiveness of a Reading Strategies Program applied on school age dyslexic children detected at different grade levels. Preliminar results show individual differences on (1) decoding and fluency improvement depending on the grade the intervention was started (2) fluency improvement depending on the predominant reading strategy used for reading; (3) number of sessions needed to reach independent and efficient decoding skills. Children that started the intervention between kindergarten and grade 2, showed a satisfactory compensation of their difficulties after 35 to 56 sessions, whereas children that started after grade 2 needed more time (75 to 100 sessions) to compensate for their difficulties and reached lower levels of fluency.
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Kors Perdijk (University of Nijmegen); Schreuder, R.; Verhoeven, Ludo - The developing mental lexicon: The role of morphological family size.
Second and fourth grade children participated in a visual lexical decision task in a longitudinal research project studying development of the mental lexicon. The primary goal was studying the facilitatory influence of morphological family size on word recognition. Facilitatory family size effects for adults are assumed to be caused by connections between morphological related words. Because, children are acquiring word representations and their interconnectedness, family size effects should be smaller compared to adults. A hint for a family size effect was found for second grade but not for fourth grade children, maybe due to a reorganisation of the mental lexicon.
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Stephen Petrill (Pennsylvania State University); Hart, Sara - Genes, Environments, and the Links between Reading and Math Skills, Evidence from a Longitudinal Twin Study
The goal of this study is to conduct the first systematic quantitative genetic analysis of the covariance between reading and mathematical skills on a sample of 350 same-sex pairs of unselected twins, recruited when they were in kindergarten or first grade. In addition to three home visits targeting reading, these children have been visited in their homes at 8 years of age to assess mathematics skills, spatial skills, and reading skills. Results suggested substantial genetic and shared environmental influences on computational and problem-solving mathematical skills in middle childhood. Our results also suggested substantial genetic covariance between math and reading skills.
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Christie Phelan (Simon Fraser University ); Hoskyn, Maureen - Working Memory and inhibitory control as predictors of emergent handwriting
In this study, we examine relations between working memory and young children’s emergent handwriting abilities and whether inhibitory control mediates this relationship. Fifty-nine children (29 boys and 30 girls) who were enrolled in Kindergartern were administered measures of working memory, inhibitory control, verbal ability, short term memory and orthographic awareness. Overall, results suggest that children with larger verbal/visual working memory capacities perform better on measures of handwriting than children with smaller working memory capacities; however, an interaction between age and working memory was found. Older children with smaller working memory capacities outperformed younger children with larger working memory capacities on print measures, suggesting that as children become more experienced in handwriting, the cognitive resources required for handwriting tasks diminishes. Results of hierarchical regression techniques found that inhibitory control did not mediate relations between handwriting and working memory.
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Beth Phillips (Florida State University, Florida Center for Reading Research); Lonigan, Christopher; Graham, Laura - Now I Know My ABC’s: Alphabetic Order and First Name Predict Letter Knowledge Development in Young Children
Letter name and sound knowledge was assessed in 914 3- to 6-year-old children representing a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. For the 681 who did not know all their letters, the average correct was 16.51 (SD = 6.70) and frequency data indicated that children were more likely to know the letters O, A, B, and C, and to know the first letter of their first name. In total letter name knowledge, no sex or ethnicity differences were found, nor were there significant differences based on whether children attended Head Start, subsidized, public, or private preschool centers.
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Linda Phillips (University of Alberta) - What Parents Want for Their Children: A Longitudinal Study
What parents want for their children was an aspect of a larger study. The effects of preschool literacy intervention were studied in an experimental longitudinal design involving children and their parents. Families were low SES and parents had less than high school education. Families in the treatment group attended sessions three times a week for thirteen weeks. The children and parents were first given instruction separately and then brought together. The univocal aspiration of all parents, regardless of language, education, socioeconomic status, culture, and political factors was to help their children to learn to read and write. Parents expressed a desire to be accepted by schools as having a fundamental role in the literacy development of their children. All parents maintained that acceptance is a necessary condition for the sustained progress of their children.
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Shayne Piasta (Florida State University ); Connor, Carol - Highly Qualified Teachers: The Importance of Teacher Content Knowledge in Promoting Instructional Practices Related to Student Reading Growth
Although teachers’ language and literacy knowledge has been linked to student reading outcomes, findings have been mixed. One plausible explanation is that the impact of teachers’ knowledge is mediated by their instructional practices. The current study tests this hypothesis by assessing 45 first grade teachers’ knowledge of English language and print structure, and observing their classroom reading instruction. Their students (n = 634) were assessed on a number of reading-related tasks. Relations among teacher knowledge, teacher demographic information, student outcomes, and classroom practices (as coded from classroom observations) will be discussed, as will implications for teacher preparation and licensure.
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Margaret Pierce (Harvard Graduate School of Education); Katzir, Tami; Wolf, Maryanne; Noam, Gil - Examining The Heterogeneity of Literacy Performance Among Urban Struggling Readers
Reading failure is a persistent and serious problem in our nation’s urban elementary schools, due in large part to our failure to differentiate instruction for children who demonstrate unique literacy profiles. This study examined the literacy performance of second and third grade urban children who have been identified as struggling readers. Exploratory factors analysis and structural equation modeling identified the factor structure underlying literacy performance in this group. Cluster analysis identified three groups showing distinctive patterns of performance on these factors. Results are discussed with regard to implications for differentiated instruction for these struggling learners.
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Ramona Pittman (Texas A&M University); West, Courtney; Joshi, R.M.; Graham, Lori; Boulware-Gooden, Regina - African American Vernacular English: Patterns of rural and urban African American students in Texas
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) has been a topic of concern due to the achievement gap between African American students and many of their counterparts. AAVE is the uniform grammar used by African Americans who have minimal contact with other dialects in contexts where only speakers of that vernacular is present (Baugh, 1983). This study focused on what happens when students’ dialect affects their spelling and writing abilities. The results showed that African American children from rural and urban areas in Texas displayed patterns of AAVE, and teachers should be sensitive to these patterns in order to assist AAVE speakers.
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Beverly Plester (Coventry University ); Bell, Victoria; Wood, Clare - Exploring the Relationship between Text Messaging and Literacy Attainment
A pilot study revealed that although high levels of texting on mobile phones was linked to lower levels of literacy attainment in a sample of 12 year old children, their use of text abbreviations when messaging was positively associated with their literacy attainment at school. Ongoing research is attempting to understand the nature of the positive association between textism use and literacy attainment. In particular, the question of whether phonological awareness may be implicated in the apparent ability to use text abbreviations will be considered.
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Tatiana Pollo (Washington University ); Treman, Rebecca; Kessler, Brett - How do preschoolers use letter names to select spellings?
We examined use of letter-name spelling strategies when target phoneme sequences match letter names with different degrees of precision. Portuguese-speaking preschoolers often used Q when spelling words and nonwords beginning with /ke/ (its letter name) or /ge/, and H for stimuli beginning with /ga/ (the stressed syllable in its letter name) or /ka/; they did not use these letters when stimuli began with other sequences. Thus their spellings evinced use of letter-name matches primarily when consonant-vowel sequences matched, such that vowels must be exact but consonants could differ in voicing from the target phoneme.
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Heather Poole (McMaster University); Levy, Betty Ann - Visible Orthography: Effects on the Reading Skills of Beginning Non-Readers
The effects of manipulations that make orthography visible in print were investigated using beginning non-readers. Visibility of the orthography was varied through two manipulations: blocking together words from the same rime family, and systematically colour-highlighting each rime family. Training was completed with storybooks using a supported reading paradigm. While blocking led to rapid and higher gains during training, this pattern changed when reading transferred outside the training context. The blocked and unblocked groups read similar numbers of words on all posttests. In contrast, highlighting did not significantly affect performance during training, but led to better generalization and retention of skills.
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Cynthia Puranik (University of Florida); Lombardino, Linda; Altmann, Lori - Expository Writing Skills in Elementary School Children from 3-6th grades and Contributions of Short-term and Working Memory
Research on writing has lagged behind investigations of reading processes. Given the importance of expository writing for success in school, this study investigated developmental changes in the writing of 120 children from grades 3 through 6. Developmental differences were noted for several variables including total number of words, ideas, clauses, T-units, sentences, and number of different words. Additionally WM was moderately correlated to higher-order generative aspects of writing such as total number of words, T-units, and number of different words while STM correlated with spelling, a low-order writing process. WM added unique variance to total number of words and number of ideas, while STM added unique variance to spelling.
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Ralph Radach (State University of Florida); Schmitten, Christiane; Huestegge, Lynn - Oculomotor control during silent and oral reading in developing readers
We asked 4th grade elementary school students to read sentences silently vs. orally for comprehension. Prolonged word viewing times in oral reading were associated with increased refixation frequencies and a leftward shift of progressive initial saccade landing positions. In contrast to earlier results with adults, there was also a substantial increase in fixation durations when reading aloud. Word frequency effects on controlled target words were present in both modes, with only a moderate increase in oral reading. We discuss how strategic adjustments of word fixation patterns are implemented and consider ways in which modes of reading may affect word processing.
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Noriyeh Rahbari (Development Carleton University, Ottawa); Arab-Moghaddam, Narges; Senechal, Monique - The role of orthographic and phonological processing skills in reading and spelling of monolingual Persian children
The main objective of the present study was to examine the contribution of phonological and orthographic skills to Persian reading and spelling. Reading, spelling, phonological and orthographic skills were tested in a sample of 109 monolingual Persian students attending Grade 2 in Iranian schools. The results showed that although monolingual Persian children relied both on phonological and orthographic skills, phonological skill was a strong predictor for both reading and spelling. These pattern of strategies used by monolingual children were inconsistent with those obtained from bilingual Persian-English children in Arab-Moghaddam and Sénéchal (2001). The reasons (e.g., different level of literacy development between monolingual and bilingual children) for these discrepancies of the results between two studies are discussed. Another objective of the study was to compare children’s spelling performance and strategies used in terms of phoneme-to-grapheme inconsistencies. As expected, children spelled opaque words less accurately than shallow words. Moreover, they relied more on orthographic skills for spelling opaque words than spelling shallow words. The results are discussed in terms of effects of orthographic transparency in the strategies used by children.
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Dorit Ravid (Tel Aviv University); Herrmann, Michal - The long developmental route to spelling vowels in Hebrew.
The study investigated how Hebrew-speaking children learn to represent vowels in their writing. A set of three tasks was administered to 48 kindergarteners, first and second graders: (1) Writing words; (2) Judgment of words with vowel errors; (3) Choice of correctly spelled word out of a pair. Results indicated that consonants were represented in writing earlier than vowels. Kindergartners ignored vowels in their writing, 1st graders displayed much variance, and vowel spelling consolidated only in 2nd grade. Two vowel sets - a,e and i,o,u - were found to have different developmental patterns, based on lexical, frequency, orthographic and morphological considerations.
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Keith Rayner (University of Massachusetts) - The effect of word frequency and word predictability on the eye movements on young and elderly readers.
The eye movements of young and elderly (average age = 85) readers were monitored as they read sentences that contained high or low frequency target words and high or low predictability target words. Both groups showed frequency and predictability effects, but the elderly group showed a larger frequency effect. In addition, at a global level, the elderly readers reading rates were slower, they made more fixations and the fixation durations were longer, but they skipped target words more often than the young readers. The results are explainable within the context of the E-Z Reader model.
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Laura Raynolds (Fordham University ); Uhry, Joanna - Differential Acquisition of English Letter-Sound Correspondences in Spanish-English Bilingual and English Speaking Monolingual First and Second Graders
As native Spanish-speaking children learn to write in English, they must map letters onto sounds that do not exist in their mother tongue. This study documents the spelling of monolingual English speaking and Spanish-English bilingual first and second graders in a monolingual English school as they construct ways to represent consonants that do not exist in Spanish. Initial findings suggest that native phonological categories affect the spelling of bilingual children and that these children pass through a stage where Spanish-English spelling confusions increase before they are able to correctly map letters onto these sounds that do not exist in Spanish.
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Erik Reichle (University of Pittsburgh); Tokiwicz, Natasha; Liu, Ying; Perfetti, Charles - Using ERP to Examine When the Eyes Move During Reading
The E-Z Reader model (Reichle et al., 2003) posits that lexical processing triggers eye movements during reading. This hypothesis was tested in two event-related brain potential (ERP) experiments. Experiment 1 showed that saccade onset latencies, directions, and magnitudes could be reliably measured using ERP. Experiment 2 identified ERP components that: (1) varied as a function of word frequency; (2) predicted saccade onset latencies; and (3) could be localized to cortical areas implicated in lexical processing. These results support the hypothesis that the decisions about when to move the eyes during reading are linked to lexical processing.
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Eyal Reingold (University of Toronto); Rayner, Keith - Spatial-temporal dynamics of information processing during reading
In the present study, participants’ eye movements were monitored while they read sentences in which a target word was either presented normally or altered. In a critical condition, a target word was modified via a substantial reduction of contrast between the word and the background. This faint presentation methodology produced a robust influence on the processing difficulty of the fixated word (wordn) without substantially altering the processing of the next word (wordn+1). In contrast, other manipulations that produced smaller effects on wordn resulted in greater disruption of the processing of wordn+1. The implications of this dissociation are discussed.
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Pieter Reitsma (PI Research, VU Amsterdam) - Early acquisition of orthographic knowledge
It has been suggested that shallow orthographies such as Hebrew, do limit beginning readers’attention to orthographic pattern because children are focussed on grapheme-phoneme recoding. In two studies beginning readers in Dutch, after respectively 5 and 12 weeks of instruction in reading, were asked to read pseudowords. These words were carefully constructed with respect to words and grapheme-phoneme correspondences previously being taught. The pattern of correct responses clearly show that normal beginning readers while laboriously decoding letter-by-letter are attentive to word-level graphemic detail and are engaged in orthographic learning right from the beginning of learning to read.
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Catherine Richards (California State University, Long Beach); Leafstedt, Jill - Development of Phonological Awareness Skills in Young English Learners: Application of the Overlapping Waves Model of Development
Microgenetic methodology (Siegler, 1996) was used to investigate individual differences in development of PA skills for kindergarten English Learners. Students were probed weekly for 10 weeks on PA tasks (rime, onset, and segmentation). Following each item, the students were asked “How did you know that?” Generally students’ strategies developed from lower levels of understanding to higher levels of understanding. However, data indicate there were individual differences in strategy development. The data suggest that the overlapping waves model of development (Siegler, 1996) that has been used to model development of other academic skills may also apply to PA development.
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Jessie Ricketts (University of Oxford); Nation, Kate; Bishop, Dorothy - Orthographic learning in poor comprehenders
Despite good decoding skills, poor comprehenders exhibit difficulty reading exception words (Nation & Snowling, 1998). Exception word reading and orthographic learning abilities appear to be linked (Castles & Holmes, 1996), leading to a hypothesis that poor comprehenders may experience difficulties with orthographic learning. Poor and skilled comprehenders were presented with nonwords embedded in stories. Children were exposed to each nonword once. Orthographic learning was assessed using a recognition memory paradigm. Both poor and skilled comprehender groups were significantly above chance levels at recognising the novel orthographic forms. This suggests that poor comprehenders do not experience particular difficulties with orthographic learning.
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Jerry Ring (Texas Scottish Rite Hospital); Black, Jeffrey - Performance Deficits in Children with Reading Difficulties and Children with Co-Occurring Problems in Reading and Arithmetic
This study explores cognitive and phonological processing with the goal of identifying deficits that differentiate children with combined reading and arithmetic difficulties from children with difficulties primarily in reading. Data on phonological processing and a comprehensive measure of general intellectual aptitude from 200 patients at a hospital-based learning disabilities testing center were analyzed for this study. Initial analyses indicated that children with co-occuring deficits in reading and arithmetic showed weaknesses in processing speed relative to children with primarily reading-only problems. Results are discussed in the context of current understanding of reading and arithmetic disabilities.
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Theresa Roberts (California State University, Sacramento) - Unpacking articulation and its relationship to reading foundations in kindergarten
Measures of speech discrimination, distinctiveness of phoneme representations, articulation, vocabulary, alphabet knowledge (letter names, letter sounds) and phonemic awareness were administered to kindergarten children who were learning English as a second language. Previously reported findings of a strong relationship between articulation and phonemic awareness was replicated. Distinctiveness of phoneme representations was found to have a strong relationship with articulation and phonemic awareness. Speech discrimination was significantly associated only with Peabody vocabulary. In addition, a factor analysis revealed that the speech measures loaded together on one factor while the alphabet measures loaded together on another. Vocabulary and phonemic awareness were both somewhat associated with the language and alphabet learning factors. Theoretical implications for how speech perception, representation and production relate to early literacy foundations are suggested.
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Mercedes Rodrigo (University of La Laguna); Diaz, A; Jimenez, J.E.; Ortiz, M. R.; Garcia, A.I.; Muneton, M.; Estevez, A. ; Hernandez-Valle, I.; Garcia, E. ; Rodriguez, C. - Acquisition of orthographic and morphological skills in normal readers and reading disabled children in the Spanish Language
The purpose of this research was to investigate the development of orthographical and morphological skills in normal readers and reading disabled children from second grade to sixth grade in a consistent orthography. In order to assess the orthographic processing we used homophone and morphological root comprehension tasks, included in the SICOLE-R computer software program (Jiménez et al., 2002). The present study provides evidence that demonstrates that normal readers access to the orthographic stage by reading experience. Nevertheless, in spite of consistency orthography, children with reading disabilities show orthographical processing deficit.
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Cristina Rodriguez (University of La Laguna); Jimenez, J.E.; Ortiz, M.R.; Rodrigo, M.; Estevez, A. ; Guzman, R. ; Hernandez-Valle, I.; Garcia, A.I.; Garcia, E. ; Diaz, A. - Identifying Subtypes of Reading Disability: Developmental approach
The purpose of this research was to study the proportion of subtypes of reading disability in a consistent orthography from a developmental perspective. Using regression-based procedures we try to identify phonological dyslexics (PH-dys) and surface dyslexics (S-dys) from a sample of dyslexics by comparing them to chronological-age-matched controls on processing time and accuracy scores to high frequency word and pseudoword reading. Also we look at whether the Ph-dys and S-dys profiles are associated with other specific cognitive deficits. To determinate the validity of the subgroups that were identified we used the reading-level-matched group examining the performance on phonological awareness, speech perception, homophone, and naming speed tasks.
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Laura Roth (University of Denver); Keenan, Janice; Olson, Richard - In-Context and Out-Of-Context Fluency as Predictors of Reading Comprehension and Comprehension Monitoring
Fluency has been found to predict reading comprehension. It is thought that as decoding becomes more fluent and automatic, more cognitive resources are available for comprehension. However, the effect may be bidirectional; comprehension processes may also influence fluency. If so, then fluency in-context should be a better predictor of reading comprehension than decoding fluency out-of-context. We find that regardless of whether fluency is measured in- or out-of-context, it predicts reading comprehension. However, in-context fluency accounts for more variance, and it accounts for independent variance beyond that of out-of-context fluency. Similar fluency effects were found in predicting comprehension monitoring.
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Leah Roth (Queen's University ); Lai, Sandy; White, Bozena; Kirby, John - Orthographic and morphological processing as predictors of reading achievement
We seek to determine whether measures of orthographic and morphological processing contribute to reading achievement over and above intelligence, phonological awareness, and naming speed. A battery of intelligence, phonological awareness, naming speed, orthographic processing, morphological processing, and reading achievement measures was administered to 192 grade 3 children. Factor analysis will be used to determine whether the hypothesized constructs emerge as factors, and correlations will describe the relations between constructs. Hierarchical regression analyses will test how well the predictors account for reading ability, and especially whether orthographic and morphological processing make unique contributions.
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John Sabatini (Educational Testing Service, Princeton); Scarborough, Hollis; Shaw, Jane; Bruce, Kelly; Ventura, Matthew - Profile and intervention results for adult literacy learners with low decoding and fluency abilities
The relative effectiveness of adult reading project is collecting component reading measures, and conducting instructional interventions in decoding and fluency. Test score batteries of over 400 adults in literacy programs with word recognition abilities between about 2nd and 6th grade levels have been collected so far; over 80 have completed interventions and those have repeated measures of speed and accuracy in decoding and fluency. Measures from the WRAT, WJIII, CTOPP, and TOWRE, as well as several experimental measures were included in the main battery. We will present data exploring response to intervention and individual profile interactions.
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Javier Sainz (Universidad Complutense de Madrid); Illera, Victor - Neighbourhood Distribution Effects in Visual Word Recognition: Effects of Single and Twin Neighbours in Spanish
In two experiments, Neighborhood Distribution effects are examined by comparing performance in a lexical decision task. In the Single (S) condition, targets have one high-frequency neighbour for each letter in two different positions. In the Twin (T) condition, targets have just two high-frequency neighbours in the same letter position. Behavioral results show faster response latencies for Twin than for Single Targets, and ERP measures an interaction between Neighborhood Distribution and Lexical Status. These results poses a problem for the read-out model by Grainger and Jacobs (1996), and disputes evidence of Gang Effects obtained in French by Mathey and Zagar (2000).
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Stefan Samuelsson (Linkoping University); Olson, Richard; Byrne, Brian; Willcutt, Eric; Wadsworth, Sally; DeFries, John - Genetic and environmental influences on early literacy development in Australia, Scandinavia, and the United States
Based on our International Longitudinal Twin Study (ILTS) of early reading development we have previously demonstrated highly similar patterns of genetic and environmental influences on several critical prereading skills across twin samples in U.S., Australia and Scandinavia. These findings suggest that the origins of individual differences on foundation skills for literacy development might be universal across languages. In the next phase of the project we will continue to perform cross-language comparisons with the focus being on (a) phenotypic correlations between prereading skills and early literacy development, (b) continuity and change in genetic and environmental influences on prereading skills at two or more time points, and finally (c) comparisons of genetic and environmental influences on early literacy skills.
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Kate Saunders (University of Kansas); Stewart, Katherine; Suchowierska, Monika - Towards the Development of the Alphabetic Principle in Adults with Mental Retardation
The scientific literature on the development of decoding and decoding-related skills in individuals with mental retardation is virtually nonexistent. This study involved 3 adults with mental retardation whose Woodcock Word-Identification and Word-Attack skills were at the low-first and kindergarten level, respectively. After being taught to construct words that were selected to provide critical contrasts in sound-print relations, participants began to show generalized construction of novel words containing the onsets and rimes in the taught words. The knowledge that letter-sound correspondences can be general to many words is a critical milestone in the path towards the development of decoding skills.
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Yasuyo Sawaki (Educational Testing Service, Princeton); Sabatini, John - Component reading skill efficiency and reading comprehension in English as a second language for adult native speakers of Chinese, Korean and Spanish
The present study investigates the relationships among various measures of reading component skill efficiency and reading comprehension level for adult nonnative speakers of English with different native language (L1) backgrounds. Participants in this study are approximately 600 nonnative English speakers with Chinese, Korean and Spanish L1 backgrounds that are well educated in their L1s. Results of structural equation modeling (SEM) regarding the interrelationships among reading comprehension level and efficiency in various component reading skills in English and L1 will be presented. The similarities and differences of the relationships among the three L1 groups will also be discussed.
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Hollis Scarborough (Haskins Laboratories); Patton-Terry, Nicole - Precision and Development of Phonological Representations of Dialect Differences
Reading difficulties among African-American students are associated with less knowledge of “standard” American English (SAE), perhaps because learning to decode is impeded by mismatches between spoken and written representations (e.g., hand-han', this- dis). To examine how such phonological differences are lexically represented by children who varied in their familiarity with SAE, we administered literacy and language tasks (picture naming, acceptability judgments, name correction, nonword repetition, phonological awareness, morphological production, and sentence imitation) that contained dialect-sensitive items. Because reading acquisition may promote awareness of dialect differences, kindergartners and fifth graders were compared.
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Elizabeth Schaughency (University of Otago); Suggate, Sebastian; Anderson, Catherine - An Initial Evaluation of Concurrent and Predictive Validity of the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) in a New Zealand Sample of Beginning Primary Students
Evidence-based assessment underlies research and evidence-based practice. Although DIBELS appear promising for assessing literacy growth in the US, differing language and instructional contexts necessitate revalidation. We administered DIBELS Kindergarten Benchmark 2 (KB2) to 87 students and examined correspondence of DIBELS performance with commonly used indices of literacy progress in the first year of schooling in New Zealand, book levels (BL, Iversen & Tunmer, 1993, concurrently, age six, and end of year) and Observation Survey (Clay, 2002). All KB2 tasks correlated significantly with concurrent booklevel (p < .05). Secondary analyses controlling for number of weeks in school found stronger earlier relationships with BL for initial sound and letter naming fluency tasks and more robust relationships later for nonsense word fluency (NWF). KB2 DIBELS correlated moderately to strongly to six year BL. Individual DIBELS measures differentially predicted tasks in the Observation Survey, with NWF robustly related to a number of tasks.
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Femke Scheltinga (University of Amsterdam); Struiksma, A.J.C.; van der Leij, Aryan - Treatment of hard-to-remediate dyslexic children
We studied the effect of an experimental, computer-assisted, individual treatment programme based on both the theory of optional mapping and task-specific deficits related to phonological and orthographic complexities. Our main interest was to improve word recognition by focusing attention on sub-syllabic units to obtain transfer to new lexical items. We selected third grade students who showed no or poor progress after a one-year period of intensive remediation. The experimental treatment is compared to neuropsychological hemisphere stimulation that is traditionally used in clinical settings. Each method of treatment took 50 weekly sessions of 45 minutes. First results will be presented.
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Rachel Schiff (Bar-Ilan University); Raveh, Michal - Visual and auditory morphological priming in adults with different types of developmental dyslexia
We investigate the quality of the implicit morphological knowledge of adults with developmental dyslexia, revealed in the priming paradigm, i.e., whether dyslexics are sensitive to the morphological structure of words and whether they represent morphemic units similarly to normal readers. Priming effects observed in the different types of dyslexics differed as a function of presentation modality. With visual presentation, repetition and morphological priming were only evident in phonological dyslexics, but not in surface or mixed dyslexics. With auditory presentation, all dyslexics showed priming comparable to normal readers. The results shed light on both impaired and normal reading processes.
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Lucja Segal-Seiden (University of Toronto); Geva, Esther - Perception and Spelling of New Speech Sounds: the Case of Polish L2 Speakers of English
This study investigated the perception and spelling of word initial and word final variants of the English voiceless interdental fricative /q/ in 35 Polish-Canadians (L2 group) and 35 native speakers of English (L1 group). Overall, the L2 group performed better on word final than on word initial /q/, whereas the L1 group performed equally well regardless of /q/ position. Results partially support CPH in that adult L2 learners can improve and become indistinguishable from the L1 group on TOEFL Listening Comprehension task, although they do not perfect their perception of non-native phonology. When task demands increase, differences between groups increase.
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Eliane Segers (Radboud University, Nijmegen); Droop, Mienke; Damhuis, Resi; Verhoeven, Ludo - Learning from the internet: reading and writing
The convergence of literacy instruction and networked technologies seems inevitable, as well as the integration of reading and writing instruction and learning in subject areas. This creates complex learning situations, in which it is important to provide the instructional glue to keep children focused on the task. Several studies were conducted with children from 10 to 12 years of age. The reading and writing abilities of these children were related to their ability to learn in different internet environments. Results of these studies will be presented followed by a discussion about new lines of research that are needed.
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Willy Serniclaes (Universite Rene Descartes, Paris); Delahaia, Marc; Venturab, Paulo; Kolinskic, Regine; Moraisd, Jose; Sprenger-Charollese, Liliane - On the causality of the categorical perception deficit in dyslexia
Previous studies suggest that developmental dyslexia is characterized by a deficit in the Categorical Perception (CP) of speech sounds. The CP seems to reflect a specific mode of speech perception based on allophones rather than on phonemes. Here we present evidence to suggest that the CP deficit is the cause rather than the consequence of dyslexia. Comparisons between literate and illiterate adults indicate that CP does not depend on literacy. A follow-up study of children from pre-school to the second grade suggests that pre-reading CP performances are significantly related to later reading achievement.
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Francisca Serrano (University of Granada); Sylvia Defior - Classifying dyslexia in Spanish
This study aims to investigate the existence of subtypes of dyslexia in a sample of Spanish children with developmental dyslexia. A reading level-match design is carried out and the regression method is used for classification. Discriminative measures of the reading procedures described by dual route models are considered and both accuracy scores and processing time are taken into account. Results validate the existence of both phonological and surface subtypes. The importance of the criteria chosen for classification is discussed.
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Michal Shany (University of Toronto); Geva, Esther - Socio-cultural Destitution and Schooling: Their Impact on Change Patterns in Language and Literacy Skills of Minority Children
Using a cross-sectional design, a variety of non-verbal, oral language, cultural literacy, and word level skills were assessed in low SES children of Ethiopian-Israeli immigrants and non-immigrant Israeli children in grades 1,2, 4, and 6. Children in both groups attended the same schools. The Ethiopian-Israeli children did not possess any language or literacy skills in Amharic. The two socio-cultural groups differed significantly on non-verbal ability, cultural literacy, and on 2 indices of Hebrew oral language skills (vocabulary, grammar), but not on phonemic awareness. The gap on language skills (favoring the non-Ethiopian children) increased over time. Three general patterns were noted: (1) domains where the gap between the Ethiopian and Non-Ethiopian Israeli children persisted over time (cultural literacy, non-verbal ability, oral language); (2) domains where with schooling the gap between the groups disappeared gradually (PA and RAN-digits); (3) domains where the groups did not differ over time (word level skills). With development and schooling deficits in domains that are cognitively less complex disappear. However deficits persist on more complex language skills and cultural knowledge .
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Patrick Snellings (University of Amsterdam); van der Leij, Aryan; de Jong, Peter; Blok, Henk - Reading fluency in poor readers; the integration between visual and auditory information.
Dyslexics show slow reading speed in relatively transparent languages like Dutch and German (Van der Leij & Van Daal, 1999; Wimmer et al., 1998). Poor readers are also less efficient in activating letter and phonemic information (Booth et al., 1999). It has been argued that successful integration can only take place if visual and auditory information are synchronized (Breznitz, 2002). In this paper we discuss the speed of integration between visual and auditory information in both poor readers and average readers to determine whether differences in synchrony can account for poor reading fluency.
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Margaret Snowling (University of York); Crane, Claudine; Carroll, Julia; Duff, Fiona; Fieldsend, Elizabeth; Miles, Jeremy; Hulme, Charles - Early intervention at the foundations of reading comprehension.
Following screening of 4-5 year-old children from 20 larger schools in the York area (UK), 160 children were selected on the basis of having poor speech and language development at school entry. Within each school, 4 children were randomly assigned to receive oral language training (including vocabulary and comprehension exercises), 4 to receive an early literacy intervention (including phoneme awareness, print concepts and book reading). The interventions were delivered by trained teaching assistants who taught in both arms of the intervention, daily for two 10-week periods. Findings of the study will be described drawing out implications for theory and practice.
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Brooke Soden Hensler (Carnegie Mellon University); Beck, Joseph - Are all questions created equal?: Factors that influence cloze question difficulty.
The multiple choice cloze (MCC) question is a common means of assessing reading comprehension, yet there is little research investigating factors that influence question difficulty. This study presents a model of MCC questions that simultaneously estimates factors that could influence question difficulty as well as student proficiency. With this model, we detect the emergence of syntactic awareness in students beginning at the second grade reading level. The validity of the current model of MCC question difficulty including these factors is evidenced by the within-grade correlation of 0.69 between its assessment of student proficiency and the Woodcock Reading Comprehension Composite measure.
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Kathleen Spencer (Harvard Graduate School of Education) - The Relationship between Writing Quality and Writing Component Skills among Middle School Students with Language-Based Learning Disabilities
This study investigates quality of written composition among 67 students with language-based learning disability (LBLD) in grades 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 at one private school. Students were asked to write a persuasive essay in response to a prompt and were also assessed on spelling, writing fluency, written mechanics and vocabulary. Regression analyses were used to explore the relationships between essay quality and writing component skills how these relationships vary as a function of grade. The importance of a model of writing development for middle school students with LBLD is emphasized.
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Rhona Stainthorp (University of London); Stuart, Morag; Powell, Daisy; Garwood, Holly; Quinlan, Philip - A preliminary report of causal factors underlying performance in rapid automatised naming (RAN) tasks: No role for early visual processes.
Results from six experiments investigating the role of early visual processes in rapid automatised naming performance are reported. Two groups of children age 8-10 years acted as participants. Group 1 showed normal phonological awareness (PA) but poor RAN performance as measured by the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processes. Group 2 showed normal performance in both PA and RAN. Speed and accuracy responses were recorded in experiments assessing visual processing at the level of individual visual features; Gibsonian letter-like forms; and Roman letters. No systematic differences were found between the groups. Slow RAN performance is not caused by problems in early visual processing
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Catherine Stoodley (University of Oxford); Jack, Anthea; Ray, Nicola ; Stein, John - Implicit learning in good and poor readers
The accuracy and reaction times of 45 children, some with literacy scores significantly below their cognitive ability (dyslexics, n=18), were measured whilst they performed an implicit motor learning task in which randomly-ordered pictures flanked 14 repeats of a 6-item picture sequence (total 150 trials). Dyslexics showed significantly less implicit learning (p=0.025). Accuracy in the whole group correlated strongly with reading ability (-0.46, p=0.004). Children who showed a learning effect had smaller cognitive-literacy discrepancies than those who did not show implicit learning (-0.48 sd v. -1.12 sd, respectively). These preliminary results suggest that implicit learning deficits may underlie dyslexics’ slow learning.
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Katherine Strasser (Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile); Lissi, Maria Rosa - Countries do matter: Home and Instruction Effects on Literacy Skills in a Developing Country
The study examines the effects of oral language, home environment, instruction, and their interactions, on literacy learning in kindergarten, in Santiago de Chile. Relations between variables are expected to be different from those observed in first-world countries, due to cultural and economic peculiarities of developing countries. Participants were 130 children nested in 12 kindergarten classrooms. End-of-year data is being collected at this time, but preliminary analyses with beginning-of-year data support the uniqueness of relationships between home and literacy variables in Chile. The complete dataset will be analyzed using HLM to test for cross-level interactions between child characteristics and instruction.
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Morag Stuart (University of London); Stainthorp, Rhona; Powell, Daisy; Garwood, Holly; Quinlan, Philip - Dissociations between rapid automatised naming (RAN) and phonological awareness (PA) skills in a large sample of British 7-9 year old children in mainstream schools.
The Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processes (CTOPP) and the British Ability Scales word reading test were administered to 1010 7- to 9-year-old British children. Results showed that the incidence of a single RAN deficit was equal to that of a single PA deficit, and both were associated with a similar degree of word reading deficit. A double deficit was the least prevalent pattern and was linked with the most severe reading deficit. Furthermore, structural equation modelling revealed that both RAN and PA made independent and significant contributions to single word reading scores, while phonological memory did not.
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Kendra Sun-Alperin (University of Marland); Wang, Min - Cross-Language Transfer of Phonological and Orthographic Processing in Spanish-speaking Children Learning to Read and Spell in English
Phonological processing skills are important in learning to read. These skills have been shown to transfer from a child’s L1 to L2. We will investigate this transfer, as well as the transfer of orthographic processing, in 2nd and 3rd grade Spanish-speakers children learning to spell English. Specifically, we are interested in determining whether the spelling of English vowel sounds is particularly difficult for Spanish speakers and whether the errors that are made are consistent with Spanish orthographic rules. Participants will be administered phonological awareness tasks, orthographic knowledge tasks, reading tasks and spelling tasks. We hypothesize that orthographic knowledge contributes unique variance to spelling. Also, we expect that the errors committed on spelling vowels will be consistent with Spanish orthographic rules.
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Paul Swank (University of Texas, Health Science Center at Houston); Assel, Michael; Anthony, Jason; King, Terri; Gunnewig, Susan; Landry, Susan - Development of the CIRCLE-Phonological Awareness, Language, and Literacy System (C-PALLS), a progress monitoring measure for preschool children.
C-PALLS is a teacher-administered measure of preschool children’s progress in cognitive skills necessary for learning to read. Subtests include Rapid Vocabulary Fluency, Letter Naming Fluency, and Phonological Awareness (PA). The personal digital assistant (PDA) version of C-PALLS provides teachers with child-tracking information and suggested activities for remediation. We have collected data from 7,500 children at three assessment times. We have successfully examined test-retest reliability for all scales and internal consistency and factor structure for PA. The evaluation of convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity is very promising. All subtests demonstrate sensitivity to growth and instruction during preschool. We are currently evaluating the PA subtest using Item Response Theory.
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Janet Tilstra (University of Minnesota); van den Broek, Paul; McMaster, Kristen; Kendeou, Panayiota; Rapp, David - The Contribution of Fluency, Vocabulary and Listening Comprehension to Reading Comprehension in 4th, 7th and 9th Grade Readers
This study examined the contributions of reading fluency, vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension to reading comprehension outcomes after controlling for decoding ability and IQ. 270 struggling, average and good readers from grades 4, 7, and 9 (30 at each grade/skill level) completed group and individually administered reading-related assessments as part of a larger study. Hierarchical and stepwise multiple regression analyses indicated that reading fluency, vocabulary knowledge, and listening comprehension uniquely explained variance in reading comprehension beyond decoding ability and IQ for the 4th and 7th grade, whereas only oral reading fluency and vocabulary did so for the 9th grade.
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Keith Topping (University of Topping); Samuels, J. ; Paul, T. - Differential Effects of Reading Challenge, Non-Fiction Reading & Gender on Reading Achievement
Do different balances of fiction/nonfiction reading and challenge help explain gender differences in reading achievement? Data on 51,000 students and 3 million books were analyzed. Moderate (not high or low) challenge was positively associated with achievement gain, but non-fiction read was more challenging than fiction. Non-fiction reading was negatively correlated with successful comprehension and achievement gain. Boys read less than girls, but proportionately more non-fiction, but this less carefully - especially in the higher grades - and had lower reading achievement. Classrooms differed in promoting successful comprehension of non-fiction. Implications for theory-building, research and practice are explored.
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Dianna Townsend (University of California, Irvine); Lee, Edmund; Chiapp, Penny - English or Spanish? The Efficacy of Assessing Latino/a Children in Spanish for Risk of Reading Disabilities
This study examines the appropriateness of assessing Latino/a children in English and Spanish for identifying students at-risk for reading disabilities. The performance of 154 first grade students was assessed on measures of cognitive and linguistic processing that underlie reading disabilities. All students were assessed in English, and 72 Latino/a (N=72) were also given the same battery of tests in Spanish. The students will be reassessed in April and May. Although preliminary data show that Latino/a students were stronger on the reading and phonological tests in English, we will examine how performance in the fall predicts end-of-year reading performance.
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Rebecca Treiman (Washington University in St Louis); Cohen, Jeremy; Mulqueeny, Kevin; Kessler, Brett; Schechtman, Suzanne - Young children’s knowledge about printed names
We examined prereaders’ knowledge about the visual characteristics of print by studying their knowledge of one particularly important type of print, personal names. Young preschoolers (mean age 3; 8) preferred names that were written horizontally as opposed to vertically or diagonally and with letters of the Latin alphabet as opposed to letters from visually dissimilar writing systems. Children of this age were also knowledgeable about the specific letters in their own name, particularly the first letter. However, young preschoolers did not know about the conventional capitalization pattern for names, preferring names written in all uppercase letters.
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William Tunmer (Massey University); Chapman, J. - Differences in language-related deficits between garden variety and dyslexic poor readers as defined by the Simple View of Reading: Evidence in support of the general language delay hypothesis
In this three-year longitudinal study we examined language-related differences between dyslexic poor readers and "garden variety" poor readers as specified by the Simple View of Reading. The dyslexic poor readers (n = 19) were identified in terms of poor reading comprehension and average or above average listening comprehension performance, and the garden variety poor readers (n = 19) in terms of both poor reading and listening comprehension performance. A comparison group of normally developing readers (n = 55) had average or above average scores on listening and reading comprehension. Based on the definition of dyslexic and garden variety poor readers derived from the Simple View and research linking deficiencies in vocabulary growth to deficits in preliterate phonological awareness, we predicted that in addition to the expected differences on oral language measures, the garden variety poor readers would also show greater deficits in phonological awareness and related skills (e.g., phonological decoding) than the dyslexic poor readers. We further predicted that as a result of Matthew effects in reading, the dyslexic poor readers would show a broad range of oral language deficiencies outside the phonological core when compared with normally developing readers, although not as severe as those of the garden variety poor readers. Results of the study supported our predictions, and provide further evidence that there is a subgroup of children with reading disability who have wider oral language impairments and more severe phonological processing deficits.
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Shih-Jay Tzeng (National Taitung University, Taiwan); Chen, Shu-li - The effectiveness of the Chinese Phonetic Symbol (CPS) training on 1st-grade disadvantaged poor readers in Taiwan
One hundred and forty-seven 1st-grade poor readers, 81 in the experimental group and 67 in the control group, participated in the study. A 16-week CPS training program, which was composed of 64 40-minute sessions, was provided. Posttests showed the experimental group outperformed the control group in CPS achievement tests. Moreover, 45.1% of experimental-group students caught up with their peers after the training. The effects of CPS on Chinese reading comprehension and character recognition in the following semester will be reported. Those who failed to show progress received a special education evaluation. Percentages of RD diagnosed will also be reported.
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Joanna Uhry (Fordham University ); Ehri, Linnea - Rime cohesion in kindergarten phoneme segmentation? The controversy continues.
Conceptualization of syllable structure has implications for both theory and instruction in phonemic awareness. In our earlier kindergarten study we found evidence counter to findings in the research literature that rime units (vc) are more cohesive and harder to segment than consonant-vowel (cv) units. Our finding was consistent with a recent Dutch study but contrary to a number of others. Our present study of English-speaking kindergarten children’s ability to segment two-and three-phoneme words replicates our earlier study but uses an expanded word list with greater control for consonant difficulty. There is systematic inclusion of words matched by phonemic material, such as eat/tea and ooze/zoo, and across levels of sonority.
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Jyotsna Vaid (Texas A&M University); Rao, Chaitra; Chin-Chen, Hsin - On the psycholinguistic significance of the bar in Hindi word recognition
This research examined the processing consequences of the presence of a bar linking the upper portions of letters that form words in Devanagari script, which is used to represent Hindi and other languages of north India. A series of experiments compared performance of adult readers of Hindi on with-bar vs. without-bar versions of words and text in speeded reading and lexical decision tasks. The results suggest that the bar serves to demarcate word boundaries, bind consonant-vowel syllables, and disambiguate perceptually confusable graphemes. The findings have implications for how low-level, visuospatial properties of words can affect higher-level lexical processing.
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Vered Vaknin (University of Haifa); Shimron, Joseph - The Relative Contribution of Phonological and Morphological Information to Word Recognition:Evidence from Hebrew
Unique features of Hebrew (as a Semitic language) are used in this study to assess the relative contribution of phonological and morphological information to word recognition. Hebrew readers are more or less equally proficient in reading two kinds of orthographies: One that omits most vowel signs, and another that provides each and every phonemic distinction in the form of diacritic marks. This feature is used in this study to assess the contribution of phonological information in word recognition by priming target words with word bases that are written either with or without vowel signs. Vowel patterns of Hebrew word bases often altered as a result of inflection and derivation. By priming target words with vowel patterns that are either appropriate or inappropriate to the target words, we learn about readers' sensitivity to words' morphology.
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Connie Varnhagen (University of Alberta); Paquette, Lauren; Figueredo, Lauren - Spelling Strategies in English and French
How do children in immersion programs spell in both languages? Anglophone grade four children in French immersion classrooms spelled CVC nonwords that were phonologically consistent with English and French (e.g., /d/ /i/ /b/ and /r/ /?/ /t/) but would be spelled differently in each language (e.g., deeb and ret in English versus dibe and rette in French). The children received one set of nonwords in French sentence contexts and another set of nonwords in English sentence contexts. The children spelled the nonwords and reported spelling strategies. Children generally spelled the nonwords consistently with the language and reported using phonological spelling strategies.
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Elizabeth Vaughn-Neely (University of Mississippi); Reed, Marjorie - Attention and Reading Skill in Middle Schoolers' Suppression of Irrelevant Word Meanings
Sixth and seventh graders’ ability to suppress context irrelevant meanings of homophones was examined in relation to individual differences in attentional control and reading comprehension. Attentional control predicted meaning suppression at both ages. Reading skill predicted meaning suppression only in seventh graders. Children with high attentional control quickly activated homophone meanings (showed interference when rejecting context irrelevant associates) and then suppressed irrelevant ones. Children with lower attentional control activated meanings slowly and took longer to suppress irrelevant information. This pattern was modified in the seventh graders with good readers showing the fastest meaning suppression and poor readers suppressing more slowly.
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Ludo Verhoeven (University of Nijmegen); Schreuder, Robert - Orthographic Regularity Effects in Reading Morphologically Complex Words: The case of Dutch Plurals
The main question was to what extent variations in the orthographic regularity of Dutch word root endings influence identification of their plural forms. The unmarked case for Dutch plural formation is to put the ending –en to as singular noun. However, orthographic regularity effects may occur in that the final voiceless consonant of the singular may become voiced in the plural form (e.g., poes-poezen), or the same final consonant of the singular is pronounced differently in the plural (e.g., hond-honden). A lexical decision task with regular plural word forms and word forms with an orthographic and/or a phonological change in the singular root form along with corresponding pseudowords was administered with 37 children from grade 3, 43 children from grade 6 and 21 adults. The data showed that both children and adults were most accurate and fastest in the retrieval of plural word forms with a phonological change, followed by regular words, and subsequently followed by words which undergo both an orthographic and a phonological change in their plural forms. The results will be discussed with reference to a parallel dual-route model of word decoding.
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Francoise Vitu (University of Provence) - About differences and similarities in eye behaviour between children and adults
When children read a text, their eyes move at a slower pace in comparison with adults. On average, the length of forward saccades is shorter, the duration of individual fixations is longer and the likelihood of regressive saccades is greater. We will report data collected on 5th grade children which actually reveal that despite these major differences, both children and adults exhibit very similar eye movement patterns with respect to the encountered material. Implications for the use of eye movements as an index of reading ability will then be discussed.
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Lesley Wade-Woolley (Queen's University); Akaoka, Eric - Using linguistic stress information in reading.
This paper reports a study investigating how linguistic stress is used in reading. Cross-modal priming studies (e.g., Cutler & Van Donselaar) have found that Dutch readers are faster at reading words and making lexical decision when the auditory prime shares the stress pattern with the written target (OCto – OCTOPUS). This study uses a written word priming paradigm to test whether similar effects are seen in English readers, and whether the size of the priming effect is related to overall reading ability. The results are interpreted in relation to the role of stress processing in skilled reading.
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Richard Wagner (Florida State University, Florida Center for Reading Research); Rashotte, Carol - Comparing alternative models of developing relations among vocabulary, working memory, and reading comprehension
Results are reported from two cohorts of a longitudinal study. The first cohort consisted of 101 students whose vocabulary, working memory, and reading comprehension were assessed in second and third grade. The second cohort consisted of 92 students who were assessed on the same constructs in fourth and fifth grade. To minimize the effects of measurement error and other sources of task-specific variance, multiple indicators were obtained for each construct and analyses were carried out on latent variables. Structural equation models were used to test alternative models of developing relations. The results supported reciprocal causal influences among the constructs.
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Min Wang (University of Maryland); Cheng, Chenxi; Baek, Seunghyun - Sub-syllabic unit preference in Chinese-English and Korean- English bilingual children
Literature has shown that languages in the world differ in preference of sub-syllabic units. English-speakers prefer onset-rime division, whereas speakers of other languages such as Dutch or Korean prefer body-coda division. In Experiment 1, we examined pre-literate and literate Chinese children’s sub-syllabic unit preference in processing Chinese syllables. Native and bilingual Chinese children were compared. A Sound Similarity Judgment Task, a Sound Matching Task and a Sound Isolation Task were administered. In Experiment 2, we compared Chinese and Korean pre-literate and literate children on their English sub-syllabic unit preferences. We hypothesize that in processing Chinese syllables, Chinese children show onset-rime preference due to the unique property of coda in Chinese syllables (i.e., the nasal consonants) as well as the suprasegmental feature of tone attached to the rime. Chinese and Korean children differ in preferences in processing English nonwords: Chinese children show a preference for onset-rime units and Korean children show preference for body-coda units.
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Chiung-Chu Wang (National Kaohsiung Normal University ); Chen, Hsiu-Fen; Hung, Li-Yu - Number of Characters School Students Know from G1 to G9
This study was to estimate the number of characters school students know from G1 to G9. There were 2,842 students in total participating in the study. They were randomly selected from 19 schools in Taiwan. A character list which was sampled out of a 5,021 high-frequency character set and graded in difficulty was divided into 17 levels and given to them. The study showed that the average number of characters a student knows from G1 to G9 is from 700 up to 3,800. It also indicated that the differences of grade and gender were significant.
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Erik Willcutt (University of Colorado); Betjemann, Rebecca; Wadsworth, Sally; Samuelsson, Stefan; Corley, Robin; DeFries, John; Byrne, Brian; Olson, Richard - Preschool twin study of the relation between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and prereading skills
Little is known about the relation between prereading skills and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) prior to the beginning of formal reading instruction. An extensive battery of prereading measures was administered to 809 pairs of preschool twins, and the parent of each twin completed a DSM-IV ADHD rating scale. Inattention symptoms were associated with significantly lower scores on six prereading composites, whereas symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity were not associated with performance on the prereading measures. Multivariate twin analyses suggest that the relation between inattention and prereading weakness is primarily attributable to common genetic influences, consistent with results obtained in studies of older twins.
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Rihana Williams Smith (Florida State University, Florida Center for Reading Research); Bojczyk, Kathryn; Tannenbaum, Kendra; Torgesen, Joseph - Children’s Strategy Use in Selecting Foils on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test- Third Edition.
Poverty is strongly associated with children’s low performance on standardized vocabulary tests (Brooks-Gunn, Klebanov, & Duncan, 1996) and individual differences in vocabulary heavily influence reading comprehension performance (National Reading Panel, 2000). Scoring systems used with some tests potentially compromise the validity with impoverished children due to differences in language exposure (Washington & Craig, 1992, 1999). We cross-sectionally examined low-income preschool (N=113) and third grade children (N=33). Error analyses on the PPVT-III (Dunn & Dunn, 1997) revealed similar strategy usage across age groups. Subsequent analyses with low- and high- income third graders (N=145) revealed income was related to semantic strategy usage.
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Taeko Wydell (Brunel University); Uno, Akira; Haruhara, Noriko; Kaneko, Masato; Shinya, Naoko - Relationship between Reading Skills and Cognitive Abilities among Japanese Primary-School Children?Are Children with Reading Difficulties Rare in Japan
495 Japanese primary-school children aged from 8 (Grade-2) to 12 (Grade-6) were tested for their abilities to read in Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji, for their size of vocabulary and for other cognitive abilities including arithmetic, visuo-spatial and phonological processing. 0.2% of children (-1.5SD) showed reading difficulty in Hiragana, 1.4% did in Katakana and 6.9% did in Kanji. Multiple regression analyses revealed that for Kanji word reading performance, the “vocabulary size” was the most potent predictor variable for all grades except Grade-6, and for Grade-6, “reading Hiragana Nonwords”, and “Nonword Repetition” were significant predictor variables.
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Jing Yang (University of Hong Kong); Chen, Lin; Tan, Li-hai - An fMRI Study of Chinese Dyslexic Children’s Working Memory Deficit
The contribution of verbal working memory to reading remains unclear. Characterized by temporary manipulation and maintenance of information, working memory consists of central executive, rehearsal loop and phonological store, each of which has distinct neural substrates. This study used fMRI to explore the neuroanatomical differences between normal and dyslexic Chinese children when they performed 2-back tasks. Dyslexics had weaker brain activity in regions for subvocal rehearsal and central executive than controls. They recruited right homologous regions as a compensatory strategy.
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Joyce Yang (University of Hong Kong); Yang, Jing; Chan, Alice; Siok, Yai Ting; Chen, Lin; Tan, Li-hai - Anatomical correlates of reading ability in Chinese children: A structural MRI study
We used whole-brain MRI to investigate cerebral development associated with Chinese children’s reading ability. High resolution 3D images were acquired from 62 children of age 7 to 11. Significant negative correlations were found between Chinese reading performance and gray matter (GM) volumes in right inferior frontal gyrus, left inferior temporal lobe, and left inferior parietal lobe (BA 40). GM volumes were also negatively correlated with English reading in bilateral precuneus (BA7). No positive correlations were seen between GM changes and reading skills. These findings indicated that bilateral cortical thinning was related to the ability to read in Chinese and English.
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Chin-Lung Yang (University of Pittsburgh); Perfetti, Charles - Reading skill and the acquisition of high quality representations for new words
The lexical quality hypothesis (Perfetti & Hart, 2002) proposed that readers’ knowledge of word forms and meanings varies in quality (specificity and coherence) and that this variability has consequences for reading skill, including comprehension skill. We examine some learning implications of this hypothesis: (1) that during the learning of new words, orthographic and phonological representations will be unstable and thus easily confused and (2) that less skilled comprehenders will show greater orthographic instability than skilled comprehenders. Our study of new word learning by college students confirmed these implications. Learners were confused by spellings of nonwords that were orthographically and phonologically similar to the words they were learning. Less skilled comprehenders showed greater form instability over the course of learning.
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Yolanda Yuen (Queen's University); Wade-Woolley, Lesley; Lee, Brian - Influence of non-linguistic factors in Chinese and English reading
Parents in Hong Kong invest a considerable amount of money into after-school private tutoring of their children. However, no known studies have investigated the effectiveness of private tutoring on reading outcomes. In addition, for political and economic reasons, many children have parents who are from Mainland China. Since some of these parents speak Mandarin as a first language, children’s reading and linguistic performances may differ as a result of the origins of their parents. The present study examines if the first (Chinese) and second (English) language reading performances in Grade One, Two and Four Hong Kong children differ as a function of private tutoring and parent origin.
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Jing Zhang (University of Toronto); Chen, Xi; Luo, Yang - Strategy development in learning to read in Chinese
This study examined the development of phonetic and analogy strategy in learning to read Chinese characters. 84 kindergartner and 41 first graders from China, and 33 kindergartner and 26 first graders from Chinese Heritage Classes in Canada participated in the study. This study found that children develop phonetic and analogy strategies concurrently regardless of their Chinese experience. And, the ability to use these two strategies improves with grade level. This study also found that children from China significantly outperformed their Canadian peers across the two grade levels.
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