EXPLORING STUDENTS‟ DIFFICULTIES IN READING ACADEMIC TEXTS

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Ira Ernawati

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Academic texts play an important role for university students. However, those texts are considered difficult. This study is intended to investigate students‘ difficulties in reading academic texts. The qualitative approach was employed in this study. The design was a case study. The participants were ten students from fifth semester of CLS: EE (Classroom Language and Strategy: Explaining and Exemplifying class who were selected by using purposive sampling. The data were gathered from students‘ journal reflections, observation, and interview. The finding shows that the students encountered reading difficulties in area of textual factors, namely vocabulary, comprehending specific information, text organization, and grammar and human factors including background knowledge, mood, laziness, and time constraint.

Frequency-Specific, Binaural Stimulation of Students with Reading and Spelling Difficulties.

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Johansen, Kjeld

A study examined the hearing of learning disabled students (such as dyslexics) in an attempt to classify, identify, and design auditory stimulation procedures. Subjects, 40 students from seventh-grade classes and 40 volunteers (ages 9 to 23) with reading and spelling difficulties, were given listening tests. Results indicated that many of the…

Invented Spelling, Word Stress, and Syllable Awareness in Relation to Reading Difficulties in Children.

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Mehta, Sheena; Ding, Yi; Ness, Molly; Chen, Eric C

2018-06-01

The study assessed the clinical utility of an invented spelling tool and determined whether invented spelling with linguistic manipulation at segmental and supra-segmental levels can be used to better identify reading difficulties. We conducted linguistic manipulation by using real and nonreal words, incorporating word stress, alternating the order of consonants and vowels, and alternating the number of syllables. We recruited 60 third-grade students, of which half were typical readers and half were poor readers. The invented spelling task consistently differentiated those with reading difficulties from typical readers. It explained unique variance in conventional spelling, but not in word reading. Word stress explained unique variance in both word reading and conventional spelling, highlighting the importance of addressing phonological awareness at the supra-segmental level. Poor readers had poorer performance when spelling both real and nonreal words and demonstrated substantial difficulty in detecting word stress. Poor readers struggled with spelling words with double consonants at the beginning and ending of words, and performed worse on spelling two- and three-syllable words than typical readers. Practical implications for early identification and instruction are discussed.

Association between fine motor skills and binocular visual function in children with reading difficulties.

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Niechwiej-Szwedo, Ewa; Alramis, Fatimah; Christian, Lisa W

2017-12-01

Performance of fine motor skills (FMS) assessed by a clinical test battery has been associated with reading achievement in school-age children. However, the nature of this association remains to be established. The aim of this study was to assess FMS in children with reading difficulties using two experimental tasks, and to determine if performance is associated with reduced binocular function. We hypothesized that in comparison to an age- and sex-matched control group, children identified with reading difficulties will perform worse only on a motor task that has been shown to rely on binocular input. To test this hypothesis, motor performance was assessed using two tasks: bead-threading and peg-board in 19 children who were reading below expected grade and age-level. Binocular vision assessment included tests for stereoacuity, fusional vergence, amplitude of accommodation, and accommodative facility. In comparison to the control group, children with reading difficulties performed significantly worse on the bead-threading task. In contrast, performance on the peg-board task was similar in both groups. Accommodative facility was the only measure of binocular function significantly associated with motor performance. Findings from our exploratory study suggest that normal binocular vision may provide an important sensory input for the optimal development of FMS and reading. Given the small sample size tested in the current study, further investigation to assess the contribution of binocular vision to the development and performance of FMS and reading is warranted. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Could Specific Braille Reading Difficulties Result from Developmental Dyslexia?

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Veispak, Anneli; Ghesquiere, Pol

2010-01-01

A proportion of children with visual impairments have specific reading difficulties that cannot be easily explained. This article reviews the data on problems with braille reading and interprets them from the framework of the temporal-processing deficit theory of developmental dyslexia.

Undergraduate Students’ Difficulties in Reading and Constructing Phylogenetic Tree

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Sa'adah, S.; Tapilouw, F. S.; Hidayat, T.

2017-02-01

Representation is a very important communication tool to communicate scientific concepts. Biologists produce phylogenetic representation to express their understanding of evolutionary relationships. The phylogenetic tree is visual representation depict a hypothesis about the evolutionary relationship and widely used in the biological sciences. Phylogenetic tree currently growing for many disciplines in biology. Consequently, learning about phylogenetic tree become an important part of biological education and an interesting area for biology education research. However, research showed many students often struggle with interpreting the information that phylogenetic trees depict. The purpose of this study was to investigate undergraduate students’ difficulties in reading and constructing a phylogenetic tree. The method of this study is a descriptive method. In this study, we used questionnaires, interviews, multiple choice and open-ended questions, reflective journals and observations. The findings showed students experiencing difficulties, especially in constructing a phylogenetic tree. The students’ responds indicated that main reasons for difficulties in constructing a phylogenetic tree are difficult to placing taxa in a phylogenetic tree based on the data provided so that the phylogenetic tree constructed does not describe the actual evolutionary relationship (incorrect relatedness). Students also have difficulties in determining the sister group, character synapomorphy, autapomorphy from data provided (character table) and comparing among phylogenetic tree. According to them building the phylogenetic tree is more difficult than reading the phylogenetic tree. Finding this studies provide information to undergraduate instructor and students to overcome learning difficulties of reading and constructing phylogenetic tree.

The association of abnormal cerebellar function in children with developmental coordination disorder and reading difficulties.

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O'Hare, Anne; Khalid, Shabana

2002-01-01

Children with developmental coordination disorder/dyspraxia (DCD) are at high risk of reading and writing delay. The difficulties with motor skills are heterogeneous and many children have features of poor cerebellar function, reflected in problems with posture, balance and fast accurate control of movement. This study confirmed a high level of parental reporting of reading and writing delay in a clinical group of 23 children with DCD, defined on the basis of both clinical examination and standardized testing of motor function. Direct measurement of reading delay, identified still further children in the group. Those children with reading delay had associated findings typical of phonological awareness difficulties. The children also underwent a standardized test of neurological function and although they all had difficulties with cerebellar function, no distinctive pattern emerged for those whose presentation was complicated by delayed reading and writing. Both the children with DCD and 136 typically developing children, completed the pilot parental questionnaire on gross motor skills. The three skills of catching a ball, jumping on a moving playground roundabout and handwriting, distinguished the children with DCD. This study therefore confirms that children with DCD should be assessed for difficulties in phonological awareness. Additionally, children aged between 7 and 12 years are on the whole, highly competent in a range of gross motor skills and further study might determine whether a simple parental questionnaire might detect children who would benefit from further assessment. The study also suggests that all the children with DCD have cerebellar dysfunction and further work with a larger group might determine particular patterns associated with reading delay.

The Deficit Profile of Working Memory, Inhibition, and Updating in Chinese Children with Reading Difficulties

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Peng, Peng; Sha, Tao; Li, Beilei

2013-01-01

This study investigated executive function deficits among Chinese children with reading difficulties. Verbal and numerical measures of working memory, inhibition, updating, and processing speed were examined among children with only reading difficulties (RD), children with reading and mathematics difficulties (RDMD), and typically developing peers…

University Students with Reading Difficulties: Do Perceived Supports and Comorbid Difficulties Predict Well-being and GPA?

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Stack-Cutler, Holly L.; Parrila, Rauno K.; Torppa, Minna

2016-01-01

We examined the impact of the number of comorbid difficulties, social support, and community support on life satisfaction and academic achievement among 120 university students or recent graduates with self-reported reading difficulties. Participants completed a questionnaire assessing perceived social support, perceived community support, the…

Identification of children with reading difficulties: Cheap can be adequate

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Poulsen, Mads; Nielsen, Anne-Mette Veber

Classification of reading difficulties: Cheap screening can be accurate Purpose: Three factors are important for identification of students in need of remedial instruction: accuracy, timeliness, and cost. The identification has to be accurate to be of any use, the identification has to be timely......, inexpensive testing. The present study investigated the classification accuracy of three screening models varying in timeliness and cost. Method: We compared the ROC statistics of three logistic models for predicting end of Grade 2 reading difficulties in a sample of 164 students: 1) an early, comprehensive...... model using a battery of Grade 0 tests, including phoneme awareness, rapid naming, and paired associate learning, 2) a late, comprehensive model adding reading measures from January of Grade 1, and 3) a late, inexpensive model using only group-administered reading measures from January of Grade 1...

Language delays, reading delays, and learning difficulties: interactive elements requiring multidimensional programming.

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Hay, Ian; Elias, Gordon; Fielding-Barnsley, Ruth; Homel, Ross; Freiberg, Kate

2007-01-01

Researchers have hypothesized four levels of instructional dialogue and claimed that teachers can improve children's language development by incorporating these dialogue levels in their classrooms. It has also been hypothesized that enhancing children's early language development enhances children's later reading development. This quasi-experimental research study investigated both of these hypotheses using a collaborative service delivery model for Grade 1 children with language difficulties from a socially and economically disadvantaged urban community in Australia. Comparing the end-of-year reading achievement scores for the 57 children who received the language intervention with those of the 59 children in the comparison group, the findings from this research are supportive of both hypotheses. The interrelationships between learning difficulties, reading difficulties, and language difficulties are discussed along with children's development in vocabulary, use of memory strategies and verbal reasoning, and the need for multidimensional programming.

The Effect of an Enrichment Reading Program on the Cognitive Processes and Neural Structures of Children Having Reading Difficulties

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Hayriye Gül KURUYER

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The main purpose of the current study is to explain the effect of an enrichment reading program on the cognitive processes and neural structures of children experiencing reading difficulties. The current study was carried out in line with a single-subject research method and the between-subjects multiple probe design belonging to this method. This research focuses on a group of eight students with reading difficulties. Within the context of the study, memory capacities, attention spans, reading-related activation and white matter pathways of the students were determined before and after the application of the enrichment reading program. This determination process was carried out in two stages. Neuro-imaging was performed in the first stage and in the second stage the students’ cognitive processes and neural structures were investigated in terms of focusing attention and memory capacities by using the following tools: Stroop Test TBAG Form, Auditory Verbal Digit Span Test-Form B, Cancellation Test and Number Order Learning Test. The results obtained show that the enrichment reading program resulted in an improvement in the reading profiles of the students having reading difficulties in terms of their cognitive processes and neural structures.

Invented Spelling, Word Stress, and Phonological Awareness in Relation to Reading Difficulties in Children

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Mehta, Sheena

2016-01-01

The purpose of the current research is to assess the clinical utility of an invented spelling tool and determine whether invented spelling and word stress (supra-segmental level measures) can also be used to better identify reading difficulties. The proposed invented spelling tool incorporated linguistic manipulations to alter the difficulty…

RADAR: A novel fast-screening method for reading difficulties with special focus on dyslexia

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Smyrnakis, Ioannis; Andreadakis, Vassilios; Selimis, Vassilios; Kalaitzakis, Michail; Bachourou, Theodora; Kaloutsakis, Georgios; Kymionis, George D.; Smirnakis, Stelios; Aslanides, Ioannis M.

2017-01-01

Dyslexia is a developmental learning disorder of single word reading accuracy and/or fluency, with compelling research directed towards understanding the contributions of the visual system. While dyslexia is not an oculomotor disease, readers with dyslexia have shown different eye movements than typically developing students during text reading. Readers with dyslexia exhibit longer and more frequent fixations, shorter saccade lengths, more backward refixations than typical readers. Furthermore, readers with dyslexia are known to have difficulty in reading long words, lower skipping rate of short words, and high gaze duration on many words. It is an open question whether it is possible to harness these distinctive oculomotor scanning patterns observed during reading in order to develop a screening tool that can reliably identify struggling readers, who may be candidates for dyslexia. Here, we introduce a novel, fast, objective, non-invasive method, named Rapid Assessment of Difficulties and Abnormalities in Reading (RADAR) that screens for features associated with the aberrant visual scanning of reading text seen in dyslexia. Eye tracking parameter measurements that are stable under retest and have high discriminative power, as indicated by their ROC (receiver operating characteristic) curves, were obtained during silent text reading. These parameters were combined to derive a total reading score (TRS) that can reliably separate readers with dyslexia from typical readers. We tested TRS in a group of school-age children ranging from 8.5 to 12.5 years of age. TRS achieved 94.2% correct classification of children tested. Specifically, 35 out of 37 control (specificity 94.6%) and 30 out of 32 readers with dyslexia (sensitivity 93.8%) were classified correctly using RADAR, under a circular validation condition (see section Results/Total Reading Score) where the individual evaluated was not included in the test construction group. In conclusion, RADAR is a novel

RADAR: A novel fast-screening method for reading difficulties with special focus on dyslexia.

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Smyrnakis, Ioannis; Andreadakis, Vassilios; Selimis, Vassilios; Kalaitzakis, Michail; Bachourou, Theodora; Kaloutsakis, Georgios; Kymionis, George D; Smirnakis, Stelios; Aslanides, Ioannis M

2017-01-01

Dyslexia is a developmental learning disorder of single word reading accuracy and/or fluency, with compelling research directed towards understanding the contributions of the visual system. While dyslexia is not an oculomotor disease, readers with dyslexia have shown different eye movements than typically developing students during text reading. Readers with dyslexia exhibit longer and more frequent fixations, shorter saccade lengths, more backward refixations than typical readers. Furthermore, readers with dyslexia are known to have difficulty in reading long words, lower skipping rate of short words, and high gaze duration on many words. It is an open question whether it is possible to harness these distinctive oculomotor scanning patterns observed during reading in order to develop a screening tool that can reliably identify struggling readers, who may be candidates for dyslexia. Here, we introduce a novel, fast, objective, non-invasive method, named Rapid Assessment of Difficulties and Abnormalities in Reading (RADAR) that screens for features associated with the aberrant visual scanning of reading text seen in dyslexia. Eye tracking parameter measurements that are stable under retest and have high discriminative power, as indicated by their ROC (receiver operating characteristic) curves, were obtained during silent text reading. These parameters were combined to derive a total reading score (TRS) that can reliably separate readers with dyslexia from typical readers. We tested TRS in a group of school-age children ranging from 8.5 to 12.5 years of age. TRS achieved 94.2% correct classification of children tested. Specifically, 35 out of 37 control (specificity 94.6%) and 30 out of 32 readers with dyslexia (sensitivity 93.8%) were classified correctly using RADAR, under a circular validation condition (see section Results/Total Reading Score) where the individual evaluated was not included in the test construction group. In conclusion, RADAR is a novel

RADAR: A novel fast-screening method for reading difficulties with special focus on dyslexia.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ioannis Smyrnakis

Full Text Available Dyslexia is a developmental learning disorder of single word reading accuracy and/or fluency, with compelling research directed towards understanding the contributions of the visual system. While dyslexia is not an oculomotor disease, readers with dyslexia have shown different eye movements than typically developing students during text reading. Readers with dyslexia exhibit longer and more frequent fixations, shorter saccade lengths, more backward refixations than typical readers. Furthermore, readers with dyslexia are known to have difficulty in reading long words, lower skipping rate of short words, and high gaze duration on many words. It is an open question whether it is possible to harness these distinctive oculomotor scanning patterns observed during reading in order to develop a screening tool that can reliably identify struggling readers, who may be candidates for dyslexia. Here, we introduce a novel, fast, objective, non-invasive method, named Rapid Assessment of Difficulties and Abnormalities in Reading (RADAR that screens for features associated with the aberrant visual scanning of reading text seen in dyslexia. Eye tracking parameter measurements that are stable under retest and have high discriminative power, as indicated by their ROC (receiver operating characteristic curves, were obtained during silent text reading. These parameters were combined to derive a total reading score (TRS that can reliably separate readers with dyslexia from typical readers. We tested TRS in a group of school-age children ranging from 8.5 to 12.5 years of age. TRS achieved 94.2% correct classification of children tested. Specifically, 35 out of 37 control (specificity 94.6% and 30 out of 32 readers with dyslexia (sensitivity 93.8% were classified correctly using RADAR, under a circular validation condition (see section Results/Total Reading Score where the individual evaluated was not included in the test construction group. In conclusion, RADAR is a

Effects of Reading Strategy Instruction on Attitude toward Strategies and Performance in Reading Texts of Different Difficulty Levels

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Shorkaee, Hossein Zabihi; Talebi, Seyed Hassan

2018-01-01

This study investigated the effects of Reading Strategy Instruction (RSI) on reading performance and attitude toward reading strategies while reading texts of different difficulty levels. Fifty-five university students studying Political and Basic Sciences took part in this study. After homogenizing the participants, 24 students were in the…

[Effects of reading difficulties on scholastic self-evaluation and mental health in elementary school children].

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Yamashita, Toshiya; Hayashi, Takashi

2014-05-01

We aimed to examine the effects of reading difficulties on scholastic self-evaluation and mental health in elementary school students. Following guidelines for diagnosing reading disorders in elementary school students, we administered reading test batteries consisting of single sounds, single words, and single sentences to 41 fifth-grade elementary school students in Japan. The students' levels of scholastic self-evaluation, self-esteem, and depressive symptoms were assessed using self-rating questionnaires. By evaluating students' reading speed and the number of reading errors they made, we found that six students (14.6%) had reading difficulties (RD group) as per the guidelines for diagnosing reading disorders. The scholastic self-evaluation scores of this RD group were significantly lower than that of the non-RD group. No significant differences were found between the groups on self-esteem or depressive symptoms scores, which we considered to be indicators of mental health, Speed in reading single sounds and single words, and the number of reading errors in reading single sounds had significant negative correlations with scholastic self-evaluation scores. We found that reading difficulties might result in decreased scholastic self-evaluation in elementary school students; however, reading difficulties did not directly influence self-esteem or depression.

The Link between Text Difficulty, Reading Speed and Exploration of Printed Text during Shared Book Reading

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Roy-Charland, Annie; Perron, Melanie; Turgeon, Krystle-Lee; Hoffman, Nichola; Chamberland, Justin A.

2016-01-01

In the current study the reading speed of the narration and the difficulty of the text was manipulated and links were explored with children's attention to the printed text in shared book reading. Thirty-nine children (24 grade 1 and 15 grade 2) were presented easy and difficult books at slow (syllable by syllable) or fast (adult reading speed)…

An evaluation of clinical treatment of convergence insufficiency for children with reading difficulties

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Dusek Wolfgang A

2011-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The present study investigates two different treatment options for convergence insufficiency CI for a group of children with reading difficulties referred by educational institutes to a specialist eye clinic in Vienna. Methods One hundred and thirty four subjects (aged 7-14 years with reading difficulties were referred from an educational institute in Vienna, Austria for visual assessment. Each child was given either 8Δ base-in reading spectacles (n = 51 or computerised home vision therapy (HTS (n = 51. Thirty two participants refused all treatment offered (clinical control group. A full visual assessment including reading speed and accuracy were conducted pre- and post-treatment. Results Factorial analyses demonstrated statistically significant changes between results obtained for visits 1 and 2 for total reading time, reading error score, amplitude of accommodation and binocular accommodative facility (within subjects effects (p Conclusions Reading difficulties with no apparent intellectual or psychological foundation may be due to a binocular vision anomaly such as convergence insufficiency. Both the HTS and prismatic correction are highly effective treatment options for convergence insufficiency. Prismatic correction can be considered an effective alternative to HTS.

Emergent literacy skills, behavior problems and familial antecedents of reading difficulties: a follow-up study of reading achievement from kindergarten to fifth grade.

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Costa, Hugo Câmara; Perdry, Hervé; Soria, Carmen; Pulgar, Salomé; Cusin, Françoise; Dellatolas, Georges

2013-03-01

This study examined the relation between emergent literacy skills, teachers' reports of behavioral problems, and word reading achievement in a community sample of French students. Family background was investigated and included familial antecedents of reading difficulties (Fa/Rd) and parents' educational level. The analyses explored the pattern of concurrent relations between behavioral, familial and emergent literacy measures in a sample of 812 preschoolers, and their predictive power in explaining word reading achievement in a sub-sample of 150 children followed from kindergarten to fifth grade. Word reading at fifth grade was predicted by kindergarten measures of phonological awareness and letter knowledge. Teachers' reports of inattention symptoms at each grade level were associated with early reading skills and with subsequent word reading. Fa/Rd were concurrently and longitudinally associated with emergent literacy skills, teachers' reported inattention and word reading. These results indicate that children with a family history of reading difficulties are at increased risk for the co-occurrence of reading difficulties and attention problems from kindergarten onward. These findings confirm the shared influence of Fa/Rd on the comorbidity between inattention symptoms and reading difficulties in a non-diagnosed community sample of preschool children followed through late elementary school. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Ecological, psychological, and cognitive components of reading difficulties: testing the component model of reading in fourth graders across 38 countries.

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Chiu, Ming Ming; McBride-Chang, Catherine; Lin, Dan

2012-01-01

The authors tested the component model of reading (CMR) among 186,725 fourth grade students from 38 countries (45 regions) on five continents by analyzing the 2006 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study data using measures of ecological (country, family, school, teacher), psychological, and cognitive components. More than 91% of the differences in student difficulty occurred at the country (61%) and classroom (30%) levels (ecological), with less than 9% at the student level (cognitive and psychological). All three components were negatively associated with reading difficulties: cognitive (student's early literacy skills), ecological (family characteristics [socioeconomic status, number of books at home, and attitudes about reading], school characteristics [school climate and resources]), and psychological (students' attitudes about reading, reading self-concept, and being a girl). These results extend the CMR by demonstrating the importance of multiple levels of factors for reading deficits across diverse cultures.

Working Memory Deficits in Children with Reading Difficulties: Memory Span and Dual Task Coordination

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Wang, Shinmin; Gathercole, Susan E.

2013-01-01

The current study investigated the cause of the reported problems in working memory in children with reading difficulties. Verbal and visuospatial simple and complex span tasks, and digit span and reaction times tasks performed singly and in combination, were administered to 46 children with single word reading difficulties and 45 typically…

Pathway evidence of how musical perception predicts word-level reading ability in children with reading difficulties.

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Hugo Cogo-Moreira

Full Text Available To investigate whether specific domains of musical perception (temporal and melodic domains predict the word-level reading skills of eight- to ten-year-old children (n = 235 with reading difficulties, normal quotient of intelligence, and no previous exposure to music education classes.A general-specific solution of the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA, which underlies a musical perception construct and is constituted by three latent factors (the general, temporal, and the melodic domain, was regressed on word-level reading skills (rate of correct isolated words/non-words read per minute.General and melodic latent domains predicted word-level reading skills.

Reading comprehension and reading related abilities in adolescents with reading disabilities and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

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Ghelani, Karen; Sidhu, Robindra; Jain, Umesh; Tannock, Rosemary

2004-11-01

Reading comprehension is a very complex task that requires different cognitive processes and reading abilities over the life span. There are fewer studies of reading comprehension relative to investigations of word reading abilities. Reading comprehension difficulties, however, have been identified in two common and frequently overlapping childhood disorders: reading disability (RD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The nature of reading comprehension difficulties in these groups remains unclear. The performance of four groups of adolescents (RD, ADHD, comorbid ADHD and RD, and normal controls) was compared on reading comprehension tasks as well as on reading rate and accuracy tasks. Adolescents with RD showed difficulties across most reading tasks, although their comprehension scores were average. Adolescents with ADHD exhibited adequate single word reading abilities. Subtle difficulties were observed, however, on measures of text reading rate and accuracy as well as on silent reading comprehension, but scores remained in the average range. The comorbid group demonstrated similar difficulties to the RD group on word reading accuracy and on reading rate but experienced problems on only silent reading comprehension. Implications for reading interventions are outlined, as well as the clinical relevance for diagnosis.

Can Readability Formulas Be Used to Successfully Gauge Difficulty of Reading Materials?

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Begeny, John C.; Greene, Diana J.

2014-01-01

A grade level of reading material is commonly estimated using one or more readability formulas, which purport to measure text difficulty based on specified text characteristics. However, there is limited direction for teachers and publishers regarding which readability formulas (if any) are appropriate indicators of actual text difficulty. Because…

Effects of sequential and discrete rapid naming on reading in Japanese children with reading difficulty.

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Wakamiya, Eiji; Okumura, Tomohito; Nakanishi, Makoto; Takeshita, Takashi; Mizuta, Mekumi; Kurimoto, Naoko; Tamai, Hiroshi

2011-06-01

To clarify whether rapid naming ability itself is a main underpinning factor of rapid automatized naming tests (RAN) and how deep an influence the discrete decoding process has on reading, we performed discrete naming tasks and discrete hiragana reading tasks as well as sequential naming tasks and sequential hiragana reading tasks with 38 Japanese schoolchildren with reading difficulty. There were high correlations between both discrete and sequential hiragana reading and sentence reading, suggesting that some mechanism which automatizes hiragana reading makes sentence reading fluent. In object and color tasks, there were moderate correlations between sentence reading and sequential naming, and between sequential naming and discrete naming. But no correlation was found between reading tasks and discrete naming tasks. The influence of rapid naming ability of objects and colors upon reading seemed relatively small, and multi-item processing may work in relation to these. In contrast, in the digit naming task there was moderate correlation between sentence reading and discrete naming, while no correlation was seen between sequential naming and discrete naming. There was moderate correlation between reading tasks and sequential digit naming tasks. Digit rapid naming ability has more direct effect on reading while its effect on RAN is relatively limited. The ratio of how rapid naming ability influences RAN and reading seems to vary according to kind of the stimuli used. An assumption about components in RAN which influence reading is discussed in the context of both sequential processing and discrete naming speed. Copyright © 2010 The Japanese Society of Child Neurology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Familial History of Reading Difficulty Is Associated with Diffused Bilateral Brain Activation during Reading and Greater Association with Visual Attention Abilities

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Horowitz-Kraus, Tzipi

2017-01-01

Reading difficulty (RD; or dyslexia) is a heritable condition characterized by slow, inaccurate reading accompanied by executive dysfunction, specifically with respect to visual attention. The current study was designed to examine the effect of familial history of RD on the relationship between reading and visual attention abilities in children…

How genome complexity can explain the difficulty of aligning reads to genomes.

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Phan, Vinhthuy; Gao, Shanshan; Tran, Quang; Vo, Nam S

2015-01-01

Although it is frequently observed that aligning short reads to genomes becomes harder if they contain complex repeat patterns, there has not been much effort to quantify the relationship between complexity of genomes and difficulty of short-read alignment. Existing measures of sequence complexity seem unsuitable for the understanding and quantification of this relationship. We investigated several measures of complexity and found that length-sensitive measures of complexity had the highest correlation to accuracy of alignment. In particular, the rate of distinct substrings of length k, where k is similar to the read length, correlated very highly to alignment performance in terms of precision and recall. We showed how to compute this measure efficiently in linear time, making it useful in practice to estimate quickly the difficulty of alignment for new genomes without having to align reads to them first. We showed how the length-sensitive measures could provide additional information for choosing aligners that would align consistently accurately on new genomes. We formally established a connection between genome complexity and the accuracy of short-read aligners. The relationship between genome complexity and alignment accuracy provides additional useful information for selecting suitable aligners for new genomes. Further, this work suggests that the complexity of genomes sometimes should be thought of in terms of specific computational problems, such as the alignment of short reads to genomes.

Precursors of Reading Difficulties in Czech and Slovak Children At-Risk of Dyslexia.

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Moll, Kristina; Thompson, Paul A; Mikulajova, Marina; Jagercikova, Zuzana; Kucharska, Anna; Franke, Helena; Hulme, Charles; Snowling, Margaret J

2016-05-01

Children with preschool language difficulties are at high risk of literacy problems; however, the nature of the relationship between delayed language development and dyslexia is not understood. Three hundred eight Slovak and Czech children were recruited into three groups: family risk of dyslexia, speech/language difficulties and controls, and were assessed three times from kindergarten until Grade 1. There was a twofold increase in probability of reading problems in each risk group. Precursors of 'dyslexia' included difficulties in oral language and code-related skills (phoneme awareness, letter-knowledge and rapid automatized naming); poor performance in phonological memory and vocabulary was observed in both affected and unaffected high-risk peers. A two-group latent variable path model shows that early language skills predict code-related skills, which in turn predict literacy skills. Findings suggest that dyslexia in Slavic languages has its origins in early language deficits, and children who succumb to reading problems show impaired code-related skills before the onset of formal reading instruction. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Improving readability through extractive summarization for learners with reading difficulties

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K. Nandhini

2013-11-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we describe the design and evaluation of extractive summarization approach to assist the learners with reading difficulties. As existing summarization approaches inherently assign more weights to the important sentences, our approach predicts the summary sentences that are important as well as readable to the target audience with good accuracy. We used supervised machine learning technique for summary extraction of science and social subjects in the educational text. Various independent features from the existing literature for predicting important sentences and proposed learner dependent features for predicting readable sentences are extracted from texts and are used for automatic classification. We performed both extrinsic and intrinsic evaluation on this approach and the intrinsic evaluation is carried out using F-measure and readability analysis. The extrinsic evaluation comprises of learner feedback using likert scale and the effect of assistive summary on improving readability for learners’ with reading difficulty using ANOVA. The results show significant improvement in readability for the target audience using assistive summary.

Analysis on the Difficulties Faced by a Bilingual Child in Reading and Writing

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Rizki Hardiyanti

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Bilingual child ability in two languages is become popular issue in the comparison of those two languages. In this paper, the Indonesian bilingual child has parent, school and course using English actively, then his environment using Bahasa Indonesia. This research was conducted to measure ability and difficulties faced by bilingual child in reading and writing in two languages Bahasa Indonesia- English. This journal applied a qualitative research design. Qualitative research is stated as naturalistic study that has the natural setting, as the direct source of data and the researcher is the key instrument  (Bogdan and Biklen, 1992. To specify the design in this journal, this qualitative method was used to analyze a specific person of Bilingual Child. The data were taken from observation, interview, video recording of the child’s reading the English and Bahasa Indonesia textbook story and written test of the child’s writing the English and Bahasa Indonesia summary of textbook story. In both English and Bahasa Indonesia, the reading difficulties appear related to pronunciation, intonation, expression and word stress and the writing difficulties appear related to relevance, organization, vocabulary and grammar.

How specific are specific comprehension difficulties?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rønberg, Louise Flensted-Jensen; Petersen, Dorthe Klint

2016-01-01

as measured on a phonological coding measure. However, the proportion was smaller than the often reported 10-15 % and even smaller when average sight word recognition was also set as a criterion for word reading ability. Compared to average comprehenders, the poor comprehenders’ sight word recognition......This study explores the occurrence of poor comprehenders, i.e., children identified with reading comprehension difficulties in spite of age-appropriate word reading skills. It supports the findings that some children do show poor reading comprehension in spite of age-appropriate word reading...... and daily reading of literary texts were significantly below that of average readers. This study indicates that a lack of reading experience and, likewise, a lack of fluent word reading may be important factors in understanding nine-year-old poor comprehenders’ difficulties....

Children's History of Speech-Language Difficulties: Genetic Influences and Associations with Reading-Related Measures

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DeThorne, Laura Segebart; Hart, Sara A.; Petrill, Stephen A.; Deater-Deckard, Kirby; Thompson, Lee Anne; Schatschneider, Chris; Davison, Megan Dunn

2006-01-01

Purpose: This study examined (a) the extent of genetic and environmental influences on children's articulation and language difficulties and (b) the phenotypic associations between such difficulties and direct assessments of reading-related skills during early school-age years. Method: Behavioral genetic analyses focused on parent-report data…

Differential Constraints on the Working Memory and Reading Abilities of Individuals with Learning Difficulties and Typically Developing Children

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Bayliss, Donna M.; Jarrold, Christopher; Baddeley, Alan D.; Leigh, Eleanor

2005-01-01

This study examined the factors that constrain the working memory span performance and reading ability of individuals with generalized learning difficulties. In the study, 50 individuals with learning difficulties (LD) and 50 typically developing children (TD) matched for reading age completed two working memory span tasks. Participants also…

Using a Multidimensional Measure of Resilience to Explain Life Satisfaction and Academic Achievement of Adults with Reading Difficulties

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Stack-Cutler, Holly L.; Parrila, Rauno K.; Torppa, Minna

2015-01-01

We assessed the impact of intrapersonal and interpersonal resilience, persistence, and number of difficulties in addition to reading problems on life satisfaction (general, social, and self) and academic achievement. A total of 120 adults with reading difficulties who either were completing a university degree or were recent graduates responded to…

[Usefulness and limitations of rapid automatized naming to predict reading difficulties after school entry in preschool children].

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Kaneko, Masato; Uno, Akira; Haruhara, Noriko; Awaya, Noriko

2012-01-01

We investigated the usability and limitations of Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) results in 6-year-old Japanese preschool children to estimate whether reading difficulties will be encountered after school entry. We administered a RAN task to 1,001 preschool children. Then after they had entered school, we performed follow-up surveys yearly to assess their reading performance when these children were in the first, second, third and fourth grades. Also, we examined Hiragana non-words and Kanji words at each time point to detect the children who were having difficulty with reading Hiragana and Kanji. Results by Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis showed that the RAN result in 6-year-old preschool children was predictive of Kanji reading difficulty in the lower grades of elementary school, especially in the second grade with a probability of 0.86, and the area under the curve showed a probability of 0.84 in the third grade. These results suggested that the RAN task was useful as a screening tool.

Communication difficulties in children identified with psychiatric problems

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Helland, Wenche Andersen

2010-01-01

Several studies have pointed to an overlap between different developmental psychopathological conditions and language impairments, and difficulties with communication have been identified in children of various diagnostic backgrounds. This thesis is based on three empirical studies, and the purposes are to investigate communication difficulties as reported by parents, in children identified with psychiatric problems as well as to evaluate a Norwegian adaptation of the Children’...

Progress Monitoring in Reading: Comparison of Weekly, Bimonthly, and Monthly Assessments for Students at Risk for Reading Difficulties in Grades 2-4

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January, Stacy-Ann A.; Van Norman, Ethan R.; Christ, Theodore J.; Ardoin, Scott P.; Eckert, Tanya L.; White, Mary Jane

2018-01-01

The present study examined the utility of two progress monitoring assessment schedules (bimonthly and monthly) as alternatives to monitoring once weekly with curriculum-based measurement in reading (CBM-R). General education students (N = 93) in Grades 2-4 who were at risk for reading difficulties but not yet receiving special education services…

Academic Reading Difficulties Encountered by International Graduate Students in a Malaysian University

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Alghail, Ali Abdullah Ali; Mahfoodh, Omer Hassan Ali

2016-01-01

This study examines how international graduate students in a Malaysian public university perceive and overcome academic reading difficulties. The target population included all graduate students from Yemen, an Arab country, studying at Universiti Sains Malaysia. Data were collected using questionnaires, focus group interviews, and journal writing.…

Can the Relationship Between Rapid Automatized Naming and Word Reading Be Explained by a Catastrophe? Empirical Evidence From Students With and Without Reading Difficulties.

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Sideridis, Georgios D; Simos, Panagiotis; Mouzaki, Angeliki; Stamovlasis, Dimitrios; Georgiou, George K

2018-05-01

The purpose of the present study was to explain the moderating role of rapid automatized naming (RAN) in word reading with a cusp catastrophe model. We hypothesized that increases in RAN performance speed beyond a critical point would be associated with the disruption in word reading, consistent with a "generic shutdown" hypothesis. Participants were 587 elementary schoolchildren (Grades 2-4), among whom 87 had reading comprehension difficulties per the IQ-achievement discrepancy criterion. Data were analyzed via a cusp catastrophe model derived from the nonlinear dynamics systems theory. Results indicated that for children with reading comprehension difficulties, as naming speed falls below a critical level, the association between core reading processes (word recognition and decoding) becomes chaotic and unpredictable. However, after the significant common variance attributed to motivation, emotional, and internalizing symptoms measures from RAN scores was partialed out, its role as a bifurcation variable was no longer evident. Taken together, these findings suggest that RAN represents a salient cognitive measure that may be associated with psychoemotional processes that are, at least in part, responsible for unpredictable and chaotic word reading behavior among children with reading comprehension deficits.

Increased Resting-State Functional Connectivity in the Cingulo-Opercular Cognitive-Control Network after Intervention in Children with Reading Difficulties.

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Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus

Full Text Available Dyslexia, or reading difficulty, is characterized by slow, inaccurate reading accompanied by executive dysfunction. Reading training using the Reading Acceleration Program improves reading and executive functions in both children with dyslexia and typical readers. This improvement is associated with increased activation in and functional connectivity between the anterior cingulate cortex, part of the cingulo-opercular cognitive-control network, and the fusiform gyrus during a reading task after training. The objective of the current study was to determine whether the training also has an effect on functional connectivity of the cingulo-opercular and fronto-parietal cognitive-control networks during rest in children with dyslexia and typical readers. Fifteen children with reading difficulty and 17 typical readers (8-12 years old were included in the study. Reading and executive functions behavioral measures and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected before and after reading training. Imaging data were analyzed using a graphical network-modeling tool. Both reading groups had increased reading and executive-functions scores after training, with greater gains among the dyslexia group. Training may have less effect on cognitive control in typical readers and a more direct effect on the visual area, as previously reported. Statistical analysis revealed that compared to typical readers, children with reading difficulty had significantly greater functional connectivity in the cingulo-opercular network after training, which may demonstrate the importance of cognitive control during reading in this population. These results support previous findings of increased error-monitoring activation after reading training in children with dyslexia and confirm greater gains with training in this group.

Computerization in industry causes problems for people with reading and writing difficulties (dyslexia).

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Knutsson, A

1986-01-01

For 10 years computerization in industry has advanced at a rapid pace. A problem which has not received attention is that of people with reading and writing difficulties who experience severe problems when they have to communicate with a computer monitor screen. These individuals are often embarrassed by their difficulties and conceal them from their fellow workers. A number of case studies are described which show the form the problems can take. In one case, an employee was compelled to move from department to department as each was computerized in turn. Computers transform a large number of manual tasks in industry into jobs which call for reading and writing skills. Better education at elementary school and at the workplace in connection with computerization are the most important means of overcoming this problem. Moreover, computer programs could be written in a more human way.

How University Students with Reading Difficulties Are Supported in Achieving Their Goals

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Stack-Cutler, Holly L.; Parrila, Rauno K.; Jokisaari, Markku; Nurmi, Jari-Erik

2015-01-01

We examine (a) what social ties university students with a history of reading difficulty (RD) report assisting them to achieve their goals, (b) outlets available for developing social ties, (c) resources mobilized within these relationships, and (d) the impact of social ties' status on academic achievement. Participants were 107 university…

Increased resting-state functional connectivity of visual- and cognitive-control brain networks after training in children with reading difficulties

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Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The Reading Acceleration Program, a computerized reading-training program, increases activation in neural circuits related to reading. We examined the effect of the training on the functional connectivity between independent components related to visual processing, executive functions, attention, memory, and language during rest after the training. Children 8–12 years old with reading difficulties and typical readers participated in the study. Behavioral testing and functional magnetic resonance imaging were performed before and after the training. Imaging data were analyzed using an independent component analysis approach. After training, both reading groups showed increased single-word contextual reading and reading comprehension scores. Greater positive correlations between the visual-processing component and the executive functions, attention, memory, or language components were found after training in children with reading difficulties. Training-related increases in connectivity between the visual and attention components and between the visual and executive function components were positively correlated with increased word reading and reading comprehension, respectively. Our findings suggest that the effect of the Reading Acceleration Program on basic cognitive domains can be detected even in the absence of an ongoing reading task.

A Case Study: The Implementation of a Problem-Solving Model with a Student with Reading Difficulties in Turkey

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Ozmen, E. Ruya; Doganay-Bilgi, Arzu

2016-01-01

The purpose of this case study was to improve the reading accuracy and reading comprehension of a 10-year-old fourth-grade female student with reading difficulties. For that purpose, the problem- solving model was implemented in four stages. These stages included problem identification, problem analysis, intervention, and evaluation. During the…

Reading Difficulties and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Behaviours: Evidence of an Early Association in a Nonclinical Sample

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Luoni, Chiara; Balottin, Umberto; Zaccagnino, Maria; Brembilla, Laura; Livetti, Giulia; Termine, Cristiano

2015-01-01

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often co-occurs with reading disability. A cross-sectional study in an Italian-speaking, nonclinical sample was conducted in an attempt to document the existence of an early association between reading difficulties (RD) and ADHD behaviours. We recruited a sample of 369 children in their first year at…

The visual attention span deficit in Chinese children with reading fluency difficulty.

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Zhao, Jing; Liu, Menglian; Liu, Hanlong; Huang, Chen

2018-02-01

With reading development, some children fail to learn to read fluently. However, reading fluency difficulty (RFD) has not been fully investigated. The present study explored the underlying mechanism of RFD from the aspect of visual attention span. Fourteen Chinese children with RFD and fourteen age-matched normal readers participated. The visual 1-back task was adopted to examine visual attention span. Reaction time and accuracy were recorded, and relevant d-prime (d') scores were computed. Results showed that children with RFD exhibited lower accuracy and lower d' values than the controls did in the visual 1-back task, revealing a visual attention span deficit. Further analyses on d' values revealed that the attention distribution seemed to exhibit an inverted U-shaped pattern without lateralization for normal readers, but a W-shaped pattern with a rightward bias for children with RFD, which was discussed based on between-group variation in reading strategies. Results of the correlation analyses showed that visual attention span was associated with reading fluency at the sentence level for normal readers, but was related to reading fluency at the single-character level for children with RFD. The different patterns in correlations between groups revealed that visual attention span might be affected by the variation in reading strategies. The current findings extend previous data from alphabetic languages to Chinese, a logographic language with a particularly deep orthography, and have implications for reading-dysfluency remediation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Exploring Individual Differences in Irregular Word Recognition among Children with Early-Emerging and Late-Emerging Word Reading Difficulty

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Steacy, Laura M.; Kearns, Devin M.; Gilbert, Jennifer K.; Compton, Donald L.; Cho, Eunsoo; Lindstrom, Esther R.; Collins, Alyson A.

2017-01-01

Models of irregular word reading that take into account both child- and word-level predictors have not been evaluated in typically developing children and children with reading difficulty (RD). The purpose of the present study was to model individual differences in irregular word reading ability among 5th grade children (N = 170), oversampled for…

Identifying and addressing student difficulties with the ideal gas law

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Kautz, Christian Hans

This dissertation reports on an in-depth investigation of student understanding of the ideal gas law. The research and curriculum development were mostly conducted in the context of algebra- and calculus-based introductory physics courses and a sophomore-level thermal physics course. Research methods included individual demonstration interviews and written questions. Student difficulties with the quantities: pressure, volume, temperature, and the number of moles were identified. Data suggest that students' incorrect and incomplete microscopic models about gases contribute to the difficulties they have in answering questions posed in macroscopic terms. In addition, evidence for general reasoning difficulties is presented. These research results have guided the development of curriculum to address the student difficulties that have been identified.

Prevalence of Persistent Primary Reflexes and Motor Problems in Children with Reading Difficulties

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McPhillips, M.; Sheehy, N.

2004-01-01

It has been shown that some children with reading difficulties have underlying developmental delay and that this may be related to the persistence of primary reflexes. This study investigated the prevalence of persistent primary reflexes in the ordinary primary school population and how this related to other cognitive and social factors. Three…

Intervention for a lexical reading and spelling difficulty in two Greek-speaking primary age children.

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Terzopoulos, Aris R; Niolaki, Georgia Z; Masterson, Jackie

2018-05-14

An intervention study was carried out with two nine-year-old Greek-speaking dyslexic children. Both children were slow in reading single words and text and had difficulty in spelling irregularly spelled words. One child was also poor in non-word reading. Intervention focused on spelling in a whole-word training using a flashcard technique that had previously been found to be effective with English-speaking children. Post-intervention assessments conducted immediately at the end of the intervention, one month later and then five months later showed a significant improvement in spelling of treated words that was sustained over time. In addition, both children showed generalisation of improvement to untrained words and an increase in scores in a standardised spelling assessment. The findings support the effectiveness of theoretically based targeted intervention for literacy difficulties.

Efficacy of a Word- and Text-Based Intervention for Students With Significant Reading Difficulties.

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Vaughn, Sharon; Roberts, Garrett J; Miciak, Jeremy; Taylor, Pat; Fletcher, Jack M

2018-05-01

We examine the efficacy of an intervention to improve word reading and reading comprehension in fourth- and fifth-grade students with significant reading problems. Using a randomized control trial design, we compare the fourth- and fifth-grade reading outcomes of students with severe reading difficulties who were provided a researcher-developed treatment with reading outcomes of students in a business-as-usual (BAU) comparison condition. A total of 280 fourth- and fifth-grade students were randomly assigned within school in a 1:1 ratio to either the BAU comparison condition ( n = 139) or the treatment condition ( n = 141). Treatment students were provided small-group tutoring for 30 to 45 minutes for an average of 68 lessons (mean hours of instruction = 44.4, SD = 11.2). Treatment students performed statistically significantly higher than BAU students on a word reading measure (effect size [ES] = 0. 58) and a measure of reading fluency (ES = 0.46). Though not statistically significant, effect sizes for students in the treatment condition were consistently higher than BAU students for decoding measures (ES = 0.06, 0.08), and mixed for comprehension (ES = -0.02, 0.14).

Validity of a Protocol for Adult Self-Report of Dyslexia and Related Difficulties

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Snowling, Margaret; Dawes, Piers; Nash, Hannah; Hulme, Charles

2012-01-01

Background There is an increased prevalence of reading and related difficulties in children of dyslexic parents. In order to understand the causes of these difficulties, it is important to quantify the risk factors passed from parents to their offspring. Method 417 adults completed a protocol comprising a 15-item questionnaire rating reading and related skills and a scale assessing ADHD symptoms; 344 completed reading, nonword reading and spelling tests. Results A confirmatory factor analysis with four factors (Reading, Word Finding, Attention and Hyperactivity) provided a reasonable fit to the data. The Reading Factor showed robust correlations with measured literacy skills. Adults who reported as dyslexic, or rated their reading difficulties as more severe, gained lower scores on objective measures of literacy skills. Although the sensitivity of the new scale was acceptable, it tended to miss some cases of low literacy. Conclusions Self-report scales of reading and of attention difficulties are useful for identifying adults with reading and attention difficulties which may confer risks on their children of related problems. It is important for research following children at family risk of dyslexia to be aware of these effects. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. PMID:22271419

The Assessment of Reading Comprehension Difficulties for Reading Intervention

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Woolley, Gary

2008-01-01

There are many environmental and personal factors that contribute to reading success. Reading comprehension is a complex interaction of language, sensory perception, memory, and motivational aspects. However, most existing assessment tools have not adequately reflected the complex nature of reading comprehension. Good assessment requires a…

Effects of Fact Retrieval Tutoring on Third-Grade Students with Math Difficulties with and without Reading Difficulties.

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Powell, Sarah R; Fuchs, Lynn S; Fuchs, Douglas; Cirino, Paul T; Fletcher, Jack M

2009-01-01

The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of fact retrieval tutoring as a function of math difficulty (MD) subtype, that is, whether students have MD alone (MD-only) or have concurrent difficulty with math and reading (MDRD). Third graders (n = 139) at two sites were randomly assigned, blocking by site and MD subtype, to four tutoring conditions: fact retrieval practice, conceptual fact retrieval instruction with practice, procedural computation/estimation instruction, and control (no tutoring). Tutoring occurred for 45 sessions over 15weeks for 15-25 minutes per session. Results provided evidence of an interaction between tutoring condition and MD subtype status for assessment of fact retrieval. For MD-only students, students in both fact retrieval conditions achieved comparably and outperformed MD-only students in the control group as well as those in the procedural computation/estimation instruction group. By contrast, for MDRD students, there were no significant differences among intervention conditions.

Cross-modal integration in the brain is related to phonological awareness only in typical readers, not in those with reading difficulty

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Chris eMcnorgan

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Fluent reading requires successfully mapping between visual orthographic and auditory phonological representations and is thus an intrinsically cross-modal process, though reading difficulty has often been characterized as a phonological deficit. However, recent evidence suggests that orthographic information influences phonological processing in typical developing (TD readers, but that this effect may be blunted in those with reading difficulty (RD, suggesting that the core deficit underlying reading may be a failure to integrate orthographic and phonological information. Twenty-six (13 TD and 13 RD children between 8 and 13 years of age participated in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI experiment designed to assess the role of phonemic awareness in cross-modal processing. Participants completed a rhyme judgment task for word pairs presented unimodally (auditory only and cross-modally (auditory followed by visual. For typically developing children, activations in a network of regions associated with processing and integrating phonology and orthography were correlated with elision (i.e. superior temporal sulcus and fusiform gyrus, a task that is particularly sensitive to phonemic awareness, but this correlation was found only in the cross-modal task. Elision was not correlated with activation for children with reading difficulty or for either group in the unimodal task. The results suggest that elision taps both phonemic awareness and cross-modal integration in typically developing readers, and that these processes are decoupled in children with reading difficulty.

Substituting ICT as a lever for inclusion of children with reading and writing difficulties

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Levinsen, Karin

2010-01-01

This paper presents research findings from a 3 year development and research project named Project IT-folder (PIF) that aimed at inclusion of young children with potential reading and writing difficulties into normal classes in a suburb to the Danish capital. The project ran from 2007 to June 2010...

The Differential Effects of Labelling: How Do "Dyslexia" and "Reading Difficulties" Affect Teachers' Beliefs

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Gibbs, Simon; Elliott, Julian

2015-01-01

This paper reports a survey of primary school teachers' beliefs about working with poor readers. The primary research question was "does the way difficulties with reading are labelled affect the teachers' beliefs about their ability to intervene effectively?" An opportunity sample of teachers was surveyed using 2 questionnaires. One…

Substituting ICT as a lever for inclusion of children with reading and writing difficulties

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Levinsen, Karin

2010-01-01

This paper presents research findings from a 3 year development and research project named Project IT-folder (PIF) that aimed at inclusion of young children with potential reading and writing difficulties into normal classes in a suburb to the Danish capital. The project ran from 2007 to June 201...

Identifying structural variants using linked-read sequencing data.

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Elyanow, Rebecca; Wu, Hsin-Ta; Raphael, Benjamin J

2017-11-03

Structural variation, including large deletions, duplications, inversions, translocations, and other rearrangements, is common in human and cancer genomes. A number of methods have been developed to identify structural variants from Illumina short-read sequencing data. However, reliable identification of structural variants remains challenging because many variants have breakpoints in repetitive regions of the genome and thus are difficult to identify with short reads. The recently developed linked-read sequencing technology from 10X Genomics combines a novel barcoding strategy with Illumina sequencing. This technology labels all reads that originate from a small number (~5-10) DNA molecules ~50Kbp in length with the same molecular barcode. These barcoded reads contain long-range sequence information that is advantageous for identification of structural variants. We present Novel Adjacency Identification with Barcoded Reads (NAIBR), an algorithm to identify structural variants in linked-read sequencing data. NAIBR predicts novel adjacencies in a individual genome resulting from structural variants using a probabilistic model that combines multiple signals in barcoded reads. We show that NAIBR outperforms several existing methods for structural variant identification - including two recent methods that also analyze linked-reads - on simulated sequencing data and 10X whole-genome sequencing data from the NA12878 human genome and the HCC1954 breast cancer cell line. Several of the novel somatic structural variants identified in HCC1954 overlap known cancer genes. Software is available at compbio.cs.brown.edu/software. braphael@princeton.edu. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com

Role of Working Memory in Explaining the Performance of Individuals with Specific Reading Comprehension Difficulties: A Meta-Analysis

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Carretti, Barbara; Borella, Erika; Cornoldi, Cesare; De Beni, Rossana

2009-01-01

It is well established that working memory is related to reading comprehension ability. However, its role in explaining specific reading comprehension difficulties is still under debate: the issue mainly concerns whether the contribution of working memory is dependent on task modality (verbal tasks being more predictive than visuo-spatial tasks)…

A survey of visual function in an Austrian population of school-age children with reading and writing difficulties

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McClelland Julie F

2010-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background To describe and compare visual function measures of two groups of school age children (6-14 years of age attending a specialist eyecare practice in Austria; one group referred to the practice from educational assessment centres diagnosed with reading and writing difficulties and the other, a clinical age-matched control group. Methods Retrospective clinical data from one group of subjects with reading difficulties (n = 825 and a clinical control group of subjects (n = 328 were examined. Statistical analysis was performed to determine whether any differences existed between visual function measures from each group (refractive error, visual acuity, binocular status, accommodative function and reading speed and accuracy. Results Statistical analysis using one way ANOVA demonstrated no differences between the two groups in terms of refractive error and the size or direction of heterophoria at distance (p > 0.05. Using predominately one way ANOVA and chi-square analyses, those subjects in the referred group were statistically more likely to have poorer distance visual acuity, an exophoric deviation at near, a lower amplitude of accommodation, reduced accommodative facility, reduced vergence facility, a reduced near point of convergence, a lower AC/A ratio and a slower reading speed than those in the clinical control group (p Conclusions This study highlights the high proportions of visual function anomalies in a group of children with reading difficulties in an Austrian population. It confirms the importance of a full assessment of binocular visual status in order to detect and remedy these deficits in order to prevent the visual problems continuing to impact upon educational development.

The Role of Metacognitive Reading Strategies, Metacognitive Study and Learning Strategies, and Behavioral Study and Learning Strategies in Predicting Academic Success in Students With and Without a History of Reading Difficulties.

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Chevalier, Thérèse M; Parrila, Rauno; Ritchie, Krista C; Deacon, S Hélène

2017-01-01

We examined the self-reported use of reading, study, and learning strategies in university students with a history of reading difficulties (HRD; n = 77) and with no history of reading difficulties (NRD; n = 295). We examined both between-groups differences in strategy use and strategy use as a predictive measure of academic success. Participants completed online questionnaires regarding reading history and strategy use. GPA and frequency of use of academic support services were also obtained for all students. University students with HRD reported a different profile of strategy use than their NRD peers, and self-reported strategy use was differentially predictive of GPA for students with HRD and NRD. For students with HRD, the use of metacognitive reading strategies and the use of study aids predicted academic success. Implications for university student services providers are discussed. © Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2015.

A Novel Web-based Approach for Visualization and Inspection of Reading Difficulties on University Students

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mejia, Carolina; Florian-Gaviria, Beatriz; Vatrapu, Ravi

2017-01-01

reading difficulties and their characteristics, called PADA (acronym for the Spanish name Panel de Analíticas de Aprendizaje de Dislexia en Adultos), is presented. PADA is a web-based tool designed to facilitate the creation of descriptive visualizations required for a better understanding of students...

Components and Context: Exploring Sources of Reading Difficulties for Language Minority Learners and Native English Speakers in Urban Schools

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Kieffer, Michael J.; Vukovic, Rose K.

2012-01-01

Drawing on the cognitive and ecological domains within the componential model of reading, this longitudinal study explores heterogeneity in the sources of reading difficulties for language minority learners and native English speakers in urban schools. Students (N = 150) were followed from first through third grade and assessed annually on…

English Word Reading Difficulties and Orthographic Processing Weaknesses in Chinese English Bilingual Adolescents with Dyslexia

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Tong, Xiuhong; McBride, Catherine

2017-01-01

Is dyslexia in Chinese for Chinese-English bilinguals associated with difficulties in reading English, given differences in L1 and L2 orthographies? Among 11 Hong Kong Chinese adolescents with dyslexia, who were diagnosed by professional psychologists using the diagnostic criteria set out in a standardized test, and 14 adolescents without…

Differential constraints on the working memory and reading abilities of individuals with learning difficulties and typically developing children.

Science.gov (United States)

Bayliss, Donna M; Jarrold, Christopher; Baddeley, Alan D; Leigh, Eleanor

2005-09-01

This study examined the factors that constrain the working memory span performance and reading ability of individuals with generalized learning difficulties. In the study, 50 individuals with learning difficulties (LD) and 50 typically developing children (TD) matched for reading age completed two working memory span tasks. Participants also completed independent measures of the processing and storage operations involved in each working memory span task and Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices. The results showed that despite an equivalent level of working memory span, the relative importance of the constraints on working memory differed between the groups. In addition, working memory span was not closely related to word recognition or sentence comprehension performance in the LD group. These results suggest that the working memory span performance of LD and TD individuals may reflect different working memory limitations and that individuals with generalized learning difficulties may approach cognitive tasks in a qualitatively different way from that of typically developing individuals.

Effects of Semantic Ambiguity Detection Training on Reading Comprehension Achievement of English Learners with Learning Difficulties

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Jozwik, Sara L.; Douglas, Karen H.

2016-01-01

This study examined how explicit instruction in semantic ambiguity detection affected the reading comprehension and metalinguistic awareness of five English learners (ELs) with learning difficulties (e.g., attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, specific learning disability). A multiple probe across participants design (Gast & Ledford, 2010)…

Identifying College Students at Risk for Learning Disabilities: Evidence for Use of the Learning Difficulties Assessment in Postsecondary Settings

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Kane, Steven T.; Roy, Soma; Medina, Steffanie

2013-01-01

This article describes research supporting the use of the Learning Difficulties Assessment (LDA), a normed and no-cost, web-based survey that assesses difficulties with reading, writing, spelling, mathematics, listening, concentration, memory, organizational skills, sense of control, and anxiety in college students. Previous research has supported…

Grammatical Templates: Improving Text Difficulty Evaluation for Language Learners

OpenAIRE

Wang, Shuhan; Andersen, Erik

2016-01-01

Language students are most engaged while reading texts at an appropriate difficulty level. However, existing methods of evaluating text difficulty focus mainly on vocabulary and do not prioritize grammatical features, hence they do not work well for language learners with limited knowledge of grammar. In this paper, we introduce grammatical templates, the expert-identified units of grammar that students learn from class, as an important feature of text difficulty evaluation. Experimental clas...

Oral and Written Expression in Children With Reading Comprehension Difficulties.

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Carretti, Barbara; Motta, Eleonora; Re, Anna Maria

2016-01-01

Several studies have highlighted that children with reading comprehension difficulties also have problems in tasks that involve telling a story, in writing or verbally. The main differences identified regard poor comprehenders' lower level of coherence in their productions by comparison with good comprehenders. Only one study has compared poor and good comprehenders' performance in both modalities (oral and written), however, to see whether these modalities differently influence poor comprehenders' performance. We qualitatively and quantitatively compared the performance of good and poor comprehenders in oral and written narrative tasks with the aim of shedding light on this issue. Regression analyses were also used to explore the role of working memory and vocabulary in explaining individual differences. Our results showed that the two groups produced narratives of comparable length, with similar percentages of spelling mistakes, whereas they differed in terms of the quality of their narratives, regardless of the modality. These differences were qualified by analyzing the children's use of connective devices, and poor comprehenders were found to use a higher proportion of additive devices than good comprehenders. Regression analyses showed that working memory (particularly the intrusion errors measure) explained a modest part of the qualitative differences in narrative production. Implications for our theoretical understanding of poor comprehenders' profiles and education are discussed. © Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2014.

Educational Electronic Books for Supporting Emergent Literacy of Kindergarteners At-Risk for Reading Difficulties--What Do We Know so Far?

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Shamir, Adina; Korat, Ofra

2015-01-01

This article reviews the authors' findings regarding the electronic book's (e-book's) support of emergent reading among kindergarten-aged children at-risk for reading difficulties. All the studies involved use of educational e-books specially designed by the authors to promote literacy among young children in the 5-6 age group. The review focuses…

Self-Concepts and Psychological Well-Being Assessed by Beck Youth Inventory among Pupils with Reading Difficulties

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Lindeblad, Emma; Svensson, Idor; Gustafson, Stefan

2016-01-01

This study investigated the self-image and psychological well-being in 67 children and adolescents age 10-16 years with severe reading difficulties and/or dyslexia. The participants were assessed with Beck Youth Inventory regarding symptoms of depression, anxiety, and negative self-image. The results showed that the participants do not depict…

Screening for Dyslexia Using Eye Tracking during Reading.

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Nilsson Benfatto, Mattias; Öqvist Seimyr, Gustaf; Ygge, Jan; Pansell, Tony; Rydberg, Agneta; Jacobson, Christer

2016-01-01

Dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental reading disability estimated to affect 5-10% of the population. While there is yet no full understanding of the cause of dyslexia, or agreement on its precise definition, it is certain that many individuals suffer persistent problems in learning to read for no apparent reason. Although it is generally agreed that early intervention is the best form of support for children with dyslexia, there is still a lack of efficient and objective means to help identify those at risk during the early years of school. Here we show that it is possible to identify 9-10 year old individuals at risk of persistent reading difficulties by using eye tracking during reading to probe the processes that underlie reading ability. In contrast to current screening methods, which rely on oral or written tests, eye tracking does not depend on the subject to produce some overt verbal response and thus provides a natural means to objectively assess the reading process as it unfolds in real-time. Our study is based on a sample of 97 high-risk subjects with early identified word decoding difficulties and a control group of 88 low-risk subjects. These subjects were selected from a larger population of 2165 school children attending second grade. Using predictive modeling and statistical resampling techniques, we develop classification models from eye tracking records less than one minute in duration and show that the models are able to differentiate high-risk subjects from low-risk subjects with high accuracy. Although dyslexia is fundamentally a language-based learning disability, our results suggest that eye movements in reading can be highly predictive of individual reading ability and that eye tracking can be an efficient means to identify children at risk of long-term reading difficulties.

Screening for Dyslexia Using Eye Tracking during Reading.

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Mattias Nilsson Benfatto

Full Text Available Dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental reading disability estimated to affect 5-10% of the population. While there is yet no full understanding of the cause of dyslexia, or agreement on its precise definition, it is certain that many individuals suffer persistent problems in learning to read for no apparent reason. Although it is generally agreed that early intervention is the best form of support for children with dyslexia, there is still a lack of efficient and objective means to help identify those at risk during the early years of school. Here we show that it is possible to identify 9-10 year old individuals at risk of persistent reading difficulties by using eye tracking during reading to probe the processes that underlie reading ability. In contrast to current screening methods, which rely on oral or written tests, eye tracking does not depend on the subject to produce some overt verbal response and thus provides a natural means to objectively assess the reading process as it unfolds in real-time. Our study is based on a sample of 97 high-risk subjects with early identified word decoding difficulties and a control group of 88 low-risk subjects. These subjects were selected from a larger population of 2165 school children attending second grade. Using predictive modeling and statistical resampling techniques, we develop classification models from eye tracking records less than one minute in duration and show that the models are able to differentiate high-risk subjects from low-risk subjects with high accuracy. Although dyslexia is fundamentally a language-based learning disability, our results suggest that eye movements in reading can be highly predictive of individual reading ability and that eye tracking can be an efficient means to identify children at risk of long-term reading difficulties.

Reading disorders and dyslexia.

Science.gov (United States)

Hulme, Charles; Snowling, Margaret J

2016-12-01

We review current knowledge about the nature of reading development and disorders, distinguishing between the processes involved in learning to decode print, and the processes involved in reading comprehension. Children with decoding difficulties/dyslexia experience deficits in phoneme awareness, letter-sound knowledge and rapid automatized naming in the preschool years and beyond. These phonological/language difficulties appear to be proximal causes of the problems in learning to decode print in dyslexia. We review data from a prospective study of children at high risk of dyslexia to show that being at family risk of dyslexia is a primary risk factor for poor reading and children with persistent language difficulties at school entry are more likely to develop reading problems. Early oral language difficulties are strong predictors of later difficulties in reading comprehension. There are two distinct forms of reading disorder in children: dyslexia (a difficulty in learning to translate print into speech) and reading comprehension impairment. Both forms of reading problem appear to be predominantly caused by deficits in underlying oral language skills. Implications for screening and for the delivery of robust interventions for language and reading are discussed.

Identifying predictors of physics item difficulty: A linear regression approach

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Mesic, Vanes; Muratovic, Hasnija

2011-06-01

Large-scale assessments of student achievement in physics are often approached with an intention to discriminate students based on the attained level of their physics competencies. Therefore, for purposes of test design, it is important that items display an acceptable discriminatory behavior. To that end, it is recommended to avoid extraordinary difficult and very easy items. Knowing the factors that influence physics item difficulty makes it possible to model the item difficulty even before the first pilot study is conducted. Thus, by identifying predictors of physics item difficulty, we can improve the test-design process. Furthermore, we get additional qualitative feedback regarding the basic aspects of student cognitive achievement in physics that are directly responsible for the obtained, quantitative test results. In this study, we conducted a secondary analysis of data that came from two large-scale assessments of student physics achievement at the end of compulsory education in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Foremost, we explored the concept of “physics competence” and performed a content analysis of 123 physics items that were included within the above-mentioned assessments. Thereafter, an item database was created. Items were described by variables which reflect some basic cognitive aspects of physics competence. For each of the assessments, Rasch item difficulties were calculated in separate analyses. In order to make the item difficulties from different assessments comparable, a virtual test equating procedure had to be implemented. Finally, a regression model of physics item difficulty was created. It has been shown that 61.2% of item difficulty variance can be explained by factors which reflect the automaticity, complexity, and modality of the knowledge structure that is relevant for generating the most probable correct solution, as well as by the divergence of required thinking and interference effects between intuitive and formal physics knowledge

Identifying predictors of physics item difficulty: A linear regression approach

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Hasnija Muratovic

2011-06-01

Full Text Available Large-scale assessments of student achievement in physics are often approached with an intention to discriminate students based on the attained level of their physics competencies. Therefore, for purposes of test design, it is important that items display an acceptable discriminatory behavior. To that end, it is recommended to avoid extraordinary difficult and very easy items. Knowing the factors that influence physics item difficulty makes it possible to model the item difficulty even before the first pilot study is conducted. Thus, by identifying predictors of physics item difficulty, we can improve the test-design process. Furthermore, we get additional qualitative feedback regarding the basic aspects of student cognitive achievement in physics that are directly responsible for the obtained, quantitative test results. In this study, we conducted a secondary analysis of data that came from two large-scale assessments of student physics achievement at the end of compulsory education in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Foremost, we explored the concept of “physics competence” and performed a content analysis of 123 physics items that were included within the above-mentioned assessments. Thereafter, an item database was created. Items were described by variables which reflect some basic cognitive aspects of physics competence. For each of the assessments, Rasch item difficulties were calculated in separate analyses. In order to make the item difficulties from different assessments comparable, a virtual test equating procedure had to be implemented. Finally, a regression model of physics item difficulty was created. It has been shown that 61.2% of item difficulty variance can be explained by factors which reflect the automaticity, complexity, and modality of the knowledge structure that is relevant for generating the most probable correct solution, as well as by the divergence of required thinking and interference effects between intuitive and formal

Viewing Eye Movements During Reading through the Lens of Chaos Theory: How Reading Is Like the Weather

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Paulson, Eric J.

2005-01-01

This theoretical article examines reading processes using chaos theory as an analogy. Three principles of chaos theory are identified and discussed, then related to reading processes as revealed through eye movement research. Used as an analogy, the chaos theory principle of sensitive dependence contributes to understanding the difficulty in…

The Effects of a Growth Mindset Intervention on the Beliefs about Intelligence, Effort Beliefs, Achievement Goal Orientations, and Academic Self-Efficacy of LD Students with Reading Difficulties

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Baldridge, Mary Caufield

2010-01-01

The overall purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a "growth mindset" intervention on the beliefs about intelligence, effort beliefs, achievement goals, and academic self-efficacy of learning disabled (LD) students with reading difficulties. The treatment group consisted of 12 high school LD students with reading difficulties. This…

Difficulties First-Year University Mathematics Students Have in Reading Their Mathematics Textbook. Technical Report. No. 2009-1

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Shepherd, Mary D.; Selden, Annie; Selden, John

2009-01-01

This exploratory study examined the experiences and difficulties certain first-year university students displayed in reading new passages from their mathematics textbooks. We interviewed eleven precalculus and calculus students who were considered to be good at mathematics, as indicated by high ACT mathematics scores. These students were also …

Modeling Polymorphemic Word Recognition: Exploring Differences among Children with Early-Emerging and Late- Emerging Word Reading Difficulty

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Kearns, Devin M.; Steacy, Laura M.; Compton, Donald L.; Gilbert, Jennifer K.; Goodwin, Amanda P.; Cho, Eunsoo; Lindstrom, Esther R.; Collins, Alyson A.

2016-01-01

Comprehensive models of derived polymorphemic word recognition skill in developing readers, with an emphasis on children with reading difficulty (RD), have not been developed. The purpose of the present study was to model individual differences in polymorphemic word recognition ability at the item level among 5th-grade children (N = 173)…

Components and context: exploring sources of reading difficulties for language minority learners and native English speakers in urban schools.

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Kieffer, Michael J; Vukovic, Rose K

2012-01-01

Drawing on the cognitive and ecological domains within the componential model of reading, this longitudinal study explores heterogeneity in the sources of reading difficulties for language minority learners and native English speakers in urban schools. Students (N = 150) were followed from first through third grade and assessed annually on standardized English language and reading measures. Structural equation modeling was used to investigate the relative contributions of code-related and linguistic comprehension skills in first and second grade to third grade reading comprehension. Linguistic comprehension and the interaction between linguistic comprehension and code-related skills each explained substantial variation in reading comprehension. Among students with low reading comprehension, more than 80% demonstrated weaknesses in linguistic comprehension alone, whereas approximately 15% demonstrated weaknesses in both linguistic comprehension and code-related skills. Results were remarkably similar for the language minority learners and native English speakers, suggesting the importance of their shared socioeconomic backgrounds and schooling contexts.

Executive Dysfunction among Children with Reading Comprehension Deficits

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Locascio, Gianna; Mahone, E. Mark; Eason, Sarah H.; Cutting, Laurie E.

2010-01-01

Emerging research supports the contribution of executive function (EF) to reading comprehension; however, a unique pattern has not been established for children who demonstrate comprehension difficulties despite average word recognition ability (specific reading comprehension deficit; S-RCD). To identify particular EF components on which children…

Children with ADHD symptoms have a higher risk for reading, spelling and math difficulties in the GINIplus and LISAplus cohort studies.

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Darina Czamara

Full Text Available Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD and dyslexia belong to the most common neuro-behavioral childhood disorders with prevalences of around 5% in school-aged children. It is estimated that 20-60% of individuals affected with ADHD also present with learning disorders. We investigated the comorbidity between ADHD symptoms and reading/spelling and math difficulties in two on-going population-based birth cohort studies. Children with ADHD symptoms were at significantly higher risk of also showing reading/spelling difficulties or disorder (Odds Ratio (OR = 2.80, p = 6.59×10⁻¹³ as compared to children without ADHD symptoms. For math difficulties the association was similar (OR = 2.55, p = 3.63×10⁻⁰⁴. Our results strengthen the hypothesis that ADHD and learning disorders are comorbid and share, at least partially, the same underlying process. Up to date, it is not clear, on which exact functional processes this comorbidity is based.

Behavioral Attention: A Longitudinal Study of Whether and How It Influences the Development of Word Reading and Reading Comprehension among At-Risk Readers

OpenAIRE

Miller, Amanda C.; Fuchs, Douglas; Fuchs, Lynn S.; Compton, Donald L.; Kearns, Devin; Zhang, Wenjuan; Yen, Loulee; Patton, Samuel; Kirchner, Danielle

2014-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which teacher ratings of behavioral attention predicted responsiveness to word reading instruction in first grade and third-grade reading comprehension performance. Participants were 110 first grade students identified as at-risk for reading difficulties who received 20 weeks of intensive reading intervention in combination with classroom reading instruction. Path analysis indicated that teacher ratings of student attention significantly ...

Reading Difficulties in Spanish Adults with Dyslexia

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Suárez-Coalla, Paz; Cuetos, Fernando

2015-01-01

Recent studies show that dyslexia persists into adulthood, even in highly educated and well-read people. The main characteristic that adults with dyslexia present is a low speed when reading. In Spanish, a shallow orthographic system, no studies about adults with dyslexia are available; and it is possible that the consistency of the orthographic…

Protocol for Targeted School-Based Interventions for Improving Reading and Mathematics for Students With or At-Risk of Academic Difficulties in Grade 7 to 12

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dietrichson, Jens; Bøg, Martin; Filges, Trine

2016-01-01

This systematic review will examine the effects of targeted interventions to students with or at-risk of academic difficulties in grades 7 to 12 on standardized tests in reading and mathematics. We will examine interventions such as for example tutoring, cooperative learning, computer-assisted in......This systematic review will examine the effects of targeted interventions to students with or at-risk of academic difficulties in grades 7 to 12 on standardized tests in reading and mathematics. We will examine interventions such as for example tutoring, cooperative learning, computer...

The Relations among Oral and Silent Reading Fluency and Comprehension in Middle School: Implications for Identification and Instruction of Students with Reading Difficulties

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Denton, Carolyn A.; Barth, Amy E.; Fletcher, Jack M.; Wexler, Jade; Vaughn, Sharon; Cirino, Paul T.; Romain, Melissa; Francis, David J.

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relations among oral and silent reading fluency and reading comprehension for students in Grades 6 to 8 (n = 1,421) and the use of fluency scores to identify middle school students who are at risk for failure on a high-stakes reading test. Results indicated moderate positive relations between…

What can Parents' Self-report of Reading Difficulties Tell Us about Their Children's Emergent Literacy at School Entry?

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Esmaeeli, Zahra; Lundetrae, Kjersti; Kyle, Fiona E

2018-02-01

Research has linked family risk (FR) of reading difficulties (RD) with children's difficulties in emergent literacy development. This study is the first to apply parents' self-report of RD as a proxy for FR in a large sample (n = 1171) in order to test group differences in children's emergent literacy. Emergent literacy, the home literacy environment and children's interest in literacy and letters were compared across different groups of FR children around the school entry. The FR children performed lower in emergent literacy compared with not-FR children. Furthermore, when comparing FR children with one parent reporting RD and children with both parents reporting RD, moderate group differences were found in Emergent Literacy. Finally, parents' self-report of RD was a significant contributor of emergent literacy after controlling for the home literacy environment, children's gender, their interest in literacy and letters, months in kindergarten, vocabulary and parents' education. Our findings suggest that schools should monitor the reading development of children with parents self-reporting RD closely - especially if both parents self-report RD. © 2017 The Authors. Dyslexia published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. © 2017 The Authors. Dyslexia published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Motor performance and learning difficulties in schoolchildren aged 7 to 10 years old

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J. Silva

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The general objective of this study was to evaluate the motor performance of children with and without learning difficulty indicatives. Took part in the study 406 students aged 7 to 10 years old, being 231 girls (56.9% and 175 (43.1% boys enrolled in a municipal public school in São José, Santa Catarina, Brazil. The indicative of learning difficulties was verified through the TDE, while motor performance was evaluated with the MABC. Boys without learning difficulties had better performance in the majority of the abilities evaluated, beyond an association between the indicative of motor problems with learning difficulties towards writing, arithmetic, reading, and in general. On the other hand, female students of the sample with and without any indicative of learning difficulties did not differentiate themselves as to motor abilities evaluated, with an association merely between the indicative of motor problems and reading problems. Based on the differences identified between girls and boys, results call attention to the need for future research in this area, considering gender as a differential variable in this relationship.

Identifying and Addressing Student Difficulties and Misconceptions: Examples from Physics and from Materials Science and Engineering

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Rosenblatt, Rebecca

2012-01-01

Here I present my work identifying and addressing student difficulties with several materials science and physics topics. In the first part of this thesis, I present my work identifying student difficulties and misconceptions about the directional relationships between net force, velocity, and acceleration in one dimension. This is accomplished…

Differences in perceived difficulty in print and online patient education materials.

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Farnsworth, Michael

2014-01-01

Written patient education materials frequently exceed the reading ability of the general public. Patients are often intimidated by the task of reading patient education materials, perceiving the materials’ difficulty levels as prohibitive, even when they do not exceed the patients’ reading abilities. It is unclear how the delivery mechanism--print or a computer screen--affects a patient’s reading experience through his/her perception of its difficulty. To determine whether first-year college students perceived online or print-based patient education materials as more difficult to read. Convenience sampling of first-year college students. Some first-year college students perceived online patient education materials to be more difficult to read than print-based ones--even when the reading level of the patient education materials was similar. Demographic information about this sample’s high levels of digital literacy suggests that other populations might also perceive online patient education materials as more difficult to read than print-based equivalents. Patients’ perceptions of the difficulty of patient education materials influenced their ability to effectively learn from those materials. This article concludes with a call for more research into patients’ perceptions of difficulty of patient education materials in print vs on a screen.

Greater repertoire and temporal variability of cross-frequency coupling (CFC modes in resting-state neuromagnetic recordings among children with reading difficulties

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Stavros I Dimitriadis

2016-04-01

Full Text Available AbstractCross-frequency, phase-to-amplitude coupling (PAC between neuronal oscillations at rest may serve as the substrate that supports information exchange between functionally specialized neuronal populations both within and between cortical regions. The study utilizes novel algorithms to identify prominent instantaneous modes of cross-frequency coupling and their temporal stability in resting state magnetoencephalography (MEG data from 23 students experiencing severe reading difficulties (RD and 27 age-matched non-impaired readers (NI.Phase coherence estimates were computed in order to identify the prominent mode of PAC interaction for each sensor, sensor pair, and pair of frequency bands (from δ to γ at successive temporal segments of the continuous MEG record. The degree of variability in the characteristic frequency-pair PACf1-f2 modes over time was also estimated. Results revealed a wider repertoire of prominent PAC interactions in RD as compared to NI students, suggesting an altered functional substrate for information exchange between neuronal assemblies in the former group. Moreover, RD students showed significant variability in PAC modes over time. This temporal instability of PAC values was particularly prominent: (a within and between right hemisphere temporal and occipitotemporal sensors and, (b between left hemisphere frontal, temporal, and occipitotemporal sensors and corresponding right hemisphere sites. Altered modes of neuronal population coupling may help account for extant data revealing reduced, task-related neurophysiological and hemodynamic activation in left hemisphere regions involved in the reading network in RD. Moreover, the spatial distribution of pronounced instability of cross-frequency coupling modes in this group may provide an explanation for previous reports suggesting the presence of inefficient compensatory mechanisms to support reading.

Pinyin Invented Spelling in Mandarin Chinese-Speaking Children With and Without Reading Difficulties.

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Ding, Yi; Liu, Ru-De; McBride, Catherine; Zhang, Dake

2015-01-01

This study examined analytical pinyin (a phonological coding system for teaching pronunciation and lexical tones of Chinese characters) skills in 54 Mandarin-speaking fourth graders by using an invented spelling instrument that tapped into syllable awareness, phoneme awareness, lexical tones, and tone sandhi in Chinese. Pinyin invented spelling was significantly correlated with Chinese character recognition and Chinese phonological awareness (i.e., syllable deletion and phoneme deletion). In comparison to good and average readers, poor readers performed significantly worse on the invented spelling task, and a difference was also found between average and good readers. To differentiate readers at different levels, the pinyin invented spelling task, which examined both segmental and suprasegmental elements, was superior to the typical phonological awareness task, which examined segments only. Within this new task, items involving tone sandhi (Chinese language changes in which the tones of words alter according to predetermined rules) were more difficult to manipulate than were those without tone sandhi. The findings suggest that this newly developed task may be optimal for tapping unique phonological and linguistic features in reading of Chinese and examining particular tonal difficulties in struggling Chinese readers. In addition, the results suggest that phonics manipulations within tasks of phonological and tonal awareness can alter their difficulty levels. © Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2014.

An Evaluation of Verbal, Spatial, and Numerical Sequencing Scores in the WISC and WISC-R, with Special Reference to Children with Reading Difficulties.

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Moseley, David

1980-01-01

Proposes a grouping of subtests corresponding to the three-factor pattern of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) and its revised form, WISC-R, for use with children with reading difficulties. (FL)

An Exploratory Study of NNES Graduate Students' Reading Comprehension of English Journal Articles

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Chen, Kate Tzu-Ching

2017-01-01

The academic success of non-native English speaker (NNES) graduate students greatly relies on their ability to read and comprehend English journal articles (EJA). The purpose of this study was to identify NNES graduate students' comprehension difficulties and reading strategies when reading EJA. In addition, the study explored how the relationship…

Executive dysfunction among children with reading comprehension deficits.

Science.gov (United States)

Locascio, Gianna; Mahone, E Mark; Eason, Sarah H; Cutting, Laurie E

2010-01-01

Emerging research supports the contribution of executive function (EF) to reading comprehension; however, a unique pattern has not been established for children who demonstrate comprehension difficulties despite average word recognition ability (specific reading comprehension deficit; S-RCD). To identify particular EF components on which children with S-RCD struggle, a range of EF skills was compared among 86 children, ages 10 to 14, grouped by word reading and comprehension abilities: 24 average readers, 44 with word recognition deficits (WRD), and 18 S-RCD. An exploratory principal components analysis of EF tests identified three latent factors, used in subsequent group comparisons: Planning/ Spatial Working Memory, Verbal Working Memory, and Response Inhibition. The WRD group exhibited deficits (relative to controls) on Verbal Working Memory and Inhibition factors; S-RCD children performed more poorly than controls on the Planning factor. Further analyses suggested the WRD group's poor performance on EF factors was a by-product of core deficits linked to WRD (after controlling for phonological processing, this group no longer showed EF deficits). In contrast, the S-RCD group's poor performance on the planning component remained significant after controlling for phonological processing. Findings suggest reading comprehension difficulties are linked to executive dysfunction; in particular, poor strategic planning/organizing may lead to reading comprehension problems.

READING: The Nature and Difficulty Levels of Materials Read by Beginning Office Workers.

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Salzman, Gerald R.

1980-01-01

A high percentage of young people (16-24 years of age) lack essential skills in reading, writing, and arithmetic needed to become workers and citizens. The teaching of reading should be of importance to all educators, not just language arts teachers. (JOW)

Identifying Children in Middle Childhood Who Are at Risk for Reading Problems.

Science.gov (United States)

Speece, Deborah L; Ritchey, Kristen D; Silverman, Rebecca; Schatschneider, Christopher; Walker, Caroline Y; Andrusik, Katryna N

2010-06-01

The purpose of this study was to identify and evaluate a universal screening battery for reading that is appropriate for older elementary students in a response to intervention model. Multiple measures of reading and reading correlates were administered to 230 fourth-grade children. Teachers rated children's reading skills, academic competence, and attention. Children were classified as not-at-risk or at-risk readers based on a three-factor model reflecting reading comprehension, word recognition/decoding, and word fluency. Predictors of reading status included group-administered tests of reading comprehension, silent word reading fluency, and teacher ratings of reading problems. Inclusion of individually administered tests and growth estimates did not add substantial variance. The receiver-operator characteristic curve analysis yielded an area under the curve index of 0.90, suggesting this model may both accurately and efficiently screen older elementary students with reading problems.

A Modified Delphi to Identify the Significant Works Pertaining to the Understanding of Reading Comprehension and Content Analysis of the Identified Works

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Zunker, Norma D.; Pearce, Daniel L.

2012-01-01

The first part of this study explored the significant works pertaining to the understanding of reading comprehension using a Modified Delphi Method. A panel of reading comprehension experts identified 19 works they considered to be significant to the understanding of reading comprehension. The panel of experts identified the reasons they…

An International Schools Perspective on Diagnosis and Treatment of Reading Disabilities.

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Balajthy, Ernest

A diagnostic evaluation was conducted on Thomas, a fifth-grade student, to identify levels of reading and major word identification strategies. Initial testing conducted at Thomas' home revealed that he appeared to have an unusually positive attitude toward reading, considering the difficulties it had presented him since kindergarten. Learning…

Do reading and spelling share orthographic representations? Evidence from developmental dysgraphia.

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Hepner, Christopher; McCloskey, Michael; Rapp, Brenda

Both spelling and reading depend on knowledge of the spellings of words. Despite this commonality, observed dissociations between spelling and reading in cases of acquired and developmental deficits suggest some degree of independence between the cognitive mechanisms involved in these skills. In this paper, we examine the relationship between spelling and reading in two children with developmental dysgraphia. For both children, we identified significant deficits in spelling that affected the processing of orthographic long-term memory representations of words. We then examined their reading skills for similar difficulties. Even with extensive testing, we found no evidence of a reading deficit for one of the children. We propose that there may be an underlying difficulty that specifically affects the learning of orthographic word representations for spelling. These results lead us to conclude that at least some components of lexical orthographic representation and processing develop with considerable independence in spelling and reading.

Differences in Perceived Difficulty in Print and Online Patient Education Materials

Science.gov (United States)

Farnsworth, Michael

2014-01-01

Context: Written patient education materials frequently exceed the reading ability of the general public. Patients are often intimidated by the task of reading patient education materials, perceiving the materials’ difficulty levels as prohibitive, even when they do not exceed the patients’ reading abilities. It is unclear how the delivery mechanism—print or a computer screen—affects a patient’s reading experience through his/her perception of its difficulty. Objective: To determine whether first-year college students perceived online or print-based patient education materials as more difficult to read. Design: Convenience sampling of first-year college students. Results: Some first-year college students perceived online patient education materials to be more difficult to read than print-based ones—even when the reading level of the patient education materials was similar. Demographic information about this sample’s high levels of digital literacy suggests that other populations might also perceive online patient education materials as more difficult to read than print-based equivalents. Patients’ perceptions of the difficulty of patient education materials influenced their ability to effectively learn from those materials. Conclusion: This article concludes with a call for more research into patients’ perceptions of difficulty of patient education materials in print vs on a screen. PMID:25662526

Gender Fair Efficacy of Concept Mapping Tests in Identifying Students' Difficulties in High School Organic Chemistry

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Gafoor, Kunnathodi Abdul; Shilna, V.

2014-01-01

In view of the perceived difficulty of organic chemistry unit for high schools students, this study examined the usefulness of concept mapping as a testing device to assess students' difficulty in the select areas. Since many tests used for identifying students misconceptions and difficulties in school subjects are observed to favour one or the…

Differences in Perceived Difficulty in Print and Online Patient Education Materials

OpenAIRE

Farnsworth, Michael

2014-01-01

Patients are often intimidated by the task of reading patient education materials, perceiving the materials’ difficulty levels as prohibitive, even when they do not exceed the patients’ reading abilities. Some first-year college students perceived online patient education materials to be more difficult to read than print-based ones—even when the reading level of the patient education materials was similar. Patients’ perceptions of the difficulty of patient education materials influenced their...

Reading comprehension in Parkinson's disease.

Science.gov (United States)

Murray, Laura L; Rutledge, Stefanie

2014-05-01

Although individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) self-report reading problems and experience difficulties in cognitive-linguistic functions that support discourse-level reading, prior research has primarily focused on sentence-level processing and auditory comprehension. Accordingly, the authors investigated the presence and nature of reading comprehension in PD, hypothesizing that (a) individuals with PD would display impaired accuracy and/or speed on reading comprehension tests and (b) reading performances would be correlated with cognitive test results. Eleven adults with PD and 9 age- and education-matched control participants completed tests that evaluated reading comprehension; general language and cognitive abilities; and aspects of attention, memory, and executive functioning. The PD group obtained significantly lower scores on several, but not all, reading comprehension, language, and cognitive measures. Memory, language, and disease severity were significantly correlated with reading comprehension for the PD group. Individuals in the early stages of PD without dementia or broad cognitive deficits can display reading comprehension difficulties, particularly for high- versus basic-level reading tasks. These reading difficulties are most closely related to memory, high-level language, and PD symptom severity status. The findings warrant additional research to delineate further the types and nature of reading comprehension impairments experienced by individuals with PD.

Musical Tale as a Reading Comprehension Resource in the Classroom

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Lucía Martínez Vázquez

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Reading comprehension is a complex process, whose teaching involves multiple factors, as highlighted by Psychology, Didactics of languages, and others disciplines. Nevertheless, theoretical frameworks need to be applied by means of innovative practices and resources. The aim of this work is to present an innovation implemented in 2016-2017 in the third year of primary school, in the frame of an action-research, with the objective of reinforcing the learning of reading. In order to cope whit the comprehension difficulties involved in attention and concentration abilities, a didactic intervention was designed with the musical tale as a resource. Different approaches to this sort of text, integrated in diverse activities, facilitated the learning of active listening of tales, expressing reading, and guided the attention of readers to metacognitive strategies. The experience allows better identify some difficulties in the reading process, and prove the usefulness of the musical tale, as a meaningful resource to support the teaching and learning of reading.

Survey of Poetry Reading Strategy as the Modern Tool to Identify Poetry Reading Strategies

Science.gov (United States)

Ebrahimi, Shirin Shafiei; Zainal, Zaidah

2016-01-01

This study examines common strategies that English as a Foreign language (EFL) students employ when reading English poetry. To identify the strategies, a survey was designed for data collection from TESL students. The result shows that students significantly tend to use the strategies that require their creativity to construct new ideas in the…

Does reading strategy instruction improve students’ comprehension?

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Oyetunji, Christianah Oluwatoyin

2013-12-01

Full Text Available This paper describes the effect of reading strategy instruction on Second Language (L2 students’ reading comprehension in a Botswana College of Education. The intervention programme was implemented based on the observation that some trainee teachers failed to improve on their L2 proficiency after spending a year in the L2 classroom. Prior to the intervention, difficulty in reading and comprehending had been identified as one of the contributing factors to their failure to improve on their proficiency level. A reading comprehension test was used to collect data from participants who were trainee teachers at a College of Education in Botswana before and after the intervention. The six-week intervention programme focused on seven reading strategies, namely the use of background knowledge, self-questioning, inferencing, rereading, drawing conclusions, identifying main ideas and summarising. The findings suggest that strategy training can increase L2 students’ reading comprehension. Based on the findings, it is recommended that strategy training be introduced into the L2 syllabus of the primary school teacher trainees in all Botswana Colleges of Education.

Processes of Learning with Regard to Students’ Learning Difficulties in Mathematics

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Amalija Zakelj

2014-06-01

Full Text Available In the introduction, we write about the process of learning mathematics: the development of mathematical concepts, numerical and spatial imagery on reading and understanding of texts, etc. The central part of the paper is devoted to the study, in which we find that identifying the learning processes associated with learning difficulties of students in mathematics, is not statistically significantly different between primary school teachers and teachers of mathematics. Both groups expose the development of numerical concepts, logical reasoning, and reading and understanding the text as the ones with which difficulties in learning mathematics appear the most frequently. All the processes of learning that the teachers assessed as the ones that represent the greatest barriers to learning have a fairly uniform average estimates of the degree of complexity, ranging from 2.6 to 2.8, which is very close to the estimate makes learning very difficult.

The Precursors of Double Dissociation between Reading and Spelling in a Transparent Orthography

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Torppa, Minna; Georgiou, George K.; Niemi, Pekka; Lerkkanen, Marja-Kristiina; Poikkeus, Anna-Maija

2017-01-01

Research and clinical practitioners have mixed views whether reading and spelling difficulties should be combined or seen as separate. This study examined the following: (a) if double dissociation between reading and spelling can be identified in a transparent orthography (Finnish) and (b) the cognitive and noncognitive precursors of this…

Identifying and addressing specific student difficulties in advanced thermal physics

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Smith, Trevor I.

As part of an ongoing multi-university research study on student understanding of concepts in thermal physics at the upper division, I identified several student difficulties with topics related to heat engines (especially the Carnot cycle), as well as difficulties related to the Boltzmann factor. In an effort to address these difficulties, I developed two guided-inquiry worksheet activities (a.k.a. tutorials) for use in advanced undergraduate thermal physics courses. Both tutorials seek to improve student understanding of the utility and physical background of a particular mathematical expression. One tutorial focuses on a derivation of Carnot's theorem regarding the limit on thermodynamic efficiency, starting from the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The other tutorial helps students gain an appreciation for the origin of the Boltzmann factor and when it is applicable; focusing on the physical justification of its mathematical derivation, with emphasis on the connections between probability, multiplicity, entropy, and energy. Student understanding of the use and physical implications of Carnot's theorem and the Boltzmann factor was assessed using written surveys both before and after tutorial instruction within the advanced thermal physics courses at the University of Maine and at other institutions. Classroom tutorial sessions at the University of Maine were videotaped to allow in-depth scrutiny of student successes and failures following tutorial prompts. I also interviewed students on various topics related to the Boltzmann factor to gain a more complete picture of their understanding and inform tutorial revisions. Results from several implementations of my tutorials at the University of Maine indicate that students did not have a robust understanding of these physical principles after lectures alone, and that they gain a better understanding of relevant topics after tutorial instruction; Fisher's exact tests yield statistically significant improvement at the

How university students with reading difficulties are supported in achieving their goals.

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Stack-Cutler, Holly L; Parrila, Rauno K; Jokisaari, Markku; Nurmi, Jari-Erik

2015-01-01

We examine (a) what social ties university students with a history of reading difficulty (RD) report assisting them to achieve their goals, (b) outlets available for developing social ties, (c) resources mobilized within these relationships, and (d) the impact of social ties' status on academic achievement. Participants were 107 university students with RD who were currently completing or had recently completed a university degree. Results showed that university students with RD named friends, parents, and significant others (e.g., boy/girlfriend, spouse) as social ties most often. Personal social ties were developed through social media networking sites and within close relationships, and institutional social ties through academic centers and university general services, among others. Resources mobilized among personal and institutional social ties included emotional and social support, advice and planning, writing and studying help, and goal setting. Institutional social ties also afforded job search assistance, accommodations, skill development, financial support, and mental health services. Finally, the status of employed, but not student, social ties explained academic achievement. © Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2013.

Dyslexic Children and Their Difficulties in Reading Persian Orthography

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Nesari, Shahram Jamali; Kamari, Elahe

2014-01-01

This research investigated the word reading performance of Persian speaking dyslexic children through the use of a reading test. For this reason, 15 Persian elementary developmental dyslexic student with the mean age of 9.6, (SD= 1.5) and 15 Persian unimpaired elementary student with the mean age of 9.6 (SD= 1.4) were compared. The performance of…

Reading Disabilities and PASS Reading Enhancement Programme

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Mahapatra, Shamita

2016-01-01

Children experience difficulties in reading either because they fail to decode the words and thus are unable to comprehend the text or simply fail to comprehend the text even if they are able to decode the words and read them out. Failure in word decoding results from a failure in phonological coding of written information, whereas reading…

Mislabeled Reading and Learning Disabilities: Assessment and Treatment for Reading Difficulties in Students with Learning Disabilities

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Sze, Susan

2009-01-01

Reading affects a plethora of areas in life. Students with learning disabilities often fall into this category due to a lack of practice with reading and less time to focus on building skills. This paper examines the background, the relationship between reading and learning disabilities, the characteristics of students with learning disabilities…

Parâmetros de fluência e tipos de erros na leitura de escolares com indicação de dificuldades para ler e escrever Fluency parameters and types of errors in the reading of students with signs of reading and writing difficulties

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Cinthya Eiko Kawano

2011-03-01

school grade, error categories, reading fluency parameters, and the correlation between these variables. METHODS: Sixty children (48% girls, 3rd to the 5th grade students of public elementary schools, were evaluated. Thirty (ten from each grade who presented signs of reading and writing difficulties composed the Research Group. Thirty children, paired by age and school grade, classified by their teachers as good readers, composed the Control Group. All subjects read aloud two lists of isolated items (38 words and 29 pseudowords and a text. The reading sessions were recorded and transcribed, and parameters and errors were analyzed. RESULTS: Differences were found between the groups, and the Research Group had worse performances in all the studied variables. The following types of reading errors were more frequent in this group: non-compliance with the context-independent matching rule, omissions and additions, non-compliance with stress, complex errors, and refusals. Fluency rates and values were lower in the students with reading complaints, when compared to the good readers. Negative correlations were identified between reading fluency variables and the different types of errors, with different correlation values for each group, and showed that, in the present sample, the total number of errors decreased with school progression. CONCLUSION: The students with signs of reading and writing difficulties had worse reading fluency performance, and higher number of errors in all the grades studied. The correlations found evidenced the influence of the type of error on reading fluency, according to different patterns for each group.

The struggling reader: Identifying and addressing reading problems successfully at an early stage

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Le Cordeur, Michael

2010-12-01

Full Text Available The standard of reading of learners in the intermediate phase is cause for considerable concern. In this article, the intermediate phase refers to grades 4, 5 and 6 (roughly ages 10 – 12. According to the 2008 Evaluation Assessment Tests for Reading, only 15% of learners in Grade 6 achieved the required literacy level. Clearly, reading achievement is a problem in South Africa. Although approximately 4% of any given population experience neurological reading problems, the focus of this article is on the significant number of learners in the intermediate phase who experience reading problems and the generic causes of reading problems for learners in general. The intent is to alert teachers and parents to the characteristics of a struggling reader so that the problem can be identified and addressed early. Firstly, ways in which learning problems are manifested are described. Secondly, a discussion of various types of reading problems, of which four, namely poor reading comprehension, inadequate reading fluency, a lack of vocabulary and a negative attitude towards reading, are discussed in depth. Strategies for struggling readers are presented and recommendations are made. The conclusion is that learners who experience reading problems can learn to read successfully when given the necessary support.

Protocol for Targeted School-Based Interventions for Improving Reading and Mathematics for Students With or At-Risk of Academic Difficulties in Grade K to 6

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Dietrichson, Jens; Bøg, Martin; Eiberg, Misja

2016-01-01

This systematic review will examine the effects of targeted interventions to students with or at-risk of academic difficulties in Kindergarten to grade 6 on standardized tests in reading and mathematics. We will examine interventions such as for example tutoring, cooperative learning, computer...

Improving reading in the primary grades.

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Duke, Nell K; Block, Meghan K

2012-01-01

Almost fifteen years have passed since the publication of the National Research Council's seminal report Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, which provided research-based recommendations on what could be done to better position students in prekindergarten through third grade for success in grade four and above. This article by Nell Duke and Meghan Block first examines whether specific key recommendations from the report have been implemented in U.S. classrooms. They find that recommendations regarding increased access to kindergarten and greater attention to and improvement of students' word-reading skills have been widely adopted. Others have not. Vocabulary and comprehension, long neglected in the primary grades, still appear to be neglected. Contrary to the report's recommendations, attention to building conceptual and content knowledge in science and social studies has actually decreased in the past fifteen years. In other words, the easier-to-master skills are being attended to, but the broader domains of accomplishment that constitute preparation for comprehension and learning in the later grades--vocabulary knowledge, comprehension strategy use, and conceptual and content knowledge--are being neglected. Near stagnation in fourth-grade students' comprehension achievement is thus unsurprising. The authors then turn to research and reviews of research on improving primary-grade reading published since 1998, when Preventing Reading Difficulties was issued. They discuss several instructional approaches identified as effective in improving word-reading skill, vocabulary and conceptual knowledge, comprehension strategies, and reading outside of school; they discuss advances in interventions for struggling readers, and in whole-school literacy reform. Duke and Block then identify three key obstacles that have prevented widespread adoption of these best practices in teaching reading. The first obstacle is a short-term orientation toward instruction and

Identifying Engineering Students' English Sentence Reading Comprehension Errors: Applying a Data Mining Technique

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Tsai, Yea-Ru; Ouyang, Chen-Sen; Chang, Yukon

2016-01-01

The purpose of this study is to propose a diagnostic approach to identify engineering students' English reading comprehension errors. Student data were collected during the process of reading texts of English for science and technology on a web-based cumulative sentence analysis system. For the analysis, the association-rule, data mining technique…

Assessing College-Level Learning Difficulties and "At Riskness" for Learning Disabilities and ADHD: Development and Validation of the Learning Difficulties Assessment

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Kane, Steven T.; Walker, John H.; Schmidt, George R.

2011-01-01

This article describes the development and validation of the "Learning Difficulties Assessment" (LDA), a normed and web-based survey that assesses perceived difficulties with reading, writing, spelling, mathematics, listening, concentration, memory, organizational skills, sense of control, and anxiety in college students. The LDA is designed to…

Visual and Ocular Control Anomalies in Relation to Reading Difficulty.

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Bedwell, C. H.; And Others

1980-01-01

The visual behavior under both static and dynamic viewing conditions was examined in a group of 13-year-old successful readers, compared with a group of the same age retarded in reading. Research supports the notion that problems of dynamic binocular vision and control while reading are important. (Author/KC)

Reading Stories to Learn Math: Mathematics Vocabulary Instruction for Children with Early Numeracy Difficulties.

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Hassinger-Das, Brenna; Jordan, Nancy C; Dyson, Nancy

2015-12-01

The present study involved examining whether a storybook reading intervention targeting mathematics vocabulary, such as "equal," "more," and "less," and associated number concepts would increase at-risk children's vocabulary knowledge and number competencies. Children with early numeracy difficulties (N = 124) were recruited from kindergarten classes in four schools. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: a storybook number competencies (SNC) intervention, a number sense intervention, or a business-as-usual control. Interventions were carried out in groups of four children over 8 weeks (24 thirty-minute sessions). Findings demonstrated that the SNC intervention group outperformed the other groups on measures of mathematics vocabulary, both in terms of words that were closely aligned to the intervention and those that were not. There was no effect of the SNC intervention, however, on general mathematics measures, suggesting a need to provide the mathematics vocabulary work along with more intensive instruction in number concepts.

Intelligence test at preschool-age predicts reading difficulty among school-aged very low birth weight infants in Japan.

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Takeuchi, Akihito; Ogino, Tatsuya; Koeda, Tatsuya; Oka, Makio; Yorifuji, Takashi; Takayanagi, Toshimitsu; Sato, Kazuo; Sugino, Noriko; Bonno, Motoki; Nakamura, Makoto; Kageyama, Misao

2018-05-21

To elucidate whether the results of an intelligence test at preschool age are predictive of reading difficulty (RD) at school age among very low birth weight infants (VLBWI). Subjects were 48 Japanese children whose birth weight was Intelligence Scale for Children-III (WISC-III) during the last grade of kindergarten, and four reading tasks during the second to fourth grade of elementary school. All participants had a full-scale intelligence quotient score of 85 or higher. Subjects with a standard deviation reading time score greater than 2.0 in two or more tasks were considered to have RD. We evaluated the associations between each WISC-III score and RD using logistic regression analyses. Furthermore, we performed receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis to determine a cutoff WISC-III score predictive of RD. In the mutually-adjusted model, the adjusted odds ratio per 1 score increase of freedom from distractibility (FD) was 0.832 (95% confidence interval: 0.720-0.962). In the ROC analysis, an FD score of memory and attention, is a risk factor for RD at school age among Japanese VLBWI. Further investigation is desired to clarify the cognitive deficits underlying RD in Japanese-speaking preterm children, and to establish appropriate interventions for these children. Copyright © 2018 The Japanese Society of Child Neurology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The inadequacy of Individual Educational Program (IEP) goals for high school students with word-level reading difficulties.

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Catone, William V; Brady, Susan A

2005-06-01

This investigation analyzed goals from the Individual Educational Programs (IEPs) of 54 high school students with diagnosed reading disabilities in basic skills (decoding and/or word identification). Results showed that for 73% of the students, the IEPs written when they were in high school failed to specify any objectives regarding their acute difficulties with basic skills. IEPs from earlier points in the students' educations were also reviewed, as available. For 23 of the students, IEPs were present in the students' files for three time points: elementary school (ES), middle school (MS), and high school (HS). Another 20 students from the sample of 54 had IEPs available for two time points (HS and either MS or ES). Comparisons with the IEPs from younger years showed a pattern of decline from ES to MS to HS in the percentage of IEPs that commented on or set goals pertaining to weaknesses in decoding. These findings suggest that basic skills deficits that persist into the upper grade levels are not being sufficiently targeted for remediation, and help explain why older students frequently fail to resolve their reading problems.

The Relationship between FL Reading Strategies and FL Reading Proficiency: A Study on Turkish EFL Learners

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Gönen, Ipek Kuru

2015-01-01

Reading in FL possesses certain challenges for FL readers such as difficulty in inferring underlying messages in texts and dealing with unfamiliar cultural load. All these challenges may be associated with FL learners' reading proficiency and their use of FL reading strategies especially while reading academic materials. This study aims at…

Foreign Language Reading Anxiety among Yemeni Secondary School Students

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Yehia Ahmed Y. Al-Sohbani

2018-03-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study was to examine Foreign Language (FL reading anxiety level of Arabicspeaking Yemeni students learning English as a foreign language (n = 106. It utilized (a a background information questionnaire, (b the Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS, and (c students' English school marks. Results of the study showed that learners of English experienced an above moderate level of FL reading anxiety. There was no significant difference between students' FL reading anxiety and their gender. However, a statistically reliable difference between the means of public and private schools regarding their FL reading anxiety in favor of the private school. Moreover, a positive correlation was found between students' FL reading anxiety and their type of school. Difficulties of uncertainty, pronunciation of English words, unfamiliar topic, unknown vocabulary, reading aloud, using word by word translation, unfamiliar English culture and history, unfamiliar grammar, English letters and symbols were identified as the major sources of FL reading anxiety.

Identifying and Addressing Student Difficulties with the Millikan Oil Drop Experiment

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Klassen, Stephen

2009-05-01

The Millikan oil drop experiment has been characterized as one of the ‘most beautiful’ physics experiments of all time and, certainly, as one of the most frustrating of all the exercises in the undergraduate physics laboratory. A literature review reveals that work done on addressing student difficulties in performing the oil drop experiment has, to date, not achieved a significant measure of success. The historical background of the oil drop experiment is well established in the literature from the perspective of historians of science, but not so from the perspective of teachers and students of science. A summary of historical details surrounding the original experiment suitable for use in revising the instructional approach is presented. Both Millikan and his graduate student, Fletcher, are featured with the view to emphasizing details that humanize the protagonists and that are likely to raise student interest. The issue of the necessary reliance on presuppositions in doing speculative research is raised, both from the historical account and from the insights of university physics students who heard the historical account and performed the experiment. Difficulties current students have in performing the experiment are discussed from the perspective of Hodson (Stud Sci Educ 22:85-142, 1993) framework and the students’ own observations. Last, further historical materials are outlined that may be used to encourage student insight into the fundamental nature of electricity. It is proposed that these aspects are essential as a basis for identifying and addressing student difficulties with the Millikan oil drop experiment.

Assessing children's inference generation: what do tests of reading comprehension measure?

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Bowyer-Crane, Claudine; Snowling, Margaret J

2005-06-01

Previous research suggests that children with specific comprehension difficulties have problems with the generation of inferences. This raises important questions as to whether poor comprehenders have poor comprehension skills generally, or whether their problems are confined to specific inference types. The main aims of the study were (a) using two commonly used tests of reading comprehension to classify the questions requiring the generation of inferences, and (b) to investigate the relative performance of skilled and less-skilled comprehenders on questions tapping different inference types. The performance of 10 poor comprehenders (mean age 110.06 months) was compared with the performance of 10 normal readers (mean age 112.78 months) on two tests of reading comprehension. A qualitative analysis of the NARA II (form 1) and the WORD comprehension subtest was carried out. Participants were then administered the NARA II, WORD comprehension subtest and a test of non-word reading. The NARA II was heavily reliant on the generation of knowledge-based inferences, while the WORD comprehension subtest was biased towards the retention of literal information. Children identified by the NARA II as having comprehension difficulties performed in the normal range on the WORD comprehension subtests. Further, children with comprehension difficulties performed poorly on questions requiring the generation of knowledge-based and elaborative inferences. However, they were able to answer questions requiring attention to literal information or use of cohesive devices at a level comparable to normal readers. Different reading tests tap different types of inferencing skills. Lessskilled comprehenders have particular difficulty applying real-world knowledge to a text during reading, and this has implications for the formulation of effective intervention strategies.

A Field Study in the Application of CONSULT-I to the Problem of Inconsistency in Diagnosis and Treatment of Reading Difficulties. Proffitt Grant Final Report.

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Newman, Anabel P.; Metz, Elizabeth

A field study tested the application of the CONSULT-I (R) program, which uses artificial intelligence with statistical pattern recognition in constructing a diagnosis and recommending treatment of reading difficulties. Participants in the field study came from 10 southern and central Indiana school districts, both public and parochial, and one…

Readability, Reading Ability, and Readership.

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Kern, Richard P.; And Others

This paper presents data describing large differences between the reading difficulty levels of printed materials used in certain military occupational specialties (MOSs) and the relatively lower reading ability levels of men assigned to these MOSs. Initial data explore the relationship between reading ability and utilization of printed materials…

Prefrontal mediation of the reading network predicts intervention response in dyslexia.

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Aboud, Katherine S; Barquero, Laura A; Cutting, Laurie E

2018-04-01

A primary challenge facing the development of interventions for dyslexia is identifying effective predictors of intervention response. While behavioral literature has identified core cognitive characteristics of response, the distinction of reading versus executive cognitive contributions to response profiles remains unclear, due in part to the difficulty of segregating these constructs using behavioral outputs. In the current study we used functional neuroimaging to piece apart the mechanisms of how/whether executive and reading network relationships are predictive of intervention response. We found that readers who are responsive to intervention have more typical pre-intervention functional interactions between executive and reading systems compared to nonresponsive readers. These findings suggest that intervention response in dyslexia is influenced not only by domain-specific reading regions, but also by contributions from intervening domain-general networks. Our results make a significant gain in identifying predictive bio-markers of outcomes in dyslexia, and have important implications for the development of personalized clinical interventions. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Do Tasks Make a Difference? Accounting for Heterogeneity of Performance of Children with Reading Difficulties on Tasks of Executive Function: Findings from a Meta-Analysis

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Booth, Josephine N.; Boyle, James M. E.; Kelly, Steve W.

2010-01-01

Research studies have implicated executive functions in reading difficulties (RD). But while some studies have found children with RD to be impaired on tasks of executive function other studies report unimpaired performance. A meta-analysis was carried out to determine whether these discrepant findings can be accounted for by differences in the…

Teaching assistants’ performance at identifying common introductory student difficulties in mechanics revealed by the Force Concept Inventory

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Alexandru Maries

2016-05-01

Full Text Available The Force Concept Inventory (FCI has been widely used to assess student understanding of introductory mechanics concepts by a variety of educators and physics education researchers. One reason for this extensive use is that many of the items on the FCI have strong distractor choices which correspond to students’ alternate conceptions in mechanics. Instruction is unlikely to be effective if instructors do not know the common alternate conceptions of introductory physics students and explicitly take into account students’ initial knowledge states in their instructional design. Here, we discuss research involving the FCI to evaluate one aspect of the pedagogical content knowledge of teaching assistants (TAs: knowledge of introductory student alternate conceptions in mechanics as revealed by the FCI. For each item on the FCI, the TAs were asked to identify the most common incorrect answer choice of introductory physics students. This exercise was followed by a class discussion with the TAs related to this task, including the importance of knowing student difficulties in teaching and learning. Then, we used FCI pretest and post-test data from a large population (∼900 of introductory physics students to assess the extent to which TAs were able to identify alternate conceptions of introductory students related to force and motion. In addition, we carried out think-aloud interviews with graduate students who had more than two semesters of teaching experience in recitations to examine how they reason about the task. We find that while the TAs, on average, performed better than random guessing at identifying introductory students’ difficulties with FCI content, they did not identify many common difficulties that introductory physics students have after traditional instruction. We discuss specific alternate conceptions, the extent to which TAs are able to identify them, and results from the think-aloud interviews that provided valuable information

The Quality of Evidence in Reading Fluency Intervention for Korean Readers with Reading Difficulties and Disabilities

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Park, Yujeong; Kim, Min Kyung

2015-01-01

This study aimed to provide information about the quality of the evidence on reading fluency instruction for at-risk students and students with reading/learning disabilities as a way to evaluate whether an instructional strategy is evidence-based and has potential for classroom use. An extensive search process with inclusion and exclusion criteria…

The Language Demands of Science Reading in Middle School

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Fang, Zhihui

2006-04-01

The language used to construct knowledge, beliefs, and worldviews in school science is distinct from the social language that students use in their everyday ordinary life. This difference is a major source of reading difficulty for many students, especially struggling readers and English-language learners. This article identifies some of the linguistic challenges involved in reading middle-school science texts and suggests several teaching strategies to help students cope with these challenges. It is argued that explicit attention to the unique language of school science should be an integral part of science literacy pedagogy.

SRBreak: A read-depth and split-read framework to identify breakpoints of different events inside simple copy-number variable regions

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HOANG T NGUYEN

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Copy-number variation (CNV has been associated with increased risk of complex diseases. High throughput sequencing (HTS technologies facilitate the detection of copy-number variable regions (CNVRs and their breakpoints. This helps in understanding genome structures of genomes as well as their evolution process. Various approaches have been proposed for detecting CNV breakpoints, but currently it is still challenging for tools based on a single analysis method to identify breakpoints of CNVs. It has been shown, however, that pipelines which integrate multiple approaches are able to report more reliable breakpoints. Here, based on HTS data, we have developed a pipeline to identify approximate breakpoints (±10 bp relating to different ancestral events within a specific CNVR. The pipeline combines read-depth and split-read information to infer breakpoints, using information from multiple samples to allow an imputation approach to be taken. The main steps involve using a normal mixture model to cluster samples into different groups, followed by simple kernel-based approaches to maximise information obtained from read-depth and split-read approaches, after which common breakpoints of groups are inferred. The pipeline uses split-read information directly from CIGAR strings of BAM files, without using a re-alignment step. On simulated data sets, it was able to report breakpoints for very low-coverage samples including those for which only single-end reads were available. When applied to three loci from existing human resequencing data sets (NEGR1, LCE3, IRGM the pipeline obtained good concordance with results from the 1000 Genomes Project (92%, 100% and 82%, respectively.The package is available at https://github.com/hoangtn/SRBreak, and also as a docker-based application at https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/hoangtn/srbreak/.

Early Writing Deficits in Preschoolers with Oral Language Difficulties

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Puranik, Cynthia S.; Lonigan, Christopher J.

2012-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether preschool children with language impairments (LI), a group with documented reading difficulties, also experience writing difficulties. In addition, a purpose was to examine if the writing outcomes differed when children had concomitant cognitive deficits in addition to oral language problems. A…

The "RAP" on Reading Comprehension

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Hagaman, Jessica L.; Luschen, Kati; Reid, Robert

2010-01-01

Reading problems are one of the most frequent reasons students are referred for special education services and the disparity between students with reading difficulties and those who read successfully appears to be increasing. As a result, there is now an emphasis on early intervention programs such as RTI. In many cases, early intervention in…

Measuring adult literacy students' reading skills using the Gray Oral Reading Test.

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Greenberg, Daphne; Pae, Hye Kyeong; Morris, Robin D; Calhoon, Mary Beth; Nanda, Alice O

2009-12-01

There are not enough reading tests standardized on adults who have very low literacy skills, and therefore tests standardized on children are frequently administered. This study addressed the complexities and problems of using a test normed on children to measure the reading comprehension skills of 193 adults who read at approximately third through fifth grade reading grade equivalency levels. Findings are reported from an analysis of the administration of Form A of the Gray Oral Reading Tests-Fourth Edition (Wiederholt & Bryant, 2001a, b). Results indicated that educators and researchers should be very cautious when interpreting test results of adults who have difficulty reading when children's norm-referenced tests are administered.

The Single Item Literacy Screener: Evaluation of a brief instrument to identify limited reading ability

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Chew Lisa D

2006-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Reading skills are important for accessing health information, using health care services, managing one's health and achieving desirable health outcomes. Our objective was to assess the diagnostic accuracy of the Single Item Literacy Screener (SILS to identify limited reading ability, one component of health literacy, as measured by the S-TOFHLA. Methods Cross-sectional interview with 999 adults with diabetes residing in Vermont and bordering states. Participants were randomly recruited from Primary Care practices in the Vermont Diabetes Information System June 2003 – December 2004. The main outcome was limited reading ability. The primary predictor was the SILS. Results Of the 999 persons screened, 169 (17% had limited reading ability. The sensitivity of the SILS in detecting limited reading ability was 54% [95% CI: 47%, 61%] and the specificity was 83% [95% CI: 81%, 86%] with an area under the Receiver Operating Characteristics Curve (ROC of 0.73 [95% CI: 0.69, 0.78]. Seven hundred seventy (77% screened negative on the SILS and 692 of these subjects had adequate reading skills (negative predictive value = 0.90 [95% CI: 0.88, 0.92]. Of the 229 who scored positive on the SILS, 92 had limited reading ability (positive predictive value = 0.4 [95% CI: 0.34, 0.47]. Conclusion The SILS is a simple instrument designed to identify patients with limited reading ability who need help reading health-related materials. The SILS performs moderately well at ruling out limited reading ability in adults and allows providers to target additional assessment of health literacy skills to those most in need. Further study of the use of the SILS in clinical settings and with more diverse populations is warranted.

A Canine Audience: The Effect of Animal-Assisted Therapy on Reading Progress among Students Identified with Learning Disabilities

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Griess, Julie Omodio

2010-01-01

This study explored the use of animal-assisted therapy with students identified with a learning disability and limited reading success. Initially, reading progress was defined as the participants' comprehension rate obtained from an oral Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) passage. The nature of the Informal Reading Inventory requires the…

A Self-report of reading disabilities for adults: ATLAS

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Almudena Giménez

2015-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper a self-report questionnaire on reading-writing difficulties for adults in Spanish (ATLAS is presented. Studies that use self-report questionnaires as a tool for screening of reading-writing difficulties in adults were reviewed. Two studies were carried out to determine the validity and reliability of ATLAS. The first study was aimed to select the critical items and to assess their reliability and their ability to discriminate. In the second study the assessment reported through the answers to the questionnaire was contrasted with the results of psychometric tests. Results showed that (a items were suitable descriptors for adult difficulties, (b there were significant correlations between self-report scores and reading measures, and (c the items discriminate between good and poor readers. The results of this study demonstrated that ATLAS is a sensitive tool to screen adults with reading difficulties. As a further advantage, ATLAS is an easy-to-use and time-saving instrument.

Shared cognitive impairments and aetiology in ADHD symptoms and reading difficulties.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Celeste H M Cheung

Full Text Available Twin studies indicate that the frequent co-occurrence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD symptoms and reading difficulties (RD is largely due to shared genetic influences. Both disorders are associated with multiple cognitive impairments, but it remains unclear which cognitive impairments share the aetiological pathway, underlying the co-occurrence of the symptoms. We address this question using a sample of twins aged 7-10 and a range of cognitive measures previously associated with ADHD symptoms or RD.We performed multivariate structural equation modelling analyses on parent and teacher ratings on the ADHD symptom domains of inattention and hyperactivity, parent ratings on RD, and cognitive data on response inhibition (commission errors, CE, reaction time variability (RTV, verbal short-term memory (STM, working memory (WM and choice impulsivity, from a population sample of 1312 twins aged 7-10 years.Three cognitive processes showed significant phenotypic and genetic associations with both inattention symptoms and RD: RTV, verbal WM and STM. While STM captured only 11% of the shared genetic risk between inattention and RD, the estimates increased somewhat for WM (21% and RTV (28%; yet most of the genetic sharing between inattention and RD remained unaccounted for in each case.While response inhibition and choice impulsivity did not emerge as important cognitive processes underlying the co-occurrence between ADHD symptoms and RD, RTV and verbal memory processes separately showed significant phenotypic and genetic associations with both inattention symptoms and RD. Future studies employing longitudinal designs will be required to investigate the developmental pathways and direction of causality further.

Relationship between oculomotor scanning determined by the DEM test and a contextual reading test in schoolchildren with reading difficulties.

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Palomo-Alvarez, Catalina; Puell, María C

2009-09-01

The relationship between oculomotor scanning and reading in poor readers of primary school age is not well known. This study was designed to assess this relationship by determining mean Developmental Eye Movement (DEM) test times and reading speeds in a Spanish non-clinical population of children with poor reading skills but without dyslexia. We conducted a cross-sectional study on 81 poor readers (8-11 years of age) in the third to fifth grades recruited from 11 elementary schools in Madrid, Spain. In each subject with best spectacle correction, oculomotor scanning was measured using the DEM test, and reading speed (words per minute) was assessed by a standardized Spanish contextual reading test. Mean horizontal DEM times were higher than normative values for children in the third, fourth and fifth grades, by 20 seconds, 12 seconds, and 3 seconds respectively. Mean reading speeds were 18 words per minute lower than the norm for the third and fourth grades respectively, and 30 words per minute lower than the norm for the fifth grade. Reading speeds were significantly related to horizontal DEM times (r = -0.53, p school children at an early stage.

Designing Caregiver-Implemented Shared-Reading Interventions to Overcome Implementation Barriers

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Logan, Jessica R.; Damschroder, Laura

2015-01-01

Purpose This study presents an application of the theoretical domains framework (TDF; Michie et al., 2005), an integrative framework drawing on behavior-change theories, to speech-language pathology. Methods A multistep procedure was used to identify barriers affecting caregivers' implementation of shared-reading interventions with their children with language impairment (LI). The authors examined caregiver-level data corresponding to implementation issues from two randomized controlled trials and mapped these to domains in the TDF as well as empirically validated behavior-change techniques. Results Four barriers to implementation were identified as potentially affecting caregivers' implementation: time pressures, reading difficulties, discomfort with reading, and lack of awareness of benefits. These were mapped to 3 TDF domains: intentions, beliefs about capabilities, and skills. In turn, 4 behavior-change techniques were identified as potential vehicles for affecting these domains: reward, feedback, model, and encourage. An ongoing study is described that is determining the effects of these techniques for improving caregivers' implementation of a shared-reading intervention. Conclusions A description of the steps to identifying barriers to implementation, in conjunction with an ongoing experiment that will explicitly determine whether behavior-change techniques affect these barriers, provides a model for how implementation science can be used to identify and overcome implementation barriers in the treatment of communication disorders. PMID:26262941

A Longitudinal Examination of the Persistence of Late Emerging Reading Disabilities.

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Etmanskie, Jill M; Partanen, Marita; Siegel, Linda S

2016-01-01

There are some children who encounter unexpected reading difficulties in the fourth grade. This phenomenon has been described as late emerging reading disabilities (LERD). Using Grade 4 as a starting point, this study examined the reading development of 964 children between kindergarten and Grade 7. The results showed that 72.0% of children had typical reading performance in Grade 4, whereas there was 0.7% with poor word reading, 12.6% with poor reading comprehension, 2.5% with poor word reading and comprehension, and 12.2% with borderline performance. We also showed that there were similar proportions of children who had early versus late emerging reading difficulties; however, most of the late emerging poor readers recovered by Grade 7. Furthermore, our study showed that poor comprehenders showed poorer performance than typical readers on word reading, pseudoword decoding, and spelling between Grade 1 and Grade 7 and poorer performance on a working memory task in kindergarten. Overall, this study showed that most children recover from late emerging reading problems and that working memory may be an early indicator for reading comprehension difficulties. © Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2014.

Child-centered reading intervention: See, talk, dictate, read, write!

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muhammet BAŞTUĞ

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Poor reading achievement of children in elementary schools has been one of the major concerns in education. The aim of this study is to examine the effectiveness of a child-centered reading intervention in eliminating the reading problems of a student with poor reading achievement. The research was conducted with a student having difficulty in reading. A reading intervention was designed that targeted multiple areas of reading and aimed to improve reading skills through the use of multiple strategies. This intervention is child-centered and includes visual aids, talking, dictating, reading and writing stages. The study was performed in 35 sessions consisting of stages of a single sentence (5 sessions, two sentences (5 sessions, three sentences (20 sessions and the text stage (5 sessions. The intervention sessions were audio-taped. These recordings and the written responses to the reading comprehension questions provided the data for analysis. The findings on the reading intervention revealed positive outcomes. The student exhibited certain improvements at the levels of reading, reading rate and reading comprehension. These results were discussed in the literature and the findings suggest that child-centered reading strategies such as talking, dictating and writing should be the main focus of instruction for students with low reading literacy achievement to enable these students to meet the demands of the curriculum.

Reading Prosody in Spanish Dyslexics

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Suárez-Coalla, Paz; Álvarez-Cañizo, Marta; Martínez, Cristina; García, Noemí; Cuetos, Fernando

2016-01-01

Reading becomes expressive when word and text reading are quick, accurate and automatic. Recent studies have reported that skilled readers use greater pitch changes and fewer irrelevant pauses than poor readers. Given that developmental dyslexics have difficulty acquiring and automating the alphabetic code and developing orthographic…

Difficulties in avoiding exposure to allergens in cosmetics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, Kristian

2007-01-01

The aim of the study is to describe the ability of patients with allergic contact dermatitis to avoid exposure to allergens in cosmetics. The study is a questionnaire survey among 382 patients with contact allergy to preservatives and fragrances, included from 3 dermatological clinics. The questi......The aim of the study is to describe the ability of patients with allergic contact dermatitis to avoid exposure to allergens in cosmetics. The study is a questionnaire survey among 382 patients with contact allergy to preservatives and fragrances, included from 3 dermatological clinics....... The questionnaire included questions about the level of difficulty in reading labels of ingredients on cosmetics and about patients' strategies to avoid substances they were allergic to. It also included questions about eczema severity as well as about educational level. 46% of the patients found it difficult...... or extremely difficult to read the ingredient labelling of cosmetics, and this finding was significantly related to low educational level. Patients allergic to formaldehyde and methyldibromo glutaronitrile experienced the worst difficulties, while patients with fragrance allergy found ingredient label reading...

Difficulty Identifying Feelings, Distress Tolerance and Compulsive Buying: Analyzing the Associations to Inform Therapeutic Strategies

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Rose, Paul; Segrist, Daniel J.

2012-01-01

Difficulty identifying feelings (a component of alexithymia) and distress tolerance both appear to play a role in impulse-control problems. The goal of the present study was to build upon past research by developing a model of the relations between these constructs and compulsive buying. Participants from the United States and Canada completed a…

Difficulty identifying feelings and automatic activation in the fusiform gyrus in response to facial emotion.

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Eichmann, Mischa; Kugel, Harald; Suslow, Thomas

2008-12-01

Difficulties in identifying and differentiating one's emotions are a central characteristic of alexithymia. In the present study, automatic activation of the fusiform gyrus to facial emotion was investigated as a function of alexithymia as assessed by the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale. During 3 Tesla fMRI scanning, pictures of faces bearing sad, happy, and neutral expressions masked by neutral faces were presented to 22 healthy adults who also responded to the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. The fusiform gyrus was selected as the region of interest, and voxel values of this region were extracted, summarized as means, and tested among the different conditions (sad, happy, and neutral faces). Masked sad facial emotions were associated with greater bilateral activation of the fusiform gyrus than masked neutral faces. The subscale, Difficulty Identifying Feelings, was negatively correlated with the neural response of the fusiform gyrus to masked sad faces. The correlation results suggest that automatic hyporesponsiveness of the fusiform gyrus to negative emotion stimuli may reflect problems in recognizing one's emotions in everyday life.

Reading Comprehension and Autism in the Primary General Education Classroom

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Nguyen, Neal Nghia; Leytham, Patrick; Schaefer Whitby, Peggy; Gelfer, Jeffrey I.

2015-01-01

Reading comprehension is a critical building block for effective early literacy development. Many students with autism spectrum disorder demonstrate difficulties in reading comprehension. These difficulties may be attributed to deficits in Theory of Mind, Weak Central Coherence, and Executive Functioning. Given the rise in the number of students…

Reading with a Purpose: Communicative Reading Tasks for the Foreign Language Classroom. ERIC Digest.

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Knutson, Elizabeth M.

In describing reading proficiency--the relative difficulty or ease that an individual reader experiences reading a particular text--researchers have recognized the importance of both text- and reader-based factors. This digest focuses on the factor of purpose, as determined by the reader or the instructional context. Having a purpose means having…

Speech, language, and reading skills in 10-year-old children with palatal clefts: The impact of additional conditions.

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Feragen, Kristin Billaud; Aukner, Ragnhild; Særvold, Tone K; Hide, Øydis

2017-03-01

speech, in children with a cleft, in order to identify potential problems as early as possible. Study designs need to take additional difficulties into account, so that potential problems with language and reading are not ascribed the cleft diagnosis, and can be followed by appropriate treatment and interventions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Long-Term Outcomes of Early Reading Intervention

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Hurry, Jane; Sylva, Kathy

2007-01-01

This study explores the long-term effectiveness of two differing models of early intervention for children with reading difficulties: Reading Recovery and a specific phonological training. Approximately 400 children were pre-tested, 95 were assigned to Reading Recovery, 97 to Phonological Training and the remainder acted as controls. In the short…

Early preschool processing abilities predict subsequent reading outcomes in bilingual Spanish-Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI).

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Aguilar-Mediavilla, Eva; Buil-Legaz, Lucía; Pérez-Castelló, Josep A; Rigo-Carratalà, Eduard; Adrover-Roig, Daniel

2014-01-01

Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) have severe language difficulties without showing hearing impairments, cognitive deficits, neurological damage or socio-emotional deprivation. However, previous studies have shown that children with SLI show some cognitive and literacy problems. Our study analyses the relationship between preschool cognitive and linguistic abilities and the later development of reading abilities in Spanish-Catalan bilingual children with SLI. The sample consisted of 17 bilingual Spanish-Catalan children with SLI and 17 age-matched controls. We tested eight distinct processes related to phonological, attention, and language processing at the age of 6 years and reading at 8 years of age. Results show that bilingual Spanish-Catalan children with SLI show significantly lower scores, as compared to typically developing peers, in phonological awareness, phonological memory, and rapid automatized naming (RAN), together with a lower outcome in tasks measuring sentence repetition and verbal fluency. Regarding attentional processes, bilingual Spanish-Catalan children with SLI obtained lower scores in auditory attention, but not in visual attention. At the age of 8 years Spanish-Catalan children with SLI had lower scores than their age-matched controls in total reading score, letter identification (decoding), and in semantic task (comprehension). Regression analyses identified both phonological awareness and verbal fluency at the age of 6 years to be the best predictors of subsequent reading performance at the age of 8 years. Our data suggest that language acquisition problems and difficulties in reading acquisition in bilingual children with SLI might be related to the close interdependence between a limitation in cognitive processing and a deficit at the linguistic level. After reading this article, readers will be able to: identify their understanding of the relation between language difficulties and reading outcomes; explain how processing

Self-reported learning difficulties and dietary intake in Norwegian adolescents.

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Øverby, Nina Cecilie; Lüdemann, Eva; Høigaard, Rune

2013-11-01

The academic performance of children impacts future educational attainment which may increase socioeconomic status which again influences their health. One of several factors that might affect academic performance is the diet. The aim of this study was to investigate the cross sectional relation between diet and self-reported reading-, writing-, and mathematical difficulties in Norwegian adolescents. In total, 475 ninth- and tenth-grade students out of 625 eligible ones from four different secondary schools in three different municipalities in Vest-Agder County, Norway, participated, giving a participation rate of 77%. The students filled in a questionnaire with food frequency questions of selected healthy and unhealthy food items, questions of meal frequency and different learning difficulties. Regular breakfast was significantly associated with decreased odds of both writing and reading difficulties (OR: 0.44 (0.2-0.8), p = 0.01) and mathematical difficulties (OR: 0.33 (0.2-0.6), p ≤ 0.001). In addition, having lunch, dinner and supper regularly were associated with decreased odds of mathematical difficulties. Further, a high intake of foods representing a poor diet (sugar-sweetened soft drinks, sweets, chocolate, savory snacks, pizza and hot dogs) was significantly associated with increased odds of mathematical difficulties. Having a less-frequent intake of unhealthy foods and not skipping meals are associated with decreased odds of self-reported learning difficulties in Norwegian adolescents in this study. The results of this study support the need for a larger study with a more representative sample.

Phonological working memory and reading in students with dyslexia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carolina Alves Ferreira De Carvalho

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Purpose: To investigate parameters related to fluency, reading comprehension and phonological processing (operational and short-term memory and identify potential correlation between the variables in Dyslexia and in the absence of reading difficulties. Method: One hundred and fifteen students from the third to eighth grade of elementary school were grouped into a Control Group (CG and Group with Dyslexia (GDys. Reading of words, pseudowords and text (decoding; listening and reading comprehension; phonological short-term and working memory (repetition of pseudowords and Digit Span were evaluated. Results: The comparison of the groups showed significant differences in decoding, phonological short-term memory (repetition of pseudowords and answers to text-connecting questions (TC on reading comprehension, with the worst performances identified for GDys. In this group there were negative correlations between pseudowords repetition and TC answers and total score, both on listening comprehension. No correlations were found between operational and short-term memory (Digit Span and parameters of fluency and reading comprehension in dyslexia. For the sample without complaint, there were positive correlations between some parameters of reading fluency and repetition of pseudowords and also between answering literal questions in listening comprehension and repetition of digits on the direct and reverse order. There was no correlation with the parameters of reading comprehension. Conclusion: GDys and CG showed similar performance in listening comprehension and in understanding of explicit information and gap-filling inference on reading comprehension. Students of GDys showed worst performance in reading decoding, phonological short-term memory (pseudowords and on inferences that depends on textual cohesion understanding in reading. There were negative correlations between pseudowords repetition and TC answers and total score, both in listening comprehension.

Phonological working memory and reading in students with dyslexia.

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de Carvalho, Carolina A F; Kida, Adriana de S B; Capellini, Simone A; de Avila, Clara R B

2014-01-01

To investigate parameters related to fluency, reading comprehension and phonological processing (operational and short-term memory) and identify potential correlation between the variables in Dyslexia and in the absence of reading difficulties. One hundred and fifteen students from the third to eighth grade of elementary school were grouped into a Control Group (CG) and Group with Dyslexia (GDys). Reading of words, pseudowords and text (decoding); listening and reading comprehension; phonological short-term and working memory (repetition of pseudowords and Digit Span) were evaluated. The comparison of the groups showed significant differences in decoding, phonological short-term memory (repetition of pseudowords) and answers to text-connecting questions (TC) on reading comprehension, with the worst performances identified for GDys. In this group there were negative correlations between pseudowords repetition and TC answers and total score, both on listening comprehension. No correlations were found between operational and short-term memory (Digit Span) and parameters of fluency and reading comprehension in dyslexia. For the sample without complaint, there were positive correlations between some parameters of reading fluency and repetition of pseudowords and also between answering literal questions in listening comprehension and repetition of digits on the direct and reverse order. There was no correlation with the parameters of reading comprehension. GDys and CG showed similar performance in listening comprehension and in understanding of explicit information and gap-filling inference on reading comprehension. Students of GDys showed worst performance in reading decoding, phonological short-term memory (pseudowords) and on inferences that depends on textual cohesion understanding in reading. There were negative correlations between pseudowords repetition and TC answers and total score, both in listening comprehension.

Learners' Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review

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Gilakjani, Abbas Pourhosein; Sabouri, Narjes Banou

2016-01-01

Listening is one of the most important skills in English language learning. When students listen to English language, they face a lot of listening difficulties. Students have critical difficulties in listening comprehension because universities and schools pay more attention to writing, reading, and vocabulary. Listening is not an important part…

Functional Anatomy of Listening and Reading Comprehension during Development

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Berl, Madison M.; Duke, Elizabeth S.; Mayo, Jessica; Rosenberger, Lisa R.; Moore, Erin N.; VanMeter, John; Ratner, Nan Bernstein; Vaidya, Chandan J.; Gaillard, William Davis

2010-01-01

Listening and reading comprehension of paragraph-length material are considered higher-order language skills fundamental to social and academic functioning. Using ecologically relevant language stimuli that were matched for difficulty according to developmental level, we analyze the effects of task, age, neuropsychological skills, and post-task performance on fMRI activation and hemispheric laterality. Areas of supramodal language processing are identified, with the most robust region being l...

Functional anatomy of listening and reading comprehension during development.

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Berl, Madison M; Duke, Elizabeth S; Mayo, Jessica; Rosenberger, Lisa R; Moore, Erin N; VanMeter, John; Ratner, Nan Bernstein; Vaidya, Chandan J; Gaillard, William Davis

2010-08-01

Listening and reading comprehension of paragraph-length material are considered higher-order language skills fundamental to social and academic functioning. Using ecologically relevant language stimuli that were matched for difficulty according to developmental level, we analyze the effects of task, age, neuropsychological skills, and post-task performance on fMRI activation and hemispheric laterality. Areas of supramodal language processing are identified, with the most robust region being left-lateralized activation along the superior temporal sulcus. Functionally, this conjunction has a role in semantic and syntactic processing, leading us to refer to this conjunction as "comprehension cortex." Different from adults, supramodal areas for children include less extensive inferior frontal gyrus but more extensive right cerebellum and right temporal pole. Broader neuroanatomical pathways are recruited for reading, reflecting the more active processing and larger set of cognitive demands needed for reading compared to listening to stories. ROI analyses reveal that reading is a less lateralized language task than listening in inferior frontal and superior temporal areas, which likely reflects the difficulty of the task as children in this study are still developing their reading skills. For listening to stories, temporal activation is stable by age four with no correlations with age, neuropsychological skills or post-task performance. In contrast, frontal activation during listening to stories occurs more often in older children, and frontal activation is positively correlated with better performance on comprehension questions, suggesting that the activation of frontal networks may reflect greater integration and depth of story processing. 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Profiling classroom reading comprehension development practices ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Of specific concern is the lack of representation of the sampled South African learners at the PIRLS international benchmarks, revealing a distinct lack of their development of thinking and reasoning abilities for reading comprehension. To shed light on potential reasons for learners' reading comprehension difficulties, this ...

Reading and Teaching the Novel, Volume 3.

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Arnold, Roslyn M., Ed.

This volume on reading and teaching the novel contains six articles: "Close Reading: The Novel in the Senior School" by S. E. Lee discusses the advantages of rereading and analytical reading in high school; "Teaching 'The Great Gatsby'" by David Mallick discusses the difficulties of teaching this novel and provides a lesson plan; "The Operation of…

A Three-Year Longitudinal Study of Reading and Spelling Difficulty in Chinese Developmental Dyslexia: The Matter of Morphological Awareness.

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Tong, Xiuhong; McBride, Catherine; Lo, Jason Chor Ming; Shu, Hua

2017-11-01

In the present study, we used a three-time point longitudinal design to investigate the associations of morphological awareness to word reading and spelling in a small group of those with and without dyslexia taken from a larger sample of 164 Hong Kong Chinese children who remained in a longitudinal study across ages 6, 7 and 8. Among those 164 children, 15 had been diagnosed as having dyslexia by professional psychologists, and 15 other children manifested average reading ability and had been randomly selected from the sample for comparison. All children were administered a battery of tasks including Chinese character recognition, word dictation, morphological awareness, phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming. Multivariate analysis of variance and predictive discriminate analysis were performed to examine whether the dyslexic children showed differences in the cognitive-linguistic tasks in comparison with controls. Results suggested that the dyslexic groups had poorer performance in morphological awareness and RAN across all 3 years. However, phonological awareness was not stable in distinguishing the groups. Findings suggest that morphological awareness is a relatively strong correlate of spelling difficulties in Chinese, but phonological awareness is not. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Adult Age Differences in Eye Movements During Reading: The Evidence From Chinese.

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Wang, Jingxin; Li, Lin; Li, Sha; Xie, Fang; Chang, Min; Paterson, Kevin B; White, Sarah J; McGowan, Victoria A

2018-04-16

Substantial evidence indicates that older readers of alphabetic languages (e.g., English and German) compensate for age-related reading difficulty by employing a more risky reading strategy in which words are skipped more frequently. The effects of healthy aging on reading behavior for nonalphabetic languages, like Chinese, are largely unknown, although this would reveal the extent to which age-related changes in reading strategy are universal. Accordingly, the present research used measures of eye movements to investigate adult age differences in Chinese reading. The eye movements of young (18-30 years) and older (60+ years) Chinese readers were recorded. The older adults exhibited typical patterns of age-related reading difficulty. But rather than employing a more risky reading strategy compared with the younger readers, the older adults read more carefully by skipping words infrequently, making shorter forward eye movements, and fixating closer to the beginnings of two-character target words in sentences. In contrast with the findings for alphabetic languages, older Chinese readers appear to compensate for age-related reading difficulty by employing a more careful reading strategy. Age-related changes in reading strategy therefore appear to be language specific, rather than universal, and may reflect the specific visual and linguistic requirements of the writing system.

Read-Aloud Accommodations, Expository Text, and Adolescents with Learning Disabilities

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Meyer, Nancy K.; Bouck, Emily C.

2017-01-01

Adolescents with learning disabilities in reading have difficulties with reading and understanding difficult gradelevel curricular material. One frequently used method of support is using read-aloud accommodations, which can be live read-alouds or text-to-speech (TTS) read-alouds. A single case alternating treatment design was used to examine the…

Cognitive Training and Reading Remediation

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Mahapatra, Shamita

2015-01-01

Reading difficulties are experienced by children either because they fail to decode the words and thus are unable to comprehend the text or simply fail to comprehend the text even if they are able to decode the words and read them out. Failure in word decoding results from a failure in phonological coding of written information, whereas, reading…

Music education for improving reading skills in children and adolescents with dyslexia.

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Cogo-Moreira, Hugo; Andriolo, Régis B; Yazigi, Latife; Ploubidis, George B; Brandão de Ávila, Clara Regina; Mari, Jair J

2012-08-15

Dyslexia (or developmental dyslexia or specific reading disability) is a specific learning disorder that has a neurobiological origin. It is marked by difficulties with accurate or fluent recognition of words and poor spelling in people who have average or above average intelligence and these difficulties cannot be attributed to another cause, for example, poor vision, hearing difficulty, or lack of socio-environmental opportunities, motivation, or adequate instruction. Studies have correlated reading skills with musical abilities. It has been hypothesized that musical training may be able to remediate timing difficulties, improve pitch perception, or increase spatial awareness, thereby having a positive effect on skills needed in the development of language and literacy. To study the effectiveness of music education on reading skills (that is, oral reading skills, reading comprehension, reading fluency, phonological awareness, and spelling) in children and adolescents with dyslexia. We searched the following electronic databases in June 2012: CENTRAL (2012, Issue 5), MEDLINE (1948 to May Week 4 2012 ), EMBASE (1980 to 2012 Week 22), CINAHL (searched 7 June 2012), LILACS (searched 7 June 2012), PsycINFO (1887 to May Week 5 2012), ERIC (searched 7 June 2012), Arts and Humanities Citation Index (1970 to 6 June 2012), Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Social Sciences and Humanities (1990 to 6 June 2012), and WorldCat (searched 7 June 2012). We also searched the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) and reference lists of studies. We did not apply any date or language limits. We planned to include randomized controlled trials. We looked for studies that included at least one of our primary outcomes. The primary outcomes were related to the main domain of the reading: oral reading skills, reading comprehension, reading fluency, phonological awareness, and spelling, measured through validated instruments. The secondary outcomes were self

Comparison of reading performance tests concerning difficulty of sentences and paragraphs and their reliability

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Brussee, T.; van Nispen, R.M.A.; Klerkx, E.M.F.J.; Knol, D.L.; van Rens, G.H.M.B.

2015-01-01

In research and practice, sentences or paragraphs of reading tests may be randomly chosen to assess reading performance. This means that in addition to test reliability, all sentences or paragraphs should be reliable and equally difficult to read. The sentences and paragraphs of five (un-)

Assistive technology as reading interventions for children with reading impairments with a one-year follow-up.

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Lindeblad, Emma; Nilsson, Staffan; Gustafson, Stefan; Svensson, Idor

2017-10-01

This pilot study investigated the possible transfer effect on reading ability in children with reading difficulties after a systematic intervention to train and compensate for reading deficiencies by using applications in smartphones and tablets. The effects of using assistive technology (AT) one year after the interventions were completely studied. School related motivation, independent learning and family relations were also considered. 35 pupils aged 10-12 years participated. They were assessed five times with reading tests. The participants, their parents and teachers were surveyed with questionnaires regarding their experience of using AT. The data from the assessments were analyzed with paired t-tests and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. The data from the questionnaires were analyzed using content analysis. The paper shows that using AT can create transfer effects on reading ability one year after the interventions were finished. This means that reading impaired children may develop at the same rate as non-impaired readers. Also, increased school motivation and an increase in independent learning and family effects have been shown. This paper provides implications in how to facilitate reading impaired pupils' learning process and realizes the need to challenge the concept of reading to change to fit modern means of gaining information. Implications for rehabilitation Children with reading impairment could benefit from assistive technology in regards of their reading development process and increase their chances of not falling behind peers. Assistive technology as applications in smartphones and tablets may aid children with reading impairment to have an equal platform for learning in school as their peers without reading difficulties. Assistive technology could facilitate the information gaining process and subsequently increase motivation to learn and increase interest in reading activities. Assistive technology had wider effects on its users: stigmatizing

Annual research review: the nature and classification of reading disorders--a commentary on proposals for DSM-5.

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Snowling, Margaret J; Hulme, Charles

2012-05-01

This article reviews our understanding of reading disorders in children and relates it to current proposals for their classification in DSM-5. There are two different, commonly occurring, forms of reading disorder in children which arise from different underlying language difficulties. Dyslexia (as defined in DSM-5), or decoding difficulty, refers to children who have difficulty in mastering the relationships between the spelling patterns of words and their pronunciations. These children typically read aloud inaccurately and slowly, and experience additional problems with spelling. Dyslexia appears to arise principally from a weakness in phonological (speech sound) skills, and there is good evidence that it can be ameliorated by systematic phonic teaching combined with phonological awareness training. The other major form of reading difficulty is reading comprehension impairment. These children read aloud accurately and fluently, but have difficulty understanding what they have read. Reading comprehension impairment appears to arise from weaknesses in a range of oral language skills including poor vocabulary knowledge, weak grammatical skills and difficulties in oral language comprehension. We suggest that the omission of reading comprehension impairment from DSM-5 is a serious one that should be remedied. Both dyslexia and reading comprehension impairment are dimensional in nature, and show strong continuities with other disorders of language. We argue that recognizing the continuities between reading and language disorders has important implications for assessment and treatment, and we note that the high rates of comorbidity between reading disorders and other seemingly disparate disorders (including ADHD and motor disorders) raises important challenges for understanding these disorders. © 2011 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry © 2011 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

The relationship between component skills, reading experience, and reading comprehension in Danish 3rd graders

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rønberg, Louise Flensted-Jensen; Petersen, Dorthe Klint

data sets were obtained from 179 Danish Grade 3 pupils. Participants were given a standard reading comprehension test requiring multiple-choice answers to six different texts of various length and type. Orthographic and phonological coding, as well as non-verbal problem solving were assessed by means......Purpose The main aim of this study was to investigate the contribution of aspects of vocabulary, word reading abilities, and reading experience to reading comprehension, and to analyse sub-samples of students with comprehension difficulties. Method The study employed a cross-sectional design. Full......: path, street, road, river). Results Data analyses showed that in the entire sample, skills of semantic lexical structuring and reading experience made strong contributions to reading comprehension. Analyses of the pupils below the 25%-percentile in reading comprehension revealed that for the vast...

Integration of a framework with a learning management system for detection, assessment and assistance of university students with reading difficulties

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carolina Mejía Corredor

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Rev.esc.adm.neg Dyslexia is a common learning disability in Spanish-speaking university students, and requires special attention from higher educational institutions in order to support affected individuals during their learning process. In previous studies, a framework to detect, assess and assist university students with reading difficulties related to dyslexia was developed. In this paper, the integration of this framework with a Learning Management System (LMS is presented. Two case studies were performed to test the functionality and the usability of this integration. The first case study was carried out with 20 students, while the second one with four teachers. The results show that both students and teachers were satisfied with the integration performed in Moodle.ce, among others.

Reading problems and dyslexia : Identification, intervention and treatment within a RTI framework

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Scheltinga, F.

2017-01-01

This thesis focuses on the characteristics of reading problems and dyslexia and its treatment. Reading development and reading difficulties have drawn interest of many researchers. Accurate and fast word decoding is important for reading fluency and this in turn contributes to reading comprehension.

[Reading ability of junior high school students in relation to self-evaluation and depression].

Science.gov (United States)

Yamashita, Toshiya; Hayashi, Takashi

2012-01-01

Guidelines for the diagnosis of reading disorders in elementary school students were published recently in Japan. On the basis of these guidelines, we administrated reading test batteries to 43 Japanese junior high-school students from grade two. The reading test consisted of single sounds, single words, and single sentences. We evaluated the reading speed and the number of reading errors made by the test takers; their performance was compared with the normal value for elementary school students in grade six, as stated in the guidelines. The reading ability of the junior high-school students was not higher than that of the elementary school students. Seven students (16.3%) were found to have reading difficulties (RD group) and they met the criterion for diagnosis of reading disorder as per the guidelines. Three students had difficulties in reading single sounds and single words, but they faced no problems when reading single sentences. It was supposed that the strategies used by the students for reading sentences may have differed from those used for reading single sounds or single words. No significant differences were found between the RD and non-RD group students on scores of scholastic self-evaluation, self-esteem, and depressive symptoms. Therefore, reading difficulty did not directly influence the level of self-evaluation or depression.

University Students' Reading of Their First-Year Mathematics Textbooks

Science.gov (United States)

Shepherd, Mary D.; Selden, Annie; Selden, John

2012-01-01

This article reports the observed behaviors and difficulties that 11 precalculus and calculus students exhibited in reading new passages from their mathematics textbooks. To gauge the "effectiveness" of these students' reading, we asked them to attempt straightforward mathematical tasks, based directly on what they had just read. The…

Beginning Reading: Are We Doing Only Half the Job?

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Willems, Arnold L.

1979-01-01

Current theories about teaching children to read overemphasize use of the left brain hemisphere. Children with a right-hemisphere dominance are likely to experience difficulties unless reading experiences are planned which capitalize on right-brain characteristics: divergent thinking and creative activities, hands-on experiences, and free reading.…

Understanding Risk for Reading Difficulties in Children with Language Impairment

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Murphy, Kimberly A.; Justice, Laura M.; O'Connell, Ann A.; Pentimonti, Jill M.; Kaderavek, Joan N.

2016-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to retrospectively examine the preschool language and early literacy skills of kindergarten good and poor readers, and to determine the extent to which these skills predict reading status. Method: Participants were 136 children with language impairment enrolled in early childhood special education classrooms.…

Effects of Phonological Training on the Reading and Reading-Related Abilities of Hong Kong Children with Dyslexia

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Li-Chih Wang

2017-10-01

Full Text Available This study aimed to investigate phonological awareness training by examining outcomes among Chinese children who learn Chinese without phonetic system training. Fifty-six Hong Kong children from the 3rd to 6th grades were recruited. Two-thirds of the children had been officially identified as dyslexic by the local government, and the remainder were considered high risk for dyslexia. The children were divided equally into a control group and an experimental group, with the groups matched as closely as possible by age and gender. Children in the experimental group were trained by onset-rime-level phonological training. The training lasted ~3 weeks, with 15 daily sessions lasting ~20 min each. Our results indicated that children in the experimental group made significant improvements in Chinese character reading, onset awareness, rime awareness, and rapid naming after training. The association between phonological awareness and Chinese character reading, especially the association between rime awareness and Chinese character reading, also changed after training. The benefits of phonological awareness training were more obvious for children younger than 10 years old. The results of the present study can be extended to provide another approach to Chinese learning for children suffering from reading difficulties who are not responding to the usual approach in their region.

Identifying Student and Teacher Difficulties in Interpreting Atomic Spectra Using a Quantum Model of Emission and Absorption of Radiation

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Savall-Alemany, Francisco; Domènech-Blanco, Josep Lluís; Guisasola, Jenaro; Martínez-Torregrosa, Joaquín

2016-01-01

Our study sets out to identify the difficulties that high school students, teachers, and university students encounter when trying to explain atomic spectra. To do so, we identify the key concepts that any quantum model for the emission and absorption of electromagnetic radiation must include to account for the gas spectra and we then design two…

Reading and listening comprehension and their relation to inattention and hyperactivity.

Science.gov (United States)

Cain, Kate; Bignell, Simon

2014-03-01

Children with diagnoses of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) frequently have reading problems. To date, it is not clear whether poor reading is associated with both inattention and hyperactivity and also whether poor reading comprehension is the result of poor word reading skills or more general language comprehension weaknesses. We report two studies to examine how reading and listening comprehension skills are related to inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity. Separate groups of 7- to 11-year-olds participated in each study. In both studies, we used teacher ratings of inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity to identify three groups at risk of ADHD: poor attention, high hyperactivity, poor attention and high hyperactivity, and also same-age controls. In Study 1, we explored how inattention and hyperactivity predicted reading after controlling for non-verbal IQ and vocabulary. In Study 2, we compared listening and reading comprehension in these groups. Poor attention was related to poor reading comprehension, although the relation was partially mediated by word reading skill (Study 1). Groups with high hyperactivity had weak listening comprehension relative to reading comprehension (Study 2). These results indicate that the reading comprehension problems of children with attention difficulties are related to poor word reading and that listening comprehension is particularly vulnerable in children at risk of ADHD. © 2013 The British Psychological Society.

Dyslexia and English: Degree of Difficulties Faced by the Students with Dyslexia while Learning English

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Paraskevi Kaperoni

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This research aims to investigate the hypothesis that students diagnosed with dyslexia face a greater amount of difficulty when they attempt to learn a foreign language and especially English. On a survey carried out in the form of a questionnaire, two groups of students completed the same questionnaire regarding their difficulty to learn the basic skills such as reading, writing, listening, and speaking. The questions mostly focused on the difficulty they may face in spelling, reading, and listening which are the main aspects of the language dyslexic students’ score lower than students without dyslexia. The answers were evaluated with the use of the statistical method of t-test. The findings of the survey displayed a great difference on the score chosen by the two teams, which indicates the greater degree of difficulty the dyslexic students face confirming the original hypothesis.

Reading for Meaning: Reading Comprehension Skills in ASD and the Role of Oral Language, Central Coherence, and Executive Function

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Davidson, Meghan M.

2016-01-01

Reading comprehension is a complex interactional process whereby the accumulated meaning of sounds, words, and sentences is integrated to form a meaningful representation of text. It is well established that many individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have reading comprehension difficulties, but less is understood about the underlying…

Difficulties faced by eighth grade students in the learning of linear equation problems at a high school in Heredia

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Gilberto Chavarría Arroyo

2014-06-01

Full Text Available The current article presents the results of a study that aimed to analyze the difficulties faced by eighth grade students when learning to solve algebraic problems based on linear equations with one unknown variable. The participants were learners with low average performance in mathematics at a high school in Heredia. The research followed a naturalistic paradigm and the case study method with a qualitative approach. Different techniques like class observations, questionnaires to students, non-structured interviews to teachers and interviews to the learners were applied. The research helped to identify the main causes of difficulty when learning to solve algebraic problems. Some of the causes that were identified are affective aspects, lack of previous knowledge, poor relational understanding, fatigue, diversion, reading deficiencies and misunderstanding of terminology.

Reading Comprehension: A Computerized Intervention with Primary-age Poor Readers.

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Horne, Joanna Kathryn

2017-05-01

The current study investigates the effectiveness of a computerized reading comprehension programme on the reading accuracy, reading comprehension and reading rate of primary-age poor readers. There is little published literature relating to computerized reading interventions in UK primary schools, and no previous studies have investigated the Comprehension Booster programme. Thirty-eight children (26 boys and 12 girls; aged 6:7 to 11:0) from two schools in East Yorkshire, UK, took part. Half of the participants (the intervention group) undertook the Comprehension Booster programme for a 6-week period, whilst the other half (the control group) continued with their usual teaching. Significant effects of the intervention were found, with increases in reading accuracy and reading comprehension for the intervention group. It is concluded that computerized reading programmes can be effective in improving reading skills, and these are particularly useful for pupils with reading difficulties in disadvantaged areas, where resources are limited and family support in reading is lower. However, such programmes are not a replacement for good teaching, and regular monitoring of children with reading difficulties is required. Further research is necessary to compare the programme used here to other conventional and computerized intervention programmes, using a larger sample. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Reading Strategy Guides to Assist Middle School Educators of Students with Dyslexia

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Nichols-Yehling, M.; Strohl, C.

2014-07-01

According to the 2010 International Dyslexia Association publication, “Knowledge and Practice Standards for Teachers of Reading,” effective instruction is the key to addressing students' reading difficulties associated with dyslexia, a language-based disorder of learning to read and write. “Informed and effective classroom instruction. . . can prevent or at least effectively address and limit the severity of reading and writing problems.” The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission Education and Public Outreach program recently funded the development of six strategy guides for teachers of middle school students with reading difficulties, especially dyslexia. These guides utilize space science-themed reading materials developed by the Great Exploration in Math and Science (GEMS), including the IBEX-funded GEMS Space Science Sequence (Grades 6-8). The aforementioned reading strategy guides are now available on the IBEX mission website.

Student difficulties with Gauss' law

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Kanim, Stephen

2000-09-01

Many students in introductory courses have difficulty solving Gauss' law problems. Through interviews with students and analysis of solutions to homework and examination questions we have identified some specific conceptual difficulties that often contribute to students' inability to solve quantitative Gauss' law problems. We give examples of common difficulties and discuss instructional implications.

Investigation of basic cognitive predictors of reading and spelling abilities in Tunisian third-grade primary school children.

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Batnini, Soulef; Uno, Akira

2015-06-01

This study investigated first the main cognitive abilities; phonological processing, visual cognition, automatization and receptive vocabulary in predicting reading and spelling abilities in Arabic. Second, we compared good/poor readers and spellers to detect the characteristics of cognitive predictors which contribute to identifying reading and spelling difficulties in Arabic speaking children. A sample of 116 Tunisian third-grade children was tested on their abilities to read and spell, phonological processing, visual cognition, automatization and receptive vocabulary. For reading, phonological processing and automatization uniquely predicted Arabic word reading and paragraph reading abilities. Automatization uniquely predicted Arabic non-word reading ability. For spelling, phonological processing was a unique predictor for Arabic word spelling ability. Furthermore, poor readers had significantly lower scores on the phonological processing test and slower reading times on the automatization test as compared with good readers. Additionally, poor spellers showed lower scores on the phonological processing test as compared with good spellers. Visual cognitive processing and receptive vocabulary were not significant cognitive predictors of Arabic reading and spelling abilities for Tunisian third grade children in this study. Our results are consistent with previous studies in alphabetic orthographies and demonstrate that phonological processing and automatization are the best cognitive predictors in detecting early literacy problems. We suggest including phonological processing and automatization tasks in screening tests and in intervention programs may help Tunisian children with poor literacy skills overcome reading and spelling difficulties in Arabic. Copyright © 2014 The Japanese Society of Child Neurology. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Does IQ affect the functional brain network involved in pseudoword reading in students with reading disability? A magnetoencephalography study

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Panagiotis G Simos

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The study examined whether individual differences in performance and verbal IQ affect the profiles of reading-related regional brain activation in 127 students experiencing reading difficulties and typical readers. Using magnetoencephalography in a pseudoword read-aloud task, we compared brain activation profiles of students experiencing word-level reading difficulties who did (n=29 or did not (n=36 meet the IQ-reading achievement discrepancy criterion. Typical readers assigned to a lower-IQ (n=18 or a higher IQ (n=44 subgroup served as controls. Minimum norm estimates of regional cortical activity revealed that the degree of hypoactivation in the left superior temporal and supramarginal gyri in both RD subgroups was not affected by IQ. Moreover, IQ did not moderate the positive association between degree of activation in the left fusiform gyrus and phonological decoding ability. We did find, however, that the hypoactivation of the left pars opercularis in RD was restricted to lower-IQ participants. In accordance with previous morphometric and fMRI studies, degree of activity in inferior frontal and inferior parietal regions correlated with IQ across reading ability subgroups. Results are consistent with current views questioning the relevance of IQ measures and IQ-discrepancy criteria in the diagnosis of dyslexia.

Understanding reading comprehension amongst Maltese speaking children.

OpenAIRE

Grech, Louisa.

2011-01-01

This thesis investigated reading comprehension levels amongst Maltese bilingual students. A total of 428 participants, aged between 8 and 13, from state schools across Malta, were tested and the results of five studies presented. The primary purpose underlying the research was to inform the development of assessment procedures that can be used in the identification of children who have specific difficulties in reading within the Maltese context. Initially, the suitability of reading comprehen...

An exploration of implications for the development of Pilates instructor system through identification of instructors' difficulties.

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Roh, Su Yeon

2016-08-01

This study is aimed at exploring ideas for the development of Pilates instructor qualification system by identifying a range of difficulties Pilates instructors are experiencing. Open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data before they were analyzed with inductive content analysis method. In consideration of the difficulties Pilates instructors experience during three qualification stages (before-during-after qualification education), three key categories were incorporated in the collected data: (1) lack of information on Pilates qualification system, (2) difficulties in understanding the human anatomy related with the diverse movements taught in Pilates classes and its application to Pilates practice, (3) need for professional development through retraining. Based on these findings, a need for rethinking the monitoring and evaluation process for Pilates qualification system and Pilates education in Korea was identified. In addition, we need to summarize and offer information on a range of Pilates qualifications. And the quality of Pilates instructor education program should be improved as well by proving them a range of teaching methods including microteaching, discussion-based lessons as well as reading and writing sessions and other necessary teaching media.

An exploration of implications for the development of Pilates instructor system through identification of instructors’ difficulties

Science.gov (United States)

Roh, Su Yeon

2016-01-01

This study is aimed at exploring ideas for the development of Pilates instructor qualification system by identifying a range of difficulties Pilates instructors are experiencing. Open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data before they were analyzed with inductive content analysis method. In consideration of the difficulties Pilates instructors experience during three qualification stages (before-during-after qualification education), three key categories were incorporated in the collected data: (1) lack of information on Pilates qualification system, (2) difficulties in understanding the human anatomy related with the diverse movements taught in Pilates classes and its application to Pilates practice, (3) need for professional development through retraining. Based on these findings, a need for rethinking the monitoring and evaluation process for Pilates qualification system and Pilates education in Korea was identified. In addition, we need to summarize and offer information on a range of Pilates qualifications. And the quality of Pilates instructor education program should be improved as well by proving them a range of teaching methods including microteaching, discussion-based lessons as well as reading and writing sessions and other necessary teaching media. PMID:27656634

Laptops Meet Schools, One-One Draw: M-Learning for Secondary Students with Literacy Difficulties

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Conway, Paul F.; Amberson, Jessica

2011-01-01

Mobile technology-enhanced literacy initiatives have become a focus of efforts to support learning for students with literacy difficulties. The "Laptops Initiative for Post-Primary Students with Dyslexia or other Reading/Writing Difficulties" offers insights into and addresses questions about ICT policy making regarding m-learning technologies for…

How Many U.S. High School Students Have a Foreign Language Reading "Disability"? Reading without Meaning and the Simple View

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Sparks, Richard L.; Luebbers, Julie

2018-01-01

Conventional wisdom suggests that students classified as learning disabled will exhibit difficulties with foreign language (FL) learning, but evidence has not supported a relationship between FL learning problems and learning disabilities. The simple view of reading model posits that reading comprehension is the product of word decoding and…

The Role of Difficulty in Identifying and Describing Feelings in Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Behavior (NSSI): Associations With Perceived Attachment Quality, Stressful Life Events, and Suicidal Ideation.

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Cerutti, Rita; Zuffianò, Antonio; Spensieri, Valentina

2018-01-01

Objective: Core alexithymic features, such as the difficulty in identifying and describing feelings, are associated with poor attachment styles and emotional trauma, which influence the capacity to regulate affect. Additionally, emotional regulation has been found to be the most commonly identified function associated with non-suicidal self-injury behavior (NSSI) in adolescents as they attempt to modulate strong emotions. However, few studies have examined the link between difficulty in identifying and describing feelings (core components of alexithymia), NSSI behaviors, quality of attachment, life stressors and suicidal ideation in healthy early adolescents. Consequently, this study aims to investigate these constructs and the relationship among them in a large non-clinical sample of adolescents. Methods: Seven hundred and nine middle school students (50.4% males), aged 10-15 years ( M = 12.6; SD = 1.06) were involved in this study. In order to investigate the variables considered in the study, the following measures were administered: the Deliberate Self-Harm Inventory exploring non-suicidal self-injurious behaviors; the Alexithymia Questionnaire for Children examining difficulty in identifying and describing feelings; the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment assessing the quality of parental and peer attachment; the Life Stressor Checklist-Revised outlining stressful/traumatic events and the Children's Depression Inventory evaluating suicidal ideation. Results: We found significantly positive relationships among difficulty in identifying and describing feelings, NSSI behaviors, stressful events, and suicidal ideation. Data indicated a significant negative association of difficulty in identifying and describing feelings with quality of attachment to parents and peers. Further findings highlighted that difficulty in identifying and describing feelings significantly mediated the effect of quality of attachment (parent and peer) on NSSI and suicidal ideation

Teachers' perceptions of strategy training in reading instruction

OpenAIRE

Sallı, Ayşegül

2002-01-01

Ankara : The Department of Teaching English as a Foreign Language, the Institute of Economics and Social Sciences of Bilkent University, 2002. Thesis (Master's) -- Bilkent University, 2002. Includes bibliographical references leaves 93-97. Reading strategies are processes used by a learner to enhance reading and to overcome comprehension failures. In order to better help students overcome such difficulties, training in reading strategies is necessary. Only with the appropriate ...

Temporal Resolution Ability in Students with Dyslexia and Reading and Writing Disorders

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Chaubet, Juliana

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Introduction The Gaps-in-Noise (GIN test assesses the hearing ability of temporal resolution. The development of this ability can be considered essential for learning how to read. Objective Identify temporal resolution in individuals diagnosed with reading and writing disorders compared with subjects with dyslexia. Methods A sample of 26 subjects of both genders, age 10 to 15 years, included 11 diagnosed with dyslexia and 15 diagnosed with reading and writing disorders. Subjects did not display otologic, neurologic, and/or cognitive diseases. A control group of 30 normal-hearing subjects was formed to compare thresholds and percentages obtained from the GIN test. The responses were obtained considering two measures of analysis: the threshold gap and the percentage of correct gap. Results The threshold was lower in the GIN for the typical group than for the other groups. There was no difference between groups with dyslexia and with reading and writing disorders. The GIN results of the typical group revealed a higher percentage of correct answer than in the other groups. No difference was obtained between the groups with dyslexia and with reading and writing disorders. Conclusion The GIN test identified a difficulty in auditory ability of temporal resolution in individuals with reading and writing disorders and in individuals with dyslexia in a similar way.

Fixing fluency: Neurocognitive assessment of a dysfluent reading intervention

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Fraga González, G.

2016-01-01

The ability to read is essential to attain society’s literacy demands. Unfortunately, a significant percentage of the population experiences major difficulties in mastering reading and spelling skills. Individuals diagnosed with developmental dyslexia are at severe risk for adverse academic,

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms Associated with Reading Ability Show Connection to Socio-Economic Outcomes.

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Luciano, Michelle; Hagenaars, Saskia P; Cox, Simon R; Hill, William David; Davies, Gail; Harris, Sarah E; Deary, Ian J; Evans, David M; Martin, Nicholas G; Wright, Margaret J; Bates, Timothy C

2017-09-01

Impairments in reading and in language have negative consequences on life outcomes, but it is not known to what extent genetic effects influence this association. We constructed polygenic scores for difficulties with language and learning to read from genome-wide data in ~6,600 children, adolescents and young adults, and tested their association with health, socioeconomic outcomes and brain structure measures collected in adults (maximal N = 111,749). Polygenic risk of reading difficulties was associated with reduced income, educational attainment, self-rated health and verbal-numerical reasoning (p intelligence) and 0.70 (educational attainment) with reading ability. Mendelian randomization approaches will be important to dissociate any causal and moderating effects of reading and related traits on social outcomes.

Computational text analysis and reading comprehension exam complexity towards automatic text classification

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Liontou, Trisevgeni

2014-01-01

This book delineates a range of linguistic features that characterise the reading texts used at the B2 (Independent User) and C1 (Proficient User) levels of the Greek State Certificate of English Language Proficiency exams in order to help define text difficulty per level of competence. In addition, it examines whether specific reader variables influence test takers' perceptions of reading comprehension difficulty. The end product is a Text Classification Profile per level of competence and a formula for automatically estimating text difficulty and assigning levels to texts consistently and re

Computational Text Analysis: A More Comprehensive Approach to Determine Readability of Reading Materials

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Aziz, Anealka; Fook, Chan Yuen; Alsree, Zubaida

2010-01-01

Reading materials are considered having high readability if readers are interested to read the materials, understand the content of the materials and able to read the materials fluently. In contrast, reading materials with low readability discourage readers from reading the materials, create difficulties for readers to understand the content of…

Thinking outside the boxes: Using current reading models to assess and treat developmental surface dyslexia.

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Law, Caroline; Cupples, Linda

2017-03-01

Improving the reading performance of children with developmental surface dyslexia has proved challenging, with limited generalisation of reading skills typically reported after intervention. The aim of this study was to provide tailored, theoretically motivated intervention to two children with developmental surface dyslexia. Our objectives were to improve their reading performance, and to evaluate the utility of current reading models in therapeutic practice. Detailed reading and cognitive profiles for two male children with developmental surface dyslexia were compared to the results obtained by age-matched control groups. The specific area of single-word reading difficulty for each child was identified within the dual route model (DRM) of reading, following which a theoretically motivated intervention programme was devised. Both children showed significant improvements in single-word reading ability after training, with generalisation effects observed for untrained words. However, the assessment and intervention results also differed for each child, reinforcing the view that the causes and consequences of developmental dyslexia, even within subtypes, are not homogeneous. Overall, the results of the interventions corresponded more closely with the DRM than other current reading models, in that real word reading improved in the absence of enhanced nonword reading for both children.

What All Reading Teachers Should Know and Be Able to Do

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Fedora, Pledger

2014-01-01

When students experience reading difficulties--or even before they do--teachers can use specialized knowledge to help them achieve success. This overview of the International Dyslexia Association's "Knowledge and Practice Standards for Teachers of Reading" describes those reading and literacy standards and provides resources for teacher…

Effects of an Informational Text Reading Comprehension Intervention for Fifth-Grade Students

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Ritchey, Kristen D.; Palombo, Kimberly; Silverman, Rebecca D.; Speece, Deborah L.

2017-01-01

Upper elementary school students who have reading problems may have difficulty in one or more areas of reading, each requiring specific types of interventions. This study evaluated a short-term reading intervention for 46 fifth-grade students with poor reading comprehension. Students were randomly assigned to an intervention or no treatment…

Does a dynamic test of phonological awareness predict early reading difficulties?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gellert, Anna Steenberg; Elbro, Carsten

2017-01-01

A few studies have indicated that dynamic measures of phonological awareness may contribute uniquely to the prediction of early reading development. However, standard control measures have been few and limited by floor effects, thus limiting their predictive value. The purpose of the present stud...

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: Impacts on Academic and Emotional Difficulties

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Daki, Julia; Savage, Robert S.

2010-01-01

This randomized control trial study evaluated the effectiveness of the solution-focused approach in addressing academic, motivational, and socioemotional needs of 14 children with reading difficulties. The intervention group received five 40-min solution-focused sessions. The control group received academic homework support. Results showed…

Reading fluency: implications for the assessment of children with reading disabilities.

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Meisinger, Elizabeth B; Bloom, Juliana S; Hynd, George W

2010-06-01

The current investigation explored the diagnostic utility of reading fluency measures in the identification of children with reading disabilities. Participants were 50 children referred to a university-based clinic because of suspected reading problems and/or a prior diagnosis of dyslexia, where children completed a battery of standardized intellectual, reading achievement, and processing measures. Within this clinical sample, a group of children were identified that exhibited specific deficits in their reading fluency skills with concurrent deficits in rapid naming speed and reading comprehension. This group of children would not have been identified as having a reading disability according to assessment of single word reading skills alone, suggesting that it is essential to assess reading fluency in addition to word reading because failure to do so may result in the under-identification of children with reading disabilities.

Reading comprehension in english with audio media input among year 6 primary school students with or without dyslexia

OpenAIRE

Deželan, Tadeja

2017-01-01

The findings of scientific research in recent years have begun to emphasize the importance of early detection of general and specific learning difficulties of pupils in schools. Among the specific learning difficulties dyslexia is the most recognizable as well as mostly studied. The latter causes pupils great difficulties in acquiring basic literacy and language skills. Since pupils with dyslexia, among other difficulties, experience problems with reading and consequently reading comprehensio...

Technology-enhanced shared reading with deaf and hard-of-hearing children: the role of a fluent signing narrator.

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Mueller, Vannesa; Hurtig, Richard

2010-01-01

Early shared reading experiences have been shown to benefit normally hearing children. It has been hypothesized that hearing parents of deaf or hard-of-hearing children may be uncomfortable or may lack adequate skills to engage in shared reading activities. A factor that may contribute to the widely cited reading difficulties seen in the majority of deaf children is a lack of early linguistic and literacy exposure that come from early shared reading experiences with an adult who is competent in the language of the child. A single-subject-design research study is described, which uses technology along with parent training in an attempt to enhance the shared reading experiences in this population of children. The results indicate that our technology-enhanced shared reading led to a greater time spent in shared reading activities and sign vocabulary acquisition. In addition, analysis of the shared reading has identified the specific aspects of the technology and the components of the parent training that were used most often.

Guided Reading: Young Pupils' Perspectives on Classroom Practice

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Hanke, Veronica

2014-01-01

Guided reading is widely perceived to be tricky in English primary schools; prior research has found difficulties with teacher interpretation and implementation. The study reported here suggests that to understand the problems associated with it we should also take into account pupils' perspectives on their guided reading lessons. In this case,…

Early identification and intervention in children at risk for reading difficulties

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Regtvoort, A.G.F.M.

2014-01-01

In pre-readers, a familial background of dyslexia and/or delayed emergent literacy should be considered a not-to-ignore risk signalling problems with learning to read. This thesis aims to study early identification and intervention in at-risk children shortly before or after the start of formal

The long-term significance of teacher-rated hyperactivity and reading ability in childhood: findings from two longitudinal studies.

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McGee, Rob; Prior, Margot; Willams, Sheila; Smart, Diana; Sanson, Anne

2002-11-01

The aims of this study were twofold: first, to examine behavioural and academic outcomes of children with hyperactivity, using data from two longitudinal studies; and second, to examine comparable psychosocial outcomes for children with early reading difficulties. Measures of teacher-rated persistent hyperactivity, and reading ability obtained during early primary school were available for children from the Australian Temperament Project and the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study. Both samples were followed up to assess behavioural and academic outcomes during the adolescent and early adult years. Family background, antisocial behaviour and literacy were controlled in the first set of analyses to examine the influence of early hyperactivity. There were strong linear relationships between early hyperactivity and later adverse outcomes. Adjustment for other childhood variables suggested that early hyperactivity was associated with continuing school difficulties, problems with attention and poor reading in adolescence. Early reading difficulties, after controlling for early hyperactivity, predicted continuing reading problems in high school and leaving school with no qualifications. The findings suggest that there are dual pathways from early inattentive behaviours to later inattention and reading problems, and from early reading difficulties to substantial impairments in later academic outcomes.

Effects of Spectral Overlays on Reading Performance of Brazilian Elementary School Children.

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia, Ana Carla Oliveira; Momensohn-Santos, Teresa Maria; Vilhena, Douglas de Araújo

2018-03-20

To investigate the effects of spectral overlays on reading performance of Brazilian elementary school children. Sixty-eight children (aged 9-12 years) enrolled in the 5th and 6th grade were included in the study. The Rate of Reading Test (RRT - Brazilian Portuguese version) was used to evaluate reading speed and the Irlen Reading Perceptual Scale was used to allocate the sample according to reading difficulty/discomfort symptoms and to define the optimal spectral overlays. A total of 13% of the children presented an improvement of at least 15% in reading speed with the use of spectral overlays. Pupils with severe reading difficulties tended to have more improvement in RRT with spectral overlays. Children with severe reading discomfort obtained the highest gains in RRT, with an average of 9.6% improvement with intervention, compared to a decrease of -8.2% in the control group. Participants with severe discomfort had an odds ratio of 3.36 to improve reading speed with intervention compared to the control group. The use of spectral overlays can improve reading performance, particularly in those children with severe visual discomfort. © 2018 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Difficulties to implement interdisciplinary practices in state schools, appointed by Science teachers

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Thaís Gimenez da Silva Augusto

2007-03-01

Full Text Available Teachers who try to introduce interdisciplinarys practices at São Paulo public schools, still find many difficulties. On present research, teachers from area of Sciences from Nature, participants by formation in service indicated which the difficulties for introduce of that practices into the High School. The analysis from the answers of this teachers shows that the main difficulties are: there is not time enough to be together with others teachers, research and dedicate the reading; the lack of knowledge in relation to contents of another disciplines; the difficulties of relationship with the school administration and absence of pedagogical coordination among the teachers´actions, beyond of the disinterest and undisciplined from the students.

Reading Comprehension, Learning Styles, and Seventh Grade Students

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Williams, Judy

2010-01-01

Reading is a basic life skill. Unfortunately, in 2007, only 29% of all eighth graders were able to comprehend at or above a proficient reading comprehension level. Sensory learning styles (kinesthetic, tactile, auditory, and visual) affect the way that students prefer to learn and the areas in which they will have difficulty learning. This study…

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

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rønberg, Louise; Petersen, Dorthe Klint

2015-01-01

comprehenders, the poor comprehenders’ orthographic coding and daily reading of literary texts were significantly below those of average readers. This study indicates that a lack of reading experience, and likewise, a lack of fluent word reading, may be important factors in understanding 9-year-old poor...

Reading skills after cochlear implantation

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Vermeulen, A.M.

2007-01-01

It has frequently been found that profoundly deaf children with conventional hearing aids have difficulties with the comprehension of written text. Cochlear Implants (CIs) were expected to enhance the reading comprehension of these profoundly deaf children because they provide auditory access to

Reading, Perception and Language.

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Duane, Drake D., Ed.; Rawson, Margaret B., Ed.

The nine papers in this book discuss aspects of language processing that contribute to reading difficulty. After a summary of the 1974 World Congress on Dyslexia, at which these papers were presented, the following subjects are examined: historical background and educational treatment of dyslexia; the structure of language; neuroanatomy underlying…

Reading an ESL Writer’s Text

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Paul Kei Matsuda

2011-03-01

Full Text Available This paper focuses on reading as a central act of communication in the tutorial session. Writing center tutors without extensive experience reading writing by second language writers may have difficulty getting past the many differences in surface-level features, organization, and rhetorical moves. After exploring some of the sources of these differences in writing, the authors present strategies that writing tutors can use to work effectively with second language writers.

Estimating the Difficulty Level of EFL Texts: Applying Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives

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Natasha Pourdana

2013-11-01

Full Text Available The purpose of the present study was to explore the impact of difficulty level of texts on EFL learners’ reading comprehension through the application of Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy. The researchers’ primary assumption was that reading EFL texts would become more difficult as the learners’ performance proceeds from a text targeting their Knowledge abilities through the texts tapping on their Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis to Evaluation abilities. To fulfil the ultimate purpose of the research, 32 undergraduate students majoring in English translation at Islamic Azad University, Karaj Branch, Iran took part in this investigation in 2011. In addition to Comprehensive English Language Test (CELT, the participants were given a teacher–made reading comprehension test, included six short reading passages from 154 to 166 ranges of words and 30 multiple- choice items which compiled and constructed based on the six levels in the hierarchy of Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA proved that except for the fifth level, the Synthesis text, the EFL learners’ performance was graded properly based on the difficulty levels expected and explored in Bloom’s levels of Cognitive Domain. The findings in this study are considerably practical in developing EFL materials and teaching reading skills and strategies.

Is severity of motor coordination difficulties related to co-morbidity in children at risk for developmental coordination disorder?

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Schoemaker, Marina M; Lingam, Raghu; Jongmans, Marian J; van Heuvelen, Marieke J G; Emond, Alan

2013-10-01

Aim of the study was to investigate whether 7-9 year old children with severe motor difficulties are more at risk of additional difficulties in activities in daily living, academic skills, attention and social skills than children with moderate motor difficulties. Children (N=6959) from a population based cohort, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), were divided into three groups based on their scores on the ALSPAC Coordination Test at age 7: control children (scores above 15th centile; N=5719 [82.1%]); children with moderate (between 5th and 15th centile; N=951 [13.7%]); and children with severe motor difficulties (below 5th centile N=289 [4.2%]). Children with neurological disorders or an IQactivities of daily living (ADL); academic skills (reading, spelling and handwriting); attention; social skills (social cognition and nonverbal skills). Children with severe motor difficulties demonstrated a higher risk of difficulties in ADL, handwriting, attention, reading, and social cognition than children with moderate motor difficulties, who in turn had a higher risk of difficulties than control children in five out of seven domains. Screening and intervention of co-morbid problems is recommended for children with both moderate and severe motor difficulties. Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Validating the UNICEF/Washington Group Child Functioning Module for Fijian schools to identify seeing, hearing and walking difficulties.

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Sprunt, Beth; Hoq, Monsurul; Sharma, Umesh; Marella, Manjula

2017-09-20

This study investigated the seeing, hearing and walking questions of the UNICEF/Washington Group Child Functioning Module and the inter-rater reliability between teachers and parents as proxy respondents. Cross-sectional diagnostic accuracy study, two-gate design with representative sampling, comparing Module responses to reference standard assessments for 472 primary aged students in Fiji. Receiver operating characteristic curves were constructed to determine the area under the curve and optimal cut-off points. Areas under the curves ranged from 0.823 to 0.889 indicating "good" diagnostic accuracy. Inter-rater reliability between parent and teacher responses was "good" to "excellent". The optimal cut-off determined by the Youden Index was "some difficulty" however a wide spread of impairment levels were found in this category with most children either having none or substantial impairments. The diagnostic accuracy of the Module seeing, hearing and walking questions appears acceptable with either parents or teachers as proxy respondents. For education systems, use of the cut-off "some difficulty" with accompanying clinical assessment may be important to capture children who require services and learning supports and avoid potentially misleading categorization. Given the high proportion of the sample from special schools research is required to further test the Module in mainstream schools. Implications for rehabilitation Identification of children who are at risk of disability in Fiji is important to enable planning, monitoring and evaluating access to quality inclusive education. The UNICEF/Washington Group Child Functioning Module appears to be a practical and effective tool that can be used by teachers to identify children at risk of disability. Children identified on the UNICEF/Washington Group Child Functioning Module as having "some difficulty" or higher levels of difficulty in relation to vision, hearing or walking should be referred for further assessment

[Relationship between clinical symptoms and Hiragana reading ability in children with difficulties in reading and writing:usefulness of a clinical-symptoms-checklist].

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Kita, Yosuke; Kobayashi, Tomoka; Koike, Toshihide; Koeda, Tatsuya; Wakamiya, Eiji; Hosokawa, Torn; Kaga, Makiko; Inagaki, Masumi

2010-11-01

We investigated the clinical symptoms of children with developmental dyslexia (DD) and evaluated the relationship between these symptoms and their Hiragana reading abilities. In order to detect the clinical symptoms of DD, we newly developed a clinical-symptoms-checklist (CL), which consisted of a total of 30 yes/no questions regarding symptoms linked to reading (15 questions) and writing (15 questions). Subjects were 98 Japanese school grade (1 to 9) children, aged 6 to 15 years old, with normal intelligence confirmed by the Wechsler Intelligence Test for Children (WISC-Ill) and they were divided into 2 groups according to their diagnosis. Twenty four children diagnosed as developmental dyslexia consisted the DD group, and the remaining 74 children were grouped in the non-DD group. CL showed significant construct validity (pHiragana reading ability of articulation time in all Hiragana reading tasks (pJapanese children.

The behaviour and self-esteem of children with specific speech and language difficulties.

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Lindsay, G; Dockrell, J

2000-12-01

parents rated the latter group as having more behaviour difficulties. Multiple regression analyses identified language comprehension and reading comprehension as the only predictors of the parents' rating of behaviour (on the SDQ). No relationship was found with the teachers' ratings. Behavioural difficulties, but not low self-esteem, are common in children of 7-8 years with SSLD, but the differences in patterns of relationship between parents and teachers, and with respect to children attending mainstream and special schools, challenge simple interpretations of comorbidity.

When left-hemisphere reading is compromised: Comparing reading ability in participants after left cerebral hemispherectomy and participants with developmental dyslexia.

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Katzir, Tami; Christodoulou, Joanna A; de Bode, Stella

2016-10-01

We investigated reading skills in individuals who have undergone left cerebral hemispherectomy and in readers with developmental dyslexia to understand diverse characteristics contributing to reading difficulty. Although dyslexia is a developmental disorder, left hemispherectomy requires that patients (re)establish the language process needed to perform the language-based tasks in the nondominant (right) hemisphere to become readers. Participants with developmental dyslexia (DD; n = 11) and participants who had undergone left hemispherectomy (HEMI; n = 11) were matched on age and gender, and were compared on timed and untimed measures of single word and pseudo-word reading. The hemispherectomy group was subdivided into prenatal (in utero) and postnatal (>3 years) insult groups, indicating the timing of the primary lesion that ultimately required surgical intervention. On an untimed reading measure, the readers with DD were comparable to individuals who had undergone left hemispherectomy due to prenatal insult, but both scored higher than the postnatal hemispherectomy group. Timed word reading differed across groups. The hemispherectomy prenatal subgroup had low average scores on both timed and untimed tests. The group with dyslexia had average scores on untimed measures and below average scores on timed reading. The hemispherectomy postnatal group had the lowest scores among the groups by a significant margin, and the most pronounced reading difficulty. Patients with prenatal lesions leading to an isolated right hemisphere (RH) have the potential to develop reading to a degree comparable to that in persons with dyslexia for single word reading. This potential sharply diminishes in individuals who undergo hemispherectomy due to postnatal insult. The higher scores of the prenatal hemispherectomy group on timed reading suggest that under these conditions, individuals with an isolated RH can compensate to a significant degree. Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016

Improving Reading Skills in Students with Dyslexia: The Efficacy of a Rhythmic Training

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Alessandro eAntonietti

2015-10-01

Full Text Available The core deficit underlying developmental dyslexia (DD has been identified in difficulties in dynamic and rapidly changing auditory information processing, which contribute to the development of impaired phonological representations for words. It has been argued that enhancing basic musical rhythm perception skills in children with DD may have a positive effect on reading abilities because music and language share common mechanisms and thus transfer effects from the former to the latter are expected to occur. A computer-assisted training, called Rhythmic Reading Training (RRT, was designed in which reading exercises are combined with rhythm background. Fourteen junior high school students with DD took part to 9 biweekly individual sessions of 30 minutes in which RRT was implemented. Reading improvements after the intervention period were compared with ones of a matched control group of 14 students with DD who received no intervention. Results indicated that RRT had a positive effect on both reading speed and accuracy, and significant effects were found on short pseudo-words reading speed, long pseudo-words reading speed, high frequency long words reading accuracy, and text reading accuracy. No difference in rhythm perception between the intervention and control group were found. Findings suggest that rhythm facilitates the development of reading skill because of the temporal structure it imposes to word decoding.

Towards identifying dyslexia in Standard Indonesian: the development of a reading assessment battery.

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Jap, Bernard A J; Borleffs, Elisabeth; Maassen, Ben A M

2017-01-01

With its transparent orthography, Standard Indonesian is spoken by over 160 million inhabitants and is the primary language of instruction in education and the government in Indonesia. An assessment battery of reading and reading-related skills was developed as a starting point for the diagnosis of dyslexia in beginner learners. Founded on the International Dyslexia Association's definition of dyslexia, the test battery comprises nine empirically motivated reading and reading-related tasks assessing word reading, pseudoword reading, arithmetic, rapid automatized naming, phoneme deletion, forward and backward digit span, verbal fluency, orthographic choice (spelling), and writing. The test was validated by computing the relationships between the outcomes on the reading-skills and reading-related measures by means of correlation and factor analyses. External variables, i.e., school grades and teacher ratings of the reading and learning abilities of individual students, were also utilized to provide evidence of its construct validity. Four variables were found to be significantly related with reading-skill measures: phonological awareness, rapid naming, spelling, and digit span. The current study on reading development in Standard Indonesian confirms findings from other languages with transparent orthographies and suggests a test battery including preliminary norm scores for screening and assessment of elementary school children learning to read Standard Indonesian.

Neither action nor phonological video games make dyslexic children read better.

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Łuniewska, Magdalena; Chyl, Katarzyna; Dębska, Agnieszka; Kacprzak, Agnieszka; Plewko, Joanna; Szczerbiński, Marcin; Szewczyk, Jakub; Grabowska, Anna; Jednoróg, Katarzyna

2018-01-11

The prevalence and long-term consequences of dyslexia make it crucial to look for effective and efficient ways of its therapy. Action video games (AVG) were implied as a possible remedy for difficulties in reading in Italian and English-speaking children. However, the studies examining the effectiveness of AVG application in dyslexia suffered from significant methodological weaknesses such as small sample sizes and lack of a control group with no intervention. In our study, we tested how two forms of training: based on AVG and on phonological non-action video games (PNAVG), affect reading in a group of fifty-four Polish children with dyslexia. Both speed and accuracy of reading increased in AVG as much as in PNAVG group. Moreover, both groups improved in phonological awareness, selective attention and rapid naming. Critically, the reading progress in the two groups did not differ from a dyslexic control group which did not participate in any training. Thus, the observed improvement in reading in AVG and PNAVG can be attributed either to the normal reading development related to schooling or to test practice effect. Overall, we failed to replicate previous studies: Neither AVG nor PNAVG remedy difficulties in reading in school children.

[Binocular coordination during reading].

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Bassou, L; Granié, M; Pugh, A K; Morucci, J P

1992-01-01

Is there an effect on binocular coordination during reading of oculomotor imbalance (heterophoria, strabismus and inadequate convergence) and of functional lateral characteristics (eye preference and perceptually privileged visual laterality)? Recordings of the binocular eye-movements of ten-year-old children show that oculomotor imbalances occur most often among children whose left visual perceptual channel is privileged, and that these subjects can present optomotor dissociation and manifest lack of motor coordination. Close binocular motor coordination is far from being the norm in reading. The faster reader displays saccades of differing spatial amplitude and the slower reader an oculomotor hyperactivity, especially during fixations. The recording of binocular movements in reading appears to be an excellent means of diagnosing difficulties related to visual laterality and to problems associated with oculomotor imbalance.

Reading ability and print exposure: item response theory analysis of the author recognition test.

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Moore, Mariah; Gordon, Peter C

2015-12-01

In the author recognition test (ART), participants are presented with a series of names and foils and are asked to indicate which ones they recognize as authors. The test is a strong predictor of reading skill, and this predictive ability is generally explained as occurring because author knowledge is likely acquired through reading or other forms of print exposure. In this large-scale study (1,012 college student participants), we used item response theory (IRT) to analyze item (author) characteristics in order to facilitate identification of the determinants of item difficulty, provide a basis for further test development, and optimize scoring of the ART. Factor analysis suggested a potential two-factor structure of the ART, differentiating between literary and popular authors. Effective and ineffective author names were identified so as to facilitate future revisions of the ART. Analyses showed that the ART is a highly significant predictor of the time spent encoding words, as measured using eyetracking during reading. The relationship between the ART and time spent reading provided a basis for implementing a higher penalty for selecting foils, rather than the standard method of ART scoring (names selected minus foils selected). The findings provide novel support for the view that the ART is a valid indicator of reading volume. Furthermore, they show that frequency data can be used to select items of appropriate difficulty, and that frequency data from corpora based on particular time periods and types of texts may allow adaptations of the test for different populations.

Orthographic learning in children with isolated and combined reading and spelling deficits.

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Mehlhase, Heike; Bakos, Sarolta; Landerl, Karin; Schulte-Körne, Gerd; Moll, Kristina

2018-05-07

Dissociations between reading and spelling problems are likely to be associated with different underlying cognitive deficits, and with different deficits in orthographic learning. In order to understand these differences, the current study examined orthographic learning using a printed-word learning paradigm. Children (4th grade) with isolated reading, isolated spelling and combined reading and spelling problems were compared to children with age appropriate reading and spelling skills on their performance during learning novel words and symbols (non-verbal control condition), and during immediate and delayed reading and spelling recall tasks. No group differences occurred in the non-verbal control condition. In the verbal condition, initial learning was intact in all groups, but differences occurred during recall tasks. Children with reading fluency deficits showed slower reading times, while children with spelling deficits were less accurate, both in reading and spelling recall. Children with isolated spelling problems showed no difficulties in immediate spelling recall, but had problems in remembering the spellings 2 hours later. The results suggest that different orthographic learning deficits underlie reading fluency and spelling problems: Children with isolated reading fluency deficits have no difficulties in building-up orthographic representations, but access to these representations is slowed down while children with isolated spelling deficits have problems in storing precise orthographic representations in long-term memory.

A Read-Aloud Storybook Selection System for Prereaders at the Preschool Language Level: A Pilot Study

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Schwarz, Amy Louise; van Kleeck, Anne; Beaton, Derek; Horne, Erin; MacKenzie, Heather; Abdi, Hervé

2015-01-01

Purpose: Many well-accepted systems for determining difficulty level exist for books children read independently, but few are available for determining the wide range of difficulty levels of storybooks read aloud to preschoolers. Also, the available tools list book characteristics only on the basis of parents' or authors' opinions. We created an…

Engaging Sources through Reading-Writing Connections across the Disciplines

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Carillo, Ellen C.

2016-01-01

This essay argues that what might otherwise be considered "plagiarism" in student writing is a symptom of the difficulties students encounter in their reading and writing, moments in which students' inabilities to critically assess, read, and respond to sources through the act of writing come to the surface. Expanding the context within…

[Language and behavioral difficulties at age 3 and half and reading delay in grade 2].

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Watier, L; Dellatolas, G; Chevrie-Muller, C

2006-09-01

Early detection of specific language impairment and dyslexia in children is an important public health problem. Longitudinal studies are needed for the distinction of real impairments from simple transitory delays. Teachers filled a 29-item questionnaire on language and behavior for 695 children aged 3.5 years. Four years later (at second grade of primary school) the same children were evaluated for reading and writing. Statistical analysis focused on the relationships between teacher's early observations and reading delay 4 years later. Associated factors were age, sex, educational level and bilinguism of the parents, and area of the school. The delay in written language acquisition (8.5% of the children) was significantly associated with low educational level (but not bilinguism) of the parents and to the area of the school. In univariate analysis, most of the teacher's early negative assessments were significantly related to reading/writing delay, with the exception of some behavioral problems. However, when the effect of associated factors was taken into account only a few items, mainly concerning language expression, remained significantly associated with later reading/writing delay. These data show a major role of associated factors (educational level of the parents, area of the school) in reading delay, and help to select specific teacher's observations for an early prediction of this delay.

The impact of senior medical students' personal difficulties on their communication patterns in breaking bad news.

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Meitar, Dafna; Karnieli-Miller, Orit; Eidelman, Shmuel

2009-11-01

To evaluate the possible influence of personal difficulties and barriers that are within the news bearer and his or her self-awareness (SA) of them, on the patterns of communication during encounters involving breaking bad news (BBN). Following an intensive BBN course in 2004, 103 senior medical students at the Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, were evaluated for BBN competencies by the analysis of their written descriptions of how they visualized their manner of delivering bad news to a patient described in a challenging vignette. The students were further asked to reflect on their own difficulties and barriers that surfaced in response to reading the narrative presented in the vignette and in delivering the bad news. Using an immersion crystallization narrative analysis method, the authors analyzed the relationship between the students' BBN strategies and their self-perceived barriers and difficulties. Four types of communicators were identified and related to 45 different personal and professional barriers that the students, through self-reflection, found in themselves. These perceived barriers as well as the ability to self-reflect on them influenced their patterns of communication in their envisioned and written-down encounters, including the level of emotional connectedness, information provided, and the chosen focus-of-care paradigm (physician-centered, patient-centered, or relationship-centered). These findings empirically demonstrate that intrapersonal difficulties within the communicator and his or her level of SA about them influenced the manner and content of the communication during the encounter. This finding suggests that enhancing SA and addressing personal and professional difficulties could help physicians' capability to cope with challenging communication tasks. The authors propose a working tool (the Preparatory SPIKES) to facilitate the integration of self-reflection (by identifying personal difficulties) into day-by-day planning

Syntactic comprehension in reading and listening: a study with French children with dyslexia.

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Casalis, Séverine; Leuwers, Christel; Hilton, Heather

2013-01-01

This study examined syntactic comprehension in French children with dyslexia in both listening and reading. In the first syntactic comprehension task, a partial version of the Epreuve de Compréhension syntaxico-sémantique (ECOSSE test; French adaptation of Bishop's test for receptive grammar test) children with dyslexia performed at a lower level in the written but not in the spoken modality, compared to reading age-matched children, suggesting a difficulty in handling syntax while reading. In the second task, syntactic processing was further explored through a test of relative clause processing, in which inflectional markers could aid in attributing roles to the elements in a complex syntactic structure. Children with dyslexia were insensitive to inflectional markers in both reading and listening, as was the reading age control group, while only the older normal reader group appeared to make use of the inflectional markers. Overall, the results support the hypothesis that difficulties in comprehension in dyslexia are strongly related to poor reading skills.

Reading Success: Validation of a Specialized Literacy Program (1978-2007)

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Idol, Lorna

2010-01-01

Reading Success is an individualized teacher-guided literacy program proven for 663 students who experienced difficulty with reading. The students had learning disabilities, mild mental retardation, and behavior challenges; were at risk for school failure; or were transitioning from speaking Spanish to English and experiencing literacy problems.…

Annual Research Review: The Nature and Classification of Reading Disorders--A Commentary on Proposals for DSM-5

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Snowling, Margaret J.; Hulme, Charles

2012-01-01

This article reviews our understanding of reading disorders in children and relates it to current proposals for their classification in DSM-5. There are two different, commonly occurring, forms of reading disorder in children which arise from different underlying language difficulties. Dyslexia (as defined in DSM-5), or decoding difficulty, refers…

Identifying Student Difficulties with Entropy, Heat Engines, and the Carnot Cycle

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Smith, Trevor I.; Christensen, Warren M.; Mountcastle, Donald B.; Thompson, John R.

2015-01-01

We report on several specific student difficulties regarding the second law of thermodynamics in the context of heat engines within upper-division undergraduate thermal physics courses. Data come from ungraded written surveys, graded homework assignments, and videotaped classroom observations of tutorial activities. Written data show that students…

The Development of Adolescent Online Reading Literacy Assessments

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Kuei-Lin Chang

2013-12-01

Full Text Available By adopting the constructs of reading literacy and with the use of information and communication technology, the purpose of this study is to develop two adolescent online reading literacy assessments (ORLA and examine the preliminary validity of ORLA. In addition, samples of online reading literacy performance are described. The design of ORLA is based on PISA electronic reading assessment framework and Leu et al. (2004’s online reading comprehension definition. A total of 601 eighth graders from junior high schools and 618 tenth graders from senior high schools in Taiwan City participated in this study. This study uses Rasch IRT model to calibrate the item parameter and scale scores. The results indicated: the online reading literacy assessments had adequate difficulty level, reasonable validity evidences, and students’ online reading literacy performance contains ICT element which is different from offline reading; the gender effect exists in the online reading environment by grades.

Identifying musical difficulties as they relate to congenital amusia in the pediatric population.

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Wilcox, Lyndy J; He, Kaidi; Derkay, Craig S

2015-12-01

Approximately 4% of the population fails to develop basic music skills and can be identified as "amusic". Congenital amusia (CA), or "tone deafness", is thought to be a hereditary disordera predominantly affecting the perception and production of music. The gold standard for diagnosis is the Montreal Battery for Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA). This study aims to pinpoint factors in the history that may help identify amusic children and to determine if amusic pediatric patients can be identified using a widely available, shorter test validated in adults. Subjects ages 7-17 years were recruited to take an online test, validated against the MBEA, for CA. The sections tested recognition of "off-beat" (OB), "mistuned" (MT), and "out-of-key" (OOK) conditions. Parents filled out a questionnaire regarding the subject's past medical, educational, musical exposure, and family history. Of 114 subjects recruited, complete data was available on 105 with a mean age of 12.5 years. According to adult criteria, 63/105 (60%) of subjects scored in the "amusic" range. Children >10 years of age scored significantly higher on the off-beat section (p=0.001) and total scores (p=0.025). Subjects who were born prematurely scored significantly lower (p=0.045). Children whose father had difficulties with music scored significantly lower on the off-beat section (p=0.003) and total scores (p=0.008). CA is a disorder that has implications for quality of life. Earlier identification may help elucidate the pathogenesis of the condition and, in the future, the institution of prompt treatment. Further studies are needed to identify the most appropriate and convenient tests, as well as the optimal timing of testing, for reliably diagnosing CA in children. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Fiction and Non-Fiction Reading and Comprehension in Preferred Books

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Topping, Keith J.

2015-01-01

Are the books preferred and most enjoyed by children harder than other books they read? Are non-fiction books read and understood at the same level of difficulty as fiction books? The Accelerated Reader software offers computerized comprehension quizzes of real books individually chosen by children, giving children (and teachers, librarians, and…

Reading and Vocabulary Recommendations for Spanish for Native Speakers Materials.

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Spencer, Laura Gutierrez

1995-01-01

Focuses on the need for appropriate materials to address the needs of native speakers of Spanish who study Spanish in American universities and high schools. The most important factors influencing the selection of readings should include the practical nature of themes for reading and vocabulary development, level of difficulty, and variety in…

Probing the Perceptual and Cognitive Underpinnings of Braille Reading. An Estonian Population Study

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Veispak, Anneli; Boets, Bart; Mannamaa, Mairi; Ghesquiere, Pol

2012-01-01

Similar to many sighted children who struggle with learning to read, a proportion of blind children have specific difficulties related to reading braille which cannot be easily explained. A lot of research has been conducted to investigate the perceptual and cognitive processes behind (impairments in) print reading. Very few studies, however, have…

The Frequency of Rapid Pupil Dilations as a Measure of Linguistic Processing Difficulty.

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Vera Demberg

Full Text Available While it has long been known that the pupil reacts to cognitive load, pupil size has received little attention in cognitive research because of its long latency and the difficulty of separating effects of cognitive load from the light reflex or effects due to eye movements. A novel measure, the Index of Cognitive Activity (ICA, relates cognitive effort to the frequency of small rapid dilations of the pupil. We report here on a total of seven experiments which test whether the ICA reliably indexes linguistically induced cognitive load: three experiments in reading (a manipulation of grammatical gender match/mismatch, an experiment of semantic fit, and an experiment comparing locally ambiguous subject versus object relative clauses, all in German, three dual-task experiments with simultaneous driving and spoken language comprehension (using the same manipulations as in the single-task reading experiments, and a visual world experiment comparing the processing of causal versus concessive discourse markers. These experiments are the first to investigate the effect and time course of the ICA in language processing. All of our experiments support the idea that the ICA indexes linguistic processing difficulty. The effects of our linguistic manipulations on the ICA are consistent for reading and auditory presentation. Furthermore, our experiments show that the ICA allows for usage within a multi-task paradigm. Its robustness with respect to eye movements means that it is a valid measure of processing difficulty for usage within the visual world paradigm, which will allow researchers to assess both visual attention and processing difficulty at the same time, using an eye-tracker. We argue that the ICA is indicative of activity in the locus caeruleus area of the brain stem, which has recently also been linked to P600 effects observed in psycholinguistic EEG experiments.

Diagnostic Assessment and Treatment of Reading Difficulties: A Case Study of Dyslexia

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Oviedo, Paula Outon; Gonzalez, Rebeca Abal

2013-01-01

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability in reading and writing, which requires adequate early intervention to prevent future school failure. We describe the diagnostic assessment of a 7-year-old boy labelled "dyslexic", the evaluation of his family, social, medical, developmental, and academic status as a preliminary for the design…

Understanding Oral Reading Fluency among Adults with Low Literacy: Dominance Analysis of Contributing Component Skills

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Mellard, Daryl F.; Anthony, Jason L.; Woods, Kari L.

2012-01-01

This study extends the literature on the component skills involved in oral reading fluency. Dominance analysis was applied to assess the relative importance of seven reading-related component skills in the prediction of the oral reading fluency of 272 adult literacy learners. The best predictors of oral reading fluency when text difficulty was…

Reading Fluency and Students with Reading Disabilities: How Fast Is Fast Enough to Promote Reading Comprehension?

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O'Connor, Rollanda E.

2018-01-01

The goal of improving reading rate and fluency is to positively impact reading comprehension; however, it is unclear how fast students with learning disabilities (LD) need to read to reap this benefit. The purpose of this research was to identify the point of diminishing return for students who were dysfluent readers. Participants included 337…

Russian Orthography and Learning to Read

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Kerek, Eugenia; Niemi, Pekka

2009-01-01

The unique structure of Russian orthography may influence the organization and acquisition of reading skills in Russian. The present review examines phonemic-graphemic correspondences in Russian orthography and discusses its grain-size units and possible difficulties for beginning readers and writers. Russian orthography is governed by a…

Working Memory in Children With Learning Disabilities in Reading Versus Spelling: Searching for Overlapping and Specific Cognitive Factors.

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Brandenburg, Janin; Klesczewski, Julia; Fischbach, Anne; Schuchardt, Kirsten; Büttner, Gerhard; Hasselhorn, Marcus

2015-01-01

In transparent orthographies like German, isolated learning disabilities in either reading or spelling are common and occur as often as a combined reading and spelling disability. However, most issues surrounding the cognitive causes of these isolated or combined literacy difficulties are yet unresolved. Recently, working memory dysfunctions have been demonstrated to be promising in explaining the emergence of literacy difficulties. Thus, we applied a 2 (reading disability: yes vs. no) × 2 (spelling disability: yes vs. no) factorial design to examine distinct and overlapping working memory profiles associated with learning disabilities in reading versus spelling. Working memory was assessed in 204 third graders, and multivariate analyses of variance were conducted for each working memory component. Children with spelling disability suffered from more pronounced phonological loop impairments than those with reading disability. In contrast, domain-general central-executive dysfunctions were solely associated with reading disability, but not with spelling disability. Concerning the visuospatial sketchpad, no impairments were found. In sum, children with reading disability and those with spelling disability seem to be characterized by different working memory profiles. Thus, it is important to take both reading and spelling into account when investigating cognitive factors of literacy difficulties in transparent orthographies. © Hammill Institute on Disabilities 2014.

An Integrated Approach to Establish Validity and Reliability of Reading Tests

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Razi, Salim

2012-01-01

This study presents the processes of developing and establishing reliability and validity of a reading test by administering an integrative approach as conventional reliability and validity measures superficially reveals the difficulty of a reading test. In this respect, analysing vocabulary frequency of the test is regarded as a more eligible way…

Teaching reading comprehension to learners with autism spectrum disorder: Discrepancies between teacher and research-recommended practices.

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Accardo, Amy L; Finnegan, Elizabeth G

2017-11-01

Students with autism spectrum disorder have been found to experience difficulty with reading comprehension despite intact decoding and word recognition. This identified need for targeted reading comprehension remediation results in a need for teachers to utilize research-based practices and to individualize instruction for students with autism spectrum disorder; however, teachers report a lack of access to such practices. This study utilized survey methodology to gather perceptions and experiences of teachers and to compare teacher preparedness to use effective instructional practices emerging from the extant research to teacher-reported effective practices in the classroom. Study findings, based on 112 participants, reveal a discrepancy between teacher-reported effective practices, and the practices identified as effective through research, indicating a research to practice gap. Implications for practice include professional development recommendations, and the need for increased communication between researchers and teachers.

Raising the Reading Skills of Secondary-Age Students with Severe and Persistent Reading Difficulties: Evaluation of the Efficacy and Implementation of a Phonics-Based Intervention Programme

Science.gov (United States)

Jeffes, Ben

2016-01-01

The importance of reading skills to academic achievement, job acquisition and future success is well documented. Most of the research on reading interventions focuses on children in primary schools but many children start secondary school with very poor reading skills and schools require evidence-based interventions to support these children. The…

Do Chinese Children With Math Difficulties Have a Deficit in Executive Functioning?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiaochen Wang

2018-06-01

Full Text Available Several studies have shown that Executive Functioning (EF is a unique predictor of mathematics performance. However, whether or not children with mathematics difficulties (MD experience deficits in EF remains unclear. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine if Chinese children with MD experience deficits in EF. We assessed 23 children with MD (9 girls, mean age = 10.40 years, 30 children with reading difficulties and MD (RDMD; 12 girls, mean age = 10.82 years, and 31 typically-developing (TD peers (16 girls, mean age = 10.41 years on measures of inhibition (Color-Word Stroop, Inhibition, shifting of attention (Planned Connections, Rapid Alternating Stimuli, working memory (Digit Span Backwards, Listening Span, processing speed (Visual Matching, Planned Search, reading (Character Recognition, Sentence Verification, and mathematics (Addition and Subtraction Fluency, Math Standard Achievement Test. The results of MANOVA analyses showed first that the performance of the MD children in all EF tasks was worse than their TD peers. Second, with the exception of the shifting tasks in which the MD children performed better than the RDMD children, the performance of the two groups was similar in all measures of working memory and inhibition. Finally, covarying for the effects of processing speed eliminated almost all differences between the TD and MD groups (the only exception was Listening Span as well as the differences between the MD and RDMD groups in shifting of attention. Taken together, our findings suggest that although Chinese children with MD (with or without comorbid reading difficulties experience significant deficits in all EF skills, most of their deficits can be accounted by lower-level deficits in processing speed.

The Development of the easyCBM CCSS Reading Assessments: Grade 3. Technical Report #1221

Science.gov (United States)

Alonzo, Julie; Park, Bitnara Jasmine; Tindal, Gerald

2012-01-01

In this technical report, we document the development and piloting of easyCBM reading measures aligned to the Common Core State Standards, designed for use in screening students at risk for reading difficulty and monitoring their progress as they develop reading skills. The measures, which assess students' ability to respond to…

The contribution of lexical access speed to RAN and reading

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Poulsen, Mads

and reading speed in the older age group was still strong after controlling for general speed of processing, but controlling for confrontation picture naming speed reduced the contribution of RAN to only marginally significant. Conclusions: We conclude that RAN-objects relationship with reading speed......Purpose: The study investigated why and when rapid automatised naming is a predictor of reading. Specifically, we tested the hypotheses that (1) RAN-objects predicts reading because it is a measure of lexical (e.g. phonological) access speed, but (2) that RAN only becomes a predictor of reading...... development once a certain level of phonological recoding proficiency has been reached. Method: Forty Danish students without reading difficulties were administered tests of reading speed and accuracy, phoneme awareness, RAN-objects, timed confrontation picture naming, and visio-motor reaction time...

Identifying wrong assemblies in de novo short read primary ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

2016-08-05

Aug 5, 2016 ... Most of these assemblies are done using some de novo short read assemblers and other related approaches. .... benchmarking projects like Assemblathon 1, Assemblathon ... from a large insert library (at least 1000 bases).

Visual Processing of Verbal and Nonverbal Stimuli in Adolescents with Reading Disabilities.

Science.gov (United States)

Boden, Catherine; Brodeur, Darlene A.

1999-01-01

A study investigated whether 32 adolescents with reading disabilities (RD) were slower at processing visual information compared to children of comparable age and reading level, or whether their deficit was specific to the written word. Adolescents with RD demonstrated difficulties in processing rapidly presented verbal and nonverbal visual…

The Effect of Task-Based Activities on EFL Learners' Reading Comprehension

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Nahavandi, Naemeh

2011-01-01

Nowadays, preparing learners to communicate successfully in language classes is of utmost importance. But teachers face a lot of difficulties in teaching English in EFL contexts. One of the major problems is students' unwillingness to take part in reading classes. Reading classes seem boring for students who find no occasion to show their ability…

The Danish version of the Radner Reading Chart

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Munch, Inger Christine; Jørgensen, Astrid Helene Ravn; Radner, Wolfgang

2016-01-01

, variance and number of errors per short text. Results The students read the short texts faster than the blue-collar workers (184 ± 21.4 words per minute (wpm) versus 163 ± 26.3 wpm, p ...Purpose To develop 28 short texts to be used as sentence optotypes in a Danish version of the Radner Reading Chart for the measurement of reading acuity and speed. Method Forty-six short texts of comparable lexical and grammatical difficulty were constructed. The short texts were tested together...... with two longer reference texts in 100 persons with visual acuity 6/6, of which 50 were university students (age: 24.7 ± 3.1 years, 36% males) and 50 were blue-collar workers (37.2 ± 13.4 years, 54% males). Study parameters were mean reading speed and error rate per participant, and mean reading time...

Verbal and visuospatial working memory as predictors of children's reading ability.

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Pham, Andy V; Hasson, Ramzi M

2014-08-01

Children with reading difficulties often demonstrate weaknesses in working memory (WM). This research study explored the relation between two WM systems (verbal and visuospatial WM) and reading ability in a sample of school-aged children with a wide range of reading skills. Children (N = 157), ages 9-12, were administered measures of short-term memory, verbal WM, visuospatial WM, and reading measures (e.g., reading fluency and comprehension). Although results indicated that verbal WM was a stronger predictor in reading fluency and comprehension, visuospatial WM also significantly predicted reading skills, but provided more unique variance in reading comprehension than reading fluency. These findings suggest that visuospatial WM may play a significant role in higher level reading processes, particularly in reading comprehension, than previously thought. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Colors, colored overlays, and reading skills

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Arcangelo eUccula

2014-07-01

Full Text Available In this article, we are concerned with the role of colors in reading written texts. It has been argued that colored overlays applied above written texts positively influence both reading fluency and reading speed. These effects would be particularly evident for those individuals affected by the so called Meares-Irlen syndrome, i.e. who experience eyestrain and/or visual distortions – e.g. color, shape or movement illusions – while reading. This condition would interest the 12-14% of the general population and up to the 46% of the dyslexic population. Thus, colored overlays have been largely employed as a remedy for some aspects of the difficulties in reading experienced by dyslexic individuals, as fluency and speed. Despite the wide use of colored overlays, how they exert their effects has not been made clear yet. Also, according to some researchers, the results supporting the efficacy of colored overlays as a tool for helping readers are at least controversial. Furthermore, the very nature of the Meares-Irlen syndrome has been questioned. Here we provide a concise, critical review of the literature.

Investigating Patterns of Errors for Specific Comprehension and Fluency Difficulties

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Koriakin, Taylor A.; Kaufman, Alan S.

2017-01-01

Although word reading has traditionally been viewed as a foundational skill for development of reading fluency and comprehension, some children demonstrate "specific" reading comprehension problems, in the context of intact word reading. The purpose of this study was to identify specific patterns of errors associated with reading…

Difficulties of Secondary school teachers implicating in the reading, innovation and research in science education (II: the problem of “hands-on”

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Oliva Martínez, José María

2012-04-01

Full Text Available This work is a continuation of another recent article in these pages (Oliva, 2011, which dealt with the difficulties of high school teachers to start in the dynamics of innovation and research in science education. In another study that examined the views expressed by a sample of 16 secondary science teachers around the obstacles to immersion in these tasks, as well as comments, expressed doubts and obstacles they face the task write a short article in the context of an introductory training course on this subject. From the same source, in this other paper the intrinsic difficulties that arise once the teachers decide to engage in this type of work and faces the tasks associated with these processes. The problems identified in this case are due, among other reasons, lack of trust in teachers' own possibilities, difficulties in the formulating of the problem object of research, lack of theoretical and problems in drafting written work. From the above results makes some conclusions and implications for teacher training in this field.

Vocabulary and Syntactic Knowledge Factors in 5th Grade Students' Reading Comprehension

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Mokhtari, Kouider; Niederhauser, Dale S.

2013-01-01

In this study, we examined 5th grade students' levels of vocabulary knowledge and syntactic awareness relative to their reading comprehension performance. The aim was to explore the contributions of vocabulary and syntactic awareness as potential sources of reading comprehension difficulty for these readers. Overall, we found that both vocabulary…

Perceived importance and difficulty of online activities among visually impaired persons in Nigeria.

Science.gov (United States)

Okonji, Patrick Emeka; Okiki, Olatokunbo Christopher; Ogwezzy, Darlington

2018-03-26

This study investigated perceived relevance of and difficulties in access to day-to-day online activities among visually impaired computer users who used screen readers. The 98 participants in the study were grouped into visually impaired adults (VIA; aged 20-59, n = 60) and visually impaired older adults (VIOA; aged 60 and over, n = 38). Data were collected in structured interview questionnaires with Likert scales exploring ratings of perceived importance and difficulty of access to eleven (11) online platforms of various internet activities. Analyses revealed that the two groups did not differ significantly in ratings of perceived importance of 4 major online activities, namely; Sending or reading email (p = 0.5224), Online banking (p = 0.2833), Online shopping (p = 0.1829), and Health information seeking (p = 0.1414). The topmost rated activity of priority among both groups was sending and reading emails. Findings also show that, apart from sending and reading emails, activities rated as important were mostly perceived as difficult to access. The implications of the study for inclusive design and strategies and/or interventions to encourage uptake of internet use among the visually impaired population are discussed.

CONSULT-I Reading. Cincinnati Project. Final Report.

Science.gov (United States)

Newman, Anabel; And Others

A study examined the effectiveness of the spring-semester 1993 implementation of the CONSULT-I(R) program, which uses artificial intelligence with statistical pattern recognition in constructing a diagnosis and recommending treatment of reading difficulties. Eight classroom teachers and two Gifted and Talented coordinators at South Avondale…

The Place of Reading in EFL Context

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Azize Kavlu

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The article aim is to shed light on the problem of reading in EFL context and also refer to non – Latin Arabic alphabet learners‘ challenges. Researcher tried to analyze myriad research articles to explore the common EFL learners‘ difficulties and problems on the way of English reading and comprehension and bunch together the implemented methods (techniques and go through generated suggestions and feasible solutions. The marshal factors will provide benefits to educators in EFL context (EFL school teachers, university lecturers, people whose concern is EFL development.

Towards a conceptual framework for identifying student difficulties with solving Real-World Problems in Physics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Niss, Martin

2012-01-01

This paper develops a conceptual framework for identifying the challenges and obstacles university students encounter when solving real-world problems involving Physics. The framework is based on viewing problem solving as a modelling process. In order to solve a real-world problem, the problem...... solver has to go through the steps and do the tasks of such a process. The paper presents a theoretical analysis of what it takes to solve three real-world problems, demonstrating how the framework presented captures the essential aspects of solving them. Moreover, it is argued that three steps critical...... for real-world problem solving – initial analysis of the problem situation, choice of relevant physical theory (the so-called paradigmatic choice) and mathematization – are not covered by existing models of problem solving in Physics. Finally, the existing research on student difficulties with problem...

FAD: Filtering, Analyzing, and Diagnosing Reading Difficulties

Science.gov (United States)

Mokhtari, Kouider; Niederhauser, Dale S.; Beschorner, Elizabeth A.; Edwards, Patricia A.

2011-01-01

In this article, the authors introduce a data analysis procedure, abbreviated as FAD, to help literacy professionals who work with children in clinical or classroom settings identify and interpret patterns of assessment data with the goal of determining children's literacy strengths and needs. The procedure uses data from multiple literacy…

CRISPR Detection From Short Reads Using Partial Overlap Graphs.

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Ben-Bassat, Ilan; Chor, Benny

2016-06-01

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) are structured regions in bacterial and archaeal genomes, which are part of an adaptive immune system against phages. CRISPRs are important for many microbial studies and are playing an essential role in current gene editing techniques. As such, they attract substantial research interest. The exponential growth in the amount of bacterial sequence data in recent years enables the exploration of CRISPR loci in more and more species. Most of the automated tools that detect CRISPR loci rely on fully assembled genomes. However, many assemblers do not handle repetitive regions successfully. The first tool to work directly on raw sequence data is Crass, which requires reads that are long enough to contain two copies of the same repeat. We present a method to identify CRISPR repeats from raw sequence data of short reads. The algorithm is based on an observation differentiating CRISPR repeats from other types of repeats, and it involves a series of partial constructions of the overlap graph. This enables us to avoid many of the difficulties that assemblers face, as we merely aim to identify the repeats that belong to CRISPR loci. A preliminary implementation of the algorithm shows good results and detects CRISPR repeats in cases where other existing tools fail to do so.

[The comorbidity of learning difficulties and ADHD symptoms in primary-school-age children].

Science.gov (United States)

Schuchardt, Kirsten; Fischbach, Anne; Balke-Melcher, Christina; Mähler, Claudia

2015-05-01

Children having difficulties in acquiring early literacy and mathematical skills often show an increased rate of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. This study provides data on the comorbidity rates of specific learning difficulties and ADHD symptoms. We analyzed the data of 273 children with learning difficulties despite an at least average IQ, 57 children with low IQ, and 270 children without learning difficulties and average IQ (comparison group). We assessed children’s IQ and school achievement using standardized achievement tests. ADHD symptoms were assessed via parents’ ratings. Our results showed that only 5 % of both the control group and the group with solely mathematical difficulties fulfilled the criteria of an ADHD subtype according to the DSM-IV based on parents’ ratings. In contrast, this was the case in even 20 % of the children with difficulties in reading/writing and of those with low IQ. Compared to girls, boys in the control group had a 150% higher risk for matching the criteria of one of the ADHD subtypes in parents’ ratings, whereas boys with learning difficulties and those with low IQ had an even 200% to 600% higher risk for it. The relationship between learning difficulties and ADHD symptoms can be found predominantly in the inattentive type. Possible reasons for the results are discussed.

Identifying Students' Difficulties When Learning Technical Skills via a Wireless Sensor Network

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Jingying; Wen, Ming-Lee; Jou, Min

2016-01-01

Practical training and actual application of acquired knowledge and techniques are crucial for the learning of technical skills. We established a wireless sensor network system (WSNS) based on the 5E learning cycle in a practical learning environment to improve students' reflective abilities and to reduce difficulties for the learning of technical…

Students’ difficulties in probabilistic problem-solving

Science.gov (United States)

Arum, D. P.; Kusmayadi, T. A.; Pramudya, I.

2018-03-01

There are many errors can be identified when students solving mathematics problems, particularly in solving the probabilistic problem. This present study aims to investigate students’ difficulties in solving the probabilistic problem. It focuses on analyzing and describing students errors during solving the problem. This research used the qualitative method with case study strategy. The subjects in this research involve ten students of 9th grade that were selected by purposive sampling. Data in this research involve students’ probabilistic problem-solving result and recorded interview regarding students’ difficulties in solving the problem. Those data were analyzed descriptively using Miles and Huberman steps. The results show that students have difficulties in solving the probabilistic problem and can be divided into three categories. First difficulties relate to students’ difficulties in understanding the probabilistic problem. Second, students’ difficulties in choosing and using appropriate strategies for solving the problem. Third, students’ difficulties with the computational process in solving the problem. Based on the result seems that students still have difficulties in solving the probabilistic problem. It means that students have not able to use their knowledge and ability for responding probabilistic problem yet. Therefore, it is important for mathematics teachers to plan probabilistic learning which could optimize students probabilistic thinking ability.

Diffusion Tensor Imaging Correlates of Reading Ability in Dysfluent and Non-Impaired Readers

Science.gov (United States)

Lebel, Catherine; Shaywitz, Bennett; Holahan, John; Shaywitz, Sally; Marchione, Karen; Beaulieu, Christian

2013-01-01

Many children and adults have specific reading disabilities; insight into the brain structure underlying these difficulties is evolving from imaging. Previous research highlights the left temporal-parietal white matter as important in reading, yet the degree of involvement of other areas remains unclear. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and…

Desirable difficulties in vocabulary learning

OpenAIRE

Bjork, RA; Kroll, JF

2015-01-01

© 2015 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. In this article we discuss the role of desirable difficulties in vocabulary learning from two perspectives, one having to do with identifying conditions of learning that impose initial challenges to the learner but then benefit later retention and transfer, and the other having to do with the role of certain difficulties that are intrinsic to language processes, are engaged during word learning, and reflect how language is underst...

An action research study of collaborative strategic reading in English with Saudi medical students

OpenAIRE

Al-Roomy, Muhammad

2013-01-01

This is an investigative action research study on ways of improving the reading comprehension skills of Arabic medical school students. The study first analysed the difficulties of teaching and learning English and reading in English in a Saudi university medical college. An intervention was planned and implemented based on Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR –Klingner and Vaughn, 1996). This involved using group work to teach explicitly a set of reading strategies to a class of students who...

Racial/ethnic differences in video game and Internet use among US adolescents with mental health and educational difficulties.

Science.gov (United States)

Carson, Nicholas; Lê Cook, Benjamin; Chen, Chih-Nan; Alegria, Margarita

2012-01-01

Video game and Internet use can be associated with poor mental health and educational outcomes among adolescents. Racial/ethnic minority youth use these media more than White youth. Video game and Internet use among adolescents with mental health and educational difficulties may therefore differ by race/ethnicity in clinically meaningful ways. We analyzed a representative sample of 8 th grade students in the United States from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Kindergarten (N=6,700). Stratifying by gender, we assessed racial/ethnic differences in the associations between video game and Internet use, mental health, and reading and math achievement. Significant minority-White differences were identified in associations between media use and mental health and educational achievement. Video game use was relatively high among black females with prior mental health diagnoses and Asian-American males with high internalizing symptoms. Understanding video game and Internet use among racial/ethnic minority youth with mental health and educational difficulties may improve clinical practice.

Racial/ethnic differences in video game and Internet use among US adolescents with mental health and educational difficulties

Science.gov (United States)

Carson, Nicholas; Lê Cook, Benjamin; Chen, Chih-Nan; Alegria, Margarita

2013-01-01

Video game and Internet use can be associated with poor mental health and educational outcomes among adolescents. Racial/ethnic minority youth use these media more than White youth. Video game and Internet use among adolescents with mental health and educational difficulties may therefore differ by race/ethnicity in clinically meaningful ways. We analyzed a representative sample of 8th grade students in the United States from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Kindergarten (N=6,700). Stratifying by gender, we assessed racial/ethnic differences in the associations between video game and Internet use, mental health, and reading and math achievement. Significant minority-White differences were identified in associations between media use and mental health and educational achievement. Video game use was relatively high among black females with prior mental health diagnoses and Asian-American males with high internalizing symptoms. Understanding video game and Internet use among racial/ethnic minority youth with mental health and educational difficulties may improve clinical practice. PMID:29167696

Strategies for Improving Non-Fiction Reading Comprehension.

Science.gov (United States)

Bell, Karen; Caspari, Amy

This report describes a program for introducing students to strategies for improving their comprehension of non-fiction materials. The targeted population consisted of students of one third grade class in a small, middle class suburb, northwest of a large, midwestern city. Difficulty reading and comprehending non-fiction material was documented…

CONSULT-I Reading. Ohio Project. Final Report.

Science.gov (United States)

Newman, Anabel; And Others

A study examined the effectiveness of the 1991-1992 implementation of the CONSULT-I(R) program (which uses artificial intelligence with statistical pattern recognition in constructing a diagnosis and recommending treatment of reading difficulties) at five cities in Ohio (Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, and Toledo). A total of 30 teachers…

Primary reflex persistence in children with reading difficulties (dyslexia): a cross-sectional study.

Science.gov (United States)

McPhillips, Martin; Jordan-Black, Julie-Anne

2007-03-02

The primary reflex system emerges during fetal life and is inhibited during the first year after birth. Our aim was to examine the effects of persistence of this early neurological system on the attainment of core literacy skills in dyslexic and non-dyslexic poor readers. We assessed the prevalence of a persistent primary reflex in a cross-sectional, representative sample of children (n=739) aged 7-9 years old attending mainstream primary school in Northern Ireland using standardised educational tests, and a clinical diagnostic test for a primary reflex (the asymmetrical tonic neck reflex (ATNR)). Multiple regression analyses, involving all of the sample children, revealed that persistence of the ATNR was significantly predictive of attainments in reading (t=-8.34, pschooling, the attainment of core educational skills may be affected by the persistence of a brainstem mediated reflex system that should have been inhibited in the first year after birth. Furthermore, these findings suggest that dyslexia is not a distinct category of poor reading, and that it may be more valid to term all poor readers as dyslexic irrespective of IQ.

Effects of Personal Intelligence Reading Instruction on personal intelligence profiles of Thai university students

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Salila Vongkrahchang

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The study investigated the impact of reading instruction using personal intelligence (PI on Thai university students' PI profiles. Thirty-nine undergraduates majoring in English involved in the study for ten weeks. Their PI profiles were measured twice at the pre-and post-interventions. The mixed methods research design was employed. The results showed that the students developed more personal intelligence in the post-intervention profiles (x¯ = 2.72, SD = 0.80 than in their pre-intervention ones (x¯ = 2.54, SD = 0.82. The students showed a preference for intrapersonal intelligence, in goal setting (x¯ = 2.85, SD = 0.78, monitoring (x¯ = 2.85, SD = 0.74, and evaluation strategy (x¯ = 3.21, SD = 0.77. Their interaction assessed by classroom observation and student worksheets also highlighted the PI profile findings. Personal Intelligence Reading Instruction facilitated the students setting specific and achievable goals, making overt and doable plans for their reading tasks, adjusting strategies helping them understand the text better, and identifying sources of difficulties while reading.

Reading Performance as a Function of Treatment with Lisdexamfetamine Dimesylate in Elementary School Children Diagnosed with ADHD

Science.gov (United States)

Wigal, Sharon B.; Maltas, Stephanie; Crinella, Francis; Stehli, Annamarie; Steinhoff, Kenneth; Lakes, Kimberley; Schuck, Sabrina

2012-01-01

Background: Medication treatment studies of ADHD have typically not assessed effects on reading performance, although reading difficulties frequently co-occur in children with ADHD. The current study characterizes the effects of lisdexamfetamine dimesylate (LDX; Vyvanse[R], Shire US Inc.), at peak efficacy, on reading performance in children with…

Assessing spelling in kindergarten: further comparison of scoring metrics and their relation to reading skills.

Science.gov (United States)

Clemens, Nathan H; Oslund, Eric L; Simmons, Leslie E; Simmons, Deborah

2014-02-01

Early reading and spelling development share foundational skills, yet spelling assessment is underutilized in evaluating early reading. This study extended research comparing the degree to which methods for scoring spelling skills at the end of kindergarten were associated with reading skills measured at the same time as well as at the end of first grade. Five strategies for scoring spelling responses were compared: totaling the number of words spelled correctly, totaling the number of correct letter sounds, totaling the number of correct letter sequences, using a rubric for scoring invented spellings, and calculating the Spelling Sensitivity Score (Masterson & Apel, 2010b). Students (N=287) who were identified at kindergarten entry as at risk for reading difficulty and who had received supplemental reading intervention were administered a standardized spelling assessment in the spring of kindergarten, and measures of phonological awareness, decoding, word recognition, and reading fluency were administered concurrently and at the end of first grade. The five spelling scoring metrics were similar in their strong relations with factors summarizing reading subskills (phonological awareness, decoding, and word reading) on a concurrent basis. Furthermore, when predicting first-grade reading skills based on spring-of-kindergarten performance, spelling scores from all five metrics explained unique variance over the autoregressive effects of kindergarten word identification. The practical advantages of using a brief spelling assessment for early reading evaluation and the relative tradeoffs of each scoring metric are discussed. Copyright © 2013 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Validating the use of the evaluation tool of children's handwriting-manuscript to identify handwriting difficulties and detect change in school-age children.

Science.gov (United States)

Brossard-Racine, Marie; Mazer, Barbara; Julien, Marilyse; Majnemer, Annette

2012-01-01

In this study we sought to validate the discriminant ability of the Evaluation Tool of Children's Handwriting-Manuscript in identifying children in Grades 2-3 with handwriting difficulties and to determine the percentage of change in handwriting scores that is consistently detected by occupational therapists. Thirty-four therapists judged and compared 35 pairs of handwriting samples. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses were performed to determine (1) the optimal cutoff values for word and letter legibility scores that identify children with handwriting difficulties who should be seen in rehabilitation and (2) the minimal clinically important difference (MCID) in handwriting scores. Cutoff scores of 75.0% for total word legibility and 76.0% for total letter legibility were found to provide excellent levels of accuracy. A difference of 10.0%-12.5% for total word legibility and 6.0%-7.0% for total letter legibility were found as the MCID. Study findings enable therapists to quantitatively support clinical judgment when evaluating handwriting. Copyright © 2012 by the American Occupational Therapy Association, Inc.

Analysis of EFL Students' Ability in Reading Vocabulary of Synonyms and Antonyms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vina Fathira

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Reading is an important thing for academic level. Every student must have many vocabularies to encourage her/his reading skill. The aim of this research is to analyze the students' understanding of reading vocabularies of synonyms and antonyms in the higher education level. Synonyms and antonyms are two important things should be mastered to get better reading comprehension. The method used in this research was quantitative with survey design. The population same as the sample of this research was from fifth semester students of STIBA Persada Bunda Pekanbaru. The procedures of the research were divided into 3 parts. First, students were asked to choose the best choice in the multiple choice for synonyms and anton, number and the wrong number, and grouped the wrong number into difficulties level. Last, the researcher analyzed the students' ability in reading vocabulary of synonyms and antonyms and concluded the result of students' ability in reading vocabulary of synonyms and antonyms in elementary, intermediate, and advanced level. The result of this research showed that the students' ability in reading vocabulary of synonyms and antonyms was categorized into "excellent" level with mean score 85. From the three difficulties level of question, the findings of this research were explained every level of question. In synonyms, the mean score of students' ability were 89, 85, and 84 for elementary, intermediate, and advanced level of question. Whereas, in antonyms, the mean score of students' ability were 97, 85, and 69 for elementary, intermediate, and advanced level of question.Keywords: students' ability, reading vocabulary, synonyms and antonyms

Reading and reading instruction for children from low-income and non-English-speaking households.

Science.gov (United States)

Lesaux, Nonie K

2012-01-01

Although most young children seem to master reading skills in the early grades of elementary school, many struggle with texts as they move through middle school and high school. Why do children who seem to be proficient readers in third grade have trouble comprehending texts in later grades? To answer this question, Nonie Lesaux describes what is known about reading development and instruction, homing in on research conducted with children from low-income and non-English-speaking homes. Using key insights from this research base, she offers two explanations. The first is that reading is a dynamic and multifaceted process that requires continued development if students are to keep pace with the increasing demands of school texts and tasks. The second lies in the role of reading assessment and instruction in U.S. schools. Lesaux draws a distinction between the "skills-based competencies" that readers need to sound out and recognize words and the "knowledge-based competencies" that include the conceptual and vocabulary knowledge necessary to comprehend a text's meaning. Although U.S. schools have made considerable progress in teaching skills-based reading competencies that are the focus of the early grades, most have made much less progress in teaching the knowledge-based competencies students need to support reading comprehension in middle and high school. These knowledge-based competencies are key sources of lasting individual differences in reading outcomes, particularly among children growing up in low-income and non-English-speaking households. Augmenting literacy rates, Lesaux explains, will require considerable shifts in the way reading is assessed and taught in elementary and secondary schools. First, schools must conduct comprehensive reading assessments that discern learners' (potential) sources of reading difficulties--in both skills-based and knowledge-based competencies. Second, educators must implement instructional approaches that offer promise for

The Occupation and Participation Approach to Reading Intervention (OPARI): A Community of Practice Study

Science.gov (United States)

Grajo, Lenin C.; Candler, Catherine

2017-01-01

We employed a community of practice to expand the application of the Occupation and Participation Approach to Reading Intervention (OPARI) and build the capacity of practitioners to support children with reading difficulties. Twelve pediatric practitioners participated in a community of practice for 7 months. We used a one…

Theories of intelligence in children with reading disabilities: a training proposal.

Science.gov (United States)

Pepi, Annamaria; Alesi, Marianna; Geraci, Maria

2004-12-01

A recent trend in the study of reading difficulties promotes multidimensional intervention, focusing on the reciprocal influences exerted by cognitive and emotional-motivational variables. This study evaluated improvements in reading performance as a function of metacognitive training in 36 children (M age = 8.7 yr.) with different representations of intelligence. Posttest evaluations show significantly more improvement in reading comprehension in children with an incremental theory of intelligence. These results indicate the importance of treatment programmes that take into account both the specificity of deficits and factors relating to the domain of motivation.

Prediction and Stability of Mathematics Skill and Difficulty

OpenAIRE

Martin, Rebecca B.; Cirino, Paul T.; Barnes, Marcia A.; Ewing-Cobbs, Linda; Fuchs, Lynn S.; Stuebing, Karla K.; Fletcher, Jack M.

2012-01-01

The present study evaluated the stability of math learning difficulties over a 2-year period and investigated several factors that might influence this stability (categorical vs. continuous change, liberal vs. conservative cut point, broad vs. specific math assessment); the prediction of math performance over time and by performance level was also evaluated. Participants were 144 students initially identified as having a math difficulty (MD) or no learning difficulty according to low achievem...

Possible Reasons for Students' Ineffective Reading of Their First-Year University Mathematics Textbooks. Technical Report. No. 2011-2

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Shepherd, Mary D.; Selden, Annie; Selden, John

2011-01-01

This paper reports the observed behaviors and difficulties that eleven precalculus and calculus students exhibited in reading new passages from their mathematics textbooks. To gauge the effectiveness of these students' reading, we asked them to attempt straightforward mathematical tasks, based directly on what they had just read. These …

Executive Functions Contribute Uniquely to Reading Competence in Minority Youth

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Jacobson, Lisa A.; Koriakin, Taylor; Lipkin, Paul; Boada, Richard; Frijters, Jan; Lovett, Maureen; Hill, Dina; Willcutt, Erik; Gottwald, Stephanie; Wolf, Maryanne; Bosson-Heenan, Joan; Gruen, Jeffrey R.; Mahone, E. Mark

2018-01-01

Competent reading requires various skills beyond those for basic word reading (i.e., core language skills, rapid naming, phonological processing). Contributing “higher-level” or domain-general processes include information processing speed and executive functions (working memory, strategic problem solving, attentional switching). Research in this area has relied on largely Caucasian samples, with limited representation of children from racial or ethnic minority groups. This study examined contributions of executive skills to reading competence in 761 children of minority backgrounds. Hierarchical linear regressions examined unique contributions of executive functions (EF) to word reading, fluency, and comprehension. EF contributed uniquely to reading performance, over and above reading-related language skills; working memory contributed uniquely to all components of reading; while attentional switching, but not problem solving, contributed to isolated and contextual word reading and reading fluency. Problem solving uniquely predicted comprehension, suggesting that this skill may be especially important for reading comprehension in minority youth. Attentional switching may play a unique role in development of reading fluency in minority youth, perhaps as a result of the increased demand for switching between spoken versus written dialects. Findings have implications for educational and clinical practice with regard to reading instruction, remedial reading intervention, and assessment of individuals with reading difficulty. PMID:26755569

STUDENTS’ READING PRACTICES AND ENVIRONMENTS

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Aiza Johari

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract: The challenges of reading are indeed apparent in most teaching and learning processes in ESL classrooms. As a result, this study is conducted to resolve the issues of students who seem to find reading to be unbearable. Many of them have limited ability to read well and hence, possess insufficient reading habits to become competent readers, particularly out-of-school context. Besides, poor home literacy environments also contribute to their shortcomings in reading. The main objectives of this study are to identify the students’ reasons for reading as well as to find out their home reading environments (reading backgrounds and habits; reading attitudes and motivation; reading exposure and supports. To identify these, questionnaires were distributed to 120 secondary school students (Form 4: 16 years old from one of the urban schools in Sarawak, Malaysia. The findings indicate that the students read to gain information and knowledge though many chose reading as a hobby as their last choice in explaining their motives of reading. Besides, they preferred non-academic reading materials, mainly lighter forms reading materials such as comics, story books and magazines. Though the students acknowledged the importance of reading in their daily lives, their average reading habits, attitude, motivation, exposure and support within the home domain had suggested otherwise. They mainly read for instrumental purposes while reading for pleasure seemed not to be given priority. Besides, the respondents acknowledge that their parents and themselves did not read much at home. As an implication, it is vital for students to improve their reading perceptions, abilities and practices to achieve personal, societal and national progress. On a final note, parents’ early and continuous efforts to be involved in their children’s literacy events in an out-of-school context are believed to be vital to inculcate positive reading environments, habits and culture

Maternal worries, home safety behaviors, and perceived difficulties.

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Hendrickson, Sherry Garrett

2008-01-01

The aim of the study was to explore the worries, safety behaviors, and perceived difficulties in keeping children safe at home in a purposive sample of low-income, predominantly non-English speaking mothers as a foundation for later nursing interventions. This study was a qualitative, descriptive design with content analysis to identify maternal concerns, behaviors, and perceptions of home safety as part of a larger study. Eighty-two mothers, 64% of whom were monolingual Spanish-speakers, responded in writing to three semistructured interview questions. When mothers were unable to read and write the researcher wrote the responses, then read the content aloud for verification. A standardized probe for each question was posed to obtain richer responses. Data management included use of the software program NUD*IST and coding analyses following the Miles and Huberman guidelines (1994). Interpretations were translated into English for this report. The major worries were falling, health, kidnapping, and being hit by a car. The leading maternal behaviors were coded as being physically, verbally, and environmentally preventive. Mothers said that it was their role to provide safety, and that this role could be wearisome, such that constant supervision was difficult. Low-income mothers described their worries for their 1 to 4 year-old children, explored their behaviors for preventing injury, and discussed what made keeping children from harm difficult. Understanding how mothers keep children safe, the barriers to home safety, and effective safety behaviors are important to the health of children. The clinical relevance of this study includes building trust as clinicians plan assessment, intervention and evaluation of home safety to encourage dialog about concerns, safety behaviors, and barriers to keeping children from injury.

Reading Categories Identified in the Reading Activities of a Caregiver and a Middle-Class Child

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Isabel, Borja-Alarcón; Astrid, Ramirez Valencia; Alfonso, López-Vega

2017-01-01

This paper aims to report the findings of a research project, developed from the need to make contributions about the characteristics that emerge, when a three-year-old child and his caregiver carry reading activities out. By the use of recordings and students' artifacts, in order to collect data; and analyzing the information collected through…

Operation and Structure of an Artificial Intelligence Expert Consultative System for Reading and Learning.

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Balajthy, Ernest

1989-01-01

The article examines decision-making expert systems and discusses their implications for diagnosis and prescription of reading difficulties. A detailed description of how a reading diagnostic expert system might operate to aid classroom teachers is followed by a discussion of advantages and limitations of expert systems for educational use.…

The Contribution of Morphological Knowledge to 7th Grade Students' Reading Comprehension Performance

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Mokhtari, Kouider; Neel, Joanna; Matatall, Abbey; Richards, Andrea

2015-01-01

In this study, we examined the role of morphology, an important yet largely understudied source of difficulty, in reading ability among 7th grade students in one junior high school in the southwestern United States. We sought to find out how much variance in reading ability is accounted for by these students' morphological knowledge, and whether…

EARLY READING ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENTS: ABILITIES AND PROCESSES INVOLVED

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Ana Cláudia de Souza

2017-04-01

Full Text Available This study investigates the following early reading assessment instruments: “Bateria de Recepção e Produção da Linguagem Verbal” (SCLIAR-CABRAL, 2003a and “Teste de Competência de Leitura de Palavras e Pseudopalavras” (SEABRA; CAPOVILLA, 2010. The main research goal is to analyze in each one of these reading assessment instruments some of the multiple cognitive processes and basic low-level abilities involved in reading. In this sense, decoding, word recognition, lexical access, syntactic and textual processing, and comprehension are the cognitive processes taken into account. With regard to the basic reading abilities, accuracy and fluency (rhythm, prosody and speed are considered. The results indicate that each one of the analyzed reading assessment instruments assesses different aspects of the reading processes and abilities, mainly through off-line measures. ScliarCabral’s assessment battery allows the researcher or the teacher to evaluate the following processes: perception of the grapheme opposition in minimal pairs of words and in sentences, difficulties in sentence processing, skills in decoding the graphemic-phonemic relationship, and textual comprehension. In its turn, the reading assessment instrument proposed by Seabra e Capovilla allows one to evaluate student’s reading development level, by classifying the kind of processing as logographic, alphabetic or orthographic.

The specific role of inhibition in reading comprehension in good and poor comprehenders.

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Borella, Erika; Carretti, Barbara; Pelegrina, Santiago

2010-01-01

Difficulties in inhibitory processes have been shown to characterize the performance of poor comprehenders. However, the inhibitory inefficiency of poor comprehenders is most often assessed by their resistance to proactive interference, that is, the ability to suppress off-goal task information from working memory (WM). In two studies tasks assessing resistance to proactive interference (intrusion errors), response to distracters (Text With Distracters task) and prepotent response inhibition (Stroop and Hayling tests), along with WM measures, were administered to children aged 10 to 11, both good and poor comprehenders. The aim of the study was to specifically determine whether general or specific inhibitory factors affect poor comprehenders' reading difficulties. Results showed that poor comprehenders, compared to good ones, are impaired in WM tasks and in inhibitory tasks that assess resistance to proactive interference. This suggests that reading comprehension difficulties of poor comprehenders are related to specific inhibitory problems.

Towards identifying dyslexia in Standard Indonesian: : the development of a reading assessment battery

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Jap, Bernard Amadeus Jaya; Borleffs, Elisabeth; Maassen, Bernardus

2017-01-01

With its transparent orthography, Standard Indonesian is spoken by over 160 million inhabitants and is the primary language of instruction in education and the government in Indonesia. An assessment battery of reading and reading-related skills was developed as a starting point for the diagnosis of

Desempenho de escolares com e sem dificuldades de aprendizagem de ensino particular em habilidade fonológica, nomeação rápida, leitura e escrita Performance of students with and without learning difficulties in phonological awareness, rapid naming, reading and writing from the private education

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Simone Aparecida Capellini

2009-01-01

Full Text Available OBJETIVOS: caracterizar e comparar o desempenho de escolares com e sem dificuldades de aprendizagem no ensino particular em habilidades fonológicas, nomeação rápida, leitura e escrita. MÉTODOS: participaram desse estudo 60 escolares de 2ª a 4ª séries de escola de ensino particular, distribuídos em 6 grupos, sendo cada grupo composto por 10 escolares, sendo 3 grupos de escolares com dificuldades de aprendizagem e 3 grupos de escolares sem dificuldades de aprendizagem. Como procedimentos, foram realizadas a prova de nomeação automática rápida, a de consciência fonológica e a prova de leitura oral e escrita sob ditado. RESULTADOS: os resultados desse estudo evidenciaram desempenho superior dos escolares sem dificuldades de aprendizagem em relação àqueles com dificuldades. Os escolares com dificuldades de aprendizagem apresentaram maior relação velocidade/tempo em tarefas de nomeação e, conseqüentemente, desempenho inferior em tarefas de consciência fonológica e leitura e escrita de palavras isoladas quando comparados aos sem dificuldades de aprendizagem. CONCLUSÃO: os escolares com dificuldades de aprendizagem apresentaram comprometimento na relação entre as capacidades de nomeação e automatização dos estímulos apresentados com a capacidade de acesso lexical, discriminação visual, freqüência de uso dos estímulos e competição para a apresentação do menor tempo possível na nomeação dos códigos necessários para o estabelecimento do mecanismo de conversão fonema-grafema, exigido para a realização da leitura e escrita em um sistema alfabético como o português.PURPOSE: characterizing and comparing the performance of students with and without learning difficulties from the private education in phonological awareness, rapid naming, reading and writing. METHODS: sixty private students from 2nd to 4th grade participated, distributed into 6 groups - each one was composed of 10 students being 3 groups of

Vocabulary and syntactic knowledge factors in 5th grade students’ reading comprehension

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Kouider Mokhtari

2013-03-01

Full Text Available In this study, we examined 5th grade students’ levels of vocabulary knowledge and syntactic awareness relative to their reading comprehension performance. The aim was to explore the contributions of vocabulary and syntactic awareness as potential sources of reading comprehension difficulty for these readers. Overall, we found that both vocabulary knowledge and syntactic awareness contributed in significant yet unique ways to students’ reading comprehension performance. Students who showed weaknesses in vocabulary and syntax also performed poorly on measures of reading comprehension. Additionally, we found that syntactic awareness explained a small amount of additional variance in reading comprehension beyond what was explained by vocabulary. The implications of these findings are discussed in light of research and practice addressing the relationships among syntax, vocabulary, and reading comprehension for more and less skilled readers.

THE SECONDARY SCHOOL ENGLISH LANGUAGE READING CURRICULUM: A TEACHER’S PERCEPTIONS

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Hazlina Abdullah

2016-08-01

Abstract The Secondary School English Language Reading Curriculum: A teacher’s Perceptions. The problem of reading comprehension is not unique to only Malaysian graduates. In fact many students experience comprehension difficulties. This, some sudents need explicit comprehension strategy instruction. A rational starting point for this discussion is by defining what reading is. It is then followed by a brief review on Communicative Language Teaching (CLT which is adopted in the Malaysian Form 5 English Language Reading Curriculum. Involving the writer, the reader and the text, reading is actually a communication process where a reader is seen to perform an active role in a reading process. Based on the many previous researches, it is obvious that the teacher’s role in aiding students’ reading comprehension skills is vital. This also reflects the importance of the reading curriculum, as teachers will impkement their reading instruction based on the outlined curriculum. It is hoped that this study may benefit those involved in the curriulum development and examination syndicate, to enhance the teaching and learning processes of reading in the second language, not only among teachers in Malaysia but also world-wide. Keywords: English language Reading Curriculum, reading comprehension skill

Influence of Reading Material Characteristics on Study Time for Pre-Class Quizzes in a Flipped Classroom.

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Persky, Adam M; Hogg, Abigail

2017-08-01

Objective. To examine how instructor-developed reading material relates to pre-class time spent preparing for the readiness assurance process (RAP) in a team-based learning (TBL) course. Methods. Students within pharmacokinetics and physiology were asked to self-report the amount of time spent studying for the RAP. Correlation analysis and multilevel linear regression techniques were used to identify factors within the pre-class reading material that contribute to self-reported study time. Results. On average students spent 3.2 hours preparing for a section of material in the TBL format. The ratio of predicted reading time, based on reading speed and word count, and self-reported study time was greater than 1:3. Self-reported study time was positively correlated with word count, number of tables and figures, and overall page length. For predictors of self-reported study time, topic difficulty and number of figures were negative predictors whereas word count and number of self-assessments were positive predictors. Conclusion. Factors related to reading material are moderate predictors of self-reported student study time for an accountability assessment. A more significant finding is student self-reported study time is much greater than the time predicted by simple word count.

Effects of reciprocal teaching on reading comprehension of low-achieving adolescents. The importance of specific teacher skills

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M. Okkinga; Dr. A.J.S. van Gelderen; R. van Steensel

2016-01-01

Low-achieving adolescents are known to have difficulties with reading comprehension. This article discusses how reciprocal teaching can improve low-achieving adolescents' reading comprehension in whole-classroom settings (as opposed to small-group settings) and to what extent intervention effects

Effects of reciprocal teaching on reading comprehension of low-achieving adolescents. The importance of specific teacher skills

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Okkinga, Mariska; van Steensel, Roel; van Gelderen, Amos J.S.; Sleegers, Peter J.C.

2018-01-01

Low-achieving adolescents are known to have difficulties with reading comprehension. This article discusses how reciprocal teaching can improve low-achieving adolescents' reading comprehension in whole-classroom settings (as opposed to small-group settings) and to what extent intervention effects

Reading and writing development of low-achieving adolescents: The roles of linguistic knowledge, fluency, and metacognitive knowledge

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Trapman, M.J.W.

2016-01-01

Whereas school and society pose high demands on youngsters’ reading and writing skills, many adolescents experience difficulties in understanding what they read and in expressing their thoughts in comprehensible texts. Especially low-achieving students in the lowest educational tracks in the

Adult reading teachers’ beliefs about how less-skilled adult readers can be taught to read.

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Janet McHardy

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Despite large-scale interventions, significant numbers of adults worldwide continue to have problems with basic literacy, in particular in the area of reading. To be effective, adult reading teachers need expert knowledge at practitioner level. However, practices in adult reading education vary widely, often reflecting the individual beliefs of each teacher about how an adult can learn to read. In this study, phenomenographic analysis was used to identify categories of approaches to teaching adult reading, used by a group of 60 teachers in Western Australia and New Zealand. Four approaches were identified: reassurance, task-based, theory-based and responsive. It is argued that for teachers to become effective and consistent in responding to learner needs, they must understand their own beliefs and the consequences of these. The identification of different approaches in adult reading education is an important step in this process.

Neuropsychological Assessment of Children With Reading Disabilities From 8 to 10 Years Old: An Exploratory Portuguese Study.

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da Rocha e Silva, Cláudia Susana Rosa Correia; Glória e Silva, Filipe Miguel; Martins, Maria Isabel Pavão

2015-01-01

Reading disabilities are one of the most significant causes of school failure and may result from different causes and cognitive processes. A comprehensive battery of neuropsychological tests was applied to a control group of 102 children (46 girls, 56 boys) with no history of learning disabilities and 32 children (13 girls, 19 boys) with poor reading achievement (PRA) to characterize their cognitive profile. A principal component analysis of the cognitive measures was undertaken to identify cognitive domains. Age-adjusted normative data were computed from controls for verbal and visuospatial abilities, psychomotor skills, executive functions, and a total score. Significant differences were found between the 2 groups. Although single tests could not identify children with PRA, measures of oral and written language, immediate and working memory, calculation, and verbal learning discriminated the 2 groups. A logistic regression model using these factors allowed us to identify 91.2% of healthy children and 96.9% of children with PRA. PRA may result from different patterns of cognitive difficulties, and it is more common in children with oral language and working-memory deficits. Wide-range cognitive testing is necessary to identify strong and weak areas to plan personalized intervention programs.

An Experimental Study of Scheduling and Duration of "Tier 2" First-Grade Reading Intervention

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Denton, Carolyn A.; Cirino, Paul T.; Barth, Amy E.; Romain, Melissa; Vaughn, Sharon; Wexler, Jade; Francis, David J.; Fletcher, Jack M.

2011-01-01

This study compared the effects on reading outcomes of delivering supplemental, small-group intervention to first-grade students at risk for reading difficulties randomly assigned to one of three different treatment schedules: extended (4 sessions per week, 16 weeks; n = 66), concentrated (4 sessions per week, 8 weeks; n = 64), or distributed (2…

Functional Anatomy of Listening and Reading Comprehension during Development

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Berl, Madison M.; Duke, Elizabeth S.; Mayo, Jessica; Rosenberger, Lisa R.; Moore, Erin N.; VanMeter, John; Ratner, Nan Bernstein; Vaidya, Chandan J.; Gaillard, William Davis

2010-01-01

Listening and reading comprehension of paragraph-length material are considered higher-order language skills fundamental to social and academic functioning. Using ecologically relevant language stimuli that were matched for difficulty according to developmental level, we analyze the effects of task, age, neuropsychological skills, and post-task…

The effectiveness of a 2-year supplementary tutor-assisted computerized intervention on the reading development of beginning readers at risk for reading difficulties: a randomized controlled trial

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Regtvoort, A.; Zijlstra, H.; van der Leij, A.

2013-01-01

Children with low (pre-)literacy skills may benefit from individual tutoring during the early phases of learning to read. Dutch at-risk students from 13 schools received in first and second grade a computerized reading intervention, delivered by non-professional tutors at school. Digital logs

INTEREST AND READING MOTIVATION

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Alhamdu Alhamdu

2016-05-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between interest and reading motivation based on literature review. The concept of the interest portrayed as a psychological state that occurs during interaction between individual and specific topic, object or activity including process of willingness, increased attention, concentration and positive feeling to the topic, object or activity. Meanwhile reading motivation emphasized to mental readiness, willingness and refers to beliefs and perception of individual to engage in reading activity. Some researchers were identified factors that influenced reading motivation such as intrinsic and extrinsic factors, self-concept and value of reading, and interest. In general, the literature review described that have positive relationship between interest and reading motivation.

Metacognitive reading strategies of children with learning disabilities.

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Nicolielo-Carrilho, Ana Paola; Hage, Simone Rocha de Vasconcellos

2017-05-15

to check the use of metacognitive reading strategies in children with learning disabilities and determine whether there is a relationship between their use and text comprehension. the study was conducted on 30 children, aged 8 to 12 years, of both genders, divided into experimental group (EG) - 15 children with learning disabilities; and control group (CG) - 15 children without disability. All children were submitted to the Reading Strategies Scale and Prolec text comprehension subtest. The sample was described in mean, median, minimum and maximum values. Comparative analysis was performed between the groups using the Mann-Whitney test. The degree of correlation between variables was verified by Spearman Correlation Analysis. The significance level was set at 5%. across the total scores of the scale, EG performance was lower in all descriptive measures, with a significant difference compared to CG. The EG achieved a performance close to children without difficulties only in global strategies. The correlation between the use of metacognitive strategies and reading comprehension was positive. children with learning disabilities showed deficits in the use of metacognitive reading strategies when compared to children without learning disabilities. The better the performance in reading strategies, the better textual comprehension was and vice versa, suggesting that metacognitive reading skills contribute to reading comprehension.

Working memory contributions to reading comprehension components in middle childhood children.

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Chrysochoou, Elisavet; Bablekou, Zoe; Tsigilis, Nikolaos

2011-01-01

This study examined working memory contributions to reading comprehension subskills in Greek children (mean age 9 years, 1 month). The phonological loop of the Baddeley and Hitch working memory model was assessed with 3 recall tasks (words, nonwords, and digits) and a word list matching task. The central executive (CE) was assessed with 3 tasks (listening, counting, and backward digit recall). Participants were also given a receptive vocabulary task, a reading fluency task, and written stories accompanied by comprehension questions. Canonical correlation analyses showed that the comprehension variables were related to the CE rather than the phonological loop measures. CE functions were more strongly associated with elaborative inference generation (involving significant offline processing) and comprehension control (involving metacognitive monitoring). Smaller yet significant associations were observed between the CE and the necessary inference and literal comprehension measures, whereas a moderate relationship was found in the case of the simile comprehension variable. Among the CE variables, listening recall demonstrated the highest loading on the canonical function, followed by moderate yet significant counting and backward digit recall loadings. Vocabulary was found to fully mediate several associations between working memory and comprehension measures; however, the relationship between listening recall and elaborative inferences was partly mediated. Reading fluency and, on several occasions, Greek vocabulary knowledge did not mediate the relationships between CE measures and comprehension skills assessed. This study demonstrates the usefulness of CE measures for identifying young children's possible difficulties in carrying out specific reading comprehension processes.

Development of the Portuguese version of a standardized reading test: the Radner-Coimbra Charts

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Andreia Martins Rosa

Full Text Available ABSTRACT Purpose: To develop 27 short sentence optotypes for the Portuguese version of the Radner Reading Charts. Methods: Thirty-four Portuguese sentences were constructed following the concept of the Radner Reading Charts to obtain highly comparable sentences in terms of lexical difficulty, syntactical complexity, word length, number of syllables, and position of words. A long text (106 words at the 5th grade reading level was also tested to assess the validity of the reading speeds obtained with the short sentences. The short sentences and long text were tested in 50 volunteers with similar educational backgrounds (mean age 30.98 years ± 6.99 years, range 19-47 years. Reading speeds were measured with a stop-watch and reported as words per minute (wpm. The reading time for each of the short sentences to be selected for the chart was defined as falling within the range of the mean ± 0.40 × standard deviation (SD. Results: The overall mean reading speed for each of the short sentences was 235.43 ± 36.39 wpm. The 27 sentences with a mean between 220.8 and 250.0 wpm (overall mean ± 0.40 × SD were selected for construction of the reading charts. The mean reading speed for the long text was 212.42 ± 26.20 wpm. Correlation between the selected short sentences and long text was high (r =0.86. Reliability analysis yielded an overall Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.97. Conclusions: The 27 short Portuguese sentences were highly comparable in terms of syntactical structure, number, position and length of words, lexical difficulty, and reading length. This reading test can overcome the limitations of the current tests for homogeneity and comparability, reducing subjectivity in the evaluation of the functional outcomes of medical and surgical ophthalmologic treatments.

The Non-Fiction Reading Habits of Young Successful Boy Readers: Forming Connections between Masculinity and Reading

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Smith, Susannah

2004-01-01

The reading experiences of six young successful boy readers were studied over a two-year period. In this article, their non-fiction reading is analysed and ways in which the boys make positive connections between masculinity and reading are identified. The boys' non-fiction reading centres on typical boy interest areas and hobbies (for example,…

Effects of Wh-Question Graphic Organizers on Reading Comprehension Skills of Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders

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Bethune, Keri S.; Wood,Charles L.

2013-01-01

Students with autism spectrum disorders often have difficulty with reading comprehension. This study used a delayed multiple baseline across participants design to evaluate the effects of graphic organizers on the accuracy of wh-questions answered following short passage reading. Participants were three elementary-age students with autism spectrum…

Characterizing preservice Teacherʼs responses to literacy: Read alouds a way to experience the joy for reading

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Judith Castellanos

2011-04-01

Full Text Available This article reports on a small-scale project which central purpose was to incorporate read-alouds in a pre-intermediate English as a foreign language class of preservice teachers during three weeks. Students responded orally and in a written way on their journals to these readings showing understanding of the texts, relating their personal experiences and / or making connections to them. The project involved students of the undergraduate program in English teaching at Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, Bogotá. In all, 19 students were involved in the project. Data collection sources for this project include studentsʼ journals, after the fact notes on studentsʼ oral interactions and a group interview. Among the findings observed in this inquiry project include the intertextual connections (Short, 1993 students make across the texts read in class with their personal experiences. Most studentsʼ oral responses were characterized by code-switching; in general most students code switched depending on the difficulty of the answer. Students benefited from the reading-alouds in terms of opportunities to interact among themselves, practice their oral and written skills, and enjoy the pleasures of reading, thus building ground to a positive experience that may be emulated in their future teaching exercise. Finally, I discuss some implications of read-alouds with preservice teachers and teacher education programs in Colombia.

A Review of Reading Motivation Scales

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Davis, Marcia H.; Tonks, Stephen M.; Hock, Michael; Wang, Wenhao; Rodriguez, Aldo

2018-01-01

Reading motivation is a critical contributor to reading achievement and has the potential to influence its development. Educators, researchers, and evaluators need to select the best reading motivation scales for their research and classroom. The goals of this review were to identify a set of reading motivation student self-report scales used in…

Imaging-Genetics in Dyslexia: Connecting risk genetic variants to brain neuroimaging and ultimately to reading impairments

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Eicher, John D.; Gruen, Jeffrey R.

2013-01-01

Dyslexia is a common pediatric disorder that affects 5-17% of schoolchildren in the United States. It is marked by unexpected difficulties in fluent reading despite adequate intelligence, opportunity, and instruction. Classically, neuropsychologists have studied dyslexia using a variety of neurocognitive batteries to gain insight into the specific deficits and impairments in affected children. Since dyslexia is a complex genetic trait with high heritability, analyses conditioned on performance on these neurocognitive batteries have been used to try to identify associated genes. This has led to some successes in identifying contributing genes, although much of the heritability remains unexplained. Additionally, the lack of relevant human brain tissue for analysis and the challenges of modeling a uniquely human trait in animals are barriers to advancing our knowledge of the underlying pathophysiology. In vivo imaging technologies, however, present new opportunities to examine dyslexia and reading skills in a clearly relevant context in human subjects. Recent investigations have started to integrate these imaging data with genetic data in attempts to gain a more complete and complex understanding of reading processes. In addition to bridging the gap from genetic risk variant to a discernible neuroimaging phenotype and ultimately to the clinical impairments in reading performance, the use of neuroimaging phenotypes will reveal novel risk genes and variants. In this article, we briefly discuss the genetic and imaging investigations and take an in-depth look at the recent imaging-genetics investigations of dyslexia. PMID:23916419

TINGKAT KETERBACAAN READING MATERIALS DALAM MATA KULIAH TELAAH TEKS BAHASA INGGRIS STAIN PAMEKASAN

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Mulyadi ---

2011-07-01

Full Text Available This Article is summarized from a research report about reading level of textbook of English text study subject in STAIN Pamekasan. Reading level is measure about according to not it a reading to certain reader seen from level facet of difficulty / amenity its discourse. This research target is to describing the reading level of reading materials of English text study subject in STAIN Pamekasan. English subject is studied in two levels, namely, elementary level calls the English subject and also advanced level is English Text Study. This two subjects have the character to be obliged to go through for all college students in five studies program (prodi --- Islamic Religion education, Arab language education, and English education in Tarbiyah Department. Two other studies program are Islam Civil Law and Moslem law Banking in Moslem law Department. By using the analytical descriptive method expected can give the reading level of textbook pursuanting to understanding of college students can be explained. Its source data is from all textbooks taught at English text study subject in STAIN Pamekasan. The research result indicates that most existing discourse in textbooks taught is standard classification. for that is suggested to curator lecturer of English text study subject to be more selective in discourse election its textbooks. Boosting up difficulty level undoubted to be done by paying attention of lecturing technique “reading” for the students facility comprehend textbooks

A new principle for the standardization of long paragraphs for reading speed analysis.

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Radner, Wolfgang; Radner, Stephan; Diendorfer, Gabriela

2016-01-01

To investigate the reliability, validity, and statistical comparability of long paragraphs that were developed to be equivalent in construction and difficulty. Seven long paragraphs were developed that were equal in syntax, morphology, and number and position of words (111), with the same number of syllables (179) and number of characters (660). For validity analyses, the paragraphs were compared with the mean reading speed of a set of seven sentence optotypes of the RADNER Reading Charts (mean of 7 × 14 = 98 words read). Reliability analyses were performed by calculating the Cronbach's alpha value and the corrected total item correlation. Sixty participants (aged 20-77 years) read the paragraphs and the sentences (distance 40 cm; font: Times New Roman 12 pt). Test items were presented randomly; reading length was measured with a stopwatch. Reliability analysis yielded a Cronbach's alpha value of 0.988. When the long paragraphs were compared in pairwise fashion, significant differences were found in 13 of the 21 pairs (p differ significantly, and these paragraph combinations are therefore suitable for comparative research studies. The mean reading speed was 173.34 ± 24.01 words per minute (wpm) for the long paragraphs and 198.26 ± 28.60 wpm for the sentence optotypes. The maximum difference in reading speed was 5.55 % for the long paragraphs and 2.95 % for the short sentence optotypes. The correlation between long paragraphs and sentence optotypes was high (r = 0.9243). Despite good reliability and equivalence in construction and degree of difficulty, a statistically significant difference in reading speed can occur between long paragraphs. Since statistical significance should be dependent only on the persons tested, either standardizing long paragraphs for statistical equality of reading speed measurements or increasing the number of presented paragraphs is recommended for comparative investigations.

Shared neuroanatomical substrates of impaired phonological working memory across reading disability and autism

OpenAIRE

Lu, Chunming; Qi, Zhenghan; Harris, Adrianne; Weil, Lisa Wisman; Han, Michelle; Halverson, Kelly; Perrachione, Tyler K.; Kjelgaard, Margaret; Wexler, Kenneth; Tager-Flusberg, Helen; Gabrieli, John D. E.

2016-01-01

Background Individuals with reading disability and individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are characterized, respectively, by their difficulties in reading and social communication, but both groups often have impaired phonological working memory (PWM). It is not known whether the impaired PWM reflects distinct or shared neuroanatomical abnormalities in these two diagnostic groups. Methods White-matter structural connectivity via diffusion weighted imaging was examined in 64 children,...

COLLABORATIVE STRATEGIC READING IMPLEMENTATION TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION

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Desy Olivia Riani

2013-01-01

Full Text Available This collaborative action research is aimed to find out whether or not the implementation of Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR improves students' reading comprehension and also to identify students' attitude towards the implementation of CSR. CSR is reading strategy that employs four strategies namely Preview, Click and Clunk, Get the Gist and Wrap Up during students’ cooperative learning. A class of eleventh grade students of a public senior high school in Majalengka, West Java, Indonesia is participated as the participant of the study. The required data were collected through the use of questionnaire, observation checklist, and reading test. The data from the questionnaire indicated that 82% students had positive attitude toward the implementation of CSR. They feel that CSR improves their motivation in learning English and CSR brings more fun to the process of learning. Moreover, it was found from observation data that the students were actively participated during CSR implementation and they were motivated when comprehending a text by means CSR strategy. Finally, the study proved that CSR improved students’ reading comprehension. Students’ mean score of reading test in the beginning of the study was 67, meanwhile, after applying CSR as reading strategy, their mean scores improved to 88.

Eye Movement Control in Scene Viewing and Reading: Evidence from the Stimulus Onset Delay Paradigm

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Luke, Steven G.; Nuthmann, Antje; Henderson, John M.

2013-01-01

The present study used the stimulus onset delay paradigm to investigate eye movement control in reading and in scene viewing in a within-participants design. Short onset delays (0, 25, 50, 200, and 350 ms) were chosen to simulate the type of natural processing difficulty encountered in reading and scene viewing. Fixation duration increased…

Alternative Text Types to Improve Reading Fluency for Competent to Struggling Readers

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Timothy V. Rasinski

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This article offers instructional suggestions and strategies based on research and theoretical literature for developing reading fluency through the use of rhyming poetry and other texts beyond the narrative and informational texts that have been traditionally used for reading instruction. Readers’ lack of fluency in reading can be a monumental impediment to proficiency in good comprehension and overall reading competency. For all readers it is well established that as they progress in reading competence their reading ability grows (Stanovich, 1993/1994. This continued reading success begets continued reading growth; however, many struggling readers have difficulty in moving to a level of automaticity and fluency in their reading that enables them to engage in a successful practice. Lack of practice inhibits their reading comprehension. Readers’ abilities to effectively comprehend texts are significantly affected by their proficiency in accurate and automatic word recognition and prosody (May, 1998; Stanovich, 1993/1994; LaBerge & Samuels, 1974; Schreiber, 1991. Repeated reading practice has been shown to be a powerful way to improve these important fluency competencies. Certain texts are particularly well suited for repeated reading that improves both aspects of fluency

Effectiveness of music education for the improvement of reading skills and academic achievement in young poor readers: a pragmatic cluster-randomized, controlled clinical trial.

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Cogo-Moreira, Hugo; Brandão de Ávila, Clara Regina; Ploubidis, George B; Mari, Jair de Jesus

2013-01-01

Difficulties in word-level reading skills are prevalent in Brazilian schools and may deter children from gaining the knowledge obtained through reading and academic achievement. Music education has emerged as a potential method to improve reading skills because due to a common neurobiological substratum. To evaluate the effectiveness of music education for the improvement of reading skills and academic achievement among children (eight to 10 years of age) with reading difficulties. 235 children with reading difficulties in 10 schools participated in a five-month, randomized clinical trial in cluster (RCT) in an impoverished zone within the city of São Paulo to test the effects of music education intervention while assessing reading skills and academic achievement during the school year. Five schools were chosen randomly to incorporate music classes (n = 114), and five served as controls (n = 121). Two different methods of analysis were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention: The standard method was intention-to-treat (ITT), and the other was the Complier Average Causal Effect (CACE) estimation method, which took compliance status into account. The ITT analyses were not very promising; only one marginal effect existed for the rate of correct real words read per minute. Indeed, considering ITT, improvements were observed in the secondary outcomes (slope of Portuguese = 0.21 [pmusic lessons as public policy.

Lexical and Sub-Lexical Effects on Accuracy, Reaction Time and Response Duration: Impaired and Typical Word and Pseudoword Reading in a Transparent Orthography

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Davies, Robert; Rodriguez-Ferreiro, Javier; Suarez, Paz; Cuetos, Fernando

2013-01-01

In an opaque orthography like English, phonological coding errors are a prominent feature of dyslexia. In a transparent orthography like Spanish, reading difficulties are characterized by slower reading speed rather than reduced accuracy. In previous research, the reading speed deficit was revealed by asking children to read lists of words.…

Reading and E-reading for Academic Work: Patterns and Preferences in Theological Studies and Religion

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Timothy Dwight Lincoln

2013-07-01

Full Text Available This article reports on a 2012 survey of library patrons at ATLA-affiliated libraries regarding academic reading habits and preferences. The research questions for the study were: [1] To what extent is academic reading done as e-reading?; [2] What features do participants value in e-books?; [3] What library sources do patrons want made available to them electronically?  The method used in the study was an online survey. A total of 2,578 individuals took the survey in the spring of 2012. Key findings were that half of respondents regularly read journal articles on a computer screen and  one  in five regularly reads or listens to e-books in their academic work. Participants wanted e-books to enable them to perform keyword searches, move around quickly within the text, and annotate the text electronically. Seven out of ten participants stated that they would like libraries to provide reference works, Bible commentaries, circulating titles, and textbooks in electronic format. It appeared that the distinction between library-owned resources and those owned by an individual disappeared in the minds of many respondents. The author concludes that theological library directors should consider spending a significant proportion of their collection budget on electronic resources now, despite ongoing difficulties that academic publishers face in making a transition to digital publishing. The author also interprets findings in light of Fred Davis’ model of technology acceptance.

Yellow filters can improve magnocellular function: motion sensitivity, convergence, accommodation, and reading.

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Ray, N J; Fowler, S; Stein, J F

2005-04-01

The magnocellular system plays an important role in visual motion processing, controlling vergence eye movements, and in reading. Yellow filters may boost magnocellular activity by eliminating inhibitory blue input to this pathway. It was found that wearing yellow filters increased motion sensitivity, convergence, and accommodation in many children with reading difficulties, both immediately and after three months using the filters. Motion sensitivity was not increased using control neutral density filters. Moreover, reading-impaired children showed significant gains in reading ability after three months wearing the filters compared with those who had used a placebo. It was concluded that yellow filters can improve magnocellular function permanently. Hence, they should be considered as an alternative to corrective lenses, prisms, or exercises for treating poor convergence and accommodation, and also as an aid for children with reading problems.

Poor Anchoring Limits Dyslexics' Perceptual, Memory, and Reading Skills

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Oganian, Yulia; Ahissar, Merav

2012-01-01

The basic deficits underlying the severe and persistent reading difficulties in dyslexia are still highly debated. One of the major topics of debate is whether these deficits are language specific, or affect both verbal and non-verbal stimuli. Recently, Ahissar and colleagues proposed the "anchoring-deficit hypothesis" (Ahissar, Lubin,…

Reliability and Validity of Curriculum-Based Informal Reading Inventories.

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Fuchs, Lynn; And Others

A study was conducted to explore the reliability and validity of three prominent procedures used in informal reading inventories (IRIs): (1) choosing a 95% word recognition accuracy standard for determining student instructional level, (2) arbitrarily selecting a passage to represent the difficulty level of a basal reader, and (3) employing…

Neuropsychological profiles of adolescents with ADHD: effects of reading difficulties and gender.

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Rucklidge, Julia J; Tannock, Rosemary

2002-11-01

Executive function, particularly behavioral inhibition, has been implicated as a core deficit specific to Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) whereas rapid naming has been implicated as a core deficit specific to reading disabilities (RD). Females may be less impaired in executive function although adolescent females with ADHD have yet to be studied. Neuropsychological profiles of four adolescent groups aged 13-16 with equal female representation were investigated: 35 ADHD, 12 RD, 24 ADHD+RD, and 37 normal controls. A semi-structured interview (K-SADS-PL), the Conners Rating Scales and the Ontario Child Health Study Scales were used to diagnose ADHD. RD was defined as a standard score below 90 on at least one of the following: Reading or Spelling of the WRAT3 or Word Attack or Word Identification of the WRMT-R. The WISC-III, Rapid Automatized Naming, Stroop and Stop tasks were used as measures of cognitive and executive function. The two ADHD groups (ADHD, ADHD+RD) showed deficits in processing speed, naming of objects, poor behavioral inhibition and greater variability in reaction times whereas the two RD groups (RD, RD+ADHD) showed verbal working memory deficits and slower verbal retrieval speed. Only the comorbid group was slower with naming of numbers and colors and had slower reaction times. Regression analyses indicated that incongruent color naming (Stroop) and variability in go reaction time were the best predictors of hyperactive/impulsive ADHD symptoms whereas variability in go reaction time and processing speed were the best predictors of inattentive ADHD symptoms. Speed of letter naming and verbal working memory accounted for the most variability in composite achievement scores. No gender differences were found on any of the cognitive tests. This study challenges the importance of behavioral inhibition deficits in ADHD and that naming deficits are specific to RD. Further investigation into cognitive deficits in these groups is required.

Heritability of slow and/or inaccurate reading ability in 33,000 adult twins with self-reported data

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fibiger-Dagnæs, Steen; von Bornemann Hjelmborg, Jacob; Erbs, Lena

2012-01-01

Genetic influence for adult slow and/or inaccurate reading ability was studied from selfreported answers, using a dichotomous question on having difficulties in reading the Danish subtitles on foreign TV programs. The data from 33,424 twins were population based and were used for biometric analys...

Teaching Reading Comprehension to Learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Predictors of Teacher Self-Efficacy and Outcome Expectancy

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Accardo, Amy L.; Finnegan, Elizabeth G.; Gulkus, Steven P.; Papay, Clare K.

2017-01-01

Learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often exhibit difficulty in the area of reading comprehension. Research connecting the learning needs of individuals with ASD, existing effective practices, teacher training, and teacher perceptions of their own ability to teach reading comprehension is scarce. Quantitative survey methodology and…

Analysis of junior high school students' difficulty in resolving rectangular conceptual problems

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Utami, Aliksia Kristiana Dwi; Mardiyana, Pramudya, Ikrar

2017-08-01

Geometry is one part of the mathematics that must be learned in school and it has important effects on the development of creative thinking skills of learners, but in fact, there are some difficulties experienced by the students. This research focuses on analysis difficulty in resolving rectangular conceptual problems among junior high school students in every creative thinking skills level. This research used a descriptive method aimed to identify the difficulties and cause of the difficulties experienced by five students. The difficulties are associated with rectangular shapes and related problems. Data collection was done based on students' work through test, interview, and observations. The result revealed that student' difficulties in understanding the rectangular concept can be found at every creative thinking skills level. The difficulties are identifying the objects rectangular in the daily life except for a rectangle and square, analyzing the properties of rectangular shapes, and seeing the interrelationships between figures.

Reading in a second language: Considering the "simple view of reading" as a foundation to support ESL readers in Lesotho, Southern Africa

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van Staden, Annalene

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Globally, reading proficiency has been a major area of difficulty for English second-language (ESL learners. This research inter alia utilised a quantitative, quasi-experimental, pre-test/post-test research design to address the paucity of evidence-based second-language reading research internationally, as well as in Sub-Saharan Africa, and in Lesotho in particular; and to determine if second-language learners (L2 in the experimental group can improve their L2 reading abilities after being exposed to reading intervention strategies, based on the “simple view of reading”. Drawing from both psycholinguistic and cognitive linguistic principles, the authors considered this as a working model to develop reading strategies to support ESL learners in Lesotho who experienced significant delays in L2 reading abilities and comprehension. In the present study, strategies based on the “simple view of reading”, , included, inter alia, effective language exposure, building a rich vocabulary, improving reading fluency and word recognition abilities, and creating socio-linguistic opportunities to develop vocabulary and enhance reading comprehension (for example, creating a “word wall”, interactive story-book reading and the application of the ReQuest reading method. Results from this quantitative study demonstrated that Grade 4 ESL learners in the experimental group (N=36 significantly outperformed those in the control group (N=36 with regard to sight word fluency, word recognition, syntactic awareness, vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. As we move forward in an attempt to understand the nuances of creating a responsive reading environment to support ESL learners’ reading development, assessing the effectiveness of strategies to improve their reading skills is essential.

Tinnitus and Sleep Difficulties After Cochlear Implantation.

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Pierzycki, Robert H; Edmondson-Jones, Mark; Dawes, Piers; Munro, Kevin J; Moore, David R; Kitterick, Pádraig T

To estimate and compare the prevalence of and associations between tinnitus and sleep difficulties in a sample of UK adult cochlear implant users and those identified as potential candidates for cochlear implantation. The study was conducted using the UK Biobank resource, a population-based cohort of 40- to 69-year olds. Self-report data on hearing, tinnitus, sleep difficulties, and demographic variables were collected from cochlear implant users (n = 194) and individuals identified as potential candidates for cochlear implantation (n = 211). These "candidates" were selected based on (i) impaired hearing sensitivity, inferred from self-reported hearing aid use and (ii) impaired hearing function, inferred from an inability to report words accurately at negative signal to noise ratios on an unaided closed-set test of speech perception. Data on tinnitus (presence, persistence, and related distress) and on sleep difficulties were analyzed using logistic regression models controlling for gender, age, deprivation, and neuroticism. The prevalence of tinnitus was similar among implant users (50%) and candidates (52%; p = 0.39). However, implant users were less likely to report that their tinnitus was distressing at its worst (41%) compared with candidates (63%; p = 0.02). The logistic regression model suggested that this difference between the two groups could be explained by the fact that tinnitus was less persistent in implant users (46%) compared with candidates (72%; p reported difficulties with sleep were similar among implant users (75%) and candidates (82%; p = 0.28), but participants with tinnitus were more likely to report sleep difficulties than those without (p explanation is supported by the similar prevalence of sleep problems among implant users and potential candidates for cochlear implantation, despite differences between the groups in tinnitus persistence and related emotional distress. Cochlear implantation may therefore not be an appropriate intervention

Voice Over the Internet Protocol as a Medium for Delivering Reading Intervention

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Craig Wright

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Voice Over the Internet Protocol (VoIP holds promise as a platform by which services can be delivered to students in rural and remote regions who have reading difficulties. VoIP is an Internet-based protocol that allows two or more individuals to videoconference from remote locations. This study used a single-case research design to investigate whether VoIP would produce significant gains in reading ability in BM, a 10-year-old with long-standing word-level reading problems. BM was provided with a theoretically motivated reading intervention 4 times weekly. The intervention was delivered remotely using the Apple iChat software. Substantial growth in regular- and nonword reading covaried with onset and removal of treatment. Treatment gains were maintained at 10-week follow-up. Meaningful gains were also seen in text-reading accuracy and reading comprehension. VoIP-based instruction represents an important avenue for future research and is a teaching method that holds much promise for rural and remote students.

A cumulative risk factor model for early identification of academic difficulties in premature and low birth weight infants.

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Roberts, G; Bellinger, D; McCormick, M C

2007-03-01

Premature and low birth weight children have a high prevalence of academic difficulties. This study examines a model comprised of cumulative risk factors that allows early identification of these difficulties. This is a secondary analysis of data from a large cohort of premature (mathematics. Potential predictor variables were categorized into 4 domains: sociodemographic, neonatal, maternal mental health and early childhood (ages 3 and 5). Regression analysis was used to create a model to predict reading and mathematics scores. Variables from all domains were significant in the model, predicting low achievement scores in reading (R (2) of 0.49, model p-value mathematics (R (2) of 0.44, model p-value intelligence, visual-motor skill and higher behavioral disturbance scores (early childhood). Lower mathematics scores were predicted by lower maternal education, income and age and Black or Hispanic race (sociodemographic); lower birth weight and higher head circumference (neonatal); lower maternal responsivity (maternal mental health); lower intelligence, visual-motor skill and higher behavioral disturbance scores (early childhood). Sequential early childhood risk factors in premature and LBW children lead to a cumulative risk for academic difficulties and can be used for early identification.

Communication difficulties in teenagers with health impairments

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Samokhvalova, Anna G.

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Contemporary psychological and pedagogical studies pay special attention to the socialization of physically impaired children, inclusive education and methods of providing such children with a safe environment to assist in their development. However, difficulties in interpersonal communication experienced by children with health impairments have remained beyond the research scope. The authors conducted a comparative analysis of communication difficulties in typically developed teenagers aged 12-13 years (n = 100 and the problems faced by their peers with visual (n = 30, auditory (n = 30, speech (n = 25 and motor (n = 15 impairments. Actual communication difficulties in teenagers were studied in two ways: the subjective component of impaired communication was registered through a content analysis of a sentence completion test and the objective manifestations of impaired communication were identified through expert evaluation of children’s communicative behavior (educators and psychologists who had been in close contact with the teenagers acted as experts. First, the authors identified typical standard communication problems that were characteristic of teenagers aged 12-13 years, that is, problems with aggression, tolerance, the ability to admit wrongdoing and make concessions, empathy, self-control, self-analysis and self-expression in communication. Second, typical communication difficulties characteristic of physically impaired children were revealed: failure to understand meaning; feelings of awkwardness and shame of oneself; expectations of a negative attitude toward oneself; gelotophobia; and manifestations of despotism, petulance and egotism as defensive reactions in situations of impaired communication. Third, the authors described specific communication difficulties in teenagers with auditory, visual, speech and motor impairments.

ASR Technology for Children with Dyslexia: Enabling Immediate Intervention to Support Reading in Bahasa Melayu

Science.gov (United States)

Husni, Husniza; Jamaludin, Zulikha

2009-01-01

Reading is an essential skill towards literacy development, and should be provided so that children can master the skill at their early ages. For dyslexic children, mastering the skill is a challenge. It has been widely agreed that the theory behind such difficulties in reading for dyslexic lies in the phonological-core deficits. Support has been…

Mejorar la fluidez lectora en dislexia: diseño de un programa de intervención en español / Improving reading fluency in dyslexia: designing a Spanish

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Esther Gómez Zapata

2011-08-01

Full Text Available This article describes the process of planning an intervention program aimed at improving reading fluency in children with developmental dyslexia. Reading fluency is considered a crucial component in achieving literacy, especially regarding its role in facilitating reading comprehension. Improving reading fluency is particularly important for children with developmental dyslexia as they have difficulties automatizing word recognition. These difficulties lead to suboptimal reading skills that ultimately affect reading comprehension. This study shows the steps involved in planning an intervention program that combines accelerated and repeated reading, two methodologies commonly used to improve fluency. This is a structured and sequential training programme which includes syllable, word and text reading. The aim is to automatize the reading of sublexical units-which are easily recognizable in Spanish-to facilitate faster and more efficient word recognition. This will improve fluency when reading full texts. The program also includes metaphonological ability training.

Learner's Learning Experiences & Difficulties towards (ESL) among UKM Undergraduates

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Maarof, Nooreiny; Munusamy, Indira Malani A/P

2015-01-01

This paper aims to investigate the learners learning experiences and difficulties of ESL among the UKM undergraduates. This study will be focusing on identifying the factors behind Malaysian undergraduate's experiences and also their difficulties in the English as Second Language (ESL) classroom. This paper discusses some of the issues of English…

Lies of the Reader: Disadvantages of the Sociological Research Methods for the Study of the Reading

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Tsvetkova, Milena I.

2018-01-01

The research problems of this study are the difficulties in the explanation of the phenomenon of reading in its accelerated transformations by quantitative sociological methods, because of failure to comply with a number of factors: first, the social aspects of the purchase, consumption and possession of reading materials have not yet been…

Response to Instruction in Preschool: Results of Two Randomized Studies with Children At Significant Risk of Reading Difficulties

Science.gov (United States)

Lonigan, Christopher J.; Phillips, Beth M.

2015-01-01

Although response-to-instruction (RTI) approaches have received increased attention, few studies have evaluated the potential impacts of RTI approaches with preschool populations. This manuscript presents results of two studies examining impacts of Tier II instruction with preschool children. Participating children were identified as substantially delayed in the acquisition of early literacy skills despite exposure to high-quality, evidence-based classroom instruction. Study 1 included 93 children (M age = 58.2 months; SD = 3.62) attending 12 Title I preschools. Study 2 included 184 children (M age = 58.2 months; SD = 3.38) attending 19 Title I preschools. The majority of children were Black/African American, and about 60% were male. In both studies, eligible children were randomized to receive either 11 weeks of need-aligned, small-group instruction or just Tier I. Tier II instruction in Study 1 included variations of activities for code- and language-focused domains with prior evidence of efficacy in non-RTI contexts. Tier II instruction in Study 2 included instructional activities narrower in scope, more intensive, and delivered to smaller groups of children. Impacts of Tier II instruction in Study 1 were minimal; however, there were significant and moderate-to-large impacts in Study 2. These results identify effective Tier II instruction but indicate that the context in which children are identified may alter the nature of Tier II instruction that is required. Children identified as eligible for Tier II in an RTI framework likely require more intensive and more narrowly focused instruction than do children at general risk of later academic difficulties. PMID:26869730

Effects of Reciprocal Teaching on Reading Comprehension of Low-Achieving Adolescents. The Importance of Specific Teacher Skills

Science.gov (United States)

Okkinga, Mariska; van Steensel, Roel; van Gelderen, Amos J. S.; Sleegers, Peter J. C.

2018-01-01

Low-achieving adolescents are known to have difficulties with reading comprehension. This article discusses how reciprocal teaching can improve low-achieving adolescents' reading comprehension in whole-classroom settings (as opposed to small-group settings) and to what extent intervention effects are dependent on teacher behaviour. Over the course…

Phrasing in the speech and reading of the hearing impaired.

Science.gov (United States)

Gregory, J F

1986-08-01

The study reported here explored a partial explanation for the fourth-grade "bottleneck" in literacy advancement by hearing-impaired students. Speech samples from 21 deaf subjects were rated for degree of evident phrasal quality. Likewise, reading comprehension scores for each student were obtained under four reading conditions: reading in whole sentences, in phrases, in fragmented word groups, and in single words. Degree of rated speech phrasality was found to relate significantly and positively to correct recall answers to questions based upon silent reading of passages typed in meaningful word groups (but not when the passages were typed in whole sentences, fragmented word groups, or in single words). The results were taken to suggest that--whereas staccato-speaking deaf students may lack a sense of the phrase altogether--phrasal-speaking deaf youngsters fail to independently apply their phrase sense in the normal reading situation. Thus, both types of deaf youngsters have difficulty affecting the transition to phrase reading that is common for hearing students at or about the fourth-grade level. Finally, I argue that this phrase sense can be instilled in hearing-impaired students and that they can be trained to use it in reading.

Listening to Students: Modification of a Reading Program Based on the Sources of Foreign Language Reading Anxiety

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Belgin Aydin

2012-01-01

Full Text Available This paper is concerned with the modifications implemented in a second year foreign language (FL reading program with respect to the problems students experience while reading in FL. This research draws on the sources of FL reading anxiety identified in the first year reading program with a motivation to re-design the second year program to help the students perceive reading positively free from the anxiety. This paper reports on the responses of students to the modifications implemented in the second year reading program

Radiological difficulty in identifying unicompartmental knee replacement dislocation

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Mr Oruaro Adebayo Onibere, MBBS, MRCS

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Unicondylar knee replacement is a relatively common elective orthopedic procedure but is not often seen in the Emergency Department setting. Familiarity with normal clinical and radiological appearances is difficult to gain. Dislocation of the mobile bearing component “spacer” is a known complication of unicondylar knee replacements, and these patients will initially present to the accident and Emergency Department. In this setting, an accurate and prompt diagnosis is necessary to appropriately manage the patient's condition. There is normally a radiological challenge in identifying dislocated mobile bearings on plain radiographs. These patients may need to have further imaging, such as a computer tomographic scan to identify the dislocated mobile bearing.

The improvement of reading skills of L1 and ESL children using a Response to Intervention (RtI) Model.

Science.gov (United States)

Lipka, Orly; Siegel, Linda S

2010-11-01

This study examined the development of literacy skills in children in a district that used a Response to Intervention (RTI) model. The district included children whose first language was English and children who were learning English as a second language (ESL). Tasks measuring phonological awareness, lexical access, and syntactic awareness were administered when the children entered school in kindergarten at age 5. Reading, phonological processing, syntactic awareness, memory, and spelling were administered in grade 7. When the children entered school, significant numbers of them were at risk for literacy difficulties. After systematic instruction and annual monitoring of skills, their reading abilities improved to the extent that only a very small percentage had reading difficulties. The results demonstrated that early identification and intervention and frequent monitoring of basic skills can significantly reduce the incidence of reading problems in both the ESL and language majority children.

Transcriptator: An Automated Computational Pipeline to Annotate Assembled Reads and Identify Non Coding RNA.

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Kumar Parijat Tripathi

Full Text Available RNA-seq is a new tool to measure RNA transcript counts, using high-throughput sequencing at an extraordinary accuracy. It provides quantitative means to explore the transcriptome of an organism of interest. However, interpreting this extremely large data into biological knowledge is a problem, and biologist-friendly tools are lacking. In our lab, we developed Transcriptator, a web application based on a computational Python pipeline with a user-friendly Java interface. This pipeline uses the web services available for BLAST (Basis Local Search Alignment Tool, QuickGO and DAVID (Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery tools. It offers a report on statistical analysis of functional and Gene Ontology (GO annotation's enrichment. It helps users to identify enriched biological themes, particularly GO terms, pathways, domains, gene/proteins features and protein-protein interactions related informations. It clusters the transcripts based on functional annotations and generates a tabular report for functional and gene ontology annotations for each submitted transcript to the web server. The implementation of QuickGo web-services in our pipeline enable the users to carry out GO-Slim analysis, whereas the integration of PORTRAIT (Prediction of transcriptomic non coding RNA (ncRNA by ab initio methods helps to identify the non coding RNAs and their regulatory role in transcriptome. In summary, Transcriptator is a useful software for both NGS and array data. It helps the users to characterize the de-novo assembled reads, obtained from NGS experiments for non-referenced organisms, while it also performs the functional enrichment analysis of differentially expressed transcripts/genes for both RNA-seq and micro-array experiments. It generates easy to read tables and interactive charts for better understanding of the data. The pipeline is modular in nature, and provides an opportunity to add new plugins in the future. Web application is

The eye movements of dyslexic children during reading and visual search: impact of the visual attention span.

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Prado, Chloé; Dubois, Matthieu; Valdois, Sylviane

2007-09-01

The eye movements of 14 French dyslexic children having a VA span reduction and 14 normal readers were compared in two tasks of visual search and text reading. The dyslexic participants made a higher number of rightward fixations in reading only. They simultaneously processed the same low number of letters in both tasks whereas normal readers processed far more letters in reading. Importantly, the children's VA span abilities related to the number of letters simultaneously processed in reading. The atypical eye movements of some dyslexic readers in reading thus appear to reflect difficulties to increase their VA span according to the task request.

Developing a schedule to identify social communication difficulties and autism spectrum disorder in young children with visual impairment.

Science.gov (United States)

Absoud, Michael; Parr, Jeremy R; Salt, Alison; Dale, Naomi

2011-03-01

Available observational tools used in the identification of social communication difficulties and diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) rely partly on visual behaviours and therefore may not be valid in children with visual impairment. A pilot observational instrument, the Visual Impairment and Social Communication Schedule (VISS), was developed to aid in identifying social communication difficulties and ASD in young children with visual impairment affected by congenital disorders of the peripheral visual system (disorders of the globe, retina, and anterior optic nerve). The VISS was administered to 23 consecutive children (age range 1 y 9 mo-6 y 11 mo, mean 4 y 1 mo [SD 1.6]; 12 males, 11 females) with visual impairment (nine with severe and 14 with profound visual impairment). Item analysis was carried out by fit of the items to the Rasch model. Validity of the VISS was explored by comparison with the Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) score, and the clinical ASD diagnosis (n=9). Correlation between the VISS and CARS total scores was highly significant (Spearman's rho=-0.89; p=0.01). Below threshold rating on the VISS (score of 35) showed good agreement with the clinical ASD diagnosis (sensitivity 89%, specificity 100%). This preliminary study shows the VISS to be a promising schedule to aid the identification of ASD in young children with visual impairment. © The Authors. Journal compilation © Mac Keith Press 2010.

Difficulties in using everyday technology after acquired brain injury: a qualitative analysis.

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Engström, Ann-Louice Lövgreen; Lexell, Jan; Lund, Maria Larsson

2010-09-01

The aim of this study was to identify and describe the characteristics of the difficulties using everyday technology in persons with an aquired brain injury (ABI), and their experiences of how these difficulties influenced their life. Thirteen persons with an ABI were interviewed about their difficulties in using everyday technology and were observed in their use of technology. Data were analysed qualitatively with a constant comparative method. The results showed that the persons' experiences formed two categories: “A variety of combinations of difficulties in the use of everyday technology” and “Restrictions in life”. The difficulties identified were related not only to everyday technology itself but also to the interaction between the technology, the task, the person, and the environment. These difficulties influenced their experiences of restrictions in occupational performance, personal identification, and participation in society. The results emphasize that occupational therapists who design interventions for people with an ABI need to accommodate both the technology and other interacting aspects in order to overcome difficulties in using everyday technology.

[Difficulties and concerns identified by Puerto Rican youth with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM): their relationship with metabolic control, hopelessness, social support, and depressive symptoms].

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Rosselló, Jeannette; Maysonet Guzmán, Marielisa

2006-12-01

Insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) is a chronic health condition that affects 18 of every 100,000 Puerto Rican youth. Few research studies have been performed on the problems that youth with diabetes encounter and how they are related to adherence to treatment and adequate metabolic control. Adequate metabolic control is associated with fewer short and long-term medical complications, as well as better quality of life. Adapting to the demands and stressors associated with IDDM and its treatment is a task that can prove to be difficult for youth with diabetes due to having to make adjustments, alterations, and following a prescribed regimen in their daily activities. The main purpose of this investigation was to explore difficulties and worries identified by Puerto Rican youth with IDDM. This study examined whether there is a relationship between difficulties and worries, and adequate metabolic control, hopelessness, social support and depressive symptomatology. One hundred and one youth with IDDM between the ages of 8 and 17 (45 male, 56 female) were evaluated. Analysis of frequencies, correlations, and comparison tests were performed by group (gender, age, diabetes duration, and metabolic control. Results reveal that some of the difficulties identified by Puerto Rican youth with IDDM were: not eating candy and/or cake, self-monitoring blood glucose at school, doing things on time, and waking up early. Among the worries they reported were: insulin reactions and thinking that they might have to go to the hospital.

The Impact of Learning Difficulties and Socioemotional and Behavioural Problems on Transition to Postsecondary Education or Work Life in Finland: A Five-Year Follow-Up Study

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Hakkarainen, Airi M.; Holopainen, Leena K.; Savolainen, Hannu K.

2016-01-01

Learning difficulties have been found to dilute the possibilities that young adults have in their educational careers. However, during the last few decades, education has become increasingly important for employment and overall life satisfaction. In the present study, we were interested in the effects of mathematical and reading difficulties and…

Working Memory in Children with Learning Disabilities in Reading versus Spelling: Searching for Overlapping and Specific Cognitive Factors

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Brandenburg, Janin; Klesczewski, Julia; Fischbach, Anne; Schuchardt, Kirsten; Büttner, Gerhard; Hasselhorn, Marcus

2015-01-01

In transparent orthographies like German, isolated learning disabilities in either reading or spelling are common and occur as often as a combined reading and spelling disability. However, most issues surrounding the cognitive causes of these isolated or combined literacy difficulties are yet unresolved. Recently, working memory dysfunctions have…

The Effect of Picture Story Books on Students' Reading Comprehension

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Roslina

2017-01-01

As a non formal education students, PKBM (a Non-Formal Community Learning Center) Medaso Kolaka students tend to encounter some difficulties in reading such as low motivation, infrequent tutors (non-formal education teachers) coming, inappropriate teaching materials, etc. This research aimed to investigate the effects of picture story books on the…

The Effects of Different Types of Environmental Noise on Academic Performance and Perceived Task Difficulty in Adolescents With ADHD.

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Batho, Lauren P; Martinussen, Rhonda; Wiener, Judith

2015-07-28

To examine the effects of environmental noises (speech and white noise) relative to a no noise control condition on the performance and difficulty ratings of youth with ADHD (N = 52) on academic tasks. Reading performance was measured by an oral retell (reading accuracy) and the time spent reading. Writing performance was measured through the proportion of correct writing sequences (writing accuracy) and the total words written on an essay. Participants in the white noise condition took less time to read the passage and wrote more words on the essay compared with participants in the other conditions, though white noise did not improve academic accuracy. The participants in the babble condition rated the tasks as most difficult. Although white noise appears to improve reading time and writing fluency, the findings suggest that white noise does not improve performance accuracy. Educational implications are discussed. © 2015 SAGE Publications.

Evaluación de la dislexia en la escuela primaria: Prevalencia en español / Evaluating dyslexia in primary school children: Prevalence in Spanish

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María Soledad Carrillo Gallego

2011-08-01

Full Text Available We present a sequential procedure aimed at detecting reading acquisition difficulties. Data were collected from a representative sample (N=2012 of 2nd, 4th, and 6th graders from all state schools (n=14 and private schools (N=5 in a single district. In the first step, a silent reading test (Test de Eficiencia Lectora TECLE was collectively conducted. It identified 273 children who presented reading difficulties that could not be explained by other causes (cognitive, sensory, behavioural, linguistic, and social. In the second step, the selected sample were administered a reading test (words and pseudo-words, and an orthographic test (words presenting inconsistent phoneme-to-grapheme items to identify more basic phonological and orthographical deficits which might explain the reading difficulties detected using the Test de Eficiencia Lectora TECLE. The results showed a greater incidence of reading problems in 2nd-grade students (15.2% than in 4th-grade (9.3% and 6th-grade (10.9% students. This difference could be explained by the presence of 2nd graders with reading difficulties who can overcome their difficulties without any special intervention. We also show that a large part of the global reading delay observed can be explained by difficulties in basic decoding and orthographic abilities.

Action video games improve reading abilities and visual-to-auditory attentional shifting in English-speaking children with dyslexia

OpenAIRE

Franceschini, Sandro; Trevisan, Piergiorgio; Ronconi, Luca; Bertoni, Sara; Colmar, Susan; Double, Kit; Facoetti, Andrea; Gori, Simone

2017-01-01

Dyslexia is characterized by difficulties in learning to read and there is some evidence that action video games (AVG), without any direct phonological or orthographic stimulation, improve reading efficiency in Italian children with dyslexia. However, the cognitive mechanism underlying this improvement and the extent to which the benefits of AVG training would generalize to deep English orthography, remain two critical questions. During reading acquisition, children have to integrate written ...

Modern foreign investigations of difficulties in understanding of texts among primary school pupils

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Sanina S.P.

2016-09-01

Full Text Available In the article, the reader can observe the experience taken from foreign publications that focus on the problems of teaching primary school pupils how to understand the texts, which is one of the most important universal competences in the educational process. The author studied and analyzed the investigations of American, Finnish, Canadian, Chinese and other scientists in this field. The author found out that during the latest half of the century the quality of reading among pupils has dramatically decreased and has a tendency to get even worse. The most attention in the article was paid to the investigations that demonstrate the possible causes of incorrect reading and understanding of the informative texts among pupils. Among the causes there are: the difficulty of the text that influences the understanding of it, using different methods of teaching how to read the text, the control and evaluation of reading skills etc. In the article there are enlisted the factors that contribute to the better understanding of texts. There are also mentioned some strategies of coping with problems and forming the good reading skills. The scientific works that are mentioned in the article have a great importance in the theory and practice of pedagogical science, as the ability to understand the text correctly is not only important for successful educational process at school, but is also an essential ability in life.

Difficulty in estimation of dose for the abnormal patterns of the TLD disc readings - need investigation and improvement in work practices

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Madhumita, B.; Ande, C.D.; Sneha, C.; Bakshi, A.K.; Datta, D.

2018-01-01

TLD badge based on CaSO 4 :Dy detector used for external radiation monitoring of occupational workers of radiation facilities in India plays a vital role in radiation protection program. Energy and type of radiation in the work-field can be well identified from the dose evaluation algorithm. Algorithm developed earlier use the set of disc ratio from the three disc readings of the TLD badge to arrive at the dose and the type of radiation. Algorithm fails to estimate the dose for the abnormal patterns. The paper discusses the root cause of the abnormal patterns and investigation followed to arrive the estimation of dose

A teaching-learning sequence about weather map reading

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Mandrikas, Achilleas; Stavrou, Dimitrios; Skordoulis, Constantine

2017-07-01

In this paper a teaching-learning sequence (TLS) introducing pre-service elementary teachers (PET) to weather map reading, with emphasis on wind assignment, is presented. The TLS includes activities about recognition of wind symbols, assignment of wind direction and wind speed on a weather map and identification of wind characteristics in a weather forecast. Sixty PET capabilities and difficulties in understanding weather maps were investigated, using inquiry-based learning activities. The results show that most PET became more capable of reading weather maps and assigning wind direction and speed on them. Our results also show that PET could be guided to understand meteorology concepts useful in everyday life and in teaching their future students.

CONSULT-I Reading. South Avondale Elementary School, Cincinnati Project. Final Report.

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Newman, Anabel; And Others

A study examined the effectiveness of the second year of implementation of the CONSULT-I program, which uses artificial intelligence with statistical pattern recognition in constructing a diagnosis and recommending treatment of reading difficulties. Five elementary classroom teachers, two ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act) teachers, and…

Does the accuracy of single reading with CAD (computer-aided detection) compare with that of double reading?: A review of the literature

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bennett, R.L.; Blanks, R.G.; Moss, S.M.

2006-01-01

Aim: To examine current evidence to determine whether the accuracy of single reading with computed-aided detection (CAD) compares with that of double reading. Methods: We performed a literature review to identify studies where both protocols had been investigated and compared. We identified eight studies that compared single reading with CAD against double reading, of which six reported on comparisons of both sensitivity and specificity. Results: Of the six studies identified, three showed no differences in either sensitivity or specificity. One showed single reading with CAD had a higher sensitivity at the same specificity, another that single reading with CAD had a higher specificity at the same sensitivity. However, one study, in a real-life setting, showed that single reading with CAD had a higher sensitivity but a lower specificity. Conclusion: As the majority of the studies were not in a real-life setting, used test sets, lacked sufficient training in the use of CAD and simulated double reading (using a protocol of recall if one suggests), current evidence is therefore limited as to the accuracy, in terms of sensitivity and specificity, of single reading with CAD in comparison with the most common practice in the UK of double reading using a protocol of consensus or arbitration

How Reading Volume Affects both Reading Fluency and Reading Achievement

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Richard L. ALLINGTON

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Long overlooked, reading volume is actually central to the development of reading proficiencies, especially in the development of fluent reading proficiency. Generally no one in schools monitors the actual volume of reading that children engage in. We know that the commonly used commercial core reading programs provide only material that requires about 15 minutes of reading activity daily. The remaining 75 minute of reading lessons is filled with many other activities such as completing workbook pages or responding to low-level literal questions about what has been read. Studies designed to enhance the volume of reading that children do during their reading lessons demonstrate one way to enhance reading development. Repeated readings have been widely used in fostering reading fluency but wide reading options seem to work faster and more broadly in developing reading proficiencies, including oral reading fluency.

Reading comprehension and textual consciousness on primary school

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Vera Wannmacher Pereira

2014-03-01

Full Text Available The difficulties on reading comprehension in the primary school are evidenced by several official exams applied. Given these statistics and the evidences obtained through academic research and observations on children’s performance during the school life, there is acknowledgment of the situation as a problem that requires further development and finding solutions. The Psycholinguistics is giving its contribution, especially regarding the role of linguistic consciousness on reading learning. Many studies have been conducted specifically focusing on phonological consciousness. Studies on syntactic consciousness are also found, although less than phonological ones. Regarding the role of textual consciousness, few initiatives considers the students of the primary school. This makes the author proposes as the heartland of this communication the textual consciousness with support predominantly on Gombert (1992, aiming to examine the relationship between this level of consciousness and learning to read. Based on recent studies (PEREIRA; SCLIAR-CABRAL, 2012, the author presents in this paper: a the analysis of the context of learning and teaching of reading; b a theoretical exposition about reading learning and textual consciousness; c the pedagogical referrals for education based on the interaction between these two topics; and d the development of reflections on the possibility of the proposed path contribute to the solution of the worrying problem on read learning by the primary schools students.

Construction of an Arabic reading test for assessment of dyslexic children.

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Abou El-Ella, Mahmoud Y; Sayed, Emam M; Farghaly, Wafaa M; Abdel-Haleem, Emad K; Hussein, Eman S

2004-07-01

Dyslexia is a specific language-based disorder of constitutional origin, characterized by difficulties in phonological processing. The Arabic language differs in many aspects from foreign languages and the few previously designed Arabic tests for assessment of dyslexia did not pay attention to phonological awareness problems. This necessitates the design of an Arabic test which could properly assign specific difficulties among Arabic reading dyslexic children, including phonological awareness as a major contributing factor for dyslexia. The study was carried out in Assiut City, Egypt, during the period from September 1999 to the end of January 2001. The newly designed Arabic Reading Test (ART) in this work passed through many stages. Firstly, test construction by 11 Arabic teachers (specific judges). Secondly it was applied, in a pilot study, to 50 normal students (9-10 years old) to ascertain clarity of the test. Then test standardization was proven through application on a second sample (n=252 students), and third sample (n=58 dyslexics). The reliability of the ART was proven by the test-retest method (r=0.913, pdyslexia among Arabic reading children. It has great value in predicting dyslexia even among preschool age Arabic speaking children, through assessment of their phonological awareness skills, and thus, remediation programs can be properly and early directed.

Slower saccadic reading in Parkinson's disease.

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Jehangir, Naz; Yu, Caroline Yizhu; Song, Jeehey; Shariati, Mohammad Ali; Binder, Steven; Beyer, Jill; Santini, Veronica; Poston, Kathleen; Liao, Yaping Joyce

2018-01-01

significantly correlated with age, duration of disease, and VFQ-25 scores. The presence of convergence insufficiency did not significantly correlate with reading time in PD patients, although on average there was slower reading time in those with convergence insufficiency by 8 s (p = 0.2613). We propose that a simple reading task using 120 single-digit numbers can be used as a screening tool in the clinical setting to assess functional ocular motor difficulties in Parkinson's disease that can have a profound impact on quality of life.

I read. You read? Challenges and possibilities in working with literary literacy

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Sayonara Abrantes de Oliveira

2017-07-01

Full Text Available This article is the result of a project linked to the Institutional Program of Scientific Initiation Scholarships for Higher Education (PIBIC-EM. The program’s objective was to analyze the contributing factors for the process of reading literacy training in order to verify how young people make their choices of literary texts, as well as know the difficulties and facilities they face in contact with these genres. To do so, we used the quantitative qualitative research through the application of a questionnaire, consisting of open questions, and applied to the students of the Integrated in Information Technology and Integrated Technician in the Environment of the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Paraíba (IFPB/campus Sousa courses. We also analyzed the perceptions derived from the observations of the Reader Club of the same campus, in an attempt to verify how the intervention of activities that mediate literary literacy favors the stimulus to the reading formation. Based on the data analysis, we observed that the student's distance element from reading is the lack of incentive, that is, the construction of an atmosphere that surrounds him, both in the classroom and in the other environments that welcome him. To overcome this, it is necessary for the teacher to have a theoretical-methodological apparatus guiding in his classes, since mediation favors literary literacy, having as support the Receptional Method and a conception of reading that articulates the interactional to the discursive, helping in the organization and selection of texts, in order to achieve the objectives of the formation of the reader.

Cortical areas involved in Arabic number reading.

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Roux, F-E; Lubrano, V; Lauwers-Cances, V; Giussani, C; Démonet, J-F

2008-01-15

Distinct functional pathways for processing words and numbers have been hypothesized from the observation of dissociated impairments of these categories in brain-damaged patients. We aimed to identify the cortical areas involved in Arabic number reading process in patients operated on for various brain lesions. Direct cortical electrostimulation was prospectively used in 60 brain mappings. We used object naming and two reading tasks: alphabetic script (sentences and number words) and Arabic number reading. Cortical areas involved in Arabic number reading were identified according to location, type of interference, and distinctness from areas associated with other language tasks. Arabic number reading was sustained by small cortical areas, often extremely well localized (area (Brodmann area 45), the anterior part of the dominant supramarginal gyrus (Brodmann area 40; p area (Brodmann area 37; p areas.

Schoolwide Collaboration to Prevent and Address Reading Difficulties: Opportunities for School Psychologists and Speech-Language Pathologists

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Nellis, Leah M.; Sickman, Linda Sue; Newman, Daniel S.; Harman, Deborah R.

2014-01-01

With the increase in schoolwide practices to improve reading instruction for all students and provide supplemental interventions for struggling readers, the need for collaboration among education professionals has become increasingly important. This article focuses on the expanding opportunities for collaboration between school psychologists and…

Deficits in working memory, reading comprehension and arithmetic skills in children with mouth breathing syndrome: analytical cross-sectional study.

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Kuroishi, Rita Cristina Sadako; Garcia, Ricardo Basso; Valera, Fabiana Cardoso Pereira; Anselmo-Lima, Wilma Terezinha; Fukuda, Marisa Tomoe Hebihara

2015-01-01

Mouth breathing syndrome is very common among school-age children, and it is possibly related to learning difficulties and low academic achievement. In this study, we investigated working memory, reading comprehension and arithmetic skills in children with nasal and mouth breathing. Analytical cross-sectional study with control group conducted in a public university hospital. 42 children (mean age = 8.7 years) who had been identified as mouth breathers were compared with a control group (mean age = 8.4 years) matched for age and schooling. All the participants underwent a clinical interview, tone audiometry, otorhinolaryngological evaluation and cognitive assessment of phonological working memory (numbers and pseudowords), reading comprehension and arithmetic skills. Children with mouth breathing had poorer performance than controls, regarding reading comprehension (P = 0.006), arithmetic (P = 0.025) and working memory for pseudowords (P = 0.002), but not for numbers (P = 0.76). Children with mouth breathing have low academic achievement and poorer phonological working memory than controls. Teachers and healthcare professionals should be aware of the association of mouth breathing with children's physical and cognitive health.

Growth in Reading-Related Skills of Language Minority Learners and Their Classmates: More Evidence for Early Identification and Intervention

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Kieffer, Michael J.; Vukovic, Rose K.

2013-01-01

This longitudinal study investigated growth in reading-related skills between Grade 1 and 4 for language minority (LM) learners and their native English-speaking classmates from similarly low socioeconomic backgrounds (N = 166). Growth trajectories were compared by language background and by Grade 4 reading difficulties, with the goal of informing…

Identifying Learning Patterns of Children at Risk for Specific Reading Disability

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Barbot, Baptiste; Krivulskaya, Suzanna; Hein, Sascha; Reich, Jodi; Thuma, Philip E.; Grigorenko, Elena L.

2016-01-01

Differences in learning patterns of vocabulary acquisition in children at risk (+SRD) and not at risk (-SRD) for Specific Reading Disability (SRD) were examined using a microdevelopmental paradigm applied to the multi-trial Foreign Language Learning Task (FLLT; Baddeley et al., 1995). The FLLT was administered to 905 children from rural…

Do Pocket Electronic Dictionaries Influence Word Retention and Reading Comprehension? Their Effects and Mediating Factors

OpenAIRE

小林, 千穂

2011-01-01

This study explores the effectiveness of pocket electronic dictionaries (EDs) compared with printed dictionaries (PDs) on searching behavior, word retention, and reading comprehension. It also investigates how factors such as test formats, learners' proficiency level, and text difficulty are related to the effects of EDs. Thirty-six Japanese university students participated in the study. They read an English text and answered comprehension questions, while circling the words they looked up. T...

The Effectiveness of Reading Interventions for English Learners: A Research Synthesis

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Richards-Tutor, Catherine; Baker, Doris L.; Gersten, Russell; Baker, Scott K.; Smith, Jeanie Mercier

2016-01-01

This article reviews published experimental studies from 2000 to 2012 that evaluated the effects of providing reading interventions to English learners who were at risk for experiencing academic difficulties, including students with learning disabilities. Criteria included: (a) the study was published in a peer-referred journal, (b) the study was…

A new procedure to measure children's reading speed and accuracy in Italian.

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Morlini, Isabella; Stella, Giacomo; Scorza, Maristella

2014-02-01

Impaired readers in primary school should be early recognized, in order to asses a targeted intervention within the school and to start a teaching that respects the difficulties in learning to read, to write and to perform calculations. Screening procedures, inside the primary schools aimed at detecting children with difficulties in reading, are of fundamental importance for guaranteeing an early identification of dyslexic children and reducing both the primary negative effects--on learning--and the secondary negative effects--on the development of the personality--of this disturbance. In this study, we propose a new screening procedure measuring reading speed and accuracy. This procedure is very fast (it is exactly 1 min long), simple, cheap and can be provided by teachers without technical knowledge. On the contrary, most of the currently used diagnostic tests are about 10 min long and must be provided by experts. These two major flaws prevent the widespread use of these tests. On the basis of the results obtained in a survey on about 1500 students attending primary school in Italy, we investigate the relationships between variables used in the screening procedure and variables measuring speed and accuracy in the currently used diagnostic tests in Italy. Then, we analyse the validity of the screening procedure from a statistical point of view, and with an explorative factor analysis, we show that reading speed and accuracy seem to be two separate symptoms of the dyslexia phenomenon. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Reading Function and Content Words in Subtitled Videos

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Szarkowska, Agnieszka; Łogińska, Maria

2016-01-01

In this study, we examined how function and content words are read in intra- and interlingual subtitles. We monitored eye movements of a group of 39 deaf, 27 hard of hearing, and 56 hearing Polish participants while they viewed English and Polish videos with Polish subtitles. We found that function words and short content words received less visual attention than longer content words, which was reflected in shorter dwell time, lower number of fixations, shorter first fixation duration, and lower subject hit count. Deaf participants dwelled significantly longer on function words than other participants, which may be an indication of their difficulty in processing this type of words. The findings are discussed in the context of classical reading research and applied research on subtitling. PMID:26681268

[Eye movement parameters in reading the sentences with syntactic ambiguity in Russian language].

Science.gov (United States)

Anisimov, V A; Fedorova, O V; Latanov, A V

2014-01-01

We studied the eye movement parameters during reading of syntactically ambiguous sentences with feminine relative clause in Russian language. A priori difficulties of sentence structural analysis results in increase of time spent on reading as opposed to reading control sentences (unambiguous). Such a delay is caused by an increase of frequency of regressions (backward saccades) which are executed for rereading an ambiguous fragment ofsentence. This fact in turn leads to an increase in number of fixations and their duration. The total reading time for particular words composing the ambiguous fragment of sentence depended on disambiguation result (relative clause attachment, early/late closure). In case of early closure (when the subject attached relative clause to first noun) the total reading time for this noun exceeded one for second noun. In case of late closure (when the subject attached relative clause to second noun) the total reading time for both nouns didn't differ. Our results indicate that early closure domination in Russian language determines the greater total reading time for first noun of nominal group associated with relative clause.

Reading Comprehension in Boys with ADHD: The Mediating Roles of Working Memory and Orthographic Conversion.

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Friedman, Lauren M; Rapport, Mark D; Raiker, Joseph S; Orban, Sarah A; Eckrich, Samuel J

2017-02-01

Reading comprehension difficulties in children with ADHD are well established; however, limited information exists concerning the cognitive mechanisms that contribute to these difficulties and the extent to which they interact with one another. The current study examines two broad cognitive processes known to be involved in children's reading comprehension abilities-(a) working memory (i.e., central executive processes [CE], phonological short-term memory [PH STM], and visuospatial short-term memory [VS STM]) and (b) orthographic conversion (i.e., conversion of visually presented text to a phonological code)-to elucidate their unique and interactive contribution to ADHD-related reading comprehension differences. Thirty-one boys with ADHD-combined type and 30 typically developing (TD) boys aged 8 to 12 years (M = 9.64, SD = 1.22) were administered multiple counterbalanced tasks assessing WM and orthographic conversion processes. Relative to TD boys, boys with ADHD exhibited significant deficits in PH STM (d = -0.70), VS STM (d = -0.92), CE (d = -1.58), and orthographic conversion (d = -0.93). Bias-corrected, bootstrapped mediation analyses revealed that CE and orthographic conversion processes modeled separately mediated ADHD-related reading comprehension differences partially, whereas PH STM and VS STM did not. CE and orthographic conversion modeled jointly mediated ADHD-related reading comprehension differences fully wherein orthographic conversion's large magnitude influence on reading comprehension occurred indirectly through CE's impact on the orthographic system. The findings suggest that adaptive cognitive interventions designed to improve reading-related outcomes in children with ADHD may benefit by including modules that train CE and orthographic conversion processes independently and interactively.

A longitudinal study on predictors of early calculation development among young children at risk for learning difficulties.

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Peng, Peng; Namkung, Jessica M; Fuchs, Douglas; Fuchs, Lynn S; Patton, Samuel; Yen, Loulee; Compton, Donald L; Zhang, Wenjuan; Miller, Amanda; Hamlett, Carol

2016-12-01

The purpose of this study was to explore domain-general cognitive skills, domain-specific academic skills, and demographic characteristics that are associated with calculation development from first grade to third grade among young children with learning difficulties. Participants were 176 children identified with reading and mathematics difficulties at the beginning of first grade. Data were collected on working memory, language, nonverbal reasoning, processing speed, decoding, numerical competence, incoming calculations, socioeconomic status, and gender at the beginning of first grade and on calculation performance at four time points: the beginning of first grade, the end of first grade, the end of second grade, and the end of third grade. Latent growth modeling analysis showed that numerical competence, incoming calculation, processing speed, and decoding skills significantly explained the variance in calculation performance at the beginning of first grade. Numerical competence and processing speed significantly explained the variance in calculation performance at the end of third grade. However, numerical competence was the only significant predictor of calculation development from the beginning of first grade to the end of third grade. Implications of these findings for early calculation instructions among young at-risk children are discussed. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Motor and Coordination Difficulties in Children with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties

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Hill, Elisabeth; Pratt, Michelle L; Kanji, Zara; Bartoli, Alice Jones

2017-01-01

To date, very few studies have explored the incidence of motor impairment amongst children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (social, emotional and mental health (SEMH); formerly SEBD in England). Following research that suggests an increase in motor difficulties in young children and adolescents with SEMH difficulties, this…

Online Sentence Reading in People With Aphasia: Evidence From Eye Tracking.

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Knilans, Jessica; DeDe, Gayle

2015-11-01

There is a lot of evidence that people with aphasia have more difficulty understanding structurally complex sentences (e.g., object clefts) than simpler sentences (subject clefts). However, subject clefts also occur more frequently in English than object clefts. Thus, it is possible that both structural complexity and frequency affect how people with aphasia understand these structures. Nine people with aphasia and 8 age-matched controls participated in the study. The stimuli consisted of 24 object cleft and 24 subject cleft sentences. The task was eye tracking during reading, which permits a more fine-grained analysis of reading performance than measures such as self-paced reading. As expected, controls had longer reading times for critical regions in object cleft sentences compared with subject cleft sentences. People with aphasia showed the predicted effects of structural frequency. Effects of structural complexity in people with aphasia did not emerge on their first pass through the sentence but were observed when they were rereading critical regions of complex sentences. People with aphasia are sensitive to both structural complexity and structural frequency when reading. However, people with aphasia may use different reading strategies than controls when confronted with relatively infrequent and complex sentence structures.

Genetic and Environmental Etiologies of Reading Difficulties: DeFries-Fulker Analysis of Reading Performance Data from Twin Pairs and Their Non-Twin Siblings

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Astrom, Raven L.; Wadsworth, Sally J.; Olson, Richard K.; Willcutt, Erik G.; DeFries, John C.

2012-01-01

Reading performance data from 254 pairs of identical (MZ) and 420 pairs of fraternal (DZ) twins, 8.0 to 20.0 years of age, were subjected to multiple regression analyses. An extension of the DeFries-Fulker (DF) analysis (DeFries & Fulker, 1985, 1988) that facilitated inclusion of data from 303 of their nontwin siblings was employed. In addition to…

Learning difficulties of senior high school students based on probability understanding levels

Science.gov (United States)

Anggara, B.; Priatna, N.; Juandi, D.

2018-05-01

Identifying students' difficulties in learning concept of probability is important for teachers to prepare the appropriate learning processes and can overcome obstacles that may arise in the next learning processes. This study revealed the level of students' understanding of the concept of probability and identified their difficulties as a part of the epistemological obstacles identification of the concept of probability. This study employed a qualitative approach that tends to be the character of descriptive research involving 55 students of class XII. In this case, the writer used the diagnostic test of probability concept learning difficulty, observation, and interview as the techniques to collect the data needed. The data was used to determine levels of understanding and the learning difficulties experienced by the students. From the result of students' test result and learning observation, it was found that the mean cognitive level was at level 2. The findings indicated that students had appropriate quantitative information of probability concept but it might be incomplete or incorrectly used. The difficulties found are the ones in arranging sample space, events, and mathematical models related to probability problems. Besides, students had difficulties in understanding the principles of events and prerequisite concept.

Response to Intervention as a Predictor of Long-Term Reading Outcomes in Children with Dyslexia.

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van der Kleij, Sanne W; Segers, Eliane; Groen, Margriet A; Verhoeven, Ludo

2017-08-01

The goal of this study was to investigate how growth during a phonics-based intervention, as well as reading levels at baseline testing, predicted long-term reading outcomes of children with dyslexia. Eighty Dutch children with dyslexia who had completed a 50-week phonics-based intervention in grade 4 were tested in grade 5 on both word and pseudoword (following regular Dutch orthographic patterns) reading efficiency and compared to 93 typical readers. In grade 5 the children with dyslexia were still significantly slower in word and pseudoword reading than their typically developing peers. Results showed that long-term pseudoword reading in the group with dyslexia was predicted by pseudoword reading at pretest and growth in pseudoword reading during the intervention, which was itself predicted by pseudoword reading at pretest. This was not the case for word reading. We found that long-term word reading was directly predicted from pretest word reading, and indirectly via pretest pseudoword reading, via growth in pseudoword and word reading. It can be concluded that pseudoword reading is not only a good indicator of severity of reading difficulties in children with dyslexia, it is also an indicator of who will profit from intervention in the long-term. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Informational Text Comprehension: Its Challenges and How Collaborative Strategic Reading Can Help

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McCown, Margaret Averill; Thomason, Gina B.

2014-01-01

With the increased emphasis on informational text with Common Core State Standards and the difficulty many students have with this type of text, this study examined the effects of Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) on informational text comprehension and metacognitive awareness of fifth grade students. Participating students included a…

Profile of Australian Preschool Children with Speech Sound Disorders at Risk for Literacy Difficulties

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McLeod, Sharynne; Crowe, Kathryn; Masso, Sarah; Baker, Elise; McCormack, Jane; Wren, Yvonne; Roulstone, Susan; Howland, Charlotte

2017-01-01

Speech sound disorders are a common communication difficulty in preschool children. Teachers indicate difficulty identifying and supporting these children. The aim of this research was to describe speech and language characteristics of children identified by their parents and/or teachers as having possible communication concerns. 275 Australian 4-…

Technological mediation as a learning tool for writing and reading

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gladys Molano Caro

2015-12-01

Full Text Available This article disclosed the progress a technological mediation has built to the adquisition, use and development of reading and writing from Cognitive Affective Method for Learning -MACPA-. A development like the one being proposed, is an option for children and young people to, activate, promote, develop and / or enhance the learning of reading and writing. Likewise, it is an option to consider the results achieved in the PISA test and case reports, done by teachers by teachers, showing that that elementary students do not perform production of texts so spontaneous or directed; and they fail to make progress in reading comprehension levels. Given this context, the partial results achieved in the second phase of the research aims to implement a technology platform based mediation MACPA as an educational resource to enhance the processes of reading and writing among students from first to fourth grades of primary education. Accordingly, through Article basis be found in a software for reading and writing that takes into account the particularities of learning of students with intellectual disabilities, learning disabilities in students who have not evidenced difficulties in academic learning processes, though they require a new method to accelerate learning.

Cognitive and affective dimensions of difficulties in emotional functioning in somatoform disorders and borderline personality disorder.

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van Dijke, Annemiek; van der Hart, Onno; van Son, Maarten; Bühring, Martina; van der Heijden, Peter; Ford, Julian D

2013-01-01

To study difficulties in emotional functioning in two mental disorders that have been associated with difficulties in identifying and modulating emotions: borderline personality disorder (BPD) and somatoform disorder (SoD). In 472 psychiatric inpatients, difficulties in emotional functioning were measured using the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire. Profiles of difficulties in emotional functioning were identified, suggesting that patients diagnosed with BPD with or without SoD were more likely to report difficulty identifying emotions and less likely to report reduced ability to fantasize or 'pensée opératoire' (externally oriented thinking) than patients diagnosed with SoD only and patients with mixed anxiety and affective disorders. SoD patients were more likely to report reduced ability to phantasize or pensée opératoire than difficulty identifying emotions. Patients with mixed anxiety and affective disorders were more likely to report reduced ability to experience emotions than patients diagnosed with BPD and/or SoD. By using a finer-grained perspective on difficulties in emotional functioning some evidence was found for the existence of cognitive-emotional profiles that may provide more clinically relevant information than alexithymia as just a unitary construct. Further research on cognitive-emotional profiles of difficulties in emotional functioning is needed to advance the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. Copyright © 2012 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Toward developing a standardized Arabic continuous text reading chart.

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Alabdulkader, Balsam; Leat, Susan Jennifer

Near visual acuity is an essential measurement during an oculo-visual assessment. Short duration continuous text reading charts measure reading acuity and other aspects of reading performance. There is no standardized version of such chart in Arabic. The aim of this study is to create sentences of equal readability to use in the development of a standardized Arabic continuous text reading chart. Initially, 109 Arabic pairs of sentences were created for use in constructing a chart with similar layout to the Colenbrander chart. They were created to have the same grade level of difficulty and physical length. Fifty-three adults and sixteen children were recruited to validate the sentences. Reading speed in correct words per minute (CWPM) and standard length words per minute (SLWPM) was measured and errors were counted. Criteria based on reading speed and errors made in each sentence pair were used to exclude sentence pairs with more outlying characteristics, and to select the final group of sentence pairs. Forty-five sentence pairs were selected according to the elimination criteria. For adults, the average reading speed for the final sentences was 166 CWPM and 187 SLWPM and the average number of errors per sentence pair was 0.21. Childrens' average reading speed for the final group of sentences was 61 CWPM and 72 SLWPM. Their average error rate was 1.71. The reliability analysis showed that the final 45 sentence pairs are highly comparable. They will be used in constructing an Arabic short duration continuous text reading chart. Copyright © 2016 Spanish General Council of Optometry. Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

The Role of Reading Fluency in Children's Text Comprehension.

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Álvarez-Cañizo, Marta; Suárez-Coalla, Paz; Cuetos, Fernando

2015-01-01

Understanding a written text requires some higher cognitive abilities that not all children have. Some children have these abilities, since they understand oral texts; however, they have difficulties with written texts, probably due to problems in reading fluency. The aim of this study was to determine which aspects of reading fluency are related to reading comprehension. Four expositive texts, two written and two read by the evaluator, were presented to a sample of 103 primary school children (third and sixth grade). Each text was followed by four comprehension questions. From this sample we selected two groups of participants in each grade, 10 with good results in comprehension of oral and written texts, and 10 with good results in oral and poor in written comprehension. These 40 subjects were asked to read aloud a new text while they were recorded. Using Praat software some prosodic parameters were measured, such as pausing and reading rate (number and duration of the pauses and utterances), pitch and intensity changes and duration in declarative, exclamatory, and interrogative sentences and also errors and duration in words by frequency and stress. We compared the results of both groups with ANOVAs. The results showed that children with less reading comprehension made more inappropriate pauses and also intersentential pauses before comma than the other group and made more mistakes in content words; significant differences were also found in the final declination of pitch in declarative sentences and in the F0 range in interrogative ones. These results confirm that reading comprehension problems in children are related to a lack in the development of a good reading fluency.

Animal-Assisted Literacy Instruction for Students with Identified Learning Disabilities: Examining the Effects of Incorporating a Therapy Dog into Guided Oral Reading Sessions

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Treat, Wendy Abigail

2013-01-01

Literacy acquisition is imperative to successful academic progress and to successful participation in our society. Students with identified learning disabilities are often among those who struggle to acquire literacy skills. The following dissertation shares the results of a reading intervention study in which nine students with identified…

On Derrida’s Difficulty (of Telling Stories of His Life), Or, How to Appreciate Derrida as a Late Romantic

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Balle, Søren Hattesen

Derrida’s writings are notorious for their difficulty. Indeed, their difficulty manifests itself in many different ways. Philosophers as well as literary critics have, for instance, found it hard to determine which genre Derrida’s texts belong to. Does Derrida write philosophy or literature......? And Derrida is also difficult in the sense that reading him is often considered to be almost impossible. Yet, if his readers have difficulties with his writings, it seems that Derrida has his own difficulties as well. The film Derrida is a very good example of that. A number of times during the film Derrida...... these things as ‘too difficult’, ‘too complex’ or ‘impossible’ to talk about. This anti-narrative thrust in Derrida is interesting from several points of view, but most significant is it perhaps that he flaunts it in a biographical film about himself, whose generic conventions have always courted...

Workplace-based assessments of junior doctors: do scores predict training difficulties?

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Mitchell, Colin; Bhat, Sarita; Herbert, Anne; Baker, Paul

2011-12-01

Workplace-based assessment (WPBA) is an increasingly important part of postgraduate medical training and its results may be used as evidence of professional competence. This study evaluates the ability of WPBA to distinguish UK Foundation Programme (FP) doctors with training difficulties and its effectiveness as a surrogate marker for deficiencies in professional competence. We conducted a retrospective observational study using anonymised records for 1646 trainees in a single UK postgraduate deanery. Data for WPBAs conducted from August 2005 to April 2009 were extracted from the e-portfolio database. These data included all scores submitted by trainees in FP years 1 and 2 on mini-clinical evaluation exercise (mini-CEX), case-based discussion (CbD), direct observation of procedural skills (DOPS) and mini-peer assessment tool (mini-PAT) assessments. Records of trainees in difficulty, as identified by their educational supervisors, were tagged as index cases. Main outcome measures were odds ratios (ORs) for associations between mean WPBA scores and training difficulties. Further analyses by the reported aetiology of the training difficulty (health-, conduct- or performance-related) were performed. Of the 1646 trainees, 92 had been identified as being in difficulty. Mean CbD and mini-CEX scores were lower for trainees in difficulty and an association was found between identified training difficulties and average scores on the mini-CEX (OR = 0.54; p = 0.034) and CbD (OR = 0.39; p = 0.002). A receiver operator characteristic curve analysis of mean WPBA scores for diagnosing 'in difficulty' status yielded an area under the curve of 0.64, indicating weak predictive value. There was no statistical evidence that mean scores on DOPS and mini-PAT assessments differed between the two groups. Analysis of a large dataset of WPBA scores revealed significant associations between training difficulties and lower mean scores on both the mini-CEX and CbD. Models show that using WPBA

Evaluating reading and metacognitive deficits in children and adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

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Alvarado, Jesús Ma; Puente, Aníbal; Jiménez, Virginia; Arrebillaga, Lorena

2011-05-01

The reading achievement of children and adolescents with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has scarcely been explored in research conducted in the Spanish language and when it has, the results have been contradictory. The focus of the present research is to analyze participants' reading competency and metacognitive strategies as they carry out reading comprehension tasks. The sample was comprised of 187 Argentine schoolchildren aged 9 to 13 years old. 94 constituted the control group and the clinical group consisted of 93 schoolchildren diagnosed with ADHD. The metacognitive assessment was made up of two metacognitive tests, the Reading Awareness Scale (ESCOLA; acronym in Spanish) and a Spanish adaptation of Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI), and one test of reading comprehension, the Evaluation of Reading Processes for Secondary Education Students (PROLEC-SE; acronym in Spanish). Students with ADHD had lower achievement on tests o reading comprehension compared to the control group. Nevertheless, our results suggest their difficulties did not stem from readin comprehension problems, but rather from alterations in their Executive Functions, because when subjects' reading comprehensio was equalized, students with ADHD still exhibited a lower level of Metacognition, particularly when it came to planning.

Slower saccadic reading in Parkinson’s disease