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Early identification and intervention for young children with reading/learning disabilities
Abstract
We can all agree that reading is one of the principal tools for understanding our humanity, for making sense of our world, for advancing the democratic ideal, and for generating personal and national prosperity. We can agree that ability to read allows us to achieve three important goals: building knowledge (e.g., learning about the physical world); acquiring information for accomplishing tasks (e.g., installing a VCR); and deriving pleasure and feeding our interests (e.g., how our favorite athletic team has fared). Lacking reading ability, our lives would be very different. They would not be as rich. Students with reading/learning disabilities (R/LDs) face enormous challenges learning to read. Many never reach a level of reading proficiency that allows them to build knowledge, acquire information, feed their interests, or enrich their lives. In some cases, their attempts to read result in such a degree of discouragement and frustration that reading subtracts rather than adds to their lives. For students with R/LDs, their early struggles in learning to read are a harbinger of dismal educational outcomes. Overall, students with learning disabilities leave elementary school with severely deficient reading and writing skills (deBettencourt, Zigmond, & Thornton, 1989; Deshler, Schumaker, Alley, Warner, & Clark, 1982) and leave secondary school with little or no improvement in these areas (Zigmond, 1990), with many dropping out before graduation (deBettencourt & Zigmond, 1990). This is why early identification and prevention of reading difficulties is important. This paper summarizes (a) our current understanding of the difficulties encountered by children with R/LDs as they start down the road to reading and (b) research on early identification and intervention. The focus is children in kindergarten through second grade, although research on older children is included when it informs the understanding of problems in early reading acquisition. The paper is divided into four sections: background on skilled reading and reading disability (RD); early identification of children with R/LDs; intervention research on this population; and final thoughts on intervention approaches. We also offer short lists of sensible actions for practitioners working in this field. BACKGROUND: SKILLED READING AND READING DISABILITY Comprehension is the immediate goal of reading. Successful reading comprehension sits atop three essential pillars: the ability to read words; the ability to comprehend language; and the ability to access background and topical knowledge relevant to specific texts. Lacking any one of these foundations, reading comprehension suffers. Having an R/LD means having trouble with one or more of the foundation skills. Reading, language skills, knowledge, and word reading ability are all mutually dependent and reciprocally related (Stanovich, 1986). Weakness anywhere in the system can spell trouble for growth in the other foundation skills, and for reading development. Reading Comprehension and Word Reading Students with an R/LD may have weaknesses in any of the three foundation areas. However, during the beginning stages of learning to read, the most salient characteristic of these students is difficulty in acquiring efficient word-level reading skill. Thus, this paper focuses on assessment and treatment of word- level reading problems. Two aspects of word reading are important for comprehension: accuracy and speed. Accurate word reading is critical to reading comprehension because the meanings that readers construct from text come via the words. No words, no meaning. If individuals cannot read words accurately, their comprehension suffers. Speed of word recognition is also strongly related to reading comprehension; individuals skilled in reading comprehension can read single words faster than individuals with poor reading comprehension (Perfetti &
... It is important to consider some of the ways individuals read words. For example, words can be read through analogy, noting similarities to familiar words (Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002). ...
... However, many words are read by sight, (such as with high frequency words like is and the), where automatic word reading requires having words readily available in memory. Reading words by sight is occasionally referred to as orthographic reading, in contrast to alphabetic or phonological reading where words are read through decoding (Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002). Notably, repetition and decoding skills are needed to establish Teacher Effects sight words, and individuals must read extensively to encounter enough words in text that allow reading by sight. ...
... Reading, language skills, knowledge, and word reading ability are all mutually dependent and equally interconnected with each other in the development of reading comprehension (Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002). In regards to word reading, accuracy and speed are two significant aspects for comprehension. ...
... They contend that as children move into grade one, so screening batteries should include measures assessing phonemic awareness, decoding, word identification, phonemic spelling and text reading. By the second semester of grade one, it is recommended that the measures include speed as an outcome (Bishop, 2003;Compton, Fuchs, Fuchs, & Bryant, 2006;Foorman, Francis, Fletcher, Schatschneider & Mehta, 1998;Fuchs, Futchs & Compton, see 2004;Høien & Lundberg, 2000;Jenkins& O'Connor, 2002;Lipson & Wixson, 1997;McCardle, Cooper, Houle & Paul-Brown, 2001;O'Connor& Jenkins, 1999;Scarborough, 1998;Torgesen, 2002). ...
... In the higher levels children gain the ability to comprehend increasingly difficult texts. Hence, the screen components at this level need to take account of this (again, see Bishop, 2003;Compton et al., 2006;Foorman et al., 1998;Fuchs et al., 2004;Høien & Lundberg, 2000, Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002Lipson & Wixson, 1997;McCardle et al., 2001;O'Connor & Jenkins, 1999;Scarborough, 1998;Torgesen, 2002). ...
... Bishop and League (2006) found that a screen incorporating letter identification, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming and phonological memory yields the highest correlations with oral reading fluency as the outcome measure. Other authors have supported the use of multivariate screening (e.g., Bishop & League, 2006;Compton, Fuchs & Fuchs 2007;Foorman et al., 1998;Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002). It is expected that the use of a combination of word identification, letter identification, phonological awareness and spelling in this study will boost the reliability of the group test. ...
Early identification of children at risk of reading and writing difficulties is important for prevention and the provision of proper intervention before failure sets in. This thesis addresses the issue in the Tanzanian context, where many children in primary schools face reading and writing problems. This is evidenced in the high repetition and dropout rates and poor school attendance of children. Many children complete primary education without the skills of reading and writing. The children remain unidentified for many reasons, amongst them a lack of proper screening instruments for identification. The aim of this study was to create and validate a theoretically founded group-based screening tool in Kiswahili for identifying first graders at risk of reading and writing difficulties. The role of certain home-and school-related factors for the children's reading and writing ability was also analyzed. The created screen was shown to have high reliability. Of 337 children screened in Morogoro Municipality, Tanzania, 24% were found to be at risk of reading and writing difficulties and in need of special attention. These children obtained very low scores on all the tasks designed to measure letter identification, word identification, phonological awareness and spelling. These components are known to be sensitive predictors of reading in alphabetic languages, including transparent orthographies like Kiswahili. The screen also identified a group of children who are struggling, but who can manage with a little support. Many over-aged school beginners seem to belong to the at-risk group. Of the home factors, the number of books at home explained 38% of the variance in reading and writing ability. Parentseading ability and the support children get at home were also strong factors. Of the school-related factors, school attendance was critical, explaining 21% of the variance. Nursery school experience was also important. The study emphasizes that action is needed to support homes and schools in the process of improving school attendance. The screening instrument is considered effective for identifying children at risk of reading and writing difficulties. In addition to the original version, a short version is also presented. Both versions are easy to administer in a short time and do not require special orientation. The screen can be used by teachers as well as parents.
... The first type of error is false positives, in which children who eventually become academically competent score below the cutpoint on the predictive instrument, so educators therefore consider them to be at risk. Falise positives undermine prevention by stressing school resources to provide Tier 2 intervention to an inflated percentage of students (Fletcher et al., 2002; Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002). The second error type is false negatives, that is, children who score above the cut score on a predictive instrument but who later develop academic problems. ...
... The second error type is false negatives, that is, children who score above the cut score on a predictive instrument but who later develop academic problems. A classification jDrocess that produces large numbers of false negatives diminishes the effectiveness of prevention efforts by depriving at-risk children of the early intervention that they require (Jenkins, 2003; Torgesen, 2002). For a multitier prevention system to work effectively, procedures for determining risk must yield a high percentage of true positives while identifying a manageable risk pool by limiting false positives. ...
The predictive utility of screening measures for forecasting math disability (MD) at the end of 2nd grade and the predictive and discriminant validity of math progress-monitoring tools were assessed. Participants were 225 students who entered the study in 1st grade and completed data collection at the end of 2nd grade. Screening measures were Number Identification/Counting, Fact Retrieval, Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) Computation, and CBM Concepts/Applications. For Number Identification/Counting and CBM Computation, 27 weekly assessments were also collected. MD was defined as below the 10th percentile at the end of 2nd grade on calculations and word problems. Logistic regression showed that the 4-variable screening model produced good and similar fits in accounting for MD-calculation and MD-word problems. Classification accuracy was driven primarily by CBM Concepts/Applications and CBM Computation; CBM Concepts/Applications was the better of these predictors. CBM Computation, but not Number Identification/Counting, demonstrated validity for progress monitoring.
... Best practice is the early identification of literacy difficulties among students and to provide early intervention to meet their needs, thus improving their reading ability [50][51][52]. This can be a challenging factor for immersion education as students are learning through a second language [53][54][55][56][57][58]. ...
This entry reviews the research around identifying and supporting students with additional educational needs (AEN) in immersion education. This is important as it is clear from international research that teachers in this form of education experience challenges due to the lack of availability of minority language services, assessments, interventions, and resources. The international research and literature on the positive practices that can be implemented in immersion education to help teachers and schools overcome the challenges they encounter is reviewed. The themes included in this entry are inclusive pedagogies, assessment, literacy, mathematics, and challenging behaviour.
... Their weakness in identifying words prevents them from reading fluently and from focusing on the meaning of what is being read. Slow processing of print overloads working memory capacity that is required for effective comprehension and reflective thought (Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002). ...
Purpose: This study was aimed at examining phonemic awareness as a determinant of reading abilities of children with reading disabilities in the Buea Municipality, South West Region of Cameroon Methodology: This Study Was Based on the Premise That Phonemic Awareness Has Been Identified As The best early indicator of a learner’s reading potentials because it sets the stage for phonics, and literacy. A quasi-experimental design was adopted for the study with 14 participants, 7 in the experimental group and 7 in the control group. A pre-test and post-test were administered to the children before and after the intervention. The instrument used for data collection was a phonemic awareness test that constituted elements of reading, sound identification, deletion of the first phoneme, deletion of the second phoneme, initial phoneme identification and final phoneme identification. Data was analyzed using EpiData Version 3.1 Cohen’s d test and Cramer’s V test. Findings: Results indicated that the phonemic awareness has a significant effect on the reading abilities of children with reading disabilities, this was based on the mean difference of the pre-test (11.37) and post-test (15.17) giving a mean difference of 3.8 with a paired sample t-test of 2.844 giving a significant value of P= 0.05. The study concluded that effective instructions through the development of a child’s ability to understand how individual phonemes can be manipulated and arranged to create words can stop and repair the learning gap and can impart the skills an older reader missed in the earlier grades. Recommendation: Based on the findings, it was recommended that teachers should be more inclusive in their handling of students’ .Also, parents should be encourage to help children back at home to develop reading skills.
... Identification of 2E children is necessary prior to intervention; thus, preschool teachers should possess knowledge of 2E so they can observe children closely. This situation grows even more complex when preschool teachers' lack of knowledge about gifted children is coupled with the difficulties of identifying LD in early childhood (Jenkins and O'Connor 2002). Teachers need solid knowledge of the general characteristics of these children to identify them and provide interventions when necessary. ...
The present study aimed to examine the opinions of preschool teachers regarding the characteristics of twice exceptional (2E) children. The research was conducted with the participation of 41 preschool teachers working at schools in a provincial centre in
Turkey. The data were collected using a semi-structured interview form consisting of four questions. The research results indicate that the participants consider 2E children both in terms of their strengths and weaknesses. More than half of the participants (51%) stated that giftedness and learning disabilities (LD) cannot coexist in a child, or that they did not have any knowledge of this coexistence. Furthermore, the research found that the participants focused on certain characteristics of children with giftedness and LD, thus ignoring 2E.
... Firstly, students who currently attend basic, secondary and higher education will be increasingly "more virtual" and digital literacy will constitute a transversal and essential competence. Secondly, the need to consider the heterogeneity of students and their family and geographic contexts, and the need to ensure pedagogical differentiation, identify students at-risk in a timely manner, monitor their learning and ensure quality universal education within the framework of a multilevel approach are challenges that are imposed on several educational systems [4], [5], including the Portuguese system. Integrating digital resources in the teaching of reading and writing competences not only contributes to the promotion of digital literacy, but also can help dealing with the listed challenges. ...
... Firstly, students who currently attend basic, secondary and higher education will be increasingly "more virtual" and digital literacy will constitute a transversal and essential competence. Secondly, the need to consider the heterogeneity of students and their family and geographic contexts, and the need to ensure pedagogical differentiation, identify students at-risk in a timely manner, monitor their learning and ensure quality universal education within the framework of a multilevel approach are challenges that are imposed on several educational systems [4], [5], including the Portuguese system. Integrating digital resources in the teaching of reading and writing competences not only contributes to the promotion of digital literacy, but also can help dealing with the listed challenges. ...
In Education, the use of technological resources to support students' teaching and learning is becoming more and more urgent. Teaching and Learning Portuguese [Ensinar e Aprender Português-EAP] is a structured and innovative educational resource, supported by the use of Information and Communication Technologies and based on scientific evidence. It is aimed at students (and teachers) of the four years of primary school. It aims to: i) support the teaching/learning of reading and writing in primary school; ii) signalize, in a timely manner, students at-risk of presenting difficulties in learning to read and write; and iii) support the recovery of learning. This paper will present this digital resource developed for the Portuguese context, based on the Portuguese curriculum and the legislation on inclusive education. It is also anchored in the multilevel approach whose focus on digital transition, on screening tests and monitoring of learning has introduced new challenges in the education system. As it is a digital resource whose activities are self-executable and for which explanatory and corrective feedbacks are provided, it contributes to bridge a gap in terms of digital transition which was particularly visible in a pandemic context such as the one we are going through.
... According to the literature, multifaceted screeners that include phonemic awareness, letter knowledge, and expressive and receptive vocabulary may be the most effective way to correctly determine the reading performance of young students (Compton, Fuchs, Fuchs, & Bryant, 2006;Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002;McCardle, Scarborough, & Catts, 2001;O'Connor & Jenkins, 1999;Scarborough, 1998;Torgesen, 2002). Typically, assessment of phonemic awareness is conducted in first grade along with decoding, word identification, and text reading (Foorman et al., 1998). ...
In response to increasing national prioritization of school-readiness (most recently Race to the Top funding from U.S. Department of Education), states have begun their own school-readiness initiatives to ensure that all students enter kindergarten ready to learn. This brief report provides a snapshot of state-level school readiness practices sorted into three categories: (1) active school readiness screening; (2) partial school readiness screening; and (3) no school readiness screening. Results indicated that 51% of the states (n = 26) had specific school readiness screening procedures, 33% (n = 17) fell into the partial school readiness screening category, and 16% (n = 8) fell in the no school readiness screening category. Basic demographic information for the states indicated no significant differences in number of districts, number of students enrolled, or annual median income. The importance of school readiness screening emphasizes the need for a clear, national strategy.
... The fact that brief, practical standardized tests can yield classification statistics comparable to, and in some cases better than, less practical school-based tests with poor psychometric properties suggests that these briefer tests may be a promising alternative as RTI screens. Research indicates that using a screening battery yields better classification accuracy than a single measure (Foorman et al., 1998;Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002). In our own reading intervention research, we use a battery of empirically validated assessments that together take less than 30 minutes. ...
Inefficient response-to-intervention (RTI) screening in urban schools where many students read below grade-level may under-identify students needing intervention or over-identify students, over-burdening a limited-resource system. In a first-grade sample from one urban school, we evaluated the classification validity of two research-based screening measures—the Test of Silent Reading Efficiency and Comprehension and the Word Test-3 (WT3) Synonym subtest—as alternatives to the school’s screening measure, the Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System (BAS). The WT3 yielded high classification accuracy in identifying students who were receiving intervention services, and it outperformed the BAS. Practical implications for RTI screening are discussed.
... High levels of disagreement of the children identified as at risk for LD using different methods would indicate that different children would be eligible for services and special accommodations contingent on which method was used to determine risk status. To avoid over-identification or false positives of children who are at risk, an outcome that would unduly stress limited resources to provide monitoring or intervention for children who really need it (Fletcher et al., 2002;Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002), the use of multiple measures to assess the same early literacy skill has been recommended (Compton et al., 2010;Fletcher, Francis et al., 2005;Francis et al., 2005). Additionally, evaluating how different factors (e.g., deficit severity, deficit pervasiveness) influence agreement levels may provide insight to the benefits and drawbacks of using a particular method of indexing risk (Brown-Waesche et al., 2011). ...
To investigate approaches for identifying young children who may be at risk for later reading-related learning disabilities, this study compared the use of four contemporary methods of indexing learning disability (LD) with older children (i.e., IQ-achievement discrepancy, low achievement, low growth, and dual discrepancy) to determine risk status with a large sample of 1011 preschoolers. These children were classified as at risk or not using each method across three early-literacy skills (i.e., language, phonological awareness, print knowledge) and at three levels of severity (i.e., 5th, 10th, 25th percentiles). Chance-corrected affected-status agreement (CCASA) indicated poor agreement among methods with rates of agreement generally decreasing with greater levels of severity for both single- and two-measure classification, and agreement rates were lower for two-measure classification than for single-measure classification. These low rates of agreement between conventional methods of identifying children at risk for LD represent a significant impediment for identification and intervention for young children considered at-risk.
... In recent years, interest has been growing among researchers and policy makers in early identification of and intervention for children considered at risk for poor academic achievement. In large part, this is due to a growing body of research that indicates children's performance in early literacy during the preschool years is both predictive of children's performance in the later grades and relatively stable over time (Duncan et al., 2007;Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002;Lonigan, Schatschneider, & Westberg, 2008). ...
This Response to Intervention (RTI) study examined agreement between methods of
classification of preschool children’s responsiveness to Tier II intervention using level of
performance (25th percentile), growth (equivalent to small and medium effect sizes), and both
level of performance and growth in a dual-discrepancy approach. 181 children had been
identified as making inadequate progress within high-quality Tier I instruction in one or more
early literacy domain (language, print knowledge, phonological awareness) and randomly
assigned to either an intervention group or a business-as-usual control group. All the children
were classified as responsive or not and, although there were generally greater proportions of
children classified as responsive following intervention compared to the control groups,
agreement between methods of classifying responsiveness varied across the three early literacy
domains and the single measures within each domain. These results indicated that, depending on
which of these methods was used, different children were classified as responsive.
... Similarly, Gerstein and Domino (2006) argued that given the limited resources that schools possess, it is essential that students are not overly identified for reading disabilities (RD) and subsequently placed in intensive interventions that may not be necessary. In fact, research has shown that most efforts to identify reading problems early in development before formal reading instruction overly predicts reading disabilities (Felton, 1992;Jenkins & O'Connor, 2000); and that early intervention provides a tool for distinguishing between reading disabilities that are cognitive in nature as opposed to reading problems that are due to reading experiences, resources, and/or poor teaching (Vellutino, et al. 1996). An effective RtI process provides a framework for differentiating between students with low achievement (based on poor instruction, poverty, and other environmental factors) and students with reading disabilities. ...
Research has shown that effective interventions can prevent future reading failure, thereby,
placing low-performing students on track for college and career readiness. As educators in the
21st century, we have access to a wealth of evidence-based resources to continually improve our
expertise in teaching struggling readers. Yet, despite this, the results from state and national
assessments indicate that many children are performing below proficiency in reading
comprehension. Further, these data indicate that failing readers are predominately from lowincome
families, mostly male, and to a degree, of minority status. From an RtI perspective, the
success of students with reading problems will depend on three interrelated factors: 1) the
effectiveness of instruction in the general education classroom, plus the teacher’s ability to
scaffold student learning on grade-level tasks; 2) the effectiveness of interventions for children
with persistent reading difficulties, plus the teacher’s ability to regulate degrees of instructional
support within a model of explicit teaching, guided practice, and independence on tasks that
gradually increase in complexity and difficulty, and 3) the ongoing collaboration between
general education, Title 1 reading education, and special education with a focus on assisting
students to transfer their knowledge, skills, and strategies for solving reading problems in
different contexts. Moreover, classroom and specialty teachers must acquire a common language
regarding evidence-based practices and comprehensive assessments for instructing children with
reading problems. Without this common understanding, it is difficult for educators to engage in
meaningful problem-solving conversations that are grounded in empirical research and supported
by the systematic observation of change over time in student reading behavior. Furthermore, this
common understanding must expand beyond school-based educators to include the voices of
university faculty and the Arkansas Department of Education. In this paper, we offer data-based
recommendations for nurturing the effective implementation of Response to Intervention in our
state.
... Fuchs, Fuchs, and Compton (2004) found, in a sample of 151 at-risk readers in grade 1, that word and pseudo-word recognition measured in the fall were both predictive of reading comprehension measured in the spring. The results from Berninger, Abbott, Vermeulen, and Fulton (2006) also showed that word reading accuracy uniquely contributed to reading comprehension in at-risk readers in grade 2. The accurate identification of disabled readers needs to occur as soon as possible to reduce the incidence or the severity of reading problems (Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002 ). Screening measures are used to predict an outcome (i.e., the criterion measure) months or years in advance and allow the quick identification of students who might be at-risk for reading problems (Johnson, Pool & Carter, n.d.). ...
... RAN is the ability to rapidly retrieve the names of visually presented, familiar items in a serial array (e.g., objects, colors, numbers, or letters, or a combination of these in rapid alternating stimulus formats) (Denckla & Rudel, 1976; Norton & Wolf, 2012). Although these measures demonstrate a strong association with later reading performance, studies that used kindergarten performance on these measures to ascertain risk for dyslexia showed limited success in predicting which children truly develop dyslexia, with false positives ranging from 20% to 60% (Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002; Torgesen, 2002) and false negatives from 10% to 50% (Catts, 1991; Scarborough, 1998; Torgesen, 2002). These findings prompted suggestions of delaying identification until at least 1st grade, when language-based and literacy-based activities at home are less influential and measures can be more reading-specific (Fletcher, Foorman , Boudousquie, Barnes, Schatschneider et al., 2002). ...
Research suggests that early identification of developmental dyslexia is important for mitigating the negative effects of dyslexia, including reduced educational attainment and increased socioemotional difficulties. The strongest pre-literacy predictors of dyslexia are rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological awareness (PA), letter knowledge, and verbal short-term memory. The relationship among these constructs has been debated, and several theories have emerged to explain the unique role of each in reading ability/disability. Furthermore, the stability of identification of risk based on these measures varies widely across studies, due in part to the different cut-offs employed to designate risk. We applied a latent profile analysis technique with a diverse sample of 1215 kindergarten and pre-kindergarten students from 20 schools, to investigate whether PA, RAN, letter knowledge, and verbal short-term memory measures differentiated between homogenous profiles of performance on these measures. Six profiles of performance emerged from the data: average performers, below average performers, high performers, PA risk, RAN risk, and double-deficit risk (both PA and RAN). A latent class regression model was employed to investigate the longitudinal stability of these groups in a representative subset of children (n = 95) nearly two years later, at the end of 1st grade. Profile membership in the spring semester of pre-kindergarten or fall semester of kindergarten was significantly predictive of later reading performance, with the specific patterns of performance on the different constructs remaining stable across the years. There was a higher frequency of PA and RAN deficits in children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. There was no evidence for the IQ–achievement discrepancy criterion traditionally used to diagnose dyslexia. Our results support the feasibility of early identification of dyslexia risk and point to the heterogeneity of risk profiles. These findings carry important implications for improving outcomes for children with dyslexia, based on more targeted interventions.
... Although these measures demonstrate a strong association with later reading performance, studies that used kindergarten performance on these measures to ascertain risk for dyslexia showed limited success in predicting which children truly develop dyslexia, with false positives ranging from 20% to 60% (Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002;Torgesen, 2002) and false negatives from 10% to 50% (Catts, 1991;Scarborough, 1998;Torgesen, 2002). These findings prompted suggestions of delaying identification until at least 1st grade, when language-based and literacy-based activities at home are less influential and measures can be more reading-specific (Fletcher, Foorman, Boudousquie, Barnes, Schatschneider et al., 2002). ...
Research suggests that early identification of developmental dyslexia is important for mitigating the negative effects of dyslexia, including reduced educational attainment and increased socio-emotional difficulties. The strongest pre-literacy predictors of dyslexia are rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological awareness (PA), letter knowledge, and verbal short-term memory (VSTM). The relationship among these constructs has been debated, and several theories have emerged to explain the unique role of each in reading ability/disability. Furthermore, the stability of identification of risk based on these measures varies widely across studies, due in part to the different cut-offs employed to designate risk.We applied a latent profile analysis technique with
a diverse sample of 1215 kindergarten and pre-kindergarten students from 20 schools, to investigate whether PA, RAN, letter knowledge, and verbal short-term memory measures differentiated between homogenous profiles of performance on these measures. Six profiles of performance emerged from the data: average performers, below average performers, high performers, PA risk, RAN risk, and double-deficit risk (PA and RAN). A latent class regression model was employed to investigate the longitudinal stability of these groups in a representative subset of children (n = 90) nearly two years later, at the end of 1st grade. Profile membership in the spring semester of pre-kindergarten or fall semester of kindergarten was significantly predictive of later reading performance, with the specific patterns of performance on the different constructs remaining stable across the years. There was a higher frequency of PA and RAN deficits in children from lower SES backgrounds. There was no evidence for the IQ–achievement discrepancy criteria traditionally used to diagnose dyslexia. Our results support the feasibility of early identification of dyslexia risk and point to the heterogeneity of risk profiles. These findings carry important implications for improving outcomes for children with dyslexia, based on more targeted interventions.
... Dies könnte die Bedeutung einer vorschulischen phonologischen Förderung für den Schriftspracherwerb in der deutschen Sprache reduzieren (vgl. Jenkins, 2002). ...
Internationale Metaanalysen belegen bedeutsame Effekte einer Förderung der phonologischen Bewusstheit auf den Schriftspracherwerb. In der vorliegenden Metaanalyse mit 27 Primärstudien wurden die Effekte phonologischer Fördermaßnahmen auf die frühen schriftsprachlichen Kompetenzen im Deutschen quantifiziert. Die Analysen belegten generell höhere Effekte für Fördermaßnahmen, die vor der Einschulung stattfanden. Eine vorschulische Förderung besaß zwar keine signifikanten Effekte auf die Dekodierfähigkeit; jedoch konnten geringe Effekte auf die Rechtschreibkompetenz nachgewiesen werden, was auf die unterschiedliche Konsistenz der Graphem-Phonem und Phonem Graphem-Zuordnungen zurückzuführen sein könnte. Analysen zum Einfluss von Moderatoren ergaben, dass Kinder mit schwachen und guten Ausgangskompetenzen gleichermaßen von der Förderung profitieren, und dass die Kombination mit einem Buchstaben-Laut-Training keine inkrementellen Effekte im Vergleich zu rein phonologischen Fördermaßnahmen hat. Insgesamt fielen die metaanalytischen Trainingseffekte der deutschsprachigen Förderprogramme deutlich niedriger aus als in den internationalen Metaanalysen. Für diesen Befund werden sprachliche und methodische Erklärungen gegeben.
... Students who are misclassified as needing help even though they don't are called false positives. False positives are problematic because resources may be wasted (Gersten et al., 2009) by providing extra intensive intervention to students who do not need such help, as often happens in the field of reading (e.g., Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002 ). For schools with finite resources , this is particularly vexing. ...
This article describes key findings from contemporary research on screening for early primary grade students in the area of mathematics. Existing studies were used to illustrate the constructs most worth measuring and the diverse strategies that researchers used to study potential measures. The authors discussed the strengths and weaknesses of assessing a few key proficiencies (as is often done in early reading) versus a more full-scale battery, and described the importance of going beyond merely reporting predictive validity correlation coefficients to examining the classification accuracy, specificity, and sensitivity of screening measures.
... There is a potential solution to this problem, whereby both validity and earlier identification are possible, and that is through the use of dynamic assessment (Fuerstein & Fuerstein, 1991;Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002). Dynamic assessment is conceptually related to the RTI/MTSS process, yet it is in abbreviated form (Grigorenko, 2009). ...
Purpose
The first purpose of this study was to explore the use of a whole class, test–teach–test, dynamic assessment of narratives for identifying participants. The second purpose was to examine the efficacy of a Tier 2 narrative language intervention for culturally and linguistically diverse preschoolers.
Method
A dynamic assessment was conducted with students from 3 Head Start classrooms. On the basis of the results of the dynamic assessment, 22 children were randomly assigned to treatment (n = 12) and control (n = 10) groups for intervention. Participants received a small-group (4:1), differentiated, narrative intervention for 15–20 min, twice a week, for 9 weeks. Interventionists used weekly progress monitoring data to explicitly focus on individualized narrative and linguistic targets.
Results
The treatment group showed significant improvement over the control group on proximal and distal measures of narrative retells, with large effect sizes. Group differences on a measure of children's language in the context of personal stories were not statistically significant.
Conclusions
This early-stage study provides evidence that narrative language intervention is an effective approach to improving the language skills of preschoolers with diverse language needs. Furthermore, the evidence supports the use of dynamic assessment for reducing overidentification and identifying candidates for small-group language intervention.
... In terms of reading, early identification of children who are most likely to encounter reading problems may constitute the first step in reducing the incidence or severity of reading difficulties (Jenkins, 2002). Because schools tend not to identify these children until the middle elementary grades, these children's reading difficulties become more serious, and possibly become more intractable. ...
... (Boscardin, Muthén, Franscis, & Baker, 2008;Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002;Kim, Yoo, & Kim, 2010a;Leppänen, Aunola, Niemi, & Nurmi, 2008;Schatschneider, Fletcher, Francis, Carlson, & Foorman, 2004;Stanovich & Siegel, 1994 (Gough & Tunmer, 1986). 하지만, 최근 발표된 국내 및 표층 표기 체계 언어권의 연구에서는 단어인지가 읽기이해의 유의한 예측 변인이 아닌 것으 로 보고되었다 (Dufva, Niemi, & Voeten, 2001;Kim, Yoo, Hwang, Kim, & Koh, 2010b;Müller & Brady, 2001). ...
Objectives: A bulk of studies has been conducted on cognitive variables underlying reading comprehension achievement. However, there are still few studies which examine the longitudinal predictors of reading comprehension in Korea. The present study examines the longitudinal predictors of reading comprehension for students in grade 2 and grade 4 through the 20-month follow-up test. Methods: Seventy-seven 2nd graders and eighty-three 4th graders were examined for predictor measures (e.g., vocabulary, listening comprehension, rapid automatized naming). Seventy 2nd graders and seventy-one 4th graders were reassessed on reading comprehension measured by the Korea Institute for Special Education-Basic Academic Achievement Test (KISE-BAAT)-passage comprehension after eight months. Sixty 2nd graders and sixty-six 4th graders were reassessed on reading comprehension measured by KISE BAAT-passage comprehension after 20 months. Results: Major findings of this study were summarized as follows. First, vocabulary and sentence repetitions contributed significantly to reading comprehension 8 months later for 2nd gra- ders; vocabulary and listening comprehension contributed significantly to reading comprehension 8-month later for 4th graders. Second, vocabulary contributed significantly to reading comprehension 20 months later for 2nd graders; vocabulary and sentence repetitions contributed significantly to reading comprehension 20 months later for 4th graders. Conclusion: To summarize, vocabulary was the strongest longitudinal predictor for reading comprehension. The summary of the results and limitations of this study were being discussed. © 2013 Korean Academy of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology.
... If children experience difficulty learning to read in the early primary grades, they are more likely to struggle in reading throughout their later school life (Catts, Fey, Zheng, & Tomblin, 1999; Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997; Muthen, Khoo, Francis, & Boscardin, 2003; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998; Shaywitz, Fletcher, Hoahan, Shneider, Marchione, Stuebing, Francis, Pugh, & Shaywitz, 1999). Alternatively, if children are able to improve essential reading skills early in their academic careers, they are better equipped to develop subsequent reading skills at a rate comparable to their peers (Fuchs, Fuchs, Compton, 2004; Jenkins & O'Connor, 2002; McCoach, O'Connell, Reis, & Levitt, 2006; Torgesen, 2002). Therefore, identifying at-risk students at the early stages of reading and providing interventions to develop proficient reading skills is extremely important. ...
... Early intervention programs focus on the "critical period" between kindergarten and grade three in which services show especially strong preventative or minimizing effects on students' academic, behavioral and social difficulties. Early LD identification allows educators to adapt instruction to children's learning needs before their learning difficulties "grow stronger roots" (Jenkins and O'Connor 2002) and become more difficult to remediate. Thus, the earlier intervention begins, the better students' outcomes tend to be (Guralnick 2005). ...
Prior theory and research suggest that children of immigrants would be at especially high risk for special education placement
with learning disabilities. However, their longitudinal special education placement patterns have received scant attention.
This study examines temporal patterns of special education placement among children of immigrants, focusing on the timing
of special education placement for learning disabilities among first- or second-generation children compared with their third-plus
generation peers. Results provide evidence that children of immigrants face comparatively lower odds of receiving early special
education intervention services, but demonstrate an increasing risk as the school years progress. This relationship is explained
by children of immigrants' frequent participation in English as a second language programs in the early grades.
Early identification of children with learning disabilities (LD) is extremely important. In order for early identification to be made, it is necessary to determine the characteristics of these children in early life. The present study aimed to examine the developmental characteristics of children with LD in the age intervals of 0–2, 2–4, and 4–6, based on parental observations. For this purpose, interviews were conducted with the parents of 35 children identified with LD. The data were collected through a semi-structured interview form and they were analyzed using content analysis. The data were interpreted and classified using an inductive approach. The results indicated that children with LD have different characteristics in terms of speech and language proficiency, social, psychomotor, cognitive, and sensory skills compared to children without LD. Moreover, the participants’ responses indicated that the majority of the children had their LD identified after the first year of primary school. After a thorough discussion of the study findings, recommendations are made for future research and practice in this area.
This chapter provides an overview of issues in assessment of achievement and specific learning disability (SLD). Research on SLD speaks to the importance of understanding foundational concepts within the academic domains of reading, writing, and mathematics. Therefore, the chapter begins with an introduction to these concepts. Issues in conceptualizing SLD are then reviewed prior to discussing assessment considerations for SLD. Because the purpose of assessment has implications for the tools suited to answering referral questions, discussions are organized around referral purposes, including diagnostic evaluation, requests for intervention planning or recommendations for learning supports, and assessing learning or response to intervention.
This study examined the effect of phonics method on oral reading fluency on the reading performance of children with reading difficulties in Buea municipality. Quasi-experimental research design was used for the study. The population of the study comprised of all primary three children with reading difficulties. Fourteen (14) children were drawn from the population to form the sample. The children were then divided into experimental and control groups (7 children in each group). Data was collected using the reading readiness diagnostic instrument. And data was analysed using mean difference, standard deviations and the Cramer's V to measure the progression rate. The findings of the study indicate that oral reading fluency has an effect on the reading performance of children as indicated on the results of the experimental group which was higher than that of the control group. The hypothesis here stated is then rejected thus implying that the phonics method has a significant positive influence on the oral reading fluency of children.
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to examine how well a kindergarten dynamic assessment of decoding predicts future reading difficulty at 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade and to determine whether the dynamic assessment improves the predictive validity of traditional static kindergarten reading measures.
Method
With a small variation in sample size by grade, approximately 370 Caucasian and Hispanic students were administered a 3-min dynamic assessment of decoding and static measures of letter identification and phonemic awareness at the beginning of kindergarten. Oral reading fluency was then assessed at the end of Grades 2–5. In this prospective, longitudinal study, predictive validity was estimated for the Caucasian and Hispanic students by examining the amount of variance the static and dynamic assessments explained and by referring to area under the curve and sensitivity and specificity values.
Results
The dynamic assessment accounted for variance in reading ability over and above the static measures, with fair to good area under the curve values and sensitivity and specificity. Classification accuracy worsened when the static measures were included as predictor measures. The results of this study indicate that a very brief dynamic assessment can predict with approximately 75%–80% accuracy, which kindergarten students will have difficulty in learning to decode up to 6 years into the future.
Conclusions
Dynamic assessment of decoding is a promising approach to identifying future reading difficulty of young kindergarten students, mitigating the cultural and linguistic bias found in traditional static early reading measures.
This study examined the predictive validity and classification accuracy of individual- and group-administered screening measures relative to student performance on a year-end state reading assessment in two states. A sample of 321 students was assessed in the areas of word-level and text fluency, as well as reading comprehension in the fall of fourth grade. For individual measures, a group-administered reading comprehension test exhibited the highest classification accuracy (74%–80%) for both outcomes though no screener demonstrated optimal sensitivity and specificity levels. Using a multivariate approach, logistic regression results revealed minimal to no increase in classification accuracy over the single comprehension measure. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses determined local cut scores to maintain sensitivity constant at .90, which resulted in a large number of false positives. The implications and limitations of these findings for screening at the upper elementary level are discussed.
Data-based decision making is the hallmark of response to intervention (RTI) programs. This chapter discusses the origins of the data-based program modification (DBPM) model that, for many, provided the framework that led to the development of RTI. The key assumptions on which DBPM rested are considered relative to RTI as currently implemented and in relation to current research. Attention is given to why it is essential to evaluate the interventions implemented in RTI models, and to questions regarding the technical adequacy of the data being used to make RTI decisions. Extended discussion is provided of issues that decision makers confront in evaluating student data, and caveats regarding data interpretation are provided. Finally, RTI is considered in the context of problem solving and the evaluation activities required to identify problems, define problems, and evaluate interventions. The chapter closes with evaluation at the most intense level of RTI and with the proposition that all interventions must be evaluated regardless of the evidence supporting their effectiveness.
Improving Reading Outcomes for Students with or at Risk for Reading Disabilities: A Synthesis of the Contributions from the Institute of Education Sciences Research Centers Reading difficulties present serious and potentially lifelong challenges. Children who do not read well are more likely to be retained a grade in school, drop out of high school, become teen parents, or enter the juvenile justice system. Thus, preventing reading difficulties early in children's school careers has potential long-term benefits to the individual as well as society.1 In this report, we review the results of the first eight years of IES-funded research that focused on ways to prevent and remediate reading difficulties in students with or at risk for reading disabilities. Supporting investigations on assessment, cognitive and linguistic processes of reading, effective interventions, and teacher professional development, IES-funded research has made substantive contributions to answering some of the most pressing research questions in reading. These projects have elucidated ways to identify and help children who may struggle with reading before the problems become entrenched. IES research has also identified critical component skills that support proficient reading, found ways to assess these skills, and developed and tested interventions for children at risk of developing reading disabilities, including children with who are deaf or hard of hearing or who have intellectual disabilities. Importantly, IES-funded research has funded projects that investigate ways to bring effective interventions into our nation's classrooms. This includes designing professional development training that increases teachers' knowledge about literacy and deepens their understanding of how to teach reading effectively to all students, including students who are struggling to learn to read.
This article compares 2 fluency-based assessments of letter sound knowledge: letter sound fluency and nonsense word fluency (NWF). Ninety-one children were administered both assessments 5 times during the second half of kindergarten. The assessments were comparable for concurrent and predictive criterion-related validity at single points. The ability to accurately identify which students were at risk for reading difficulty using a single assessment point was examined using established and modified benchmarks. Additionally, 2 scores were analyzed for NWF: total number of sounds and number of sounds blended together in words. Students' responses to NWF varied within and across assessment points. This variability should be considered when NWF is used to make progress monitoring decisions about beginning readers.
The factor structure of the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening for Grades 1 through 3 (PALS 1-3), a widely used early literacy screener in the Commonwealth of Virginia, was investigated using a large sample of public-school second-grade students (n = 14,993). Three alternative factor models (i.e., a one-factor, two-correlated factors, and a bifactor model) were tested and explored using an exploratory sample consisting of a randomly selected half of the overall sample. Model fit indices using confirmatory factor analyses indicated that a bifactor model fit the best and supported the scoring methods used with PALS 1-3, which is largely measured by a general factor of orthographic knowledge. The model was found to replicate in the randomly selected hold-out sample as well and exhibited adequate measurement precision (omega(h) = .88).
This study provides baseline data to assist researchers in conducting future studies exploring the developmental trajectories of young gifted learners on measures of cognitive ability and achievement. The study includes common neuropsychological tests associated with preliteracy and the early-reading process as well as markers for inattention and executive functioning skills. Using a sample of kindergarteners identified as gifted, the results indicated that despite intelligence quotient scores in the very superior range and high means on traditional achievement measures, great variability was observed within the sample on several benchmarking measures of cognitive, academic, neuropsychological, and executive functioning. Additionally, only an average mean score on a visual-motor processing neuropsychological measure was obtained. Four neuropsychological measures provided important loadings in canonical correlations with achievement: Oromotor Sequences, Repetition of Nonsense Words, Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration scores, and Speeded Naming. In addition to providing baseline data on these measures, the results also offer support for defining giftedness as a developmental process.
What are educators' perceptions of the adoption and effectiveness of the Response to Intervention (RTI) model in their own schools? Over a three-year time span, the authors interviewed educators at an urban elementary school about their perceptions of an RTI model, tracking the model's development and the effectiveness of the implementation. The study was conducted through a univer sity-school partnership that involved these elementary school educators from the initial planning through the implementation of the model while providing the professional development that was required to support the model. While the educators initially viewed the model as an administrative directive, they began to assume responsibility for the model's implementation during the second year as they considered themselves change agents and problem solvers for their school. During the third year, with continued administrative support and evidence of the model's effectiveness, participants engaged in the additional development and growth of the model and assumed responsibility for the model's sustainability as part of the school change process. Results suggest that RTI's collaborative structures, related professional development, and co-shared leadership supported the implementation process and contributed to the effectiveness of the model. Implications for practice are discussed.
Data-based decision making by teams is central to implementation of response to intervention (RTI) models. Few studies have examined the actual decision-making process within RTI systems of service delivery. The purpose of this study was to examine the tier assignment decisions for students across grade-level teams in three K–5 elementary schools implementing identical RTI models for reading. Decisions of grade-level teams primarily composed of teachers were compared against the recommendation made by the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) universal screening measure during fall and winter assessments across a 2-year period. Results showed teams had high overall levels of agreement with the DIBELS recommendations, especially after Grade 1 and during the winter of each year. When teams initially disagreed with the DIBELS recommendations, increased agreement in the use of data-based decisions was present over time. Implications for the data decision-making process within an RTI model are discussed.
The purpose of this followup study was to determine the long-term predictive validity of theoretically coherent reading measures administered during fall and winter of kindergarten. Seventy-nine children were screened using measures representing letter identification, phonological awareness, phonological memory, and rapid automatized naming. Reading achievement was measured at the end of grades 1 through 4 on passage comprehension, oral reading fluency, sight-word recognition, and phonemic decoding. A multivariate screening model incorporating letter identification, phonological awareness, and rapid automatized naming emerged as the most parsimonious model for predicting long-term reading achievement. This screening model yielded the highest correlations with oral reading fluency as the outcome measure. There was no practical significance between the fall and winter screening over the four-year period using this model. Results are interpreted as confirming the importance of a multivariate screening approach using letter identification, phonological awareness, and rapid automatized naming at the earliest time frame in kindergarten.
Responsiveness to intervention (RTI) is being proposed as an alternative model for making decisions about the presence or absence of specific learning disability. We argue that many questions about RTI remain unanswered, and that radical changes in the proposed regulations are not warranted at this time. Since many fundamental issues related to RTI have not been resolved, a better strategy may be to more rigorously implement existing identification criteria (e.g., discrepancy and psychological processing deficits) in a structured psychometric framework. Suggestions for how to modify present procedures are provided.
Responsiveness to intervention (RTI) is being proposed as an alternative model for making decisions about the presence or absence of specific learning disability. We argue that many questions about RTI remain unanswered, and that radical changes in the proposed regulations are not warranted at this time. Since many fundamental issues related to RTI have not been resolved, a better strategy may be to more rigorously implement existing identification criteria (e.g., discrepancy and psychological processing deficits) in a structured psychometric framework. Suggestions for how to modify present procedures are provided.
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.
Assessments in English that are constructed for native English speaker's may not provide valid inferences about the achievement of English language learners (ELLs). The linguistic complexity of the test items that are not related to the content of the assessment may increase the measurement error, thus reducing the reliability of the assessment. Language factors that are not relevant to the content being assessed may also be a source of construct-irrelevant variance and negatively impact the validity of the assessment. More important, the results of these tests used as the criteria for identification and classification of ELL students, particularly those at the lower end of the English proficiency spectrum, may be misleading. Caution must be exercised when the results of these tests are used for special education eligibility, particularly in placing ELL students with lower English language proficiency in the learning/reading disability category. This article discusses psychometric issues in the assessment of English language learners and examines the validity of classifying ELL students, with a focus on the possibility of misclassifying ELL students as students with learning disabilities.
We explored the usefulness of first and second grade reading measures and responsiveness criteria collected within a response-to-intervention (RtI) framework for predicting reading disability (RD) in third grade. We used existing data from 387 linguistically diverse students who had participated in a longitudinal RtI study. Model-based predictors of RD were analyzed using logistic regression; isolated measure/criteria combinations for predicting RD were analyzed using classification analysis. Models yielded superior classification rates compared to single measure approaches and did not systematically misclassify English learners. However, particular first and second grade measure/criteria combinations also showed promise as isolated predictors of RD in word reading/text fluency. Model-based approaches were required for acceptable classification of students with RD in comprehension. Although the former finding is promising for early identification of students in need of more intensive instruction in lexical or fluency-based skills, the latter finding reaffirms literature attesting to the complexity of RD in comprehension and difficulty of predicting deficits using early measures of reading, which primarily assess word reading skill. Results replicated well with an independent sample, thus enhancing confidence in study conclusions. Implications regarding the use of RtI for predicting RD are discussed.
At-risk 1st graders were randomly assigned to tutoring in more or less decodable texts, and instruction in the same phonics program. The more decodable group (n = 39) read storybooks that were consistent with the phonics program. The less decodable group (n = 40) read storybooks written without phonetic control. During the first 30 lessons, storybook decodability was 85% versus 11% for the 2 groups. Tutoring occurred 4 days per week for 25 weeks. A control group did not receive tutoring in phonics or story reading. Both tutored groups significantly surpassed the control on an array of decoding, word reading, passage reading, and comprehension measures. However, the more and less decodable text groups did not differ on any posttest.
Most students who receive special education services have significant difficulties with reading. Because teachers are considered the major source of referral for special education services, they must know the characteristic reading behaviors that distinguish students with reading disabilities. The purpose of this study was to validate literature-based reading behaviors by professionals who work with students with reading disabilities (RD) and to identify those behaviors that predict reading disabilities. Utilizing a rating scale developed from the neuropsychological and learning disability literature, 391 professionals were asked to identify reading behaviors in their poor readers identified as having learning disabilities (LD). Findings from t-test analyses revealed statistically significant differences between students with LD who had reading disabilities and students with LD without reading disabilities, affirming the literature-based group of behaviors that constitute reading disability. Additionally, reading rate was found to be most predictive of reading disability in the LD group with reading disabilities. Implications include characteristic reading behaviors that can be used with other reading measures during screening and diagnosis and that can be considered when planning remedial intervention programs.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a cohesive and intensive preventive prereading intervention on the phonological awareness, word reading, and rapid naming skills of children at risk of emotional disturbance and reading problems.Thirty-six children were assigned randomly to an experimental or comparison condition. Children in the experimental condition received Stepping Stones to Literacy. Stepping Stones includes 25 lessons designed to teach children pivotal prereading skills (e.g., phonological awareness, letter identification). Children in the experimental condition showed statistically significant improvements in their phonological awareness, word reading, and rapid naming skills relative to children in the comparison condition. Effect size estimates indicate that the improvements were moderate to large across all of the phonological awareness, word reading, and rapid naming measures. Treatment nonresponder analyses indicated that a relatively small number of children in the experimental group failed to show satisfactory gains in their phonological awareness (n = 3),word reading (n = 1), and rapid naming (n = 3) skills.
Using a mixed-methodology, longitudinal design, individual differences and contextual factors related to differential response to general education instruc- tion were examined. We tested a response-to-instruction model reflecting the first three phases of a model proposed by Fuchs and Fuchs (1998). We classified first- and second-grade children at-risk for reading problems into one of three respon- siveness groups and compared groups on reading, phonological processing, be- havioral, and instructional context measures. Further, we examined qualitatively the interaction of individual differences and instructional context. The most per- sistently nonresponsive group scored significantly lower on all individual differ- ence measures, but did not experience poorer instructional settings. Further, this group demonstrated greater difficulty learning in the general education setting. The response-to-instruction model demonstrated construct and social validity with implications for an improved prereferral system.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a music training program on children's phonological awareness and naming speed in Spanish. Participants were preschool children whose first language was either Spanish (n = 45) or Tamazight ( n = 52), a Berber dialect spoken in Morocco's Rif area. The two-year pretest/posttest study showed that the children who received phonological training with or without music performed significantly better in a naming speed posttest and a series of phonological processing tasks than those who did not participate in specialized training. The phonological training that included music activities was particularly effective for the development of phonological awareness of ending sounds and naming speed. The benefits of the training on children's phonological awareness and naming speed, two strong predictors of reading acquisition, were significant regardless of the native language of the children.
This paper is a retrospective descriptive content analysis of all identified school
documents for 90 ninth-grade students with a history of truancy, collected from two
Swedish compulsory schools. The study investigates individual, school, and
psychosocial factors in the documents and three analyses are presented: (1) a general
analysis of the documents, (2) a comparison of truant students with and without
learning difficulties (LD), and (3) a comparison between students with LD who
received no special educational support and those who did receive support. Predictors
for truancy were credits in the fall of the eighth grade, difficulties in mathematics, and
relationship problems. For 50% of the students, frequent truancy first became evident
after the seventh grade. No connections were found between documented educational
and social support, learning difficulties, and level of truancy.
Keywords: truancy, learning difficulties, school documents, school support
Visual, linguistic, reading, and spelling tests were administered to the same 45 children at the end of kindergarten and of first grade. Normal variation, i.e., diversity not related to pathology, was found in the visual and linguistic skills and was shown to be related to reading and spelling achievement for a sample of suburban children of similar socioeconomic status. Individual differences in three visual skills—selective attention to letter information (RT), memory for a component letter (accuracy), and memory for a whole word (accuracy)—and two linguistic skills—phonemic analysis and vocabulary understanding—were reliable over the first year of formal reading instruction and had concurrent validity in that they were correlated with achievement in word decoding/encoding at the end of kindergarten and of first grade. Of these five skills, phonemic analysis accounted for more variance in achievement (52% to 64%, depending upon achievement measure) than any other single skill. Significantly mote variance in achievement was accounted for when both a visual skill (memory for a sequence) and a linguistic skill (phonemic analysis) were considered than when either alone was at end of first grade. The predictive validity of quantitatively defined “disabilities” (at or more than a standard deviation below the mean) was investigated; disabilities in both visual and linguistic skills at the end of kindergarten were associated with low achievement in word decoding/encoding at the end of first grade. Two pairs of identical twin girls (each co-twin taught by a different teacher) were not mote congruent on several achievement measures than two pairs of unrelated girls, taught by the same teacher and matched to each other and a twin pair on verbal ability and age. Normal variation in acquisition of word decoding/encoding probably results from an interaction between genetic individual differences in cognitive skills and the processes of assimilation and accommodation during environmental transactions proposed by Piaget.
The authors investigated (a) the effects of assisted reading practice over a 4-month period with at-risk third- and fourth-grade children, (b) the differential effects of teacher assistance and tape assistance, and (c) the prediction of gains by the initial performance of the children. The teacher-assisted group (n = 10) practiced by reading basal materials orally and receiving assistance with word identification from a teacher. The tape-assisted group (n = 9) practiced by reading while listening to a tape recorder whose speed they could control. Assisted practice significantly improved the text reading rates and reading comprehension scores of the experimental groups compared to a control group, although gains in letter-naming speed, decoding, and reading speed for words out of text did not reach statistical significance. A second finding was that listening while reading resulted in twice the amount of reading as the other method and led to higher scores on listening comprehension measures. Finally, gains in reading comprehension were larger when there was a large pretreatment difference between listening comprehension and reading comprehension. /// [Spanish] Los autores investigaron (a) los efectos de la práctica de lectura asistida durante un período de 4 meses con niños de riesgo de 3° y 4° grado, (b) los efectos diferenciados de la asistencia proporcionada por el docente y la asistencia a través de grabaciones, y (c) la predicción de logros a través del desempeño inicial de los niños. El grupo asistido por el docente (n = 10) practicó leyendo materiales básicos en forma oral y recibió asistencia de un docente para la identifación de palabras. Los niños del grupo asistido por grabaciones (n = 9) practicaron leyendo mientras escuchaban una grabación cuya velocidad podían controlar. La práctica asistida mejoró la velocidad de lectura de los textos y los puntajes en comprensión lectora de los grupos experimentales comparados con un grupo de control, sin embargo los logros en velocidad para nombrar letras, decodificación y velocidad en lectura de palabras aisladas no alcanzaron significación estadística. Un segundo hallazgo consistió en que la práctica de escuchar mientras se lee dió como resultado el doble en cantidad de lectura comparada con el otro método y resultó en puntajes más altos en las medidas de comprensión oral. Por último, los logros en comprensión lectora fueron mayores en los casos en los que se registró una diferencia importante entre comprensión oral y comprensión lectora anterior al tratamiento. /// [German] Die autoren untersuchten (a) die Wirkungen unterstützter Lesepraxis über einen Zeitraum von vier Monaten bei schwachen Lesern der 3. and 4. Klasse, (b) die unterschiedlichen Effekte von Lehrerhilfe und Tonbandhilfe, und (c) die Vorhersagbarkeit des Erfolgs aus der zu Beginn erkennbaren Leseleistung. Die lehrergestützte Gruppe (n = 10) übte durch Lautlesen von Grundlagenmaterial und wurde durch Worterklärungen vom Lehrer angeleitet. Die Schülergruppe mit Tonbandhilfe (n = 9) lernte durch Mitlesen, während das Band lief, dessen Geschwindigkeit sie regulieren konnten. Unterstütztes Lernen verbesserte die Leseerfolge und die Verstehensleistung der Experimentiergruppen im Vergleich zu den Kontrollgruppen, obwohl die Verbesserungen hinsichtlich Buchstabenbenennen, Geschwindigkeit, Entziffern und Lesetempo bei Wörtern aus den Texten statistisch nicht nennenswert waren. Ein zweiter Befund war, daß das Mitlesen doppelt so erfolgreich war wie die andere Methode und auch zu besseren Ergebnissen bei Hörverstehensübungen führte. /// [French] On a étudié (a) différentes aides à la lecture avec des enfants à risque (3° et 4° année primaire), (b) comparé aide par l'enseignant et par magnétophone, et (c) les bénéfices selon le niveau de départ. Le groupe aidé par l'enseignant (n = 10) a lu à haute voix des manuels et été aidé pour identifier les mots. Le groupe avec magnétophone (n = 9) a lu en écoutant une bande enregistrée à vitesse réglable. La compréhension et la vitesse de lecture des groupes expérimentaux apprurent significativement meilleurs, mais pas les gains en vitesse de dénomination de mots, en décodage et en vitesse de lecture orale de texte. Par ailleurs, les enfants écoutant au magnétophone ont lu deux fois plus et mieux réussi en compréhension de l'oral. Enfin, les gains en compréhension de l'écrit furent plus importants en cas d'écart important au prétest entre compréhension de l'oral et compréhension de l'écrit.
The later effects of the Direct Instruction Follow Through program were assessed at five diverse sites. Low-income fifth and sixth graders who had completed the full 3 years of this first- through third-grade program were tested on the Metropolitan Achievement Test (Intermediate level) and the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT). Results were contrasted with those of children in local comparison groups using analysis of covariance procedures. Results indicated consistently strong, significant effects in WRAT reading scores (decoding), consistent effects in math problem solving and spelling, and moderate effects in most other academic domains. Students appeared to retain the knowledge and problem-solving skills they had mastered in the primary grades. However, without a continuing program, most students demonstrated losses when compared to the standardization sample of the achievement tests. Implications for improved instruction in the intermediate grades were discussed.
Traces research citations noted in advocacy and policy documents to their original sources to determine whether use of"decodable text" in early reading instruction is research-based. Researchers could locate no reliable, replicable research to support policy assertions that using decodable text, as defined in California and Texas policy documents, enhances children's reading achievement. (27 references) (MLH)
This paper reviews service delivery models used with learning-disabled adolescents and proposes two alternative models of services. Components of an effective program include intensive basic skills instruction, explicit instruction in coping skills, successful completion of classes required for graduation, and planning for postgraduation life. (PB)
The purpose of the present study was to examine the effectiveness and feasibility of phonological awareness training, with and without a beginning decoding component. 33 teachers in 8 urban schools were assigned randomly within their schools to 3 groups: control, phonological awareness training, and phonological awareness training with beginning decoding instruction and practice. Following training, teachers in the 2 treatment groups conducted the treatments for about 20 wks. In each teacher's class, pre- and posttreatment data were collected on 12–14 children (
N = 404); 312 children were tested again the following fall. At the end of kindergarten, the 2 treatment groups performed comparably and outperformed controls on the phonological awareness measures. On alphabetic (reading and spelling) tasks, however, the group participating in phonological awareness training with beginning decoding instruction did better than the other 2 groups. In the fall of the next year, many of these between-group differences remained but were less impressive. Implications are discussed for bridging research and practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The efficacy of a combination of phonological and strategy-based remedial approaches for reading disability (RD) was compared with that of each approach separately. Eighty-five children with severe RD were randomly assigned to 70 intervention hours in 1 of 5 sequences: PHAB/DI (Phonological Analysis and Blending/Direct Instruction) → WIST (Word Identification Strategy Training), WIST → PHAB/DI, PHAB/DI × 2, WIST × 2, or CSS → MATH (Classroom Survival Skills - Math, a control treatment). Performance was assessed before, 3 times during, and after intervention. Four orthogonal contrasts based on a linear trend analysis model were evaluated. There were generalized treatment effects on standardized measures of word identification, passage comprehension, and nonword reading. A combination of PHAB/DI and WIST proved superior to either program alone on nonword reading, letter-sound and keyword knowledge, and 3 word identification measures. Generalization of nonword decoding to real word identification was achieved with a combination of effective remedial components. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Examined the validity of distinguishing children with reading disabilities according to discrepancy and low-achievement definitions by obtaining 4 assessments of expected reading achievement and 2 assessments of actual reading achievement for 199 children (aged 7.5–9.5 yrs). These assessments were used to subdivide the sample into discrepancy and low-achievement definitional groups who were compared on 9 cognitive variables related to reading proficiency. Results did not support the validity of discrepancy vs low achievement definitions. Although differences between Ss with impaired reading and Ss without impaired reading were large, differences between Ss with impaired reading who met IQ-based discrepancy definitions and those who met low reading achievement definitions were small or not significant. Measures of phonological awareness were robust indicators of differences between Ss with impaired reading and Ss without impaired reading regardless of how reading disability was defined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Teacher ratings from four consecutive cohorts of kindergarten students were used to establish a prediction function by which children who ultimately received special education services in the form of resource-class placement were discriminated from children who remained solely in regular education classrooms. All five factors measured by the RISK scale were significantly related to future school performance, but items that assessed child ability, current performance, and teacher investment were most predictive of eventual special-class placement. Overall accuracy for the screening measure was 94.13%, with 1,194 out of 1,269 children accurately selected to their appropriate educational placement.
This study was designed to test the effects of activity-based phonological instruction delivered by five classroom teachers on the phonological skill development and reading and writing outcomes of kindergarten children with (n = 31) and without (n = 57) disabilities, and children repeating kindergarten (n = 19) placed in general and self-contained classes. Teachers in the treatment received 10 inservice training sessions spaced over the school year and implemented from 100 to 281 activities during the 6-month intervention. Outcomes for treated children were compared with children matched for type (general or repeating kindergartners, or children with mild disabilities) in classrooms using the same background prereading curriculum. Results suggest that intervention delivered by nonresearch personnel can be an effective way to improve the literacy outcomes of children with a broad range of ability.
The study was designed to investigate the effect of two repeated reading procedures on second-grade transitional readers' (Chall, 1983) oral reading performance with practiced and unpracticed passages. Seventeen transitional readers were selected on the basis of average or better decoding ability but below-average reading rate and were assigned to one of two types of repeated reading training, using either a read-along procedure or independent practice. Results showed that transitional readers' rate, accuracy, comprehension, and prosodic reading (reading in meaningful phrases) were significantly improved by repeated reading practice regardless of the training procedure employed. Gains in repeated reading of practiced passages transferred to unpracticed, similar passages; however, practice on a single passage was not as effective as practice on a series of passages. Prosodic reading was most facilitated by the read-along procedure. /// [French] Cette recherche veut étudier l'effet produit par deux procédés de lecture répétée sur les performances d'élèves de deuxième année ayant atteint un niveau de lecture dit transitionnel (lequel se réfère à la capacité de découpage des syllabes) lorsqu'ils doivent lire à haute voix certains passages déjà lus et certains inconnus. On a sélectionné 17 de ces lecteurs démontrant une habileté au décodage moyenne ou supérieure, mais une vitesse de lecture sous la moyenne. Ils ont été soumis à l'un des deux types d'apprentissage de la lecture répétée, soit un procédé de lire avec le voix d'un lecteur met en bande, soit la pratique individuelle. La vitesse de lecture, l'exactitude, la compréhension et l'intonation (à la lecture de phrases significatives) ont été grandement améliorées grâce à l'exercice de lecture répétée, peu importe le procédé utilisé. On a observé le transfert du progrès réalisé par la lecture répétée lors de passages connus sur des passages semblables mais inconnus. Toutefois, l'exercice avec un seul passage ne s'est pas révélé aussi efficace que l'exercice avec une série de passages. Le procédé de lecture en groupe permettait de lire avec une meilleure intonation. /// [Spanish] El estudio fue diseñado para investigar el efecto que dos procedimientos de lectura repetida tienen en la abilidad de lectura con pasajes practicados y no practicados en lectores transicionales de segundo año. Se seleccionaron 17 estudiantes transicionales en base de su habilidad superior o promedio para decodificar material combinada esta con una velocidad de lectura por debajo del promedio, y fueron asignados a uno de dos tipos de entrenamiento de lectura repetida, utilizando un procedimiento de lectura simultánea con la voz de un lector registrada en cinta, o práctica independiente. La velocidad de lectura, la exactitud, comprensión, y lectura prosódica (lectura en frases con significado) de los lectores transicionales mejoraron significativamente debido a la práctica de la lectura repetida independientemente del procedimiento de entrenamiento empleado. Las mejoras en la lectura repetida de pasajes practicados fue transferida a pasajes similares no practicados; con todo, la práctica de un solo pasaje no fue tan efectiva como la práctica de un serie de pasajes. La lectura simultánea con otro lector fue el procedimiento que más facilitó la lectura prosódica. /// [German] Diese studie wurde entworfen, um den Einfluß von zwei Wiederholungslesen-Vorgängen bei mündlichem Vorlesen von geübten und ungeübten Abschnitten bei Uebergangslesern im zweiten Schuljahr zu erforschen. Siebzehn Uebergangsleser wurden ausgewählt aufgrund von Durchschnitts- oder besserer Entzifferungsfähigkeit, jedoch aufgrund weniger als durchschnittlicher Lesefähigkeit, und diese wurden einer von den beiden Typen von Wiederholungslesen-Klassen zugeteilt, wobei entweder eine Zusammen-Lesen-Prozedur oder aber unabhängiges Lesen durchgeführt wurden. Die Leseschnelle, die Genauigkeit, das Verständnis und Silbenlesen (Lesen in logischen Sätzen) von Uebergangslesern wurde wesentlich verbessert durch wiederholtes Lesen, gleich welche Uebungsmethode benutzt wurde. Fortschritte in wiederholtem Lesen von geübten Abschnitten wurden auf ungeübte Abschnitte übertragen; allerdings war das Ueben eines einzelnen Abschnittes nicht so wirkungsvoll wie das Ueben einer Serie von Abschnitten. Silbenlesen wurde am meisten gefördert durch das Miteinander-Lesen.
This study evaluated an intervention to enhance early phonological processing skills and reading. Early phonological processing skills are strongly related to progress in early literacy and phonological processing deficits are found related to specific reading disability. Thirty children aged 5.1–6.0 (15 in each of two schools) were assigned to an experimental or control group and compared before and after a 12-week intervention on measures of phonological processing skills and reading. There were no pretreatment differences between groups.
The experimental intervention was based on findings of (a) early developmental phases in phonological recoding, (b) reciprocal development between phoneme awareness and phonological recoding, and (c) reciprocal development between phonological processing skills and early reading. The instruction was designed to facilitate the gradually expanding use of letter-phoneme relationships in early reading and spelling. The results indicated that, at posttest, the experimental group performed significantly better than the control group on the measures of phonological processing skills and in reading. Intervention that includes teaching the sounds of letters and phoneme awareness as part of using letter-phoneme relationships in recognizing printed words, in spelling, and in reading (pronouncing words) appears to be effective for enhancing early reading and may possibly reduce the probability of subsequent reading disability.
In this article we present an integrated literacy curriculum for special education students that was designed to promote classroom discourse for negotiating and constructing meanings in reading and writing. Project principles and activities are discussed, with a focus both on how teachers lead their students' literacy development and on how such instruction affects their special education students' literacy knowledge and performance.
Research was conducted on the efficacy of an integrated reading-writing program for primary-grade students with mild disabilities. The literacy program was designed to incorporate five principles of teaching and learning: the involvement of students in contextualized literacy activities, the development of learning-to-learn strategies, the construction of classroom dialogues about literacy, the enactment of responsive instruction designed to support learners in their zones of proximal development, and the creation of literacy communities. Furthermore, the study involved three different groups of learners: students of control teachers, students of first-year teachers, and students of second-year teachers. The results clearly indicated the effects of the integrated literacy program on students' reading and writing performance, especially the students of the most experienced teachers. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed.
20 subjects at each of 4 age levels (8, 10, 12, and 18) rated the linguistic units of prose passages in terms of their importance to the structure and theme of the passages as a whole. There was considerable agreement among independent groups of college students and seventh-grade children concerning these importance ratings, but third- and fifth-grade subjects were unable to differentiate items in terms of their relative importance to the text. Recall of the text material was determined by the adults' ratings of structural importance. At all ages, the units judged most important dominated recall attempts, while the least important units were rarely recalled. The failure of the younger children to identify the important elements of the text suggests a problem of "metacomprehension" that could be a contributing factor to their poor study habits.
Four main topics are addressed (sample findings in parentheses): generalization (LD adolescents have trouble generalizing across settings); motivation (goal setting and self-control can be effective); social skills (LD subjects can readily learn social skills); and young adulthood (LD young adults face difficulties coping with daily living and career-vocational demands). (CL)
Results show when reading an unfamiliar word children benefit from the context of the sentence. When words have irregular spelling–sound correspondences, pronunciation cues contained in spelling patterns are important. Variations in decoding skill are important to success in reading unfamiliar words than sensitivity to sentential contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Examined the reliability, validity, and sensitivity of 3 experimental measures developed to assess 3 areas of early literacy: phonological awareness, vocabulary development, and fluency in letter naming. The measures were designed for repeated use to identify children with difficulty acquiring basic early literacy skills and to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions for these children. Ss were 37 kindergarten and 41 1st-grade children. Results suggest that the measures displayed adequate psychometric properties for kindergarten children who were not yet reading. Reliabilities were moderate to high and evidence was obtained for the criterion-related validity of the measures. Sensitivity of the measures was supported, although further research is needed. As expected, the experimental measures were less useful for 1st graders who were reading well. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Presents a theoretical exploration of various reading methods and the fundamental psychological processes of learning to read. The features, trends, and developments in reading and writing education in 13 countries (e.g., Finland, India, Japan, and Argentina) are described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This study examined the feasibility of teaching phonological manipulation skills to preschool children with disabilities. Forty-seven children, 4-6 years old, enrolled in a special education preschool, were randomly assigned to receive training in one of three categories of phonological tasks (rhyming, blending, and segmenting) or a control group. Results indicated that children were able to make significant progress in each experimental category, but that they demonstrated little or no generalization either within a category (e.g., from one type of blending task to another type of blending task) or between categories (e.g., from blending to segmenting). Although the children's level of cognitive development significantly predicted some learning outcomes, it did not appear to limit the learning of phonological tasks.
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Total awareness: Reducing the severity of reading disability
- O Connor
- R E Fulmer
- D Harty
- K Bell
O’Connor, R. E., Fulmer, D., Harty, K., & Bell, K. (2001, April). Total awareness: Reducing the severity of reading disability. Presented at the American Educational Research Conference, Seattle, WA
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Effects of a first-grade tutoring program in phonological and early reading skills Poor readers’ decoding skills: Effects of training with limited exposure duration
- P F Vadasy
- J R Jenkins
- K Pool
Vadasy, P. F., Jenkins, J. R., & Pool, K. (2000). Effects of a first-grade tutoring program in phonological and early reading skills. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 33, 579–590. van den Bosch, K., van Bon, W., & Schreuder, R. (1995). Poor readers’ decoding skills: Effects of training with limited exposure duration. Reading Research Quarterly, 30, 110–125
Task and performance dimensions of word reading
- J R Jenkins
- L S Fuchs
- C Espin
- P Broek
- S Deno
Jenkins, J. R., Fuchs, L. S., Espin, C., van den Broek, P., & Deno, S. (2000, February). Task and performance dimensions of word reading. Paper presented at the Pacific Coast Research Conference, La Jolla, California