Traditional cloze tests (such as the CBM-maze) may be poor measures of comprehension processes beyond the single sentence level. This paper presents an alternative, a deep cloze test with gaps that ...are strategically chosen to assess comprehension beyond the sentence level. To fill each gap, the reader has to draw global cohesion inferences during reading. A study with 83 adult students found support for the validity of the deep cloze test. It contributed unique variance to global reading comprehension as measured with a conventional test even after controlling for sentence-level cloze, word decoding, and vocabulary knowledge. The deep cloze also explained all of the shared variance between reading comprehension and a topic identification task designed to require global comprehension. Future studies may explore how the deep cloze format can be used to tap other component processes of reading comprehension.
Phoneme awareness, letter knowledge, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) are well-known kindergarten predictors of later word recognition skills, but it is not clear whether they predict developments ...in accuracy or speed, or both. The present longitudinal study of 172 Danish beginning readers found that speed of word recognition mainly developed after a student had reached an accuracy level of 70% correct. Hence, the number of days a child took to achieve this 70% accuracy level (the basic accuracy achievement time BAAT) was a measure of specific differences in accuracy development. Phoneme awareness was the strongest predictor of this measure, but RAN also contributed unique variance. Because word recognition speed may depend on the amount of time a student has been able to read with basic accuracy, the BAAT measure was used as a control in the prediction of word recognition speed (at the end of Grade 2). With this control, RAN was the only significant predictor of speed. The different predictive patterns suggest that it is important to distinguish between accuracy and speed when comparing the strength of predictors, both within and across orthographies. A practical implication is that teachers should focus on the development of basic accuracy before speed.
The present study investigated the relationships between lexical access, reading fluency, and comprehension. Two components of speed of lexical access were studied: phonological and semantic. ...Previous studies have mainly investigated these components of lexical access separately. The present study examined both components in naming tasks-with isolated letters (phonological) and pictures (semantic). Seventy-five Grade 5 students were administered measures of letter and picture naming speed, word and nonword reading fluency, and reading comprehension, together with control measures of vocabulary. The results showed that letter naming was a unique predictor of word reading fluency, whereas picture naming was not. Conversely, picture naming speed contributed unique variance to reading comprehension, whereas letter naming did not. The results indicate that phonological and semantic lexical access speed are separable components that are important for different reading subskills.
•The short- and long-term prediction of reading from Grade 0 was investigated.•PAL in Grade 0 uniquely predicted reading in Grade 1.•PAL predicted development of reading accuracy but not speed from ...Grade 1 to 5.
Cross-sectional studies have established that performance on paired-associate learning (PAL) tasks is associated with reading performance. There are good reasons to expect such a relationship because learning to read involves learning the sounds of individual letters and possibly also sounds of strings of letters (e.g., spelling patterns). However, results from longitudinal studies have been mixed. A closer look at these studies suggests that PAL may be related to development of accuracy rather than speed in reading. This suggestion was investigated directly in the current longitudinal study. The study followed 137 students from Grade 0 (kindergarten) to Grade 5. In Grade 0, they completed measures of PAL, letter knowledge, phoneme awareness, and rapid automatized naming (RAN). In Grades 1 and 5, decoding accuracy was measured with the addition of decoding speed in Grade 5. PAL in Grade 0 was found to be a unique predictor of decoding accuracy in Grades 1 and 5 after controlling for Grade 0 letter knowledge, phoneme awareness, and RAN. PAL in Grade 0 even contributed to Grade 5 decoding accuracy after also controlling for Grade 1 decoding. Zero-order correlations between PAL and Grade 5 decoding speed were nonsignificant and close to zero. The results indicate that PAL measures a trait that may influence reading development over a substantial amount of time. Possible roles of PAL in decoding development over time are discussed, for example, how verbal learning may be a core component in the acquisition of associations between letter patterns (spelling patterns) and their pronunciation.
Failure to activate relevant, existing background knowledge may be a cause of poor reading comprehension. This failure may cause particular problems with inferences that depend heavily on prior ...knowledge. Conversely, teaching how to use background knowledge in the context of gap-filling inferences could improve reading comprehension in general. This idea was supported in an experimental study comprising 16 sixth-grade classes (N = 236) randomly assigned to experimental or control conditions. In the experimental condition, students' contribution to "gap-filling" inferences with expository texts were made explicit by means of graphic models and inference-demanding questions. After eight 30-min sessions, a large training effect was found on students' inference making skills with a substantial and sustained transfer effect to a standard measure of reading comprehension. The effects were not mediated by students' motivation, decoding ability, vocabulary, or nonverbal IQ.
A national test of dyslexia Poulsen, Mads; Juul, Holger; Elbro, Carsten
Annals of dyslexia,
10/2023, Letnik:
73, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Different definitions and tests of dyslexia can cause unfairness and make life difficult for people with dyslexia as well as for the professionals. In 2012, the Danish government decided to support ...the fight against dyslexia. The government issued a public tender for the development of “a standardized, electronically administered test of dyslexia for use … from primary Grade 3 and up through all educational levels to 5-year university education.” The present paper reports from the development of this National Dyslexia Test. The paper focuses on the definition of dyslexia and the composition, reliability, and validity of the test. Data from the development of the test demonstrate the psychometric properties of the test. Reliability was indicated by a high agreement between the two (computer-administered) measures that are part of the test. External convergent validity was indicated by a high agreement between test results and results from prior practice and by agreement between test results and reading comprehension of educational texts. The paper concludes with a discussion of the practical uses and potential issues with the test since its release in 2015.
We examined the relationship between inference making, vocabulary knowledge, and verbal working memory on children’s reading comprehension in 62 6th graders (aged 12). The effect of vocabulary ...knowledge on reading comprehension was predicted to be partly mediated by inference making for two reasons: Inference making often taps the semantic relations among words, and the precise word meanings in texts are selected by readers on the basis of context. All independent variables were significantly and moderately correlated with reading comprehension. In support of our prediction, the link between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension was significantly mediated by inference making even when verbal working memory was controlled. An alternative mediation hypothesis (vocabulary as a mediator of the effect of inference making on comprehension) was not supported by the data. The study replicates and extends the findings of earlier work (Cromley & Azevedo,
2007
; Segers & Verhoeven,
2016
; Ahmed et al.,
2016
).
It is well established that rapid automatised naming (RAN) correlates with reading ability. Despite several attempts, no single component process (mediator) has been identified that fully accounts ...for the correlation. The present paper estimated the explanatory value of several mediators for the RAN–reading correlation. One hundred and sixty‐nine preschool students were given measures of RAN and additional measures of phonological awareness, lexical search speed, letter knowledge and paired associate learning. Their reading skills were tested a year later along with speed of processing. The influence of the mediators on the RAN–reading correlation was estimated as indirect effects in mediation analyses. Phonological awareness and letter knowledge significantly mediated the RAN–reading relationship, each accounting for a moderate part of the correlation between RAN and reading fluency. Thus, the RAN–reading correlation was partly, but not fully, accounted for by precursors of reading that are currently known.
General cognitive ability is still a factor in current definitions of dyslexia despite two decades of research showing little or no relevance to the nature of dyslexia. This article suggests one ...reason why this may be so. The suggestion is based on a distinction between dyslexia as a disability (poor ability)—as it is viewed and explained by psycholinguistic and neuropsychological research—and dyslexia seen as a handicap (the consequences of a poor ability) in the educational world. While general knowledge and ability may be irrelevant to the nature of dyslexia as a disability, general knowledge and ability does relate to an ensuing handicap. Vocabulary is possibly the most closely linked subcomponent of “general knowledge and ability” to reading. It was thus hypothesized that when reading ability was controlled individuals with high vocabulary would be more likely than others would to experience a reading handicap as a function of poor reading. Conversely, vocabulary would not relate to the severity of the reading disability per se. These hypotheses were supported by results from a study of 165 adult poor readers.
The purpose of this volume is to present recent research in the field of the acquisition of functional literacy and its precursors. The volume aims to capture the state of the art in this rapidly ...expanding field. An attempt is made to clarify the vague and often inconsistent definitions of functional literacy from the perspective of development. Cognitive, linguistic, educational, and social factors of literacy development are all taken into account. The volume consists of three subsequent parts. The first part goes into phonological precursors of literacy development. In this part the focus is on the development of early language precursors of of reading and writing. The cultural foundations of these precursors are explored, and their links with reading development are dealt with in detail. Different psycholinguistic approaches are also proposed to explain the occurrence of literacy problems. In the second part, the scope is on the constraints of reading and writing efficiency at the word level and beyond. The acquisition of reading and writing is seen as a result from the interaction between phonological, orthographic, and semantic processes. A crosslinguistic perspective is taken on the role of writing system factors in the acquisition of literacy skills. The final part deals with the role of social and educational factors in literacy acquisition. Starting from a crosscultural perspective, the central issue is how the attainment of functional literacy is dependent on sociocultural variation. The predictors of more advanced levels of literacy development are considered, including foreign language literacy and adult literacy.
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