Adequate Readers Research Articles

The direct and indirect effects of word reading and vocabulary on adolescents’ reading comprehension: Comparing struggling and adequate comprehenders

The current study examined statistically significant differences between struggling and adequate readers using a multicomponent model of reading comprehension in 796 sixth through eighth graders, with a primary focus on word reading and vocabulary. Path analyses and Wald tests were used to investigate the direct and indirect relations of word identification, vocabulary, silent reading efficiency, and inference-making on reading comprehension. Comparing struggling versus adequate comprehenders revealed statistically significant differences in path coefficients. In both groups, vocabulary had the largest total effect when considering its direct and indirect effects. Word identification was the strongest direct predictor for struggling comprehenders (β = .18 for struggling vs. β = − .03 for adequate), while vocabulary was the strongest predictor for adequate comprehenders (β = .40 for adequate vs. β = .14 for struggling). Findings reinforce (a) vocabulary knowledge plays a primary role in explaining individual differences in adolescent reading comprehension, (b) the need to differentiate intervention to address underlying difficulties of struggling readers, and (c) the relations of reading component skills (e.g., word reading and silent reading efficiency) to reading comprehension may be different based on reader proficiency.

PENERAPAN TEKNIK GROUP CLOSE DALAM MEMBACA PEMAHAMAN SISWA KELAS VIII SMP PEMBANGUNAN UNP PADANG

AbstractThis reseach was motivated by low of students’ reading comprehension and their reading interest. To anticipate this problem, the researcher offered group close technique – a technique focussed to enrich students’ vocabulary the research used desciptive quantitative. The population of this research was the eight grade students of Junior High School (SMP) Pembangunan UNP Padang. The reseach sample were taken using random sampling. The instrument used was reading comprehension test. The research revealed students’ abililty as follows: (1) an excellent reader was 2.8 percent; (2) very good readers were 11.1 percent; (3) good readers were 11.1 percent; (4) adequate readers were 19.4 percent; (5) less adequate readers were 41.7 percent; and (6) poor readers were 22.2 percent. Kata Kunci: penerapan, teknik group close, membaca pemahaman

Adolescents’ motivation for reading: group differences and relation to standardized achievement

The purpose of this study was to extend the research on adolescents’ motivation for reading by examining important group differences and the relation of motivation to standardized achievement. Adolescents (N = 406) ranging from grade 7 to grade 12 completed a self-report survey that assessed 13 different aspects of their reading motivation including multiple forms of expectancy beliefs, value, achievement goals, and social goals. Group comparisons indicated important differences between readers who had struggled and those who were more adequate readers, but relatively few differences based on gender or grade in school. Regression analysis showed that the motivational beliefs as a group, and perceived control individually, were able to predict students’ performance on a standardized measure of reading comprehension.

Information and Communication Technology Profiles of College Students with Learning Disabilities and Adequate and Very Poor Readers

We interviewed 58 experts (30 in French, 28 in English) about potentially useful information and communicationtechnologies (ICTs) for Québec college students with a learning disability (LD) and evaluated whether collegestudents with an LD (n = 74), in fact, used these. We also compared ICT use, learning opportunities, andattitudes among three groups of students from Montreal area French and English language colleges: (1) studentswith an LD, and (2) students who, based on a reading comprehension test, were categorized as adequate readers(approximately top 50%) or (3) very poor readers (approximately bottom 20%). Results indicate importantdiscrepancies between the views of the experts and the realities of students with LDs. Moreover, students with anLD use significantly fewer different types of ICTs than those without an LD.

Early Oral Language Markers of Poor Reading Performance in Hong Kong Chinese Children

This study investigated the extent to which language skills at ages 2 to 4 years could discriminate Hong Kong Chinese poor from adequate readers at age 7. Selected were 41 poor readers (age M = 87.6 months) and 41 adequate readers (age M = 88.3 months). The two groups were matched on age, parents’ education levels, and nonverbal intelligence. The following language tasks were tested at different ages: vocabulary checklist and Cantonese articulation test at age 2; nonword repetition, Cantonese articulation, and receptive grammar at age 3; and nonword repetition, receptive grammar, sentence imitation, and story comprehension at age 4. Significant differences between the poor and adequate readers were found in the age 2 vocabulary knowledge, age 3 Cantonese articulation, and age 4 receptive grammar skill, sentence imitation, and story comprehension. Among these measures, sentence imitation showed the greatest power in discriminating poor and adequate readers.

4th-Grade Readers … Not Too Old to Snuggle

Teachers and parents are well aware of the benefits of reading out loud to children, especially young children (Allington 2001; Davenport et al. 2004). Our kindergarten and 1st-grade classrooms are filled with the lovely sound of teachers reading books out loud, children reading books to themselves, and guest readers, like the school principal and students' parents, being invited to read to the class. The image of little 5-year-olds snuggled up in the school library on cozy bean bags, listening to favorite stories, is quite familiar to us. But what about those great big, hunkin', 9- and 10-year-olds? You know, the ones who are taller than their teacher. The 4th-grade kids for whom, for many, the early signs of puberty are already beginning. Surely, they're too old to snuggle up and read with an adult? And furthermore, if they aren't fluent readers by 4th grade, don't they need major reading intervention? And if they're adequate readers, shouldn't we just focus on those needing more help? Moreover, shouldn't individual reading with 4th graders take place at a sensible school desk or table with a wide berth between the child and the teacher, or even more comfortably on a computer, where serious intensive instruction can occur? Or should it? Christine Finnan asks educators to consider that elementary age students have needs for nurturing and caring that are unique to their developmental stage. In her book, The Upper Elementary Years: Ensuring Success in Grades 3-6, Finnan notes that many 4th-and 5th-grade classrooms are significantly different from primary-grade classroom environments. More specifically, students typically experience a classroom environment that shifts its focus from nurturing children to teaching content (2009, p. 122). This shift may be in direct conflict with the student's continued developmental needs for nurturing. According to Finnan, upper elementary children have rather basic desires: accomplishment and affirmation, belonging and connection; academic, social and physical engagement (p. 99). One example of how 4th-grade students may benefit from snuggling up with a buddy to read is taking place in a rural South Carolina public school. The Cool Cats reading buddy program is a partnership between the College of Charleston's School of Education, Health, and Human Performance and Cainhoy Elementary School in Huger, South Carolina. Cainhoy is a rural, Title I, public school where 96% of the students are African American and 88% qualify for free and reduced-price lunch. In this pilot program, preservice teachers from the College of Charleston are recruited and earn a stipend to travel to the rural school and read, one on one, with 4th-grade students, most of whom are struggling readers. Over the seven-week sessions, there is no articulated reading program, no prescribed curriculum, not even one uniform book that is used. In addition, all 4th-grade students are invited to participate. Students accompany their buddies to the library, pick a cozy spot, and snuggle up and read. The only instructions are for 4th graders and college-age students to split in half the time spent reading out loud. Sounds easy, right? But does it work? Consistently, after each seven-week reading buddy session, 4th-grade students raised their oral reading fluency (ORF), as measured by the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Scale (DIBELS), an average of just over 20 words per minute. The results of this pilot are noteworthy; and upon reflection, the individual attention, physical connection, and human interaction may be the components that contributed to improving students' reading scores. Moreover, when the two 4th-grade teachers reflected on the program, they described children who wanted to come to school on reading buddy day and who valued the connections with their buddies. TABLE 1. Comparison of ORF scores with Reading Buddies and Successmaker Computer Program Intervention Type Beginning ORF Ending ORF for 7 Weeks (words per minute) (words per minute) Change Reading Buddies 80. …

The effect of orthographic depth on reliance upon semantic context for oral reading in English and Hebrew

This paper examines the relationship between orthographic depth and reliance upon context for oral reading in English and Hebrew. Research on context effects in English has indicated that the decoding ability of adequate readers is only minimally affected by context. The effect of context may be greater in Hebrew because of its deeper orthography – context may help readers phonologically and semantically disambiguate words whose letters do not provide enough information for grapheme‐to‐phoneme conversion. It is hypothesised that bilingual English‐Hebrew participants would rely more upon context for oral reading of Hebrew than English and that in Hebrew, reading words which are more phonologically ambiguous (high degree of freedom words) would be more affected by context than reading of words which are less phonologically ambiguous (low degree of freedom words). Results support both hypotheses. The findings are consistent with the Orthographic Depth Hypothesis.

EEG power spectra of children with dyslexia, slow learners, and normally reading children with ADD during verbal processing.

EEG power spectra were studied in two poor reader groups (with dyslexia and slow learning) and a normally reading clinic control group (with attention deficit disorder) as the children viewed strings of words and letters (seven categories). The children ranged in age from 7.5 to 12 years; 33 were girls, 86 were boys. Bilateral temporal and parietal sites and four midline sites were used. The major difference between groups was in the low beta band, where the ADD group had greater power at the parietal and midline sites. Also, the slow learner group had marginally greater low beta at the left than right temporal site, with the opposite trend found for the dyslexic and ADD groups. Across groups, power was greater at the right than at the left parietal site in the delta and alpha bands and at the right than at the left temporal site in the low beta band. Stimulus category effects were modest, with some alpha suppression to word strings, relative to letter strings, found in the poor readers. In correlational analyses, the combination of greater low beta and less theta power significantly predicted better reading and spelling. Results indicate that the adequate readers more actively processed the stimuli than did the poor readers.

Nonverbal communication in children with reading problems.

Nonverbal communication was investigated in poor readers and matched adequate readers. Contrary to expectations, poor readers did not differ from adequate readers on duration of smiling or gaze during a video-recorded interview with an adult. However, they made significantly more filled pauses during the interview than adequate readers, F(1,54) = 9.65, p < 0.004. Topic of conversation had a significant effect on nonverbal behavior. Irrespective of reading ability, children talked more, smiled more, and spent more time looking at the interviewer when talking about out-of-school compared with in-school activities, F(5,50) = 5.67, p < 0.001. Implications for poor readers' social interactions in the classroom are discussed.

Hemispheric lateralisation for verbal analysis: do children with reading problems differ from controls?

Specialisation for verbal-sequential analysis in 'dyslexics', poor readers and matched adequate readers was investigated. Groups did not differ on degree of right-ear advantage on the dichotic digits task, suggesting that the poor readers processed digits in the left hemisphere in a similar way to children who read normally. The results cast doubt on theories that 'dyslexia' is related to incomplete lateralisation for verbal analysis.

WAIS-R performance patterns of 565 incarcerated adults characterized as underachieving readers and adequate readers.

WAIS-R performance patterns of 565 incarcerated adults characterized as underachieving readers and adequate readers.

Is There a “Best Hand” for Braille?

Two experiments were conducted on lateral differences in Braille tasks with predominantly right-handed blind children. The hypothesis that hand advantages change with absolute proficiency levels was not supported for either letter discrimination, letter naming or word reading.Experiment 1 provided support for the hypothesis that hand advantages depend on a combination of taks demands and individual strategy preferences associated with relative proficiency or retardation. Retarded readers were significantly faster with the left hand in letter discrimination, and adequate readers were significantly faster with the right hand in letter naming.Experiment 2 showed that for tasks which demanded lateral movements, two-handed reading was superior to reading by either hand alone, irrespective of absolute or relative reading proficiency.It was argued that there is no “best hand” as such for Braille, but that lateral advantages depend on specific interrelations between task demands, individual preferences and reading habits.

The Relationship between Written Expression and Reading in Gifted Adolescents

This study was designed to: evaluate the performance of 107 gifted adolescents on a test of written language ability; compare the written expression of subgroups of superior and adequate readers drawn from the gifted sample; and examine the intercorrelations among written language components and reading. The results revealed that the gifted children did not evidence written language deficits but performed less well on measures of creative writing than they did on mechanical aspects. The superior readers in the sample performed significantly better than the adequate readers in all aspects of writing except handwriting. Finally, with the exception of word usage skills, areas of reading and components of writing do not appear to be highly interrelated.

Naming speed and serial recall in poor and adequate readers

Digit-naming speed was significantly correlated with serial memory capacity when the memory test was given under nonrhyming conditions, but not when it was given under rhyming conditions which are presumed to cancel the effectiveness of phonetic coding. In addition, the digit-naming test accounted for all of the power of the nonrhyming memory test to discriminate between reading-disability and normal children. Based on these results, it was hypothesized that digit-naming speed is a measure of the ability to engage in high-speed phonetic coding, that this ability is impaired in poor readers, and that this impairment affects short-term memory span. Possible explanations of the relevance of phonetic coding speed to reading ability and to short-term serial memory are discussed.

Recategorized WISC-R Scores of Disabled and Adequate Readers

AbstractThe relationship of Bannatyne’s WISC-R recategorized factors to reading was investigated. Factor profiles of 190 subjects, grouped by reading achievement, age (6-16 years), and IQ level, were compared. Evidence was stronger for an adequate-reader than for a disabled-reader profile. The most frequent characteristic of disabled readers was a low Sequential score. Forty percent of disabled readers and 18% of adequate readers demonstrated the Spatial > Conceptual > Sequential profile associated with dyslexia by previous researchers. A warning was given against using this profile to classify or predict.

Tests that discriminate between dyslexic and other learning-disabled boys

Dyslexic and nondyslexic boys within a single community's learning-disabled class were given a set of tests; performance on each of these tests has been reported to be significantly impaired in other dyslexic children compared to learning-disabled and normal groups. Linear discriminant function analysis revealed that error types rather than levels of performance best separated the carefully matched learning-disabled groups. Slow naming and high percentage of “dysphasic” errors characterized dyslexic boys. Visual temporal-spatial matching and “configuration-deficient” perceptual errors characterized the adequate readers who have other learning disabilities.

Dyslexia and classic pathognomic signs.

The classic pathognomic signs of dyslexia, such as reversals and rotations, appear to be associated with poor reading, not diagnosed developmental dyslexia. 26 8th and 9th grade dyslexia with poor perceptual/attentional ability were matched with 19 reading-retarded subjects with age-equivalent perceptual/attentional test scores for age, IQ, and degree of reading retardation and compared both with each other and with 96 adequate readers for reversals, rotations, insertions, substitutions, omissions, poor handwriting and visual ability on the Gray test, the WRAT Spelling Test, a writing task, and the star-tracing mirror test. On 46 of 49 variables, the dyslexia and retarded readers performed comparably. Together they made more classic errors and had lower achievement scores than the adequate readers on 44 of 49 variables. Classic errors clustered with poor reading but not diagnosed dyslexia. The hypothesis that reading acquisition trains perceptual test-taking ability is advanced.

Inadequate and Adequate Readers' Performance on a Dichotic Listening Task

The performance of inadequate (19 boys, 8 girls) and adequate (14 boys, 16 girls) readers in Grade 3 was compared on a dichotic listening task involving conflicting pairs of nonsense syllables. Both groups were more efficient in reporting correctly the material presented to the right ear than to the left ear. Adequate readers performed significantly better than inadequate readers. When the effects of the articulatory features of the stimuli were examined in subjects' performance, the important difference between the two groups was associated with the features of voicing and unvoicing of the initial consonants.

Auditory-Visual Integration, Auditory Memory, and Reading in Retarded and Adequate Readers

This study investigated the nature of the inferior performance of retarded readers on auditory-visual integration tests. Because retarded readers have difficulty processing temporal stimuli, it was hypothesized that a memory deficit might be related to the auditory-visual integration inferiority. Thirty retarded readers were compared with 30 adequate readers on the visual, auditory, and memory skills underlying auditory-visual integration, and on tests of auditory-visual integration which made varying demands upon memory. The two groups differed significantly on auditory memory tests and on all auditory-visual integration tests. In contrast to the adequate readers, the performance of the retarded readers deteriorated sharply as memory demands increased. A short-term auditory sequential memory deficit appears to be a major factor in the inferior auditory-visual integration performance of retarded readers.

Short-Term Memory and Equivalence Judgments in Normal and Retarded Readers

Matched groups of normal and disabled readers were required to perform same/different judgments in which the interval between standard and comparison stimuli was either 0, 1, or 6 sec. Standard and comparison stimuli were either the same, different in element order, or different in actual elements present. Retarded readers performed as well as controls on same tasks in all 3 delay conditions. Difference tasks discriminated retarded readers on 1- and 6-sec conditions, but not on 0-sec conditions. Differences in order and gross element distinguished retarded from adequate readers equally well. The results are interpreted to indicate a deficit in short-term memory in retarded readers, but only for tasks requiring a difference judgment.