Decoding Skills Research Articles

Effects of word extension on decoding development in Brazilian young readers: Theoretical and practical implications

AbstractPurposeAlthough the knowledge of decoding acquisition has expanded in the past years, theoretical information is still needed to guide practices concerning decoding skills in clinical and educational scenarios in languages other than English. Thus, we aimed to investigate the word‐length effects on decoding acquisition regarding the time spent on decoding and the accuracy—the number of correct words/nonwords read per minute—in Brazilian Portuguese‐Speakers.MethodsThe study included 250 children enrolled in elementary school from first to fifth grade, and we used stratified random sampling to select the participants. To assess their decoding skills, we used a linguistically balanced list of words and nonwords designed according to Brazilian Portuguese decoding rules, word length variation, and the frequency of these words in the children's experiences.ResultsGenerally, data provide evidence of a stimuli length effect on accuracy and decoding time for words and nonwords. Data bring essential indicators for discussion in the acquisition and development of decoding since it adds another layer to investigate: intralinguistic features.ConclusionThe current findings contribute significantly to the area by indicating that the process of acquiring decoding has a multifactorial nature, and different interactions between variables can positively or negatively influence this process. Also, the present study may enlarge the knowledge by providing data from a transparent orthography encouraging more studies on the theme and cross‐linguistic studies to understand how such variables here studied may vary in different orthographies.

The Role of Phonological Decoding on the Reading Skills of Beginning Readers With Reading Disabilities in a Highly Transparent Orthography

This study aimed to examine the role of phonological decoding on the reading skills of Turkish beginning readers with reading disabilities. Participants were 80 second graders with and without reading disabilities educated in general education classes at public elementary schools in Ankara, Turkey. In the assessment process, to test the participants’ phonological decoding skills, we used a pseudoword decoding paradigm, and to determine reading fluency and comprehension skills reading texts were used. Data were collected in individual sessions and analyzed by running a series of GLM analyses of variance and Pearson correlation analyses. Findings showed the reading fluency and comprehension performances of participants varied depending on their phonological decoding processing level and thus suggested phonological decoding is one of the most important indicators of reading fluency and comprehension in a highly transparent language, Turkish. The acquisition of adequate reading comprehension seems to be modified by particularities of phonological decoding.

‘Listening to my readers’: Exploring the ‘Personal literacies landscapes’ of beginner readers

This study takes a more holistic look at reading support, to explore what else is happening in this teaching and learning context, beyond the acquisition of a more secure knowledge of decoding skills. Children are deemed in need of a reading support intervention when their literacy skills are assessed as being significantly below the levels expected by their school for their age, and these difficulties can often negatively impact both upon their confidence as a learner, and also upon their enjoyment of literacy activities in school. Confidence and enjoyment in literacy learning is tacitly presumed to re-emerge once these skills are gained, boosted by the intervention’s focus on the cognitive technical decoding skills. This can often lead to less choice and agency in their reading activities than their peers enjoy. However, the findings of this study suggest that building in activities that promote enjoyment in literacy learning, confidence as a learner and a sense of agency do not detract from the cognitive gains, but seem to boost them. A key aspect of this is linking reading support activities to the literacy activities that the learner enjoys at home as well as in school. This is theorised as an individual’s ‘Personal Literacies Landscape’: all the different texts that they have seen or heard, even if they cannot access them independently, that have contributed to their ways of being in the world.

The unique contribution of reading motivation to reading comprehension increases from Grades 2 to 4 in Chinese children

BackgroundTo better understand the intricate science of reading development, both cognitive and affective factors must be taken into consideration. This developmental study aims to enrich the literature by exploring how reading motivation – an affective factor – contributes to reading comprehension in Chinese elementary schoolers, beyond well‐accepted cognitive‐based reading skills, such as decoding and vocabulary.MethodsWe used a cross‐sectional design with 420 native Mandarin‐Chinese‐speaking students (Grade 2: N = 95; Grade 3: N = 216; Grade 4: N = 109), with age‐appropriate materials to measure their decoding skills, vocabulary knowledge, reading motivation, and reading comprehension. Three sets of hierarchical regression analyses were run for the three grade samples to examine the unique contributions of reading motivation to reading comprehension while controlling children's demographic profiles, such as age and gender, and two cognitive‐based reading skills.ResultsWe replicated previous findings: children's decoding and vocabulary are robust predictors of reading achievement across Grades 2 to 4. Importantly, reading motivation contributed uniquely to reading comprehension in all three grades and explained an increasing amount of the variances in reading comprehension from Grades 2 to 4. Intrinsic reading motivation was critical in Grade 3, while extrinsic reading motivation became important in Grade 4.ConclusionsTaken together, our findings reveal the complexity of reading development and advance the existing cognitive‐based reading theories by including affective dimensions.

The Effect of PA Intervention through Remote Collaboration for CCK

Objectives: This study aimed to examine the effects of a phonological awareness and phonics intervention through remote collaboration between SLPs and teachers on the decoding skills of children from multicultural families with poor reading in the lower grades of elementary school. Methods: In this study, a multi-probe design was used to verify the effect of the intervention. The subjects were 3 multicultural children with poor reading skills (grades 1-2) and 3 teachers for each child. Their reading skills were examined through tests of phonological awareness and decoding (word level) in the baseline, intervention, and maintenance phases. Additionally, tests of decoding (sentence level) were conducted in the generalization phase to examine generalization at the sentence level. In this study, SLPs provided instruction to each child twice a week and also provided guide videos to each teacher once a week for 2 months. Results: All children were found to have high improvements in decoding skills (word level) and phonological awareness skills. Additionally, as a result of standardized reading and writing test (QRW), all children’s post-intervention raw scores were improved in all areas. In the generalization phase, all children showed improvements in decoding skills (sentence level). In the maintenance phase, all children were found to have a large effect size. Conclusion: The results show that phonological awareness and phonics intervention through remote collaboration between two experts had positive effects on the decoding skills of multicultural children with poor reading. Also, this intervention improved teachers’ teaching efficacy. Thus, the implementation of studies for collaboration between experts is suggested.

Engaging EFL learners in online decoding training: comparing the conventional approach and the flipped SEF-ARCS model

Aural decoding skill, the ability to recognize words from speech, is crucial for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) listening. Yet, mastering decoding is challenging due to word variations and blending in natural spoken English. Online decoding training is vital for EFL learners because it provides opportunities for consistent and intensive practices. However, students’ disengagement and perceived difficulty plague online decoding training. The flipped SEF (suitability, explore, feedback)-ARCS (attention, relevance, confidence, satisfaction) decoding model holds potential in addressing these challenges. This instructional model combines the flipped learning approach, SEF decoding principles and the ARCS motivational model. However, although this model has been shown to improve learning outcomes for EFL learners at post-intervention stages, its role in enhancing students’ actual engagement and performance during the learning process requires further investigation. This is crucial as low levels of actual engagement or performance during the everyday practices can dampen learners’ motivation for ongoing decoding practice. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of the flipped SEF-ARCS decoding model by comparing three groups: an online out-of-class decoding training using the flipped SEF-ARCS decoding model (EG2), an online out-of-class decoding training using the conventional decoding approach (EG1), and a control group without online out-of-class decoding training (CG). Results indicated that the flipped SEF-ARCS model significantly improved student behavioral and cognitive engagement, and their actual performance during daily practice compared to the conventional decoding approach. Understanding how the flipped SEF-ARCS decoding model influences both actual engagement and performance can offer valuable insights into designing effective online decoding training programs for EFL learners.

COLLABORATIVE READING PRACTICES OF TEACHERS AND DECODING SKILLS OF GRADE TWO LEARNERS

This study sought to answer the level of the reading practices of teachers and the level of decoding skills of grade two learners. Further, it sought to determine the significant relationship between the collaborative reading practices of teachers and the decoding skills of grade two pupils. This study employed the non-experimental descriptive survey research design in investigating the research problem. It is descriptive because the data are presented in quantitative descriptions on the “Collaborative reading approach and Decoding skills of grade six pupils. According to Good (2005), this method of research shows merely a description of tasks presenting the conditions regarding the nature of the group of persons or class of events that involved the procedure of analysis, classification, and measurement. It involves varied information regarding the current or present condition (Deauna, 2005). This study was conducted in selected 10 schools of Matanao II district. The respondents in this study are 150 grade two learners and 30 grade two teachers. The respondents answered a researcher made assessment test on their oral and written communication skills. This study made use of the single random sampling procedure. This study revealed that teachers in reading are skilled in establishing and implementing a reading program to address the reading needs of struggling readers. KEYWORDS: Collaborative reading approach, Decoding skills, grade six pupils

Predictors of reading comprehension and profiling of poor readers in Croatian: educational and clinical perspectives.

Reading is an important academic skill. Children who exhibit reading difficulties are more likely to experience various negative professional and personal consequences. To successfully identify children with reading problems as early as possible, one must first understand how reading skills can be mastered, as well as the course of reading development in children with typical reading skills from the beginning of their formal reading instruction. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine the influence of decoding and language comprehension on reading comprehension ability. In addition, this study aimed to determine types of profiles among poor readers and estimate their frequency in the study sample. Based on the Simple View of Reading model, we developed decoding, language comprehension, and reading comprehension tasks. Participants included 100 typical readers (TR) and 95 poor readers (PR) in the second grade in Croatian schools. Phonemic awareness, phonological working memory, and rapid automatized naming tasks were used to test underlying abilities of decoding skills in both groups of participants. As expected, PRs showed significantly lower performance on all variables than TRs. The correlations between decoding, language comprehension and reading comprehension are significant in the PR group. The linear regression analysis showed that language comprehension was a significant predictor of reading comprehension for TRs, while decoding and language comprehension were significant predictors of reading comprehension for PRs. The profiling of reading difficulties revealed five different profiles, the most common of which was a mixed reading difficulty, i.e., difficulties in both decoding and language comprehension. In line with theoretical expectations, success in reading comprehension in TRs at the end of the second grade depends mainly on language comprehension. To achieve this complex cognitive skill, PRs' language comprehension alone is not sufficient, so they still rely on their decoding skills. Among the poor readers, there was a high prevalence of children with decoding problems (i.e., three out of five profiles). Teachers should be able to identify and monitor decoding difficulties in children, since these difficulties are associated with noticeable manifestations, unlike those associated with comprehension difficulties.

Assessment of adults with low literacy skills: a review of methods

The paper reviews the methods for assessing different components of reading skills in adults with reading difficulties, along with functional reading skills. We are particularly interested in the assessment methods available to researchers and practitioners, developed predominantly in the research context, and not available solely in English. We discuss the large-scale international study, PIAAC, as an example of a framework for such assessments. Furthermore, we cover the following types of assessment tools: (1) self-assessment questionnaires, probing into comprehension difficulties and reading habits; (2) measures of print exposure, such as author recognition tests, correlating with other reading-related skills; (3) measures of word recognition and decoding, including reading aloud of words and pseudowords, as well as silent lexical decision tasks; (4) fill-in-the-blank tasks and sentence reading tasks, measuring predominantly local comprehension, entangled with decoding skills; (5) comprehension of longer reading passages and texts, focusing on functional texts. We discuss comprehension types measured by tests, text types, answer formats, and the dependence problem, i.e., reading comprehension tests that can be solved correctly without reading. Finally, we tap into the new ideas emerging from the AI systems evaluation, e.g., using questions generated from news articles or Wikipedia or asked directly by search engines users. In the concluding section, we comment on the significance of incorporating background information, motivation, and self-efficacy into the assessment of adult literacy skills.

Impaired Ability in Visual-Spatial Attention in Chinese Children With Developmental Dyslexia.

A growing body of evidence suggests that children with dyslexia in alphabetic languages exhibit visual-spatial attention deficits that can obstruct reading acquisition by impairing their phonological decoding skills. However, it remains an open question whether these visual-spatial attention deficits are present in children with dyslexia in non-alphabetic languages. Chinese, with its logographic writing system, offers a unique opportunity to explore this question. The presence of visual-spatial attention deficits in Chinese children with dyslexia remains insufficiently investigated. Therefore, this study aimed to explore whether such deficits exist, employing a visual search paradigm. Three visual search tasks were conducted, encompassing two singleton feature search tasks and a serial conjunction search task. The results indicated that Chinese children with dyslexia performed as well as chronological age-matched control children in color search tasks but less effectively in orientation search, suggesting a difficulty in the rapid visual processing of orientation: a deficit potentially specific to Chinese dyslexia. Crucially, Chinese children with dyslexia also exhibited lower accuracy, longer reaction times, and steeper slopes in the reaction times by set size function in the conjunction search task compared to control children, which is indicative of a visual-spatial attention deficit.

Enhancing Opportunities for Decoding and Knowledge Building through Beginning Texts

AbstractEnsuring effective texts for student reading acquisition is a shared goal. This paper addresses the efficacy of decodable and leveled texts, their word features, and outcomes of reorganizing texts by vowel patterns and topics. Sparse evidence supports one text type's superiority in building a strong reading foundation. Further, the decoding demands of decodable and leveled texts diminish after initial instruction. Studies show reorganizing leveled texts according to a decoding curriculum aids reading acquisition. This finding is the basis for illustrating how existing texts can be reorganized to boost reading volume, apply decoding skills, and offer coherent topic exposure.

An Investigation of the Cross-Language Transfer of Reading Skills: Evidence from a Study in Nigerian Government Primary Schools

This paper investigates the linguistic interdependence of Grade 3 children studying in government primary schools in northern Nigeria who are learning to read in Hausa (L1) and English (L2) simultaneously. There are few studies in the African context that consider linguistic interdependence and the bidirectional influences of literacy skills in multilingual contexts. A total of 2328 Grade 3 children were tested on their Hausa and English letter sound knowledge (phonemes) and reading decoding skills (word) after participating in a two-year English structured reading intervention programme as part of their school day. In Grade 4, these children will become English immersion learners, with English becoming the medium of instruction. Carrying out bivariate correlations, we find a large and strongly positively significant correlation between L1 and L2 test scores. Concerning bidirectionality, a feedback path model illustrates that the L1 word score predicts the L2 word score and vice versa. Multi-level modelling is then used to consider the variation in test scores. Almost two thirds of the variation in the word score is attributable to the pupil level and one third to the school level. The Hausa word score is significantly predicted through Hausa sound and English word score. English word score is significantly predicted through Hausa word and English sound score. The findings have implications for language policy and classroom instruction, showing the importance of cross-language transfer between reading skills. The overall results support bidirectionality and linguistic interdependence.

Cause for Concern? The Relationship Between Language Skills in Toddlers and Later Reading Skills in School

AbstractThe purpose of this longitudinal study is to investigate the association between poor language skills in toddlers and later reading skills. In contrast to earlier research, the present study used an authentic assessment of language skills conducted by staff in early childhood education and care as a tool for early identification. The participants were 515 Norwegian monolingual toddlers who were assessed when they were 33 months, 7 years, and 10 years. The results showed a small correlation between language skills identified at 33 months and later reading skills. The toddlers with the 10% poorest language skills were overrepresented in the 10% with the poorest decoding skills in 2nd grade and reading comprehension in 5th grade. Furthermore, 67.3% of toddlers with poor language skills attained below-average reading scores in 5th grade. These findings support the importance of paying attention to children in the lowest 10%, even at the age of 33 months. Furthermore, the results show that authentic assessments in the early years conducted by staff in early childhood education and care can make an important contribution to identifying toddlers in need of extra language stimulation in early childhood education.

The Development of the Decoding Skills Scale in Information and Communication Technologies and an Investigation of Preservice Teachers in This Framework

Decoding skills of individuals can be observed in different fields, one of which is information and communication technologies (ICT). Within the scope of the current study decoding skills are a new concept. There is no measurement tool available in the literature. At this point, the researchers aimed (1) to develop the ICT-Decoding Skills Scale and to conduct a validity and reliability study and (2) to identify undergraduate preservice teachers’ level of ICT-Decoding skills, studying in faculties of education. The participants of the study involved a total of 1580 faculty of education students studying in 59 different universities in Turkey. The ICT-Decoding Skills Scale is a 4-factor, 5-point Likert-type scale comprising of 23 items. CFA results showed that model fit indices were calculated as the following: [χ2=897.841; df=219; χ2/df=4.100 p<.001; GFI=.873; AGFI=.840; CFI=.938; NFI=.920; NNFI(TLI)=.928; RMSEA=.070; RMR=.068; SRMR=.060]. When the internal consistencies were analyzed, Cronbach’s Alpha value for the overall scale was (α=.94). As to address the second aim of the study, the ICT-decoding skills of preservice teachers were examined. Preservice teachers’ ICT-decoding skills were found to be at a high level in the overall scale. However, in the subscales, they were observed to have medium and low levels of skills. Similarly, low levels of sensemaking, debugging and problem-solving skills were observed in their Coding Skills. At this point, preservice teachers are suggested to be supported in advanced technical skills, safety and social skills in digital environment and coding skills in addition to basic digital skills.

Post-pandemic learning trajectories in oral reading proficiency: Results from twelve Chilean schools

By drawing data from first-to sixth-grade students of 12 Chilean schools, we examined the evolution of COVID-19 pandemic-driven losses in two components of oral reading proficiency: reading decoding skills and reading speed. Our dataset spans from 2018 to 2022, enabling us to compare students’ results after the fully remote 2020, the incomplete resumption of in-person learning in 2021 and the massive return in 2022. We used multivariate regression models corrected for sample selection bias. Reading proficiency losses were more significant and persistent in reading speed, and they were higher among socially disadvantaged students entering first grade in 2020–2022. These findings uphold that school disruption affected the reading proficiency of cohorts beginning school during the pandemic more significantly and long-lastingly.

Eye-voice and finger-voice spans in adults’ oral reading of connected texts*

Abstract The present paper investigates the interaction between eye movements, voice articulation and the movements of the index finger dynamically pointing to a text line in oral finger-point reading of Italian. During finger-point reading, the finger appears to be ahead of the voice most of the times, by a margin that is significantly modulated by the distribution of phrasal and prosodic units in the reading text. Eye movements replicate the same effects on a different time scale. The eye is ahead of both voice and finger by a wide margin (confirming evidence observed for English and German sentence reading), while showing a tendency to re-synchronise with voice articulation at the right edge of strong prosodic units (sentence boundaries). Our evidence suggests a multicomponent view of the time span between the eye/finger and the voice. The span is shown to be the dynamic outcome of an optimally adaptive reading strategy, resulting from the interaction between individual decoding skills, the reader’s phonological buffer capacity, and the structural complexity of a reading text. Proficient readers modulate their span to compensate for the different timing between word fixation and word articulation, read faster, and dynamically adjust their processing window to the meaningful, prosodic units of a text.

Morphological awareness predicts reading comprehension in first grade students

Research examining a role for morphological awareness in first grade students’ reading comprehension is scarce, although it is a well-established predictor for students in mid-to-late elementary school. One question that remains is whether morphological awareness explains unique variance in these young readers’ comprehension after accounting for other oral language skills. In this longitudinal study, we assessed Grade 1 students’ inflectional morphological awareness as a predictor of their concurrent (n = 58) and Grade 2 (n = 55) reading comprehension. When controlling for decoding and vocabulary, Grade 1 morphological awareness explained unique variance in concurrent and subsequent reading comprehension (4% and 5%, respectively). In novel analyses that controlled for decoding, vocabulary, and syntactic awareness, morphological awareness explained unique variance in Grade 2 reading comprehension (5%), but not in concurrent reading comprehension. This unique contribution only in second grade may be because decoding skills accounted for less of the overall variance in second than in first grade comprehension or due to the expectation that polymorphemic words are more frequent in second grade texts. Overall, morphological awareness emerged as the strongest oral language predictor in all models. These results support morphological awareness’ relevance to reading comprehension from early in children’s reading development and highlight the need for research to further explore the effects of targeting English morphological awareness with young students.

“We Can Draw and Think About It Ourselves”: Putting Culture and Race in Phonics Reading Research

ABSTRACTYoung children of Color from minoritized communities can co‐author decodable stories using phonics skills they have been taught, their lived experiences, and home languages, including nondominant English languages, to develop decoding skills using student‐generated decodable readers. While traditional and curricular decodable readers are used during phonics instruction to support children's decoding development, they are written in White Mainstream English and may include diverse characters with experiences more familiar to the White dominant group of American society. Because there is a population of readers experiencing a gap between their identities and phonics instruction, there is an urgent need for their experiences to be improved. Building on my experiences as a primary grades teacher and researcher, I discuss a quantitative and qualitative study conducted in an urban second grade classroom where children of Color and I put culture and race into phonics instruction. Culturally relevant education and the language experience approach were used to advance children's decoding development using their funds of knowledge and existing language experiences which are often a part of their racial identities. By combining these approaches with co‐authorship, children of Color from minoritized communities were placed at the center of phonics instruction to receive more equitable educational opportunities while advancing their decoding skills as co‐authors of their decodable stories.

Effects of an AAC feature on decoding and encoding skills of adults with Down syndrome

Literacy skills can assist in the navigation and enjoyment of adult life. For individuals who have reached adulthood without strong literacy skills, opportunities for continued literacy learning are few. Redesigning AAC technologies to support literacy skill development could extend literacy learning opportunities for adults with developmental disabilities who have limited speech. The current preliminary study evaluated an AAC technology feature designed to support literacy development. The study used a multiple probe across participants design. Three adults with Down syndrome who had limited speech and only basic decoding skills participated. Results suggest the participants made modest gains in decoding accuracy after interacting using the AAC app with the literacy supportive feature, though performance was highly variable. Results also offer emerging evidence that, for two participants, some generalization to encoding performance may have also been achieved. Results showed that, for all the participants, interacting using the literacy supportive feature increased their reading confidence. Altogether, the study’s results show preliminary evidence that the feature can support adults with Down syndrome in their ongoing literacy learning, though access to formal instruction is still critical. Future research is needed to continue to explore this and other AAC technology redesigns to increase learning opportunities for the people who use the technology every day to communicate.

Modeling Item-Level Spelling Variance in Adults: Providing Further Insights into Lexical Quality

ABSTRACT Purpose The lexical quality (LQ) hypothesis predicts that a skilled reader’s lexicon will be inhabited by a range of low- to high-quality items, and the probability of representing a word with high quality varies as a function of person-level, word-level, and item-specific variables. These predictions were tested with spelling accuracy as a gauge of LQ. Method Item-response based crossed random effects models explored simultaneous contributions of person-level (e.g. participant’s decoding skill), word-level (e.g. word’s transparency rating), item-specific (e.g. participant’s familiarity with specific word), and person-by-word interaction predictors (e.g. decoding by transparency rating interaction) to the spelling of 25 commonly misspelled irregular English words in 61 undergraduate university students (M = 19.4 years, 70.49% female, 39.34% Hispanic, 81.97% White). Results Substantial variance among individuals in item-level spelling accuracy was accounted for by person-level decoding skill; item-specific familiarity, proportion of schwas correctly represented, and correctly identifying the word from its mispronunciation; and an interaction of transparency rating by general decoding skill. Conclusions Consistent with the LQ hypothesis, results suggest that one’s ability to form a high-quality lexical representation of a given word depends on a complex combination of person-level abilities, word-level characteristics, item-specific experiences, and an interaction between person- and word-level influences.