Early Reading Difficulties Research Articles

The Recruitment and Description of UniversityStudents who Self-Report Difficulty Acquiring Early Reading Skills

Self-report is a time- and cost-efficient screening measure that has the potential to be useful as a stand-alone means of recruiting adults for participation in reading research.We report on a sample of university students (N = 46) recruited using the Adult Reading History Questionnaire – Revised, half of whom reported early difficulty with reading acquisition. As a group, those reporting early difficulty with reading had poorer current reading skills than those who did not. Some (n = 13) of those who reported early reading difficulty appear to have compensated for this. We conclude that self-report has the potential to be used as an effective screening measure in research targeting adults with a history of early reading difficulties.

Response to Intervention as a Vehicle for Distinguishing Between Children With and Without Reading Disabilities

Children at risk for early reading difficulties were identified on entry into kindergarten, and half of these children received small-group intervention two to three times a week during their kindergarten year. The other half received whatever remedial assistance was offered by their home schools. These children were again assessed at the beginning of first grade, and those who continued to have difficulties in reading received either one-to-one daily tutoring offered by project teachers from the beginning to the end of first grade or whatever remedial assistance was offered by their home schools over the same time period. All target children were periodically assessed through the end of third grade. Results suggest that either kindergarten intervention alone or kindergarten intervention combined with first-grade intervention are both useful vehicles for preventing early and long-term reading difficulties in most at-risk children.

Early Literacy Screening in Kindergarten: Widespread Implementation in Virginia

Early success in reading is predicated on a child's ability to accurately and effectively master core literacy constructs (e.g., phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, concept of word, and grapheme-phoneme correspondence) and to exercise these understandings in a comfortable sociocultural context. In recent years, educators, legislators, and policymakers have shown great interest in creating an effective and instructionally useful diagnostic screening tool for identifying children at risk for early reading difficulties. In response to this charge, the Phonological Awareness and Literacy Screening-Kindergarten (PALS-K) was developed. Through Fall 2003, more than 430,000 kindergarten students in Virginia had been screened using PALS-K. The purposes of this paper are to (a) describe the PALS-K instrument, (b) examine its effectiveness in screening for poor beginning literacy skills, and (c) discuss the educational and policy implications of the results of statewide literacy screening efforts.

Visual and auditory temporal processing and early reading development.

This study investigated the ability of temporal processing measures obtained before school entry to predict early reading development in an unselected sample of 125 children (68 males, 57 females). Visual and auditory temporal order judgement (TOJ) tasks measured at Preschool (mean age 5.36 years) significantly predicted letter and word identification (accuracy) and reading rate (fluency) in early Grade 1 (mean age 5.94 years), even after the effects of age, environment, memory, attention, nonverbal ability, and speech/language problems were accounted for. There were no significant differences in the overall variance accounted for in reading between TOJ measures taken before or after reading had emerged. Both Preschool and Grade 1 measures of auditory TOJ accounted for significant independent variance in reading. However, only visual TOJ performance measured at Grade 1 accounted for unique variance in reading rate. This was discussed in terms of developmental changes in the role of visual temporal processing as reading develops. Reliability of the temporal measures from Preschool to Grade 1 was moderate. The results showed that measures of visual and auditory temporal processing obtained close to school-entry would be a useful addition to predicting risk of early reading difficulties.

The Critical Role of Phonological and Phonemic Awareness in Reading Success: A Model for Early Literacy in Rural Schools

Early and continuous monitoring of emerging reading skills is a major component of preventing reading failure as well as an effective approach to lowering the incidence of special education referrals. In this article, seminal and contemporary research pertinent to the development of reading skills is highlighted and the critical relationship of phonological processing ability to the understanding of letter-sound associations is outlined. The findings regarding the long-term consequences of early reading difficulties are discussed and the benefits of a diagnostic/prescriptive approach to instruction are examined. The developmental sequence of phonological awareness skills is presented along with a detailed discussion of screening and assessment measures that can be used to guide reading instruction in pre-kindergarten through the second grade.

The Relationship Between Early Language Delay and Later Difficulties in Literacy

The relationship between early language delay and later literacy development is explored. The paper begins by considering a diagnostic model of early language delay, upon which subsequent definitions of language delay are based. The degree to which there is continuity between early language delay and later difficulties in literacy development is then explored. The findings of four longitudinal studies are considered in turn, and the degree to which they show evidence of continuity between early language delay and later literacy difficulties is evaluated. From these four studies, the author identifies two significant findings: (a) there is strong evidence of continuity between early language delay and later reading difficulties for all children with early language delay, although some of these reading difficulties may be residual and mild; and (b) the likelihood that children with early language delay will develop later difficulties in literacy depends largely on the age to which language impairment persists and the severity of the impairment. The author concludes that language delay in the early years is a key risk factor for later literacy difficulties. Implications for future research and practice are identified and discussed.

Classification in context: An alternative approach to identifying early reading disability.

This study evaluated an alternative method of identifying early reading difficulty. L. S. Fuchs and D. Fuchs (1998) proposed that academic problems could be indexed by a dual discrepancy on level and slope of performance, relative to classmates, on curriculum-based measurement tasks. From a sample of 694 1st- and 2nd-grade children, we identified 47 children as dually discrepant in reading and compared them with 17 children identified as IQ-reading achievement discrepant and 28 children identified as low achieving. The dually discrepant children were younger and more impaired on phonological processes and teacher ratings of academic competence and social behaviors. This group also reflected the gender and racial distributions of the population. Single-point measures of fluency and phonological awareness were not sensitive indicators of reading problems, suggesting that ongoing assessment and evaluation may be necessary for valid identification.

Siblings bridging literacies in multilingual contexts

It is a common assumption that economically disadvantaged and ethnic‐minority families are unlikely to share similar educational aims, beliefs and values to those of teachers. Such families are assumed to participate in very different home literacy practices from those of the school and children’s early reading difficulties have been attributed to such cultural differences. However, such dissonance is not always found. This paper explores the reciprocity of beliefs and literacy practices between two schools and their respective communities in London’s East End. The literacy practices, both in school and out of school, of Bangladeshi British and Anglo‐British primary school children were monitored and play activities between siblings recorded and analysed. The results showed older siblings reflecting the values of both community and school as they blended practices from each domain in their play with their younger brothers and sisters.

Preventing failure at school

This paper considers early educational interventions aimed at preventing school failure. It begins with a typology of prevention and intervention, then goes on to consider four specific examples of preventive interventions all aimed at avoiding or alleviating academic failure at school. (1) The High Scope pre‐school programme for disadvantaged children aimed at providing a ‘better start at school'. (2) Reading Recovery, a targeted intervention aimed at getting children who show early reading difficulties ‘back on course'. (3) A Focused Literacy Programme for improving the reading of all children in disadvantaged neighbourhoods of the inner city. (4) ‘Parent involvement' programmes to improve the reading of all children in primary school through support for literacy at home. Each of the intervention strategies is described and criticised in terms of effectiveness, acceptability and generalisation. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Early reading difficulties and later conduct problems.

The relationships between early reading difficulties and later conduct problems were examined in a birth cohort of New Zealand children studied from the point of school entry to the age of 16. Children with early reading difficulties had increased rates of conduct problems up to the age of 16 years. These associations depended on context, being more evident for boys and tending to reduce with increasing age. However, the associations between early reading difficulties and later conduct problems were explained by the fact that children with early reading difficulties tended to be characterised by a number of disadvantageous features (and notably early-onset conduct problems) that were present before the onset of reading difficulties. When the associations between reading difficulties and conduct problems were adjusted for confounding factors there were no statistically significant associations between reading difficulties and conduct problems. These results were found to hold for various age and gender subgroups of the sample, for measures of reading difficulties defined in different ways, and for a wide range of outcome variables. It is concluded that, when due allowance is made for potentially confounding factors (and notably early conduct problems) and for factors correlated with these problems, it is unlikely that reading difficulties in early childhood are related to later conduct problems.

Longitudinal prediction and prevention of early reading difficulty

The results of many studies suggest that early reading problems are associated with deficiencies in certain spoken language skills. Children who encounter reading difficulty tend to be deficient in the perception of spoken words, the ability to retain linguistic material in temporary memory, and the ability to comprehend certain spoken sentences, as well as in their awareness about the phonological structure of spoken words. This paper summarizes these findings and provides an explanation in terms of the requirements of skilled reading. It further reviews the results of two longitudinal studies which show that inferior performance in kindergarten tests of language skills may presage future reading problems in the first grade. Based on these studies, procedures are suggested for kindergarten screening and for some ways of aiding children who, by virtue of inferior performance on the screening tests, might be considered at risk for early reading difficulties.

Childhood Chronic Illness and Visual Motor Perceptual Development

The visual motor perceptual development of 47 second grade children having a history of chronic illness was investigated. Relationships between factors associated with the chronic illness and visual perceptual development are cited and discussed. The results suggest that children having a history of chronic illness perform significantly below expected levels on visual motor tasks and experience early reading difficulty.