Future Reading Ability Research Articles

Decoding the role of the cerebellum in the early stages of reading acquisition

Numerous studies have consistently reported functional activation of the cerebellum during reading tasks, especially in the right cerebellar hemisphere. However, it remains unclear whether this region is also involved in reading during the earliest stages of reading acquisition. Here, we investigated whether and how the cerebellum contributes to reading acquisition. We tested 80 5-6-year-old kindergarteners, who performed a visual word matching task during which functional MRI (fMRI) data were collected. We found that bilateral cerebellar hemispheres were significantly activated during visual word processing. Moreover, activation of left cerebellar lobule VII extending to lobule VIII negatively and significantly correlated with current reading ability, whereas activation of right cerebellar lobule VII extending to lobule VIII significantly and positively correlated with future reading ability. Functional decoding via functional connectivity patterns further revealed that left and right cerebellar lobules connected with different cerebral cortex regions. Our results suggest a division of labor between the left and right cerebellar lobules in beginning readers.

Functional connectivity in the developing language network in 4-year-old children predicts future reading ability.

Understanding how pre-literate children's language abilities and neural function relate to future reading ability is important for identifying children who may be at-risk for reading problems. Pre-literate children are already proficient users of spoken language and their developing brain networks for language become highly overlapping with brain networks that emerge during literacy acquisition. In the present longitudinal study, we examined language abilities, and neural activation and connectivity within the language network in pre-literate children (mean age=4.2years). We tested how language abilities, brain activation, and connectivity predict children's reading abilities 1year later (mean age=5.2years). At Time 1, children (n=37) participated in a functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) experiment of speech processing (listening to words and pseudowords) and completed a standardized battery of language and cognitive assessments. At Time 2, children (n=28) completed standardized reading assessments. Using psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analyses, we observed significant connectivity between the left IFG and right STG in pre-literate children, which was modulated by task (i.e., listening to words). Neural activation in left IFG and STG and increased task-modulated connectivity between the left IFG and right STG was predictive of multiple reading outcomes. Increased connectivity was associated later with increased reading ability.

Teaching music in the early years in schools in challenging circumstances: developing student teacher competence and confidence through cycles of enactment

ABSTRACT The call to raise UK educational standards has a focus on the underachievement of pupils attending schools in challenging socioeconomic circumstances. Research suggests that music can have a significant role in developing children’s phonological awareness, language and future reading ability. Many generalist primary school teachers feel that they do not have the confidence or pedagogical knowledge required to teach music in a way that engages and stretches pupils. Student teachers may not, therefore, have the opportunity to observe good practice or to teach music whilst on placement. A teacher educator carried out an action research project using discursive group and individual interviews. The aim was to improve understanding of how to support student teachers in developing confidence and competence to teach music in the early years. Undertaken as part of Hope Challenge, a project that brings together a university Initial Teacher Education programme and primary schools in challenging circumstances, the action research consisted of a cycle of enactment involving the teacher educator, student teachers and class teacher in modelling, reflecting and acting. This action research approach played a crucial role in developing confidence, pedagogical knowledge and enthusiasm for teaching music and offers a model for future teacher professional development.

Altered neural circuits accompany lower performance during narrative comprehension in children with reading difficulties: an fMRI study.

Narrative comprehension is a linguistic ability that is foundational for future reading ability. The aim of the current study was to examine the neural circuitry of children with reading difficulties (RD) compared to typical readers during a narrative-comprehension task. We hypothesized that due to deficient executive functions, which support narrative comprehension abilities, children with RD would display altered activation and functional connectivity, as well as lower performance on a narrative-comprehension task. Children with RD and typical readers were scanned during a narrative-comprehension task and administered reading behavioral tests. Children with RD scored significantly lower on the narrative-comprehension task than did typical readers. Composite activation maps showed more diffused activation during narrative comprehension in the RD group. Maps comparing the two reading groups showed more activation in the frontal lobes (regions responsible for executive functions), and functional connectivity showed higher global efficiency in children with RD than in typical readers. Global efficiency was negatively correlated with phonological awareness and reading and executive function scores in the entire study group. Children with RD may suffer from narrative-comprehension difficulties due to diffused activation of language areas, as was observed during a narrative-comprehension task. Greater effort in this task may be reflected by the engagement of brain regions related to executive functions and higher functional connectivity or attributed to difficulties in phonological processing and reading and executive functions. Therefore, the accommodation given to children with RD of reading aloud may need to be revised due to the observed difficulty in this domain.

Overlapping neural circuitry for narrative comprehension and proficient reading in children and adolescents

Narrative comprehension is a perinatal linguistic ability which is more intuitive than reading activity. Whether there are specific shared brain regions for narrative comprehension and reading that are tuned to reading proficiency, even before reading is acquired, is the question of the current study. We acquired fMRI data during a narrative comprehension task at two age points, when children are age 5–7 (K-2nd grade) and later when the same children were age 11 (5th–7th grade). We then examined correlations between this fMRI data and reading and reading comprehension scores from the same children at age 11. We found that greater frontal and supramarginal gyrus (BA 40) activation in narrative comprehension at the age of 5–7 years old was associated with better word reading and reading comprehension scores at the age of 11. A shift towards temporal and occipital activation was found when correlating their narrative comprehension functional data at age 11, with reading scores at the same age point. We suggest that increased reliance on executive functions and auditory–visual networks when listening to stories before reading is acquired, facilitates reading proficiency in older age and may be a biomarker for future reading ability. Children, who rely on use of imagination/visualization as well as auditory processing for narrative comprehension when they reach age 11, also show greater reading abilities. Understanding concordant neural pathways supporting auditory narrative and reading comprehension might be guide for development of effective tools for reading intervention programs.

Early cognitive profiles of emergent readers: A longitudinal study

This longitudinal study examined the contribution of phonological awareness, phonological memory, and visuospatial ability to reading development in 142 English-speaking children from the start of kindergarten to the middle of Grade 2. Partial cross-lagged analyses revealed significant relationships between early performance on block design and matching letter-like forms tasks and later reading ability. Rhyme awareness correlated with later reading ability during the earliest stages, but onset awareness did not emerge as important until after the children had started reading. Digit span correlated significantly with future reading ability at every stage. These findings indicate that although phonological awareness, phonological memory, and visuospatial ability are all necessary for emergent reading, their relative importance varies across the first 2 years of reading development.

Prediction of Reading Skill Several Years Later Depends on Age and Brain Region: Implications for Developmental Models of Reading

We investigated whether brain activity was predictive of future reading skill and, if so, how this brain-behavior correlation informs developmental models of reading. A longitudinal study followed 26 normally developing human children ranging in age from 9 to 15 years who were initially assessed for reading skill and performed a rhyming judgment task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Patterns of brain activation in this task predicted changes between initial and a follow-up assessment of nonword reading skill administered up to 6 years later. Brain activity in areas typically active during imaging studies of reading was found to predict future nonword reading ability, but the predictive ability of these areas depended on age. Increased activity relative to peers in neural circuits associated with phonological recoding (i.e., inferior frontal gyrus and basal ganglia) was predictive of greater gains in reading fluency in younger children, whereas increased activity relative to peers in orthographic processing circuits (i.e., fusiform gyrus) was predictive of smaller gains in fluency for older children. Interpreted within the context of a connectionist model of reading, these results suggest that younger children who are more sensitive to higher-order phonological word characteristics (e.g., coarticulations) may make greater reading proficiency gains, whereas older children who focus more on whole-word orthographic representations may make smaller proficiency gains.

For Parents Particularly: More than Just Storybooks: Promoting Emergent Literacy Skills in the Home

The home environment provides children with their first literacy experiences. Parents are thus well placed to facilitate the development of emergent literacy skills in their children before formal reading and writing begins at school. These emergent literacy skills include print awareness, motivation to explore print, shaping and writing skills, alphabet knowledge, and phonological awareness; the latter two being the strongest predictors of future reading ability (Adams 1990). Parents would benefit greatly from an evidenced-based approach to the use of methods that promote emergent literacy skills in their pre-school aged children. In the present article, relevant research is considered for literacy activities that focused on the interaction between the parent and child.

Effects of rhyming, vocabulary and phonemic awareness instruction on phoneme awareness

Sixteen Head Start classrooms, involving 128 children, were randomly assigned to three approaches for augmenting early literacy instruction: (a) instruction in phoneme segmentation, blending, and letter–sound relationships, (b) rhyming instruction and (c) vocabulary instruction. The phoneme segmentation approach was more effective in promoting phoneme segmentation skill. Existing research suggests that phoneme segmentation skill is a better predictor of early progress in learning to read than rhyming skill or vocabulary knowledge. Thus, the results suggest that instruction emphasising phoneme segmentation is not only more likely to promote phoneme segmentation skill, but also more likely to promote future reading ability than rhyming or vocabulary activities, even for highly disadvantaged children as young as 4 years old.

Langage oral et écrit chez des enfants prématurés: résultats à 7½ ans

La prématurité induit des facteurs de risques de retard cognitif, particulièrement de retard dans le langage oral et écrit. Ces facteurs de risques peuvent être liés aux variables physiologiques et/ou environnementales. Cette étude a deux objectifs: (1) repérer quels sont les enfants prématurés les plus à risque de retard cognitif et de langage oral et écrit et (2) estimer l’intérêt d’un bilan précoce de langage oral proposé dès 3½ ans à ces enfants en mesurant sa prédictivité sur l’apprentissage de la lecture. Une cohorte de 50 enfants (23 garçons et 27 filles) nés prématurément ont été suivis de 2 ans à 7½ ans. Les résultats montrent que: a) 28% des enfants présentent un retard de production du langage à 3½ ans; b) 34% des enfants présentent un retard de la lecture à 7½ ans; c) la production du langage oral à 3½ ans est prédictif des capacités de lecture à 7½ et d) les enfants nés prématurément les plus à risques sont ceux qui évoluent dans un milieu défavorisé.

Explaining the Predictive Accuracy of Teacher Judgments of Their Students' Reading Achievement: The Role of Gender, Classroom Behavior, and Emergent Literacy Skills in a Longitudinal Sample of Children Exposed to Poverty

The factors that explain why teachers are ableto accurately predict their students' futurereading ability were examined in a longitudinalstudy from first- to third-grade in childrenexposed to poverty (N = 170). Teacher ratingswere similarly based on both their students'emergent literacy skills and classroombehavior. Meanwhile, the influences ofclassroom behavior on later variability inreading skills were much less than, and almostcompletely redundant with, prior emergentliteracy. Virtually all of the shared variancebetween teacher ratings and later readingskills was explained by prior levels ofemergent literacy. Implications of the resultsand future research were discussed.

Phoneme awareness and future reading ability.

This study investigates two group-administered tests of phoneme awareness, a phoneme segmentation test and an invented spelling test. Each was given to 100 kindergarten children (48 female, 52 male), along with two tests of visual-motor ability. One year later the same children received standardized reading tests and portions of an IQ test. Scores on each test of phoneme awareness predicted between 30% and 40% of variance in first-grade reading ability. In contrast, scores on the tests of visual-motor ability bore a less systematic, less substantial relation to future reading ability.