Can We Read Letters? Reflections on Fundamental Issues in Reading and Dyslexia Research

The authors use these fundamental analyses and definitions to shed new light on the ‘balanced approach to reading instruction’, ‘reading fluency’ and other key concepts. The book also deals with problems in the definition of ‘dyslexia’ and proposes a method to arrive at clear and fruitful definitions. It concludes with a chapter trying to answer the question of in what sense, or to what extent, it can be claimed that reading and dyslexia research has made progress. Readership: Educational Researchers and their student

Development of motor-life-skills: variations in children at risk for motor difficulties from the toddler age to preschool age

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in the European Journal of Special Needs Education on 31.03.2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/08856257.2017.1306964.This article explores variations in development of everyday motor-life-skills in 661 children (329 girls and 332 boys) in Norwegian kindergartens of ages 2:9 (T1) and 4:9 (T2) years:months. The particular focus is on children at risk for problems in motor development (the 10% weakest children in the sample). The methodological approach chosen is authentic assessment, applying the Early Years Movement Skills Checklist (EYMSC). All correlations between motor-life-skills at ages 2:9 and 4:9 are statistically significant (p < 0.01), varying between r = 0.26 to 0.38 for the four section scores of EYMSC (Self-help skills, Desk skills, General classroom skills and Recreational and playground skills) and r = 0.39 for the EYMSC total score. The group composition of children assumed to be at risk for motor difficulties changes considerably between ages 2:9 and 4:9. Approximately, two-thirds of the 10% weakest at T1 do not belong to the 10% weakest at T2. Logistic regression failed to identify children at risk at T1 being among the 10% weakest at T2. However, for two sections of EYMSC (Self-help skills; Recreational and Playground skills), it was possible to distinguish between stable and flux groups.acceptedVersio

Kartleggingsprøver i lesing: Tid for nytenking?

Som en del av det nasjonale kvalitetsvurderingssystemet for grunnopplæringen (NKVS) i norsk utdanning har vi i dag forskjellige leseprøver med ulike formål og utforminger for bruk i det 13-årige skoleløpet. I denne artikkelen tegner vi opp en historisk bakgrunn for innføringen av kartleggingsprøvene i lesing i begynneropplæringen, og peker på flere forhold som krever at man tenker nytt om dette prøvekonseptet. I artikkelen viser vi ved hjelp av data fra en longitudinell studie hvordan en kort oppgave gjennomført i slutten av 1. klasse forutsier vansker med leseforståelse i 3. klasse. Med utgangspunkt i disse resultatene drøfter vi kimen til et mulig nytt prøvekonsept med potensial for a) bedre samsvar mellom teori om lesing og måling av lesing, b) longitudinell prediksjon, og c) en prøve med forbedret pedagogisk potensial som kan gjennomføres på kortere tid. Sentralt i dette forslaget står tanken om en kort inngangsprøve som oppfyller hovedformålet om å identifisere de elevene som står i fare for å utvikle vansker med lesing. Denne følges av en utforskende del som gjennomføres en-til-en og gir læreren informasjon om hvordan vanskene arter seg.At present, the national Norwegian quality-assessment system for basic education (NKVS) includes a range of reading tests with different purposes and designs, to be administered at various points during a 13-year period of schooling. In this article, we trace the historical background to the introduction of screening tests of reading in early education and identify a number of circumstances that call for a rethink of the overall test concept. Using data from a longitudinal study, we show that scores on a brief task administered towards the end of grade 1 predict reading-comprehension difficulties in grade 3. Taking that finding as our starting point, we discuss an idea for a possible new test concept that might have the potential to (a) improve the match between reading theory and reading-skill measurements, (b) enable longitudinal prediction, and (c) take less time to administer and be more useful in an educational context. The central elements of this new test concept are a short initial test meeting the primary objective of identifying students at risk of developing reading difficulties, and a follow-up explorative part to be carried out one-on-one, which will provide the teacher with information about the nature of each student’s difficulties.publishedVersio

What are skills? Some fundamental reflections

When the concept of ‘skill’ is used in reading and writing research or more generally in linguis-tic research, it is rarely made the subject of detailed and precise definitions or reflections. The present article is a theoretical contribution that consists mainly in reflections on the type of phenomenon that ‘skill’ represents. Philosophically, the account is based above all on Aristotle’s views, according to which ‘skill’ is characterised as a potentiality. Psychologically, this article expresses the opinion that the only way to describe, understand and explain ‘skill’ is by combining behaviourism and cognitivism

Les dangers et possibilités de l’évaluation des compétences en lecture

Afin d’être reconnue du monde scientifique, la psychologie se préoccupa au début du siècle de développer et d’appliquer des tests. Le but était de mesurer des faits de la façon la plus objective et rigoureuse possible, conformément à un idéal scientifique positiviste. La lecture a été l’un des domaines de prédilection. En vérité, le but principal d’Ebbinghaus en priant ses personnes d’expérience de lire des syllabes incompréhensibles, était de mesurer la mémorisation plutôt que les aptitudes ..

Can we read letters? Reflections on fundamental issues in reading and dyslexia research

Internationally there has been a major increase in activity within reading and dyslexia research over the past three or four decades. This is a reasonable development given that the importance of having good reading skills has grown ever greater in our modern society, where information and education take pride of place. However, that increase in research activity has not resulted in more attention being devoted to the fundamental questions within the field. Most branches of science, once they attain a certain level in their development, tend to ask more and more questions pertaining to the philosophy of science. This is crucial for assessing the quality of research and for deciding the way forward. Empirical researchers may well find such theoretical issues rather alien to their work, but there is in fact a great deal of practical benefit to be drawn from careful consideration of them. It is hard to imagine a Nobel laureate who has never reflected upon issues relating to the philosophy of science. When I first embarked upon research into reading and dyslexia twenty-five years ago, I was uncertain where to concentrate my efforts within a field which was becoming more and more multifaceted. The deciding factor turned out to be my background – and interest – in medicine, psychology, logic and the philosophy of science. My PhD thesis focused on the hypotheses and findings published shortly before by Norman Geschwind and Albert Galaburda about the relationship between brain lateralisation (left-handedness), immunological diseases and dyslexia. I remain fascinated to this day by the creativity and boldness of those hypotheses, but that did not prevent me from presenting questions and critical objections in my thesis. In my opinion, one characteristic of good research is precisely that it inspires new hypotheses and new studies. However, describing and explaining reading and dyslexia on the basis of neurology alone did not seem enough to me, and nor did I think the answers provided by behaviourism were sufficient. This is why I enthusiastically launched into studies based on cognitive psychology. As time went on, though, that school of thought also came to feel too one-sided and too limited. I found connectionism to be a good way of unifying these different approaches, but after a while I instead started to search for the solution in the concept of ‘skill’, which I considered capable of bringing all of these different schools of thought together. In my opinion, it is fairly obvious that reading is above all a ‘skill’ or ‘procedural knowledge’. It represents primarily implicit – not explicit – knowledge. For my definition of ‘skill’, I borrowed the concept of ‘automaticity’ from behaviourism and that of ‘awareness’ from cognitive psychology, but it was clear to me that they could not be unified through simple addition or combination, so I turned to philosophy for a solution. [...

The status of the concept of 'phoneme' in psycholinguistics

The final publication is available at link.springer.com. DOI: 10.1007/s10936-010-9149-