A SYNTHESIS OF RESEARCH ON READING FLUENCY DEVELOMPENT: STUDY OF EIGHT META-ANALYSES

The goal of this paper was to identify the most effective instructional strategies for reading fluency development through a synthesis of eight relevant meta-analyses. In the first part, reading fluency instructional strategies are presented. In the second part, the major findings of the eight meta-analyses are recorded in chronological order. In the last part, meta-analyses findings are pooled together and discussed. The processing of the eight meta-analyses data follows and uses the “LD Alerts” format, concluding to “Promising” and “Carefully Used” instructional strategies. Through this synthesis, the role of repeated readings appears to be prominent in reading fluency instruction. In specific, repeated readings are more effective when they are used in combination with the strategies of self-monitoring, goal-setting and model reading. In addition, provision of preview and cue seems to have a decisive role in fluency instruction. Nevertheless, other strategies and intervention components appear to hold controversial or limited evidence.  Article visualizations

Time use of parents raising children with severe or profound intellectual and multiple disabilities

Background Raising children with severe or profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD) is expected to put extreme pressure on parental time use patterns. The aim of this study was to examine the total time use of mothers and fathers raising children with PIMD and compare it with the time use of parents of typically developing children. Method Twenty-seven fathers and 30 mothers raising children with PIMD completed a time use diary on a mobile phone or tablet app, as did 66 fathers and 109 mothers of typically developing children. Independent t-tests and Mann-Whitney tests were performed to compare mean time use. Results There are no differences in the time use of parents of children with PIMD on contracted time (paid work and educational activities) and necessary time (personal care, eating and drinking and sleeping) when compared with parents of typically developing children. There are significant differences between the parents of children with PIMD and the parents of typically developing children in terms of committed time (time for domestic work and the care and supervision of their children) and free time. The mothers of children with PIMD spend significantly less time on domestic work and more time on care and supervision than mothers of typically developing children. Conclusions This study shows that the parents of children with PIMD have to spend a significant amount of time on care tasks and have on average 1.5 h less free time per day than parents of typically developing children. This is a striking difference, because leisure time can substantially contribute to well-being. Therefore, it is important not only to consider a child with PIMD's support needs but also to identify what parents need to continue their children's daily care and supervision

Developing and validating tests of reading and listening comprehension for fifth and sixth grade students in Portugal

An efficient assessment of reading and linguistic abilities in school children requires reliable and valid measures. Moreover, measures which include specific test forms for different academic grade levels, that are vertically equated, allow the direct comparison of results across multiple time points and avoid floor and ceiling effects. Two studies were conducted to achieve these goals. The purpose of the first study was to develop tests of reading and listening comprehension in European Portuguese, with vertically scaled test forms for students in the fifth and sixth grades, using Rasch model analyses. The purpose of the second study was to collect evidence for the validity of these tests based on the relationships of test scores with other variables. The samples included 454 and 179 students for the first and second study, respectively. The data from both studies provided evidence for good psychometric characteristics for the test forms: unidimensionality and local independence, as well as adequate reliability and evidence of validity. The developed test forms are an important contribution in the Portuguese educational context as they allow for the assessment of students’ performance in these skills across multiple time points and can be used both in research and practice.This work was financially supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science (FCT) and Technology and the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education through national funds within the framework of the Psychology Research Centre (UIDB/PSI/01662/2020), and the Research Centre on Child Studies (UIDB/CED/00317/2020). Bruna Rodrigues’s work is also supported by a grant from FCT (SFRH/BD/129582/2017) through the Operational Programme Human Capital (POCH)

Assessing reading comprehension with narrative and expository texts: dimensionality and relationship with fluency, vocabulary and memory

Reading comprehension assessment should rely on valid instruments that enable adequate conclusions to be taken regarding students’ reading comprehension performance. In this article, two studies were conducted to collect validity evidence for the vertically scaled forms of two Tests of Reading Comprehension for Portuguese elementary school students in the second to fourth grades, one with narrative texts (TRC-n) and another with expository ones (TRC-e). Two samples of 950 and 990 students participated in Study 1, the study of the dimensionality of the TRC-n and TRC-e forms, respectively. Confirmatory factor analyses provided evidence of an acceptable fit for the one-factor solution for all test forms. Study 2 included 218 students to collect criterion-related validity. The scores obtained in each of the test forms were significantly correlated with the ones obtained in other reading comprehension measures and with the results obtained in oral reading fluency, vocabulary and working memory tests. Evidence suggests that the test forms are valid measures of reading comprehension.CIEC – Research Centre on Child Studies, IE, UMinho (FCT R&D unit 317), Portugal. Grant FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-010733 from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) through the European program COMPETE (Operational Program for Competitiveness Factors) under the National Strategic Reference Framework (QREN). It was also supported by FCT grant SFRH/BD/94763/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Promover a fluência em leitura: um estudo com alunos do 2º ano de escolaridade

Neste artigo são analisados os resultados de um Programa de Promoção da Fluência em Leitura (PPFL), implementado junto de 74 alunos do 2º ano de escolaridade de um Agrupamento Escolar do norte de Portugal. O PPFL é constituído por 22 sequências didáticas, elaboradas a partir de 22 textos (9 narrativos, 4 informativos e 9 poemas). Cada sequência foi operacionalizada em sessões de 10 a 15 minutos, durante 22 semanas, em ciclos de cinco dias (quinta-feira a quarta-feira). Em cada semana foi trabalhado apenas uma sequência didáctica (i.e. um texto). Foi utilizado um design quase experimental, com grupo experimental e grupo de controlo e com pré e pós-teste. Os sujeitos foram avaliados através de um teste de fluência de leitura – o Teste de Fluência em Leitura (TFL) –, considerando as variáveis velocidade e precisão. Os resultados evidenciam diferenças significativas a favor do grupo experimental, que superou as diferenças iniciais que se registavam no pré-teste. A análise qualitativa do impacto do PPFL aponta para um incremento na motivação para ler, no envolvimento da família e para a mudança de práticas por parte dos professores envolvidos.CIEC - Centro de Investigação em Estudos da Criança, IE, UMinho (UI 317 da FCT), PortugalFundos Nacionais através da FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) e cofinanciado pelo Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) através do COMPETE 2020 – Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI) no âmbito do CIEC (Centro de Investigação em Estudos da Criança, da Universidade do Minho) com a referência POCI-01-0145-FEDER-00756

A comparison of sighted and visually impaired children’s text comprehension

Aim: Do children with visual impairments outperform their sighted cohorts in reading and auditory comprehension tasks? Methods: We address this question by applying panel regression techniques on a comprehensive sample of 16 children with visual impairments from a Greek special school for students with visual impairments. Results: By comparing the reader comprehender profile for both children types, we find that the children with visual impairments perform better than their sighted counterparts. The better performance is supported both unconditionally and conditionally on idiosyncratic characteristics, such as age, text complexity, modality, sex and reading ability. Conclusion: Decomposing the reader comprehender profile into a literal, global and local type of questions we find that the results are mainly driven by the superior performance of the children with VI in the literal questions

Attitudes towards reading and writing

The goal of this study was the exploration of the attitudes of students towards reading and writing. 353 students attending 2nd through 6th grade in 3 elemen­tary schools participated in the study. The attitudes of the students were evalu­ated through a Likert scale of 16 sentences. The analysis of the data revealed that the students have more positive attitudes towards reading than towards writing, and that girls hold significantly more positive attitudes than boys. Students' attitude differs depending on the area they come from, but appears to become generally less positive as they grow up

Greek teachers' perceptions of autism and implications for educational practice: A preliminary analysis

The general aim of this study was to examine perceptions about autism in regular education (n = 35) and special education (n = 29) teachers attending the second year of their in-service training. Data were collected through a series of written questions covering four areas of interest (general information, aetiology, behavioural characteristics, treatment). The analysis of findings revealed some confusion in regard to the causes of the syndrome in both groups of teachers. However, special education teachers were more likely to identify correctly the specific characteristics of autism. Regular and special education teachers also identified different instructional priorities in the treatment of autism. The practical implications of these findings for in-service training are discussed

Teachers' Causal Attributions for Behaviour Problems in Relation to Perceptions of Control

The general aim of this study was to examine the relationship between teachers' perceptions of control and their causal attributions for behaviour problems. Elementary teachers (n = 305) were asked to rate each of 12 factors as the possible cause of the behaviour problem described in a vignette and they also completed the Spheres of Control Scale. Teachers seemed to agree that family and pupil-related factors might cause behaviour problems, while they rejected school and organic factors. Overall, teachers seemed to have a high perception of control in three distinct spheres of life, i.e. personal efficacy, interpersonal relationships and sociopolitical behaviour. Nevertheless, only perceived control in the area of interpersonal relationships was found to be significantly correlated with 4 causal attributions. Results are discussed in the framework of in-service training for regular education teachers