Enhancing the Early Literacy Development of Children at Risk for Reading Difficulties

This paper reviews the dynamic and interactive links between the development of children’s language phonological awareness, and reading. Some of the key issues explored are procedures to enhance children’s language development, decoding and word recognition skills, along with some relevant assessment and programming strategies that can facilitate children’s early reading development. In particular, the paper supports the suggestion that deficits in phonological awareness are often a consequence of slow vocabulary development (a classic marker of language delay) and that teachers need to be able to adapt their language and dialogue interactions for children with language delays

Developing Pre-Literacy Skills via Shared Book Reading: Assessment of a Family Intervention Program for Preschool Children at Risk of Becoming Reading Disabled

This paper reports on a low cost intervention program implemented into the homes of 34 preschool children at risk of reading failure. The intervention was targeted at families where there was a history of reading disability. Families were instructed in dialogic reading via videotaped examples of good practice. The intervention took place over eight weeks. Pre- and post- measures of language and literacy were taken for experimental and control groups. The intervention was successful in raising levels of concepts about print for the experimental group; receptive vocabulary and alphabet knowledge improved for the control group. There were no significant changes in measures of expressive vocabulary, rhyme and initial sounds. For students in both groups, gender was associated with rhyme, and concepts of print; parent educational level was associated with alphabet knowledge, and expressive vocabulary

A Model of Beginning Reading Instruction: Explicit Instruction in Phonemic Awareness, Alphabet Knowledge and Encoding/Decoding Within a Framework of Shared Book Reading

In this study a model of reading was designed, implemented and evaluated over a period of 16 months. The significant parts of this study included training in phonemic awareness, alphabet knowledge, matching alphabet letters to the taught sounds using multi-sensory aids, and using this knowledge to read a set of words. The first 12-week phase, instruction in phonemic awareness and alphabet knowledge, took place at preschool when the children were 4-5 years old. The second phase, learning to read words, took place in the children's first 10 weeks at school in the following year. The follow-up evaluation took place 16 months after the commencement of the initial preschool training. The preschool phase included shared book reading. The aim of including shared book reading was to make the training phase more relevant to the children and to increase their awareness of concepts about print and how books function. One hundred and thirty-four male and female children made up the first part of the study at preschool. One experimental group (E1) of 38 children was trained in phonemic awareness, alphabet knowledge and letter-sound matching, all in the context of shared book reading. The second experimental group (E2) of 33 children was given the same training as (E1) but did not receive shared book reading. A control group (C) of 63 children received only training in phonemic awareness. Results indicated that both groups (E1 & E2) trained in phonemic awareness, alphabet knowledge and letter-sound matching outperformed the control group (C) in a forced word-choice test. The shared book reading group (E1) showed superior results in a test of concepts about print (CAP) over E2. However, no other measures, including alphabet knowledge, vocabulary (PPVT), or reading attitude (RA), distinguished the two experimental groups, E1 and E2. The second part of the study included sub-groups totalling 32 experimental children, from the first part of the study. ... Implications for educationalists are discussed, for example, the inclusion of written and spoken language structure in teacher education programmes, and screening children for phonemic awareness during their first year of schooling

Teachers' attitudes to and knowledge of metalinguistics in the process of learning to read

The aim of the current research was to examine pre—service, general and special education teachers attitudes to and knowledge of metalinguistics (awareness of language structure) in the process of learning to read. Effective teachers of reading, writing, and spelling need to understand the relationship between speech and print because these basic language processes are often deficient in cases of reading failure. Teachers also need to be knowledgeable in this area to benefit from psychologist and specialist reports. Using a questionnaire adapted front the Teacher attitudes about early reading and spelling survey and the Survey of linguistic knowledge, 93 pre-service teachers; 209 general teachers and 38 special education teachers were surveyed. Results indicate a positive attitude to but poor knowledge of metalinguistics in the process of learning to read. Special education teachers performed significantly higher than both other groups on aspects of attitude and knowledge

ESL + Specific Reading Disability: Diagnosis and intervention

Specific reading disability is difficult to diagnose when it is an isolated problem, but becomes even more difficult if it is masked or complicated by other factors such as ADHD or, in this case, ESL. Specific reading disability is just as prevalent in non-English speaking populations as it is in English only populations (Wade-Woolley & Siegel, 1997). It is therefore just as likely for a child who is an ESL speaker to have a specific reading disability and it is imperative that this is considered when ESL children show signs of reading difficulty. This paper provides an example of just such a child. The process of diagnosis and successful intervention is reported

Developing Unique Social Stories as a Behavioural Intervention for an Eight -Year Old Boy with Asperger Syndrome

This case study examined the effectiveness of social story interventions for an eight-year old Chinese boy diagnosed with mild Asperger’s disorder in an international school in Hong Kong. A personalised approach based on Carol Grays (1994) Social Story Handbook was utilized. Social stories focus on teaching children with ASD the social cues and behaviours they need to know to interact with others in a socially appropriate manner. Specifically the following behaviours were targeted: calling out to the teacher, laughing inappropriately, repeating what the teacher said and frequent visits to the toilet. Pre-intervention observations were made over a one week period followed by a 2 week intervention which concluded with post-intervention observations over a one week period. After this brief intervention promising results were obtained particularly in calling out and inappropriate laughter. The learning support teacher who initiated this intervention has been successful in transferring these skills to the classroom teacher who continues to use the social stories on a daily basis

Learning support : what do students want?

Assumptions are often made about students' needs, especially in the area of learning support. In this study 89 students were asked 8 questions relating to receiving learning support. The results are presented both qualitatively and quantitatively, and indicate that all students have individual needs that cannot be assumed. The findings reveal that the most common area of perceived need was in literacy. There were some differences between primary and middle school students' responses to withdrawal from the classroom, but the majority of students in both groups indicated a preference for withdrawal because they could concentrate better in an environment that was less noisy and because they felt they might look 'stupid' if they remained in class

Phonological Awareness: Necessary but not Sufficient

Approaches to teaching reading to children who have literacy difficulties have often been summarised as a choice between either a whole language or a decoding approach. It is maintained in this paper that this either or notion has failed to acknowledge that reading is a dynamic process where the elements of language, thinking (metacognition), and phonological skills form an interactive relationship and any weakness in one of these elements inhibits the child’s reading development. This position paper explores the three elements, the implications for classroom practice when the focus is on a combination of the three elements, and outlines possible direction for future research