To what extent do frameworks of reading development and the phonics screening check support the assessment of reading development in England?

The purpose of this article is to question the suitability of the phonics screening check in relation to models and theories of reading development. The article questions the appropriateness of the check by drawing on theoretical frameworks which underpin typical reading development. I examine the Simple View of Reading developed by Gough and Tunmer and Ehri’s model of reading development. The article argues that the assessment of children’s development in reading should be underpinned and informed by a developmental framework which identifies the sequential skills in reading development

Implicit sequence learning is preserved in dyslexic children

This study investigates the implicit sequence learning abilities of dyslexic children using an artificial grammar learning task with an extended exposure period. Twenty children with developmental dyslexia participated in the study and were matched with two control groups-one matched for age and other for reading skills. During 3 days, all participants performed an acquisition task, where they were exposed to colored geometrical forms sequences with an underlying grammatical structure. On the last day, after the acquisition task, participants were tested in a grammaticality classification task. Implicit sequence learning was present in dyslexic children, as well as in both control groups, and no differences between groups were observed. These results suggest that implicit learning deficits per se cannot explain the characteristic reading difficulties of the dyslexics.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Contribution of discourse and morphosyntax skills to reading comprehension in Chinese dyslexic and typically developing children

This study aimed at identifying important skills for reading comprehension in Chinese dyslexic children and their typically developing counterparts matched on age (CA controls) or reading level (RL controls). The children were assessed on Chinese reading comprehension, cognitive, and reading-related skills. Results showed that the dyslexic children performed significantly less well than the CA controls but similarly to RL controls in most measures. Results of multiple regression analyses showed that word-level reading-related skills like oral vocabulary and word semantics were found to be strong predictors of reading comprehension among typically developing junior graders and dyslexic readers of senior grades, whereas morphosyntax, a text-level skill, was most predictive for typically developing senior graders. It was concluded that discourse and morphosyntax skills are particularly important for reading comprehension in the non-inflectional and topic-prominent Chinese system

The effects of precision teaching and self-regulation learning on early multiplication fluency

Fluent recall of basic facts is essential to the development of more complex math skills. Therefore, failure to develop fluency with basic facts may impede the development of these skills. The present study used a between groups experimental design to investigate whether a basic facts fluency program, implemented within a self-regulated learner (SRL) framework, could lead to increased fluency with multiplication facts for Year 5 and Year 6 New Zealand students (9–10 years old). This study also investigated the extent to which the SRL program altered students’ basic facts practice behavior outside of school hours. The study found that the SRL program resulted in rapid fluency development that was maintained over time. Nomothetic and idiographic analysis confirmed that the program was suitable for use within Tier 1 of the response to intervention framework. In addition, the study also found that students who received the program altered their practice behavior outside school hours. The results from this study show how elements of self-regulated learning and precision teaching can be successfully combined to enhance students’ mathematics achievement

The literacy performance of ex-Reading Recovery students between two and four years following participation on the program

Introduction Reading Recovery (RR) was developed by Marie Clay during the 1970s (Clay, 1979) while she was an academic staff member of the University of Auckland (one of New Zealand’s 8 public universities). The program was funded by the New Zealand Department of Education (later Ministry of Education) for adoption by schools throughout the country during the 1980s. As a preventive early intervention program designed for young children who have not benefitted from formal reading instruction after 12 months in school (Clay, 1985, 1993), the general aim of RR is to substantially reduce the incidence of reading failure by accelerating to average levels of performance the progress of 6-year-old children who show early signs of reading difficulty (normally children whose reading progress falls in the lowest 15% to 20% of the enrolment cohort in any given school). Clay (1987) was very confident about the effectiveness of RR and the sustainability of gains made by students in the program. She claimed that RR “should clear out of the remedial education system all the children who do not learn to read for many event-produced reasons [i.e., environmental, cultural, or economic causes] and all the children who have organically based problems but who can be taught to achieve independent status in reading and writing despite this” (p. 169). Similarly, the New Zealand Reading Recovery website claims that the program “is an effective early literacy intervention designed to significantly reduce the number of children with literacy difficulties in schools,” that forms part of the New Zealand literacy strategy (http://www.readingrecovery.ac.nz). The following section from the RR website (www.readingrecovery.ac.nz/reading_recovery ) is particularly confident in its claim: The aim of Reading Recovery is to prevent literacy difficulties at an early stage before they begin to affect a child’s educational progress. Providing extra assistance to the lowest achievers after one year in school, it operates as an effective prevention strategy against later literacy difficulties. Nationally, it may be characterised as an insurance against low literacy levels” (emphases added). Others have also claimed that RR leads to sustainable, long-term gains. Without offering any evidence, May et al. (2015), for example, stated that RR can disrupt the “trajectory of low literacy achievement, produce accelerated gains, and enable students to catch up to their peers and sustain achievement at grade level into the future” [emphasis added] (p. 549). Surprisingly, there is no robust, well-designed research to support Clay’s claims about the promise of the RR program or to support the widely held view that RR is effective in New Zealand (e.g., McDowall, 2006, 2007, 2009; McDowall, Boyd & Hogden, 2005; Robinson, 1989; Smith & Elley, 1994). Despite the program being adopted for use in other countries (e.g., Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States), relatively few well-controlled studies of the effectiveness of RR in any country have been published in peer-reviewed journals