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

Cognitive and linguistic factors in reading acquisition

Contains fulltext : 99990.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

The simple view of second language reading throughout the primary grades

Contains fulltext : 103028.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)In the Simple View of Reading proposed by Hoover and Gough (1990), reading comprehension is conceived as the product of word decoding and listening comprehension. It is claimed that listening comprehension or the linguistic processes involved in the comprehension of oral language strongly constrain the process of reading comprehension. In several studies, evidence for this theoretical framework has been provided for first language learners. In the present study, an attempt was made to find empirical evidence for the same view underlying second language reading. Therefore, the word decoding and listening comprehension skills of samples of 1,293 first language (L1) learners and 394 second language (L2) learners of Dutch were related to their reading comprehension abilities throughout the primary grades. It was found that the levels of word decoding were more or less equal in the two groups of learners, whereas the L2 learners stayed behind their first L1 peers in both listening, and reading comprehension. The relationships between word decoding, listening comprehension and reading comprehension turned out to be highly comparable. A longitudinal analysis of data showed the Simple View of Reading to be equally valid for L1 and L2 learners. With progression of grade, the impact of word decoding on reading comprehension decreased, whereas the impact of listening comprehension showed an increase to the same extent in the two groups of learners. However, the reciprocity of the relationship between listening comprehension and reading comprehension tended to be less prominent in the group of L2 learners

Dyslexia and remediation/education: where next?

Interventions to support students with reading difficulties have existed for over 70 years. This paper rehearses the need for interventions to be grounded in theory and empirical evidence about reading processes. The suggestion that the next generation of interventions should go beyond simple context-independent small unit phonics teaching to cover context-dependent larger phonological units is evaluated. Examples of contemporary interventions that involve large units, and morphology are presented. Current interventions reported target students with literacy difficulties regardless of a diagnosis of dyslexia