Early development and predictors of morphological awareness: disentangling the impact of decoding skills and phonological awareness

Background: Morphological Awareness (MA) has been demonstrated to be influential on the reading outcomes of children and adults. Yet, little is known regarding MA's early development. Aim: The aim of this study is to better understand MA at different stages of development and its association with Phonological Awareness (PA) and reading. Methods and procedures: In a longitudinal design the development of MA was explored in a group of pre-reading children with a family risk of dyslexia and age-matched controls from kindergarten up to and including grade 2. Outcomes and results: MA deficits were observed in the group with literacy difficulties at all time points. PA was only found to make a significant contribution to MA development at the early stages of formal reading instruction. While first-grade decoding skills were found to contribute significantly to MA in second grade. Conclusions: Evidence supporting a bidirectional relation was found and supports the need for adequate MA intervention and explicit instruction for “at risk” children in the early stages of literacy instruction

Predicting future reading problems based on pre-reading auditory measures: a longitudinal study of children with a familial risk of dyslexia

Purpose: This longitudinal study examines measures of temporal auditory processing in pre-reading children with a family risk of dyslexia. Specifically, it attempts to ascertain whether pre-reading auditory processing, speech perception, and phonological awareness (PA) reliably predict later literacy achievement. Additionally, this study retrospectively examines the presence of pre-reading auditory processing, speech perception, and PA impairments in children later found to be literacy impaired. Method: Forty-four pre-reading children with and without a family risk of dyslexia were assessed at three time points (kindergarten, first, and second grade). Auditory processing measures of rise time (RT) discrimination and frequency modulation (FM) along with speech perception, PA, and various literacy tasks were assessed. Results: Kindergarten RT uniquely contributed to growth in literacy in grades one and two, even after controlling for letter knowledge and PA. Highly significant concurrent and predictive correlations were observed with kindergarten RT significantly predicting first grade PA. Retrospective analysis demonstrated atypical performance in RT and PA at all three time points in children who later developed literacy impairments. Conclusions: Although significant, kindergarten auditory processing contributions to later literacy growth lack the power to be considered as a single-cause predictor; thus results support temporal processing deficits’ contribution within a multiple deficit model of dyslexia

Grapheme-phoneme learning in an unknown orthography: a study in typical reading and dyslexic children

In this study, we examined the learning of new grapheme-phoneme correspondences in individuals with and without dyslexia. Additionally, we investigated the relation between grapheme-phoneme learning and measures of phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge and rapid automatized naming, with a focus on the unique joint variance of grapheme-phoneme learning to word and non-word reading achievement. Training of grapheme-phoneme associations consisted of a 20-min training program in which eight novel letters (Hebrew) needed to be paired with speech sounds taken from the participant's native language (Dutch). Eighty-four third grade students, of whom 20 were diagnosed with dyslexia, participated in the training and testing. Our results indicate a reduced ability of dyslexic readers in applying newly learned grapheme-phoneme correspondences while reading words which consist of these novel letters. However, we did not observe a significant independent contribution of grapheme-phoneme learning to reading outcomes. Alternatively, results from the regression analysis indicate that failure to read may be due to differences in phonological and/or orthographic knowledge but not to differences in the grapheme-phoneme-conversion process itself

A spotlight on lack of evidence supporting the integration of blended learning in K-12 education

In an effort to highlight the need for, and lack of, quality empirical research in K-12 blended learning environments, this systematic narrative review investigated and reported on the quantity and quality of recent empirical research in K-12 blended learning, published between 2009 and February 2017. In addition to assessing the quality and scope of these studies, the effectiveness of blended learning environments on learning outcomes and potential contributing variables were discussed. Eleven articles were identified and found to meet the inclusionary criteria and measures of quality set by this review, extending the corpus of 5 articles identified by a previous 2009 meta-analysis commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education to 16. Mixed findings regarding the benefit of blended learning in a K-12 setting were reported across the literature, thereby highlighting the need for more extensive research in this domain

EVALUATING THE EFFICACY OF AN ARABIC METALINGUISTIC AWARENESS TRAINING PROGRAM

Recently both academics and professional standards have demonstrated the essential role teachers’ knowledge about metalinguistic awareness plays in pupils' literacy achievement. This study aimed to explore whether an intensive training program in Arabic metalinguistic awareness increases teachers’ knowledge and improves their performance. Changes from pre-test to post-test knowledge and reporting confidence of 25 trainees were investigated. Participants showed significant gains in their knowledge and skills of Arabic metalinguistic awareness upon post-test. In addition, participants reported higher confidence in teaching Arabic metalinguistics after attending the course. Findings from this research bring recommendations toward developing Arabic metalinguistic awareness-related approaches for educators. The importance of professional development is discussed.  Article visualizations

Morphological processing in children with developmental dyslexia: a visual masked priming study

This study examined the processing of derivational morphology and its association with early phonological skills of 24 Dutch-speaking children with dyslexia and 46 controls matched for age. A masked priming experiment was conducted where the semantic overlap between morphologically related pairs was manipulated as part of a lexical decision task. Results suggest that morphological processing is intact in children with dyslexia when compared to age-matched controls. Significant priming effects were found in each group. Children with dyslexia were found to solely benefit from the morpho-semantic information, while the morpho-orthographic form the properties of morphemes-influenced controls. Due to the longitudinal nature of the data set, an examination of early phonological awareness’s role in the later development of morphological processing skills was possible. In line with the psycholinguistic grain-size theory, fifth-grade morphological processing in children with dyslexia was found to be negatively correlated to earlier second-grade PA skills. A similar relation was not found among the controls. Results indicate a potential shift in the cognitive processes involved during reading to compensate for the observed phonological deficits of children with dyslexia

Grapheme-Phoneme Learning in an Unknown Orthography: A Study in Typical Reading and Dyslexic Children

In this study, we examined the learning of new grapheme-phoneme correspondences in individuals with and without dyslexia. Additionally, we investigated the relation between grapheme-phoneme learning and measures of phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge and rapid automatized naming, with a focus on the unique joint variance of grapheme-phoneme learning to word and non-word reading achievement. Training of grapheme-phoneme associations consisted of a 20-min training program in which eight novel letters (Hebrew) needed to be paired with speech sounds taken from the participant's native language (Dutch). Eighty-four third grade students, of whom 20 were diagnosed with dyslexia, participated in the training and testing. Our results indicate a reduced ability of dyslexic readers in applying newly learned grapheme-phoneme correspondences while reading words which consist of these novel letters. However, we did not observe a significant independent contribution of grapheme-phoneme learning to reading outcomes. Alternatively, results from the regression analysis indicate that failure to read may be due to differences in phonological and/or orthographic knowledge but not to differences in the grapheme-phoneme-conversion process itself

Arabic metalinguistic knowledge predicts reading comprehension: a scoping review

Arabic is a language with unique characteristics, yet the role metalinguistic skills (i. e., phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and orthographical knowledge) play in the development of reading and reading comprehension in Arabic is not well understood. This review aims to: (1) synthesize studies that examine metalinguistic skills' contribution to reading comprehension in Arabic, (2) emphasize gaps and limitations within the current body of literature, and (3) offer recommendations for further research. This review followed a five-stage methodological framework to identify studies. Sixteen studies examined the relation between metalinguistic skills and reading comprehension in Arabic. These studies involved students in grades 1–12. Morphological awareness was found to be the strongest predictor of reading comprehension among Arabic children; in addition, phonological awareness and phonemic diacritics were found to be associated with reading comprehension in early grades. Lastly, this review identified a significant gap in the literature, as few studies have investigated orthographical knowledge in relation to Arabic reading development and outcomes. This literature review supports the claim that metalinguistic variables can predict reading comprehension among Arabic readers. Yet, the generalization of findings is cautioned due to the influences of dialect and the small number of studies involved in the review. These results are discussed in relation to the current teaching guidelines for instructing Arabic reading comprehension

Benefits of Exercise in Rheumatoid Arthritis

This paper aims to highlight the importance of exercise in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and to demonstrate the multitude of beneficial effects that properly designed exercise training has in this population. RA is a chronic, systemic, autoimmune disease characterised by decrements to joint health including joint pain and inflammation, fatigue, increased incidence and progression of cardiovascular disease, and accelerated loss of muscle mass, that is, “rheumatoid cachexia”. These factors contribute to functional limitation, disability, comorbidities, and reduced quality of life. Exercise training for RA patients has been shown to be efficacious in reversing cachexia and substantially improving function without exacerbating disease activity and is likely to reduce cardiovascular risk. Thus, all RA patients should be encouraged to include aerobic and resistance exercise training as part of routine care. Understanding the perceptions of RA patients and health professionals to exercise is key to patients initiating and adhering to effective exercise training