April 30th ~ Vote for your favorite paper! + No Evidence of Creative Benefit Accompanying Dyslexia; A multi-sensory tutoring program for students at risk of reading difficulties and more!
The Weekly Newsletter That Keeps You Up to Date on the Latest Reading Research!
Welcome! This is Issue No. 49
Welcome to the Reading Research Recap, a weekly newsletter featuring the latest reading research published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The goal of the Recap is to share recent scientific findings and foster an appreciation of science as a way to navigate the world. I try to make this one of the most informative emails you get each week.
“We have to make the truth more interesting than the over-simplistic conspiracy theories.”
~Bill Gates on combatting mistrust in science
From a 60 minutes overtime interview (@3:53) with Anderson Cooper (I was a little behind on my 60 minutes- The episode referenced aired in February). I thought it was an interesting quote.
Updates
Vote for your favorite research paper!
I’m trying something new again! I want to introduce the inaugural Annual Recap Research Award. In the survey form below, please choose the study that you appreciated the most! You can interpret “appreciate” in any way you want: the study that you were so happy researchers conducted, the study that, maybe you didn’t like the results, but learned so much from, etc., etc.
Vote here on this google form!
I will “present” the award and any comments from the researchers (if they have any, LOL) on the 1 year anniversary of the Recap (in May). I selected the studies from the studies from those that I presented in the Recap in the past year and that I felt garnered the most “buzz.” If you feel I missed an important one, write it in so others can vote for it!
Note: this is a fun way to engage the audience and show how much we appreciate science and scientists. It does not mean I am promoting one type of science or design or methods or research group etc. over another! If you have been following me, you know that I think all types of science are necessary!
A Meta and a Randomized experiment to start…
No Evidence of Creative Benefit Accompanying Dyslexia: A Meta-Analysis
“Research on the question of creative benefit accompanying dyslexia has produced conflicting findings. In this meta-analysis, we determined summary effects of mean and variance differences in creativity between groups with and without dyslexia. Twenty studies were included (n = 770 individuals with dyslexia, n = 1,671 controls)…If the creativity task measured verbal versus figural or combined creativity, then the dyslexia group exhibited smaller variability. Altogether, our results suggest that individuals with dyslexia as a group are no more creative or show greater variability in creativity than peers without dyslexia.”
A multi-sensory tutoring program for students at risk of reading difficulties: Evidence from a randomized field experiment
“This study examined a literacy program that targeted students most at risk of reading difficulties in kindergarten and first grade of 12 Swedish schools…the program used multi-sensory learning methods that focused on phonological awareness and phonics, and was delivered during 10 weeks over 30–35 sessions by teachers in a one-to-one or one-to-two setting. In total, 161 students aged 6–7 years were randomly assigned to a treatment group or a waiting list control group. The treatment group showed large and statistically significant improvements compared to the control group on the two pre-registered primary outcome measures: a standardized test of decoding (Hedges’ g = 1.07) and a standardized test of letter knowledge (g = 1.03). The improvements were also significantly larger on measures of phonological awareness (g = 0.56) and self-efficacy (g = 0.57), but not on measures of enjoyment and motivation.”
Brains…
Reciprocal relations between reading skill and the neural basis of phonological awareness in 7- to 9-year-old children (open access)
“The current study, along with our previous study on younger children, indicates that the development of reading skill is associated with (1) the early importance of the quality of the phonological representations to later access of these representations, and (2) early importance of small grain sizes to later development of large grain ones.”
A three-time point longitudinal investigation of the arcuate fasciculus throughout reading acquisition in children developing dyslexia (open access)
“Applying along-the-tract analyses of white matter organization, our results confirmed that a white matter deficit existed in the left AF (arcuate fasciculus) prior to the onset of formal reading instruction in children who developed dyslexia later on. This deficit was consistently present throughout the course of reading development.”
A Few Studies on Dyslexia and Developmental Disabilities…
Language Difficulties in School-Aged Children With Developmental Dyslexia (open access)
“Children classified as having DD often have a history of early language delay (ELD) or language impairments. Nevertheless, studies have reported conflicting results as to the association between DD-ELD and the extent of current language difficulties in children with DD…We found a significant association between DD (developmental dyslexia) and ELD (early language delay), with parents of children in the DD/IR groups reporting their children put words together later than the SR (skilled reader) group. We also found a significant association between DD and language difficulties, with children with low reading skills having low expressive/receptive language abilities. Finally, we identified early language predicted current language, which predicted reading skills.
The Differential Efficacy of a Professional Development Model on Reading Outcomes for Students With and Without Disabilities
“This study examined the differential effects of Strategies for Reading Informational Text and Vocabulary Effectively (STRIVE) on the vocabulary, reading comprehension, and content learning among 4,757 fourth-grade students with and without disabilities…Findings revealed that students with and without disabilities in classes assigned to STRIVE treatment (SPD and RPD) outperformed their peers in classes assigned to the BAU condition at a statistically significant level on measures of content knowledge and content vocabulary and a distal measure of vocabulary. STRIVE did not affect students with disabilities (SWDs) and without disabilities differentially on the measures of content knowledge and distal vocabulary, though effects sizes for non-SWDs in SPD and RPD were larger than those for SWDs.”
A Review and a Methods Paper
Reading and Writing Words: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective
“We review cognitive-linguistic approaches to conveying meaning, sound, and orthographic information across scripts in order to highlight the impact of variability in written and spoken language on learning to read and to write words…we highlight 1) characteristics and boundaries of a word and how these sometimes present challenges for reading and spelling, 2) phonological sensitivity, including phonological omissions in print, suprasegmental processing, and “distance” between spoken and written forms, vis-à-vis literacy acquisition at the word level, 3) the importance of specific types of divergent visual-orthographic knowledge for the mastery of different writing systems, and 4) expanding understanding of visual-motor skills and their role in spelling across scripts. All of these aspects of variability in different writing systems should be more broadly integrated as theoretical models and intervention methods of reading or writing are tested across different writing systems.”
Methodological Issues in Literacy Research Across Languages: Evidence From Alphabetic Orthographies
“Specifically, we focused on challenges related to research on word reading, spelling, passage comprehension, and writing, ranging from the target skills, constructs, and assessment issues to the matching of the samples and measurement and factorial invariance issues. We conclude that although theoretical and applied issues have been addressed in the literature, to date, this has happened only with limited relevance for reading and writing research across languages. The discussion provides some relevant evidence from a neuroscience perspective to promote useful insights and greater methodological rigor in literacy research across languages.”
Intensifying Instruction to Meet Students’ Early Writing Needs
By Elizabeth A. Lam, Amy K. Kunkel, Nicole M. McKevett, & Kristen L. McMaster
Paper here. Note: this is not a scientific research study. Rather, it is a summary of the latest science with practical tips for teachers.
Background
We often talk about the percent of children who cannot read proficiently, but I did not know that the number of children who cannot write proficiently is even higher
Over 70% of 4th, 8th, and 12th graders in the U.S. are not writing proficiently
Just like in reading, data-based individualization (DBI) also works for writing ~ the authors identify 8 steps in the DBI process for writing (more on this below)
The Simple View of Writing
The theoretical background of this work is based on The Simple View of Writing: a framework proposed by Berninger and Amtmann (2003).
The Simple View of Writing has four components:
a) transcription: translating words to print, spelling, handwriting
b) text generation: selection of words to create sentences
c) self-regulation: planning, organizing, editing
d) attention & working memory: Berninger & Amtmann (2003) state that the above three components are constrained by attention and working memory
Evidence-Based Writing Interventions
Writing experts believe that writing instruction should include the following components:
daily time set aside for students to write
instruction in the purposes and processes of writing
development of fluency in transcription skills
development of a writing community
Prior Research
These reviews can help teachers find evidence-based writing interventions:
“…interventions in handwriting, spelling, and text generation incorporating self-regulation strategies significantly improved the quality of students’ writing.” (open access)
How to Apply the DBI Process to Writing
This process if pretty similar to the DBI process for reading. The authors list 8 steps:
1) Determine the student’s present writing level
2) Create an ambitious long term goal
3) Implement evidence-based instruction with fidelity
4) Progress monitor toward the goal
5) Use decision rules to monitor student progress
6) Determine why the student might not be making progress and individualize instruction if necessary
7) Make an instructional change (if necessary)
8) Iterate on steps #4-7 as necessary
Evidence-Based Instructional Resources
Links provided by the authors
Transcription
Text Generation
Self-Regulation
Take-home message for practitioners:
The whole article had tips and tools for teachers to enhance writing skills, so there is no one single “take-home” message :)