Dec. 3rd ~ Growth Trajectories and Cognitive Predictors of Reading; Inter-letter spacing on reading performance; a Classroom-Implemented, App-Based Morphology Program
The Weekly Email That Keeps You Informed of The Latest Reading Research!
Welcome! This is Volume 2, Issue No. 27
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.
The effect of inter-letter spacing on reading performance and eye movements in typically reading and dyslexic children (open access)
“Recent studies have suggested that an increase of inter-letter spacing may improve reading performance of dyslexic readers by reducing visual crowding. However, these results have been difficult to replicate. This study directly compares reading accuracy and comprehension, as well as reading speed, and number and duration of fixations of 38 dyslexic and 32 typically reading children (10–14 years old) in regular, spaced (+2,5 pt), and condensed (−1,5 pt) conditions using a natural sentence-reading paradigm. Inter-letter spacing did not affect reading accuracy, comprehension, or speed. The lack of effects of inter-letter spacing was observed in both dyslexic and typical readers. Inter-letter spacing did not impact the number of fixations, but increased inter-letter spacing led to shorter fixations in dyslexic children. Decreased inter-letter spacing resulted in longer fixations in both groups. These results do not support the claim that dyslexics are more influenced by crowding than age-matched controls.”
Effectiveness of a Classroom-Implemented, App-Based Morphology Program for Language-Minority Students: Examining Latent Language-Literacy Profiles and Contextual Factors as Moderators (open access)
“Language-minority students constitute a heterogeneous group, both in terms of skills in the majority language and contextual factors, such as language use at home and socioeconomic status. These characteristics may interact with the effectiveness of language instruction programs. This study investigated whether the effectiveness of a digital morphology program conducted in mainstream classrooms differed between Norwegian second-grade language-minority students (n = 188) and language-majority students (n = 521). Further, the study examined language-minority students’ latent language-literacy skill profiles. Specifically, it investigated how the skill profiles related to the students’ initial morphological word knowledge and the immediate and long-term effects of the program. Intention-to-treat analyses showed positive effects of the program on morphological word knowledge at posttest (d = 0.30) and 6-month follow-up (d = 0.27), with no evidence of group differences in program effects. For the language-minority students, a latent profile model with three language-literacy profiles emerged. All three profiles had low vocabulary compared to the full sample but differed in reading and spelling. There were significant differences between the three profiles in initial morphological word knowledge. However, the program effects were not associated with the language-literacy profiles or contextual factors. Findings suggest that language-minority students can benefit from classroom-implemented language instruction programs on an equal level as language-majority peers.”
Examining the Growth Trajectories and Cognitive Predictors of Reading in a Consistent Orthography: Evidence from a 10-year Longitudinal Study (open access)
“We examined the growth trajectories of reading in a consistent orthography (Greek) in two developmental periods (from Grade 1 to Grade 4 and from Grade 4 to Grade 10) and what cognitive skills predict the growth patterns. Seventy-five Greek-speaking children were assessed in Grades 1, 2, 4, 6, and 10 on word-, nonword-, and text-reading fluency. In Grades 1 and 4, they were also assessed on phonological awareness, rapid naming, phonological memory, orthographic knowledge, and articulation rate. Results of growth curve modeling showed that during the first developmental period, there was a rapid initial growth from Grade 1 to Grade 2 followed by a less rapid growth from Grade 2 to Grade 4. In the second developmental period, the slow growth continued. In both developmental periods, rapid naming and orthographic knowledge predicted the initial status of all reading outcomes and phonological memory predicted the initial status of nonword reading fluency. Phonological awareness predicted the initial status of nonword reading fluency in the first developmental period and the initial status of word- and text-reading fluency in the second developmental period. None of the cognitive skills predicted the growth rate in reading skills. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.”
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Examining the Effects of Integrating Anxiety Management Instruction Within a Reading Intervention for Upper Elementary Students With Reading Difficulties
Paper here.
Note. I thought this was such an interesting idea for a study: combining a reading intervention with anxiety management skills! We all know that learning does not occur in a vacuum and these past two years have been anxiety-provoking for everyone. Though more research is definitely necessary, the potentially promising results from this study suggest that multi-component interventions (reading + socio-emotional) could be effective.
Background
15-20% of children have anxiety and struggling readers have heightened anxiety
greater anxiety has been shown to lead to poorer academic and achievement outcomes, and anxiety negatively influences how we learn new information
Incorporating social-emotional elements into instruction is trending, but “…the impact of such interventions on students’ academic performance remains largely unknown.”
Therefore, this study decided to examine the efficacy of a combined reading + anxiety management intervention for struggling readers in 3rd and 4th grade
Rationale
Since there is relatively little research in this potentially promising area (of combining social-emotional skills into academic interventions), the authors decided to conduct a randomized control study with students randomly assigned to one of three conditions (more detail on the conditions is provided in the “conditions & intervention” section:
Small-group reading intervention with anxiety management instruction (RANX)
The reading part of this intervention focused on increasing word reading, fluency, and comprehension skills
The anxiety management instruction part spent about 5 min. per day on identifying thoughts and feelings related to anxiety and practicing relaxation strategies such as using mental imagery, or deep breathing techniques. More on Strong Students Toolbox (SST) - the program used - can be found here). Importantly, these activities were embedded in reading instruction, not delivered as a separate, stand-alone part of the lesson.
Small-group reading intervention with math fact practice (RMATH)
This condition provided students with the same reading instruction as the above group, but instead of incorporating the anxiety management instruction, math instruction was provided. This consisted of interventionist-delivered math calculation instruction (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) and independent practice time. This condition can be thought of as an “active control” condition.
Business-as-usual (BAU) comparison condition
In this condition, the researcher did not provide any instruction. The authors used questionnaires to determine that about half of the students that were randomly assigned to this received some sort of supplemental reading instruction. This type of instruction varied and I would suggest reaching out to the authors to get a copy of the paper if you want the details.
Research Questions
Research Question 1 (RQ1): What were the effects of the RANX (the reading + anxiety intervention) and the RMATH (reading + math practice intervention: think of this as an “active control”) relative to the BAU (business-as-usual) condition on the reading performance of students with reading difficulties in the upper elementary grades?
Research Question 2 (RQ2): To what extent are treatment effects moderated by students’ initial levels of reading anxiety?
Sample
128 3rd and 4th graders from across 3 schools in the southwestern US
The authors break down the race/ethnicity, ELL, and economically disadvantaged status by the three schools (I suggest reaching out to get the paper if you are interested in the demographic info.)
There was some attrition (children moved out of participating schools), but it was not high enough to pose a threat according to the What Works Clearinghouse standards
Conditions & Intervention
The 128 students were randomized to one of three conditions:
small-group reading intervention with anxiety management instruction (RANX)
small-group reading intervention with math fact practice (RMATH)
business-as-usual (BAU) comparison condition (no researcher provided treatment)
Measures
Test of Word Reading Efficiency Sight Word Efficiency subtest
Gates MacGinitie Reading Test (GMRT-4) Reading Comprehension subtest
Test of Silent Reading Efficiency and Comprehension
Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement (KTEA-3) Reading Comprehension subtest
The Test of Silent Contextual Reading Fluency
Main Idea and Inferencing for Reading Comprehension (this was a 20 item experimenter-created test)
The Reading Anxiety scale
Data Analyses
The authors calculated and compared the effect sizes across the different groups on student reading outcomes. Data were fully nested within teacher and partially nested by interventionist. Multiple comparisons were controlled for using the Benjamini-Hochberg correction. Two student-level moderators were included in the models: reading anxiety and word-reading (as measured by the TOWRE sight word efficiency test).
Results
Not all the findings were statistically significant, but on the MINI-RC experimenter-created test, students in the reading + anxiety management condition (RANX) performed statistically significantly better than students in the business-as-usual (BAU) condition (the effect size was 1.22).
What does this meant?
“Initial findings are promising suggesting that students who participated in the RANX treatment made statistically significant gains on reading comprehension when compared with BAU and larger ESs than the RMATH condition that provided the same reading treatment but with no instruction on anxiety management.”
Limitations
While they had a decent sample size, it was still underpowered
They could not get some post-test measures due to COVID
The children in this study were selected based on their reading skills, not their anxiety levels, so in the future it might be interesting to look more at the latter
Take-Home Message
This paper provides very preliminary evidence that integrating anxiety management skills into reading instruction is possible and beneficial. The authors have more studies and data collection in the works so stay tuned for future developments in this area!