Oct. 15th ~Unpacking the unique relationship between set for variability and word reading development; Beyond text complexity: Production-related sources of text-based variability...
The Weekly Email That Keeps You Informed of The Latest Reading Research!
Welcome! This is Volume 2, Issue No. 21
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.
Unpacking the unique relationship between set for variability and word reading development: Examining word- and child-level predictors of performance.
“…Set for variability (SfV) is a powerful predictor of word recognition skill in developing readers. The measure taps children’s ability to go from the decoded form of a word (e.g., /wʌz/for was) to the correct form (e.g., /wɒz/ for was), which is considered an important second step in word decoding. In the current study, we worked to determine what factors lead to variability in children’s ability to perform the task. We found that performance on the SfV task was highly correlated with children’s phonemic awareness skill and also related to their reading and decoding skill. This suggests that children with advanced reading and decoding skill may be using both phonological and spelling skills to go from the decoded form of a word to the correct pronunciation. The findings suggest that further studies evaluating the causal influence of SfV on reading development are warranted.”
Informal preparation and years of experience: Key correlates of dyslexia knowledge among Massachusetts early elementary teachers
“We assessed correlations between dyslexia knowledge and five independent variables among early elementary teachers in Massachusetts…The mean knowledge score was 68 ± 14%; teachers performed best on questions about perceptions of dyslexia, classroom management/teaching strategies and some dyslexia characteristics. Informal education and years of teaching experience were consistently positively associated with knowledge. Formal training and professional development opportunities may need to focus more specifically on learning disabilities and dyslexia. Teachers should also have input on professional development needs. Our findings suggest a need for additional studies on strategies to improve educator knowledge of dyslexia and assess outcomes.”
Beyond text complexity: Production-related sources of text-based variability in oral reading fluency.
“Variability in oral reading fluency (ORF), an indicator of foundational reading skills, has been linked to characteristics of texts. Such text-based variability in ORF has been traditionally attributed to text complexity, but substantial text-based variability has still been observed after accounting for text complexity. We consider that oral reading requires pronouncing the text aloud, which makes it subject to the same articulatory and prosodic constraints as other types of speech productions. Thus, texts with similar levels of complexity may still differ in expected durations when read aloud because of the texts’ segmental and prosodic structure, leading to differences in reading rate. We propose that these production-related effects are also important sources of text-based ORF variability. Data from upper elementary school students in the United States reading a large variety of passages from a popular fiction book showed that a composite measure of production-related effects (i.e., reading rate estimates derived from a text-to-speech synthesis system) explained a substantial amount of text-based ORF variability. Follow-up exploratory analyses indicated that these production-related effects are robust. Because text complexity metrics consist of features that also tap into production constraints, our results motivate an updated interpretation of text complexity effects on ORF and highlight the importance of accounting for production-related effects on ORF, which remain to be acknowledged in the ORF literature as potential sources of text-based variability.”
Cognitive Precursors of Reading: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective (open access)
“In this paper, we survey current evidence on cognitive precursors of reading in different orthographies by reviewing studies with a cross-linguistic research design. Graphic symbol knowledge, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and rapid automatized naming were found to be associated with reading acquisition in all orthographies investigated. However, apart from rapid naming, this association is mostly interactive, meaning that young children develop their symbol knowledge, and phonological and morphological awareness during reading development. Especially for phonological awareness, crosslinguistic evidence involving phonologically transparent orthographies, both alphabetic and non-alphabetic, suggests that it may be less of a hurdle than in the complex English orthography. Cross-linguistic research designs can be a useful methodological approach to test limits of reading theories that were initially developed for alphabetic orthographies.”
Special Issue on Direct Instruction
So, I do not normally curate articles from these journals, but I was informed by one of my subscribers that there was special issue on direct instruction (DI) and all the papers are open access for a limited time:
“…all of the Direct Instruction articles in the September 2021 issues of Perspectives on Behavior Science and Behavior Analysis in Practice are now available to anyone as open access/downloadable pdfs. The “special deal” runs for ~8 weeks.”
You can access the papers at:
PoBS: https://link.springer.com/journal/40614/volumes-and-issues/44-2
BAP: https://link.springer.com/journal/40617/volumes-and-issues/14-3
Predicting and Evaluating Treatment Response: Evidence Toward Protracted Response Patterns for Severely Impacted Students With Dyslexia
Paper here.
Background
about 5-17% of students have dyslexia
we know that intensive instruction is needed to help children with dyslexia acquire adequate reading skills
yet, there is a lot of variation in response to instruction (some do well, some don’t do as well)
knowing ahead of time how students will do can help practitioners allocate resources
Rationale
This study investigated predictors of treatment response in children with dyslexia. Basically, they wanted to see what pre-intervention variables (ex. phonological awareness skill) predicted how well children with dyslexia would perform on near-transfer and far-transfer reading tasks after a 2-year literacy intervention (the intervention was “Take Flight”). Near-transfer refers to tasks that are directly testing what the intervention taught, whereas far transfer refers to the student’s ability to generalize what they were taught to new contexts. Note that the intervention (“Take Flight”) already had demonstrated effectiveness, so this study was not about testing its efficacy. Unlike previous studies, this one assessed additional correlates (variables) such as gender and ADHD to see if they predicted treatment response.
Sample
115 children between 1st and 6th grades
this sample was split into two groups (AR: Adequate responders n= 80 and PRR: Persistently poor responders n= 35)
The two groups (AR, PRR) did not differ on gender, ethnicity, free/reduced lunch status, or special education. However, PPR children were younger, on average, and had a higher rate of ADHD
Measures
Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test, 2nd edition
Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing
Woodcock Reading Mastery Test, 3rd edition
Gray Oral Reading Test, 5th edition
Test of Written Spelling, 5th edition
A curriculum-aligned progress measure to assess near transfer skills
Methods
A series of multilevel logistic regression models were fit to see which variables predicted group status after the intervention (Adequate Response or Persistently Poor Responders). I’m not going to cover the data analysis methods in detail here. I would refer you to the paper (you can email the authors) to read about it more depth.
Results
Most students (66%) responded to the intervention, meeting the stringent criteria for “normalized” word reading (they were in the “Adequate Response” group)
Students with higher word reading skills before the start of the intervention demonstrated greater growth
Fluency turned out to have the strongest influence on group status (Adequate Response or Persistently Poor Responders). This means that, the extent of fluency deficits, even within children with dyslexia, is important to assess, as it predicts treatment response.
Somewhat surprisingly, they found that phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming skill had little influence on which group a child ended up in…the authors explain that this might be because the intervention included intensive phonological awareness instruction
The discrepancy between listening comprehension and reading comprehension did not predict response to intervention
Both gender and ADHD status did predict response to intervention. Interestingly, males were more likely to end up in the “Adequate Response” group than females. A diagnosis of ADHD, however, meant a child was more likely to end up in the “Persistently Poor Response” group.
Overall, the “Adequate Responders” were able to generalize their skills to higher-order reading tasks, whereas the PPRs made progress within the curriculum, but could not generalize to far-transfer reading tasks.
Practical Implications
Treatment response increased linearly with time: this means that students with more severe deficits require longer interventions.
Furthermore, individualized instruction (rather than small group instruction) might be necessary to improve reading skill.
A quote from the authors that I really like:
“Based on these findings, we assert that what marks a child with dyslexia as exceptional is the amount of effort, instruction, and knowledge required to support them in becoming proficient readers.”
Limitations
A few limitations of this study:
relatively small sample size
there could have been other variables that contributed to treatment response that the authors did not measure (like student attendance, class size, etc.)
They did not examine the extent to which treatment fidelity of certain intervention components contributed to treatment response
Maintenance of skills was not assessed