Sept. 24th ~What Makes Reading Difficult?; Reviewing Evidence on the Relations Between Oral Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension for Adolescents + More!
The Weekly Email That Keeps You Informed of the Latest Reading Research!
Welcome! This is Volume 2, Issue No. 18
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.
Updates
Exciting news! Elemeno was recently acquired by MetaMetrics. You can expect the same great content in the Recap!
What Makes Reading Difficult? An Investigation of the Contributions of Passage, Task, and Reader Characteristics on Comprehension Performance
“In this study, I investigated the simultaneous effects of the reader, the text, and the task factors, and their interactions, on reading comprehension, using explanatory item response models. Analyses of a large data set from a commercially available online assessment system with a wide range of readers (n = 10,547) and passages (n = 48) uncovered factors that contribute to reading challenge in complex ways. Among the passage features, sentence length, word frequency, syntactic simplicity, and temporality were found to significantly affect comprehension difficulty. More importantly, these textual features were moderated by student general vocabulary and task type. In general, high-vocabulary readers benefited more from traditional textual affordances (e.g., shorter sentences, familiar words, simpler grammatical constructions) than low-vocabulary readers, especially when asked to recall localized information without accessing the passage. However, a reverse effect was found with temporality: Passages with more time markers helped low-vocabulary readers, whereas low-temporality passages helped high-vocabulary readers. Ultimately, understanding these complex interactions, as highlighted in the RAND Reading Study Group’s heuristic model, will be key in supporting students with their comprehension development.”
Literacy skills seem to fuel literacy enjoyment, rather than vice versa (open access preprint)
“It’s known that how much children enjoy reading and writing and how good they are at it correlates ~.30, but causality remains unknown. We tested direction of causation in 3,690 twins aged 12. Literacy skills impacted literacy enjoyment, but not the other way around. Genetics influence children’s literacy skills, and subsequently influence how much they like and choose to read and write, indicating genetic niche-picking.”
Reviewing Evidence on the Relations Between Oral Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension for Adolescents
Note. This paper is covered in more detail in the Deep Dive Section Below!
“In this article, I systematically review evidence on the relations between oral reading fluency (ORF) and reading comprehension (RC) for adolescents with limited reading proficiency (ALRP) in Grades 6 to12. I organized findings from 23 studies into five themes: (a) unclear role of ORF in the simple view of reading model for ALRP, (b) ALRP have distinct reader profiles, (c) ORF consists of more than automaticity, (d) the role of ORF varies, and (e) oral reading automaticity has tenuous predictive value for ALRP. Results suggest that knowledge of an adolescent’s ORF, as commonly defined and assessed, provides helpful information about an adolescent’s reader profile, but is not sufficient to evaluate instructional needs nor measure progress. I conclude the article with a discussion on implications for researchers, assessment developers, practitioners, and school administrators.”
Educational Interventions for Primary School Students with Dyslexia–a Mapping Study
“…The aim of this study was to present an overview of empirical research related to interventions aimed at primary school students with dyslexia…The results indicated an increasing trend in the last 5 years in the publication of papers in researched areas related to educational interventions for students with dyslexia, with uneven representation among countries. The analyzed empirical studies were mostly analytic, using different designs, with a slightly higher prevalence of (quasi) experimental versus descriptive designs. As expected, the goal of most educational interventions was directed toward the development of (pre)reading skills, with a wider prevalence of structured language-based programs, followed by software specialized to support learning, whereas adaptations of instructional materials and innovative information and communication technology (ICT) were less used….”
What Makes Reading Difficult? An Investigation of the Contributions of Passage, Task, and Reader Characteristics on Comprehension Performance
“In this study, I investigated the simultaneous effects of the reader, the text, and the task factors, and their interactions, on reading comprehension, using explanatory item response models. Analyses of a large data set from a commercially available online assessment system with a wide range of readers (n = 10,547) and passages (n = 48) uncovered factors that contribute to reading challenge in complex ways. Among the passage features, sentence length, word frequency, syntactic simplicity, and temporality were found to significantly affect comprehension difficulty. More importantly, these textual features were moderated by student general vocabulary and task type. In general, high-vocabulary readers benefited more from traditional textual affordances (e.g., shorter sentences, familiar words, simpler grammatical constructions) than low-vocabulary readers, especially when asked to recall localized information without accessing the passage. However, a reverse effect was found with temporality: Passages with more time markers helped low-vocabulary readers, whereas low-temporality passages helped high-vocabulary readers. Ultimately, understanding these complex interactions, as highlighted in the RAND Reading Study Group’s heuristic model, will be key in supporting students with their comprehension development.”
The Influence of Sustained, School-Based Professional Development on Explicit Reading Comprehension Strategy Instruction
“This study sought to examine sustained, school-based professional development (PD) on explicit reading comprehension strategy instruction (ERCSI) and its influence on teacher knowledge and practice and on student outcomes. Eight teachers participated - four first-grade and two teachers each from second and third grade. At the beginning of the school year, the teachers in this study scored less than 50% on an assessment of the declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge of the strategies they were to teach. Through sustained PD that provided a six-lesson framework for explicitly teaching reading comprehension strategies and observations with feedback, the teachers scored higher with regards to knowledge about the comprehension strategies they were teaching. Teachers felt the PD changed their teaching, and they noted changes in their students’ reading behaviors.”
A systematic review and meta-analysis of imaging genetics studies of specific reading disorder
“The imaging genetics of specific reading disabilities (SRD) is an emerging field that aims to characterize the disabilities’ neurobiological causes, including atypical brain structure and function and distinct genetic architecture. The present review aimed to summarize current imaging genetics studies of SRD, characterize the effect sizes of reported results by calculating Cohen’s d, complete a Fisher’s Combined Probability Test for genes featured in multiple studies, and determine areas for future research. Results demonstrate associations between SRD risk genes and reading network brain phenotypes. The Fisher’s test revealed promising results for the genes DCDC2, KIAA0319, FOXP2, SLC2A3, and ROBO1. Future research should focus on exploratory approaches to identify previously undiscovered genes. Using comprehensive neuroimaging (e.g., functional and effective connectivity) and genetic (e.g., sequencing and epigenetic) techniques, and using larger samples, diverse stages of development, and longitudinal investigations, would help researchers understand the neurobiological correlates of SRD to improve early identification.”
Children’s text comprehension From theory & research to support & intervention
“This paper first considers what is meant by good reading comprehension and makes a distinction between the product of reading comprehension and the processes that are required to attain that product. It goes on to consider how less-skilled comprehenders can be identified and provides a summary of the research into how less-skilled and skilled comprehenders differ in terms of the skills and processes that they apply during text comprehension. Finally, the implications of these research findings for instruction are considered, and generalizable research-based recommendations for teaching reading comprehension strategies are considered.”
Dissertations/Theses (not yet peer-reviewed)
The Impact of Explicit, Multisensory Phonics Instruction on Kindergartener’s Decoding Skills
Reviewing Evidence on the Relations Between Oral Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension for Adolescents
Paper here
Background
Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) is a popular, research-based measure for tracking reading development of elementary readers. However, less is known about whether ORF is a useful measure for adolescents’ response to instruction and intervention.
One reason to think that ORF might not be as useful for adolescents is the leveling off of words read correctly per minute (WCPM) around 6th grade (and the related lack of variability). Indeed, “…beginning at the 6th grade level, the number of WCPM stays the same even as the grade levels increase.”
Rationale
There has not yet been a synthesis of quantitative studies that focus on ORF in relation to reading comprehension skill with specific attention to adolescents with limited reading proficiency.
(For the purpose of this literature review, adolescents with limited reading proficiency (ALRP) are students in grades 6-12 who score below the 40th percentile on standardized, norm-referenced tests of reading comprehension.)
Therefore, the author decided to conduct a literature review to address the extent to which ORF predicted RC in ALRPs, and whether a teacher can rely on ORF to determine instructional needs of ALRPs.
Note that the differences in design and analyses of the individual studies prevented the use of meta-analysis as a way of quantitatively synthesizing the results. Instead, the author summarizes the results grouped by 5 different themes.
Search
The author searched the Education Research Complete and ERIC Digest from EBSO Host with a variety of terms related to fluency, comprehension, assessment, learning disabilities, and adolescents
This results in 23 empirical studies that were published between 2006 and 2021
Results
Results are summarized across 5 key themes:
The unclear role of ORF in the Simple View of Reading (SVR) for ALRP
Nearly half the studies cited the SVR as their theoretical framework
Yet, the results were mixed as to how ORF related to RC
For example, some studies found no additional variance explained by ORF, while others did (the discrepancy might have to do with how decoding was measured)
ALRP have distinct profiles
Several studies found that there were distinct groups of ALRP that differed on a variety of sub-skills like vocabulary, or automaticity
Therefore, the author concludes, “The compilation of these studies suggests the predictive nature of ORF to RC is ambiguous due to the range of ORF scores and interaction of multiple reading component skills.”
ORF consists of more than automaticity
Many of the studies stated that if ORF is only measured via rate and accuracy, then its predictive power is limited
Some studies showed that as prosody (intonation while reading) increased, so did reading comprehension
Therefore, better conceptualizations of the construct of fluency might be necessary
The role of ORF varies throughout reading development
Some studies found that ORF predicted RC at relatively the same amount throughout the upper elementary and high school grades, while other studies found ORF to be most predictive of RC in third grade
The above results could be explained by differences in text and item types being used to assess the component skills
Oral reading automaticity has tenuous predictive value for ALRP
Some studies found “…that fluency is more related to decoding in struggling readers, whereas it is more related to comprehension in typical readers…”
Low ORF does not necessarily mean low RC (3 studies showed a reader profile where students were below average on oral reading automaticity, but average for RC.”
Limitations
It is important to remember this is a literature review, not a meta-analysis, and the lack of homogeneity within study design makes it impossible to succinctly synthesize an effect size across all studies.
The author was limited by the available studies and there might be important variables that were not discussed in the studies that might explain the variation between ORF and RC for ALRP.
Practical Implications
In terms of practical implications for teachers, the author recommends using multiple assessments to really hone in on a student’s intervention needs:
“As an example, an adolescent who performs poorly on a measure of RC may or may not need word-level intervention, and only by administering additional measures would instructional needs be clarified. This reader may need a comprehensive reading intervention that includes decoding; however this would only be known by assessing multiple reading skill components through a diagnostic process…Likewise, educators cannot assume a reader has strong RC when presented with an adequate automaticity score alone…”