The use of a Direct Instruction reading program to tutor an adult with a moderate intellectual disability. (2006). Direct Instruction News, 6(2), 6-11.

https://www.nifdi.org/docman/dr-kerry-hempenstall-s-referenced-documents/328-hempenstall-k-2006-the-use-of-a-direct-instruction-reading-program/file.html

This paper was developed from: Hempenstall, K. (1999). Teaching reading to an adult with a moderate intellectual disability using a Direct Instruction program. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Australian Association for Cognitive and Behaviour Therapy, July 5, Fremantle, WA. The paper was prompted by a question on a Discussion List.

“Could any of the reading programs mentioned in this group be used for a 7 year old with Down Syndrome? My daughter has been stuck at the same level for a year and needs help to move on, but so far nothing has worked. She knows phonics, a few blends and about 50 whole words. She attends mainstream school and is taught using the same method as the other children but at her level. If anyone has any experience in this area I would be grateful for some advice”. The RMIT Psychology Clinic was established primarily to provide clinic experience for Masters and Doctoral students and also to provide a low cost psychology service to the community.

It provides for child, adolescent and adult referrals, and about one third of those referred request educational assistance, most involving reading difficulties. Without the resources to provide the necessary teaching to these students, much of our work in these cases comprises assessment followed by educational programming - using proxy intervention agents, usually parents (though sometimes other family members, teachers, and tutors).

In the Clinic, students train the designated agent to use Direct Instruction programs. These programs do not require a knowledge of reading instruction for effective implementation as they are completely scripted. For the beginning reader, the Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons program (Engelmann, Haddox & Bruner, 1983) has been successfully employed for many years (Hempenstall, 2002). This program is written for parents and is based on the original teacher-directed program, Reading Mastery 1 and 2 (Engelmann & Bruner, 1984). In the Clinic, and at schools, training has been provided to parents, volunteers, and teachers to successfully implement this program in an individual or group format. Apart from initial training, the Clinic model involves monitoring of the presenters’ skills, on-going support, and a variety of pre- and post-test evaluation strategies.

The success of the program is heavily dependent upon treatment fidelity, thus the necessity of continued support. This overseeing role has an important secondary effect of enhancing the willpower necessary to achieve success. Our experience has been that without this continued Clinic role, programs are often discontinued prematurely, or are altered to the extent that success is jeopardized. The approach to training involves the following sequence: the clinician provides information about the program; the clinician demonstrates the program - with the parent/tutor initially acting as the student; role reversal, in which the parent/tutor teaches the clinician (who provides feedback); the clinician teaches the student; finally the parent/tutor teaches the student (with clinician feedback). This process of demonstration practice-feedback continues until the clinician is satisfied that the parent/tutor is able to correctly present the program.

At least one complete session is devoted to this sequence; usually another session (one week later) is scheduled before the parent/tutor is asked to commence the 5 times per week program implementation at home. During this week the parent/tutor practises the various tasks in the first couple of lessons. The training of two parent/tutors is advantageous because it reduces the load on one, reduces the problems of student reluctance, and allows for supportive collaboration - all of which may enhance program endurance. Follow-up sessions are (typically) weekly for the first two weeks, fading to fortnightly for two subsequent visits, then monthly until the program is completed.

The amount of support parent/tutors require varies from case to case. Parent/tutors are asked to tape-record the first, 50th and 100th lesson, as such recordings can provide a more dramatic indication of progress than the standardized pre- and post-test results. Additionally, Mastery tests (adapted from the Reading Mastery series) can be given at 2 lesson intervals to detect any teaching/learning problems before errors become entrenched and progress stalls.

At the end of the intervention post testing involves repeating the original test battery to note changes wrought by the program. In this case, the referral arose from an adult literacy centre requesting assessment in order to determine whether a particular person with an intellectual disability (Alice) could be taught to read. Such a question reflects the low level of awareness of the potential of evidence-based practice to assist a wide range of learners. Indeed, little attempt is made to teach reading to intellectually disabled individuals in Australia (Van Kraayenoord, 1994).

In cases where efforts have been made to assist, interventions usually provide a simple list of survival words to be taught; however, these are taught as whole words (equivalent to pictures), rather than as ordered groupings of letters (Browder & Xin, 1998; Katims, 2000).

Alternatively, attempts are to tailor whole language strategies to this population (Van Kraayenoord, 1994). In these settings, teaching phonic principles is not usually considered appropriate, and hence, no generative literacy skills are developed in the clients. Thus, even if the individual learns to identify a limited number of taught words, there will be little or no generalisation to untaught words (Kay-Raining Bird, Cleave, & McConnell, 2000). Alice wanted to learn in order to read magazines and newspapers, a task that requires mastery of the alphabetic principle - that letters and letter combinations map directly onto sounds.

There is little research published on methods of teaching individuals with a moderate intellectual disability to read, but there are some encouraging signs. Also at RMIT University is an early intervention program called EPIC, which has used intensive direct instruction programs for children with Down syndrome from age 18 months (Clunies-Ross, 1988). It continues with such instruction until school commencement, and then provides transition follow-up. Unfortunately, for many of those children their excellent progress under the regimen of the Direct Instruction programs falters when they reach the rather less structured atmosphere of the typical Australian classroom.

One reason for the doubt about the feasibility of teaching reading at this level of disability is the underlying lack of vocabulary presumed to limit the understanding of that which may be correctly decoded. What is the point of correctly pronouncing words that one has never met before in spoken language? It should be noted however that the Alice's language skills approximated those of a kindergarten or first grade student - precisely the time at which reading instruction usually commences.

Additionally, reading becomes for most students the vehicle for the majority of their vocabulary development; thus, it was anticipated that Alice’s vocabulary would increase as a consequence of her reading. Another issue involves the level of determination needed to maintain the effort over an anticipated long period of time to produce real and worthwhile gains.

Fortunately, Alice was a strong willed person whose interest in learning to read was not a whim, but a deeply held desire. She was a relatively independent person - living with a similarly disabled friend, and having a full-time position in an electrical assembly plant to which she travelled alone each day. Training of two tutors in the presentation of the program ensued, and monitoring was maintained over the 12 month period of the intervention. Two lessons from each tutor per week was the average rate of presentation of the program, less than the recommended 5 times per week. The tutors' presentation skills grew dramatically as assessed on a teacher behaviour scale (Bird, Fitzgerald & Fitzgerald, 1994) at regular intervals, and there were numerous hurdles to be overcome as the program progressed, some related to the terminology used in the program. For example, continuous blends (mmmaaannn) rather than discontinuous blends (mmm-aaa-nnn) are important in promoting the correct pronunciation of a word from its blended parts.

It was not until the tutors began to use the expression "slow and smooth" that the client understood what was required. A communication booklet was used to keep each tutor in touch with what the other was doing, and was the vehicle allowing for supervisor/Masters student discussion and resolution of problems as they arose. Videotapes of lessons were monitored by the author at regular intervals and suggestions for overcoming obstacles were conveyed to the tutors via the Masters student.

Outcomes were pleasing if hard won. Initially, lessons required about six actual sessions to reach mastery (reducing to four as the program progressed). Both tutors expressed their delight and satisfaction at the progress made by Alice. Near the conclusion of the intervention, one interchange between the tutors was illuminating. "Alice is moving in leaps and bounds…. It's very exciting about her progress". "Yes, she's doing amazing things". Alice, too, was enthusiastic about her own sense of developing mastery over print, and often commented about the letters in street signs and advertising hoardings that she had formerly recognised iconically, but had not understood alphabetically.

Unfortunately, after 31 completed lessons (131 sessions over almost 12 months), the program was discontinued when the client’s partner became jealous of her progress, and refused to allow her further participation. As a consequence of this sudden action, neither further support nor formal post-testing was possible. Results, however, were evident to those who saw her improved reading behaviours. Alice knew the sounds of all 16 letters and 63 words taught to that stage. She was reading short decodable passages with appropriate comprehension, and had increased her store of letter sounds and words. She had not reached her objective of being able to read the newspaper but was picking out words that she knew, and attempting others of a decodable nature.

So, it appeared that the 100 Lessons program was a viable approach for Alice, a 40 year old woman with intellectual disability. Further research with the program is, of course, needed. However, there is already a significant theoretical rationale for the strategies within the 100 Lessons program. Some of this rationale is outlined below in the form of an annotated bibliography. Can people with an intellectual disability learn to read? “People can acquire transmitted skills like reading at any age, and can benefit from instruction at any age” (Greenough, 1997).

“The bottom line is that the role of mental age is not one of limiting what a child can learn but of limiting the ways in which they can be effectively taught” (Adams, 1990).

“Initially established with learners of more average abilities (for) learning basic skills, these (effective) teaching practices have also been shown to be strongly related to achievement of students with mild mental retardation. ... A substantial amount of research evidence now supports the effectiveness of this approach for special education” (Scruggs & Mastropieri, 1993).

Is there research to support the direct instruction approach? For which students has it been found effective? “The decade of the 1990s will witness, in classrooms serving students with mild mental retardation, the implementation of a group of instructional methods often referred to as effective teaching practices or direct instruction, if we heed the literature published in this area over the past 15 years” (Hendrickson & Frank, 1993, p.11).

“The research literature indicates that (direct instruction) facilitates the acquisition of reading skills. This kind of instruction has been very successful with regular students (Winograd & Hare, 1988). Similarly, it has been applied successfully in teaching students with mild disabilities (Frudden & Healy, 1987; Larrivee, 1989)” (Blanton & Blanton, 1994, p. 24).

“Principles underlying effective instruction may be more influential in the process of learning than the special characteristics of any particular student population” (O'Neill & Dunlap, 1984). “We are beginning to realize that, for many children, direct instruction is required to help them understand how print maps to speech” (Blachman, 1991, p. 47). “Direct instructional practices are 5 to 10 times more effective than the practices attempting to improve unobservable constructs, such as perception” (Kavale, 1990).

Summary of research findings on various reading interventions (Kavale, 1990). Effect size: Strong > 0.5; Moderate 0.35 - 0.5; Weak < 0.35 No. of studies Av. effect size Perceptual-motor training 180 0.08 Modality instruction 39 0.14 Direct instruction 25 0.84 How can a program developed for normal children be effective with adults with a disability?

“Effective reading programmes are not differentially effective - they are equally effective for all groups of children” (Goyen, 1992, p. 234). “Phoneme segmentation ability was positively associated with early oral reading skill in a sample of intellectually disabled children, suggesting that these children learn to read in the same manner as normally developing children” (Cupples & Iacono, 2000). “The critical variable is not age but stage. Whether child or adult, the path to facile reading appears to be similar. A number of studies involving adults with reading difficulties have revealed marked deficits in decoding” (Greenberg, Ehri, & Perin, 1997).

“There is no indication that taking a different approach based on age is warranted. Although the activities for improving decoding skills in older students will differ from those used with younger students, the skills that need to be learned remain the same” (Bruck, 1998). Will it take forever? A concern when initial progress is halting is whether it will always be infuriatingly slow, or is there a habit of learning that leads to an acceleration of future progress.

There is some evidence cited below that: first, we should anticipate slow initial progress and not discontinue intervention prematurely; and second, that an acceleration will occur as the foundations for learning are laboriously laid down. In this case study the average number of trials to mastery did not reduce significantly (except at the very conclusion), but on the other hand, as the difficulty level of the reading tasks increased nor did the number of trials necessary for mastery increase.

Perhaps the hoped-for acceleration would have occurred at a later stage of the intervention had it been possible to continue. “If learners master beginning skills thoroughly they will learn subsequent skills faster, i.e., at an accelerated pace. Initial examples require more time and a greater number of trials to learn than later examples. The basic assumption is that children learn about learning and how-to-learn just as they learn other skills” (Engelmann, 1995, p. 177). “To obtain automaticity in word recognition, some children require extremely high levels of over-learning and practice” (Felton & Wood, 1989, p. 4). “One can expect extensive amounts of practice will be necessary for such students to obtain fluency with text” (Al Otaiba & Hosp, 2004).

Why choose a phonic approach over a meaning-based or survival-reading approach? “Findings from the literature review revealed that individuals with mental retardation have the potential to benefit from phonic analysis strategies and/or instruction. … Phonics programs such as DISTAR were found to be effective in helping children with moderate mental retardation sound out words and blend sounds (Bracey, Maggs, & Morath, 1975; Gersten & Maggs, 1982)” (Joseph & Seery, 2004).

“Rather than relying solely on sight word reading, our program combines phonological awareness, phonics, sight-word fluency, games, vocabulary, and comprehension, plus progress monitoring, and appears to be an appropriate model for teaching reading to students with Down syndrome. All but one student made gains in decoding between 7 months to over 3 years in just 10 weeks” (Al Otaiba & Hosp, 2004).

“Using carefully directed instruction, individuals with intellectual disability can develop decoding, a crucial reading skill – one considered difficult for this population. Emphasising phonological reading skills will pay off if the instruction is sufficiently intense and appropriately targeted” (Conners, Rosenquist, Sligh, Atwell, & Kiser, 2006). “Prompted by the No Child Left Behind Act, the U.S. Department of Education has given $9 million in grants to Southern Methodist University, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Georgia State University to boost the reading scores of children with mental retardation.

The expectation is that by learning to sound out and read words, and also to know what those words mean. Children with mental retardation will navigate more independently through life. “This research will break new ground in determining what levels of reading competence can be achieved by students who are moderately or mildly retarded,” says Patricia Mathes, SMU principal investigator and director of the Institute for Reading Research”.

More information can be found at http://www.smu.edu/smunews/education/reading-research.asp

“In the novice or poor reader, comprehension is limited primarily by difficulties in deciphering print” (Lyon & Moats, 1997). “The low aptitude children learn the phonics they are taught, and do not pick it up as a by-product of more general reading” (Barr & Dreeben, 1983). “It might be prudent to tell children directly about the alphabetic principle since it appears unwise to rely on their discovery of it themselves. The apparent relative success of programs that do that (Bradley & Bryant, 1983; Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1991, 1993, 1995) support the wisdom of direct instruction” (Byrne, 1996, p. 424). Share and Stanovich (1995) consider the alphabetic period as crucial, and Share developed a self-teaching hypothesis in which each successful decoding encounter with an unfamiliar word provides an opportunity to acquire the word specific orthographic information that is the foundation of skilled word recognition and spelling.

The authors assert that effortless whole word reading can only develop through multiple examples of success in phonic decoding, and the instructional emphasis for older students must still be placed on ensuring letter-sound correspondences, blending and segmenting, and adequate practice.

This implies that whole-word recognition strategies should not be over-emphasised in teaching programs, and the instructional emphasis even for older students must still be placed on ensuring letter-sound correspondences, blending and segmenting, and practice. Recent experimental support for the self-teaching hypothesis has been strong (Cunningham, in press; Landi, Perfetti, Bolger, Dunlap, & Foorman, 2006; Levin, Shatil-Carmon, & Asif-Rave, 2006; Levy, Gong, Hessels, Evans, & Jared, 2006; Share, 2004).

Further support for this position is provided by brain imaging studies (Shaywitz et al., 2004) that highlight the importance of the parieto-temporal region of the brain. This region when activated by practice in sounding-out promotes the development of the occipito-temporal region that provides the rapid whole word or orthographic reading characteristic of fluent readers. While much work remains to be completed with this population, the most parsimonious position is to assume that the reading task should define the instructional content regardless of variation in learner characteristics.”

Adams, M. J. (1990). Beginning to read: Thinking & learning about print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Al Otaiba, S., & Hosp, M.K. (2004). Providing effective literacy instruction to students with Down Syndrome. Teaching Exceptional Children, 36(4), 28-35.

Barr, M. & Dreeben, R. (1983). How schools work. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press

Bateman, B. (1991). Teaching word recognition to slow learning children. Reading, Writing & Learning Disabilities, 7, 1-16.

Bird, C., Fitzgerald, E., & Fitzgerald, M. (1994). Teacher monitoring program. Bondi, NSW: The Mastery Learning Centre.

Blachman, B. A. (1991). Getting ready to read: Learning how print maps to speech. In J.F. Kavanagh (Ed.), The language continuum: From infancy to literacy (pp. 41-62).

Parkton, Maryland: York Press. Blanton, L.P., & Blanton, W.E. (1994). Providing reading instruction to mildly disabled students: Research into practice. In K.D. Wood & B. Algozzine (Eds.), Teaching reading to high-risk learners: A unified perspective (pp. 83-98). Boston, MA:

Allyn & Bacon. Browder; D.M., & Xin, Y.P. (1998). A meta-analysis and review of sight word research and its implications for teaching functional reading to individuals with moderate and severe disabilities. Journal of Special Education, 32(3), 130-153.

Bruck, M. (1998). Outcomes of adults with childhood histories of dyslexia. In C. Hulme & R. M. Joshi (Eds.), Reading and spelling: Development and disorders (pp. 179-200).

Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Byrne, B. (1996). The learnability of the alphabetic principle: Children’s initial hypotheses about how print represents spoken speech. Applied Psycholinguistics, 17, 401-426.

Clunies-Ross, G. (1988, July). Direct Instruction and early intervention: A reply to Penney. Bulletin of The Australian Psychological Society, 3-5.

Conners, F.A., Rosenquist, C.J., Sligh, A.C., Atwell, J.A., & Kiser, T. (2006). Phonological reading skills acquisition by children with mental retardation. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 27(2), 121-37.

Cunningham, A.E. (in press). Accounting for children’s orthographic learning while reading text: Do children self-teach? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

Cunningham, A.E. (in press). Accounting for children’s orthographic learning while reading text: Do children self-teach? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

Cupples, L., & Iacono, T. (2000). Phonological awareness and oral reading skill in children with Down syndrome. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 43, 595-608.

Engelmann, S. (1995). Theory of mastery and acceleration. In John Lloyd, Edward Kameenui, and David Chard (Eds.), Issues in educating students with disabilities (pp.177-195). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Engelmann, S., & Bruner, E. C. (1974). Distar Reading I and II. Chicago, Ill: Science Research Associates.

Engelmann, S., Haddox, P., & Bruner, E. C. (1983). Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons. New York:

Simon & Schuster. Felton, R. H., & Wood, F. B. (1989). Cognitive deficits in reading disability and attention deficit disorder. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 22, 3-13.

Goyen, J. (1992). Diagnosis of reading problems: Is there a case? Educational Psychology. 12, 225-237.

Greenberg, D., Ehri, L. C., & Perin, D. (1997). Are word reading processes the same or different in adult literacy students and third-fifth graders matched for reading level? Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 262-275.

Greenough, W.T. (1997). We can't focus just on ages zero to three. APA Monitor, 28, 19.

Hempenstall, K. (2002). Phonological processing and phonics: Towards an understanding of their relationship to each other and to reading development. Australian Journal of Learning Disabilities, 7(1), 4-29.

Hendrickson, J. M., & Frank A. R. (1993). Engagement and performance feedback: Enhancing the classroom achievement of students with mild mental disabilities. In. R. A. Gable & S. F. Warren (Eds.): Advances in mental retardation and developmental disabilities: Strategies for teaching students with mild to severe mental retardation (pp. 11-47). Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley.

Joseph, L.M., & Seery, M.E. (2004). Where is the phonics? A review of the literature on the use of phonetic analysis with students with mental retardation. Remedial and Special Education, 25(2), 88-94.

Katims, D. S. (2000). Literacy instruction for people with mental retardation. Historical highlights and contemporary analysis. Education and Training in Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, 35(1), 3-15.

Kavale, K.A. (1990). Variances & verities in learning disability interventions. In T. Scruggs & B. Wong (Eds.), Intervention research in learning disabilities (pp.3-33). New York: Springer Verlag.

Kay-Raining Bird, E., Cleave, P.L., & McConnell, L. (2000). Reading and phonological awareness in children with Down Syndrome: A longitudinal study. American Journal of Speech - Language Pathology, 9(4), 319-330.

Landi, N., Perfetti, C.A., Bolger, D.G., Dunlap, S. & Foorman, B.R. (2006). The role of discourse context in developing word form representations: A paradoxical relation between reading and learning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 94(2), 114-133.

Levin, I., Shatil-Carmon, S., & Asif-Rave, O. (2006). Learning of letter names and sounds and their contribution to word recognition. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 93(2), 139-165.

Levy, B.A., Gong, Z., Hessels, S., Evans, M.A., & Jared, D. (2006). Understanding print: Early reading development and the contributions of home literacy experiences. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 93(1), 63-93.

Lyon, G.R., & Moats, L.C. (1997). Critical conceptual and methodological considerations in reading intervention research, Journal of Learning Disabilities, 30, 578-588.

O'Neill, R. & Dunlap, G. (1984, Spring). DI principles in teaching autistic children. Direct Instruction News, 11-14. Scruggs, T. & Mastropieri, (1993). Teaching students with mild mental retardation. In R. Gable & S. Warren, Advances in mental retardation and developmental disabilities (pp. 27-41). Vol.5. Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley.

Share, D. (2004). Orthographic learning at a glance: On the time course and developmental onset of self-teaching. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 87(4), 267-298.

Share, D. L., & Stanovich, K. E. (1995). Cognitive processes in early reading development: accommodating individual differences into a model of acquisition. Issues in Education, 1(1), 1-57.

Shaywitz, B.A., Shaywitz, S.E., Blachman, B.A., Pugh K.R., Fulbright, R.K., Skudlarski, P., Mencl, W.E., Constable, R.T., Holahan, J.M., Marchione, K.E., Fletcher, J.M., Lyon, G.R., & Gore, J.C. (2004). Development of left occipitotemporal systems for skilled reading in children after a phonologically- based intervention. Biological Psychiatry, 55, 926-33.

Van Kraayenoord, C. (1994). Literacy for adults with an intellectual disability in Australia. Journal of Reading, 37(7), 608-610.

This concludes my paper:

The use of a Direct Instruction reading program to tutor an adult with a moderate intellectual disability. (2006). Direct Instruction News, 6(2), 6-11.

https://www.nifdi.org/docman/dr-kerry-hempenstall-s-referenced-documents/328-hempenstall-k-2006-the-use-of-a-direct-instruction-reading-program/file.html

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Now for papers of recent times. The research documents below are selected from 2020 to 2025.

Al review

A study demonstrated that Direct Instruction, specifically "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons," can be effectively used to tutor adults with moderate intellectual disabilities. The program, delivered by community carers under supervision, led to improvements in reading skills, including decoding and comprehension of simple texts.

Here's a more detailed look at the findings:

Program Implementation:

The study involved a community carer delivering the "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" program to an adult with moderate intellectual disability. 

Supervision:

The carer's work was supervised by professionals from the RMIT University Psychology Clinic. 

Results:

The adult learner showed significant progress in reading, including:

Learning letter sounds 

Recognizing and reading words 

Reading short, decodable passages with comprehension 

Effectiveness:

The study highlights the potential of Direct Instruction to help individuals with intellectual disabilities acquire basic literacy skills, particularly in areas like phonological awareness and decoding. 

This research suggests that with appropriate support and a structured approach like Direct Instruction, adults with intellectual disabilities can achieve meaningful gains in reading ability.” 

Reading Ability and a Comparison of Reading and Listening Comprehension for Students Aged 16–22 with Intellectual Disability (2024)

“This study of 70 students with intellectual disabilities (ID) aged 16-22 found that few reached grade 3 reading levels, with better listening comprehension skills, particularly for those with moderate ID, suggesting listening practice may aid text assimilation.

Abstract: Many studies have examined students with reading and writing difficulties. However, relatively little research has examined reading difficulties in students with intellectual disabilities (ID). The present study included 70 students, 46 with mild and 24 with moderate ID, from six different upper secondary schools for students with ID in southern Sweden.

The study had the following aims: first to investigate the students' reading ability, and second to compare students' reading and listening abilities. The results revealed that few of the students reached the average decoding and reading comprehension levels for grade 3 students in compulsory school.

Furthermore, students generally performed better on listening comprehension than reading comprehension, and this benefit was particularly prominent for students with moderate ID. These findings suggest that systematically practicing listening comprehension may help students with ID increase text assimilation. However, more research is needed to confirm this possibility.”

Sand, C., Selenius, H., Fälth, L., & Svensson, I. (2024). Reading Ability and a Comparison of Reading and Listening Comprehension for Students Aged 16–22 with Intellectual Disability. International Journal of Disability Development and Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/1034912x.2024.2355341

Instructivism in Literacy as a Means for Social Justice: An Effective Path Forward with Direct Instruction Reading (2023)

“This paper contextualizes the American literacy achievement gap by discussing systemic causes that have contributed to it, the history of the federal government’s response to this problem, and the promise of Direct Instruction in addressing this achievement gap. Referring to an “instructional gap” rather than “achievement gap” in reading, the authors argue that there is significant room for improvement in our schools through wider increase application of DI Reading curricula to marginalized students’ access to quality reading instruction. An overview of the history, theory, program design elements, and evidence of effectiveness associated with DI reading programs is provided, including a discussion of the criticism and resistance that DI reading programs have received over time that have contributed to the lack of wider adoption and application.” 

Ramaswamy, S., Lackey, A.D. (2023). Instructivism in Literacy as a Means for Social Justice: An Effective Path Forward with Direct Instruction Reading. Behav. Soc. Iss. 33, 532–562 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-023-00151-4

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Speech-to-text intervention to support text production for students with intellectual disabilities, Disability and Rehabilitation (2024)

“Students with mild intellectual disability often struggle with reading , limiting their learning potential. This study examines whether digital technology can enhance text comprehension among five students with mild intellectual disability in Sweden. Using a single-subject design, the student's ability to comprehend and retell short, accessible texts was assessed under two conditions: reading independently and listening with text-to-speech (TTS).

The results revealed varied outcomes; some students demonstrated notable improvements in text comprehension and increased independence when using TTS (PEM = 0.08-0.75), while others experienced minimal or no benefit. These findings suggest that TTS can be a valuable tool for some students but may not meet the needs of all, and teachers should consider alternative approaches to address the diverse needs of these students in developing text comprehension.

Future research should further combine TTS with text comprehension strategies to enhance reading and listening comprehension for these students, highlighting the need for ongoing research to improve educational practices and ensure effective learning environments.

It has become increasingly common, both in educational and professional settings and in personal life, to conduct written communication via email and text messages rather than making a phone call. To avoid exclusion from this context, possessing a reasonably proficient level of written language skills is important.

For many individuals who struggle to read and comprehend written text, writing often poses even greater challenges for students with writing difficulties in general and for students with intellectual disabilities [1,2].

The writing process encompasses various stages, including planning, transcription, and revision [3]. Transcription encompasses both handwriting and spelling. The ability to proficiently engage in traditional pen-and-paper writing necessitates fundamental competencies such as accurately recognising letter forms and their composition, word comprehension, and spelling [4].

Consequently, the revision process is a metacognitive activity that involves interactions between multiple processes during writing [5].

Difficulties in transcription processes such as handwriting and spelling disrupt the quantity and quality of writing [6].

 Reading is an integral sub-skill of the writing process, facilitating the ability to read and edit texts and address issues such as spelling errors, grammatical inaccuracies, and organisational deficiencies [7].

For students with intellectual disabilities, these requirements pose a challenge, as research indicates that a significant proportion of students with intellectual disabilities exhibit weak reading skills and a larger percentage struggle with writing tasks [1,2,8].

Moreover, numerous studies have highlighted the necessity of extended time, increased learning opportunities, and better teacher support to consolidate skills for students with intellectual disabilities in contrast to their peers without intellectual disabilities [1,9,10].

Several studies have examined the reading abilities of students with intellectual disabilities [2,8,11–13]. Few studies have investigated the writing proficiency of students with intellectual disabilities. In a literature review aimed at identifying effective interventions for teaching writing to students with intellectual disabilities, Joseph and Konrad [14] identified nine studies involving 31 students who met the established criteria. The methods investigated included visual support, repetition, modelling, and positive reinforcement.

The review results indicated that students with intellectual disabilities could benefit from writing instruction and grasp learning strategies that promote writing development, similar to students without intellectual disabilities, albeit with adaptations tailored to their individual needs [14]. Pennington et  al. [15] investigated the effects of an intervention in sentence writing for three students aged 10–12 years with intellectual disabilities. The intervention involved using an app and specific teaching strategies to teach participants how to create sentences in response to texts. For each session, the teacher selected books that matched the student’s reading levels. After reading a book, the app selected words and created sentences in response to the story.

The authors concluded that a systematic approach to teaching and the use of technology can be employed to develop writing skills in this unique group of students [15]. In an article by Canella-Malone et  al. [1], the researchers highlighted six components teachers should consider when instructing students with intellectual disabilities to write.

These components (ACCESS) include accommodation and assistive technology, concrete topics, critical skills, explicit instruction, strategic instruction, and systematic evaluation. While the components can be used independently, the authors recommend that teachers consider all components during their planning. Despite tailored and evidence-based instruction, it remains unclear which methods successfully support students with intellectual disabilities in producing text [1].

Bakken et al. [16] conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine writing interventions for students with intellectual disabilities. The interventions used were diverse, with some focusing on cognitive strategy instruction, while others utilised technology-based tools, such as tablets and apps with text-to-speech (TTS) capabilities. This review emphasises the importance of personalised and supportive writing interventions, use of technology, and need for more high-quality research to better support students with intellectual disabilities in developing their writing skills [16].

Over the past decades, assistive writing tools such as various speech-to-text (STT) programs have emerged as a complement or alternative to traditional handwriting. This technology enables text to be written by speaking directly to an app or computer program. Utilising this technology, students with writing difficulties can bypass the transcription process and direct their focus to the text content [17].

In a group-based intervention study, speech-to-text (STT) was used to enhance the writing skills of children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). Data were collected over five school years from 30 children (8–16 years) with various speech and writing difficulties. The intervention involved students using STT to produce texts.

The main findings suggested that STT was an effective educational tool for enhancing writing skills in students with significant support needs [18]. Furthermore, teachers can establish an inclusive and accessible learning environment to provide students with writing difficulties with the same opportunity to express their creativity like students without such difficulties [18].

To the best of our knowledge, research on the use of STT technology among students with intellectual disabilities is lacking. However, in a review of the use of STT for adolescents with learning difficulties in secondary education conducted by Matre and Cameron [19], eight peer-reviewed studies that met the inclusion criteria (students with disabilities such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, or specific language impairment) were identified.

These studies primarily focused on students facing challenges directly related to the development of writing skills. Students with average writing abilities and intellectual disabilities were excluded, as the latter group was considered heterogeneous and thus challenging to compare with students primarily struggling with written language.

The review’s findings suggested that STT may enhance students’ ability to produce text with fewer errors and improve reading comprehension and word recognition. However, with only eight peer-reviewed studies from three different countries (Sweden, the USA, and Scotland), there is a substantial need for more robust international research before further insights into the effects of STT on writing-related skills for students with writing difficulties can be provided [19].

While most of these studies have primarily focused on students with learning difficulties, there appears to be a significant gap in research on how STT affects the writing production of students with intellectual disabilities [19–22].

This study aimed to investigate whether students with intellectual disabilities can enhance their text production capabilities by utilising STT as an alternative to traditional pen or keyboard writing. This study poses the following research questions:

• Does individually tailored intervention training in STT increase text production (word and sentence counts) compared to handwriting or keyboard typing for students with intellectual disabilities?
• Does the systematic use of STT result in text containing more concrete and abstract content components than handwriting or keyboard typing for students with intellectual disabilities?”

Christina Sand, Idor Svensson, Staffan Nilsson, Heidi Selenius & Linda Fälth (22 Jul 2024): Speech-to-text intervention to support text production for students with intellectual disabilities, Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, DOI: 10.1080/17483107.2024.2381785 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17483107.2024.2381785

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Decoding and Reading Comprehension (2012)

Decoding and Reading Comprehension. A Meta-Analysis to Identify Which Reader and Assessment Characteristics Influence the Strength of the Relationship in English

Reading Comprehension and its Development

Reading comprehension development is closely linked to a reader's ability to read words accurately and fluently. The Simple View of Reading (SVR) posits that reading comprehension results from a reader's word reading (decoding) skill and listening comprehension.

Key Points:

SVR framework emphasizes the importance of decoding (word reading) and linguistic (listening) comprehension in reading ability.

Decoding plays a crucial role in understanding written text alongside listening comprehension.

The SVR model has aided in identifying different types of poor readers and influenced the UK reading curriculum and genetic research on reading ability.

Despite the commonly accepted strong link between decoding and reading comprehension, studies show varying degrees of variance in reading comprehension explained by decoding measures.

Some research suggests decoding skill can largely predict reading comprehension performance, while others find a negligible contribution of decoding to reading comprehension.

The meta-analysis in this paper focuses on factors influencing the association between decoding and reading comprehension, considering characteristics of readers and assessment methods.

Reader Characteristics

The relationship between word reading ability and reading comprehension varies across different age groups of readers. Research studies have shown:

Word reading ability has a greater impact on reading comprehension in younger readers compared to older readers.

Decoding plays a more significant role in reading comprehension for younger individuals.

Age is not the sole factor influencing the correlation between word reading and reading comprehension.

Variability in reading comprehension explained by word reading differs within the same age groups.

The level of word reading skill or decoding competence can also affect the relationship between word reading and reading comprehension.

Listener comprehension and vocabulary knowledge are additional factors influencing reading comprehension.

Longitudinal studies provide mixed results regarding the changes in the relationship between decoding and reading comprehension over time, influenced by factors like age range and other reader characteristics. While age is important, it does not completely explain the variability in the correlation between word reading and reading comprehension. The literature suggests that word decoding ability significantly impacts reading comprehension levels, supporting the current theoretical understanding.

Characteristics of Reading Assessments: Decoding and Reading Comprehension

The relationship between decoding and reading comprehension can be influenced by various factors, including how each component is assessed:

Different methods used to assess decoding can impact its relationship with reading comprehension:

Efficient word recognition is often considered decoding, but for younger readers, pronouncing pseudowords might be a more suitable measure.

Studies have shown that the type of material used for decoding assessments (pseudowords, isolated words, or text) can lead to different relationships with reading comprehension, with pseudoword reading showing the weakest correlation.

Semantic knowledge plays a role in decoding performance: pseudoword reading does not benefit from semantic cues, while reading isolated words or words in context can be influenced by the reader's semantic knowledge and contextual cues.

The method employed for reading comprehension assessment can also impact its correlation with word reading:

Three aspects of reading comprehension assessment are considered:

Genre and format of the material used.

Task requirements and the type of information assessed.

Administration procedures followed during assessment.

Genre and Format of the Reading Comprehension Material

The genre and format of reading comprehension material play a crucial role in how decoding skills influence reading comprehension:

Genre Comparison:

Comprehension of narrative texts is more influenced by decoding skills than comprehension of expository texts.

For expository texts, world knowledge is a better predictor of comprehension than decoding skills.

Format Impact:

Decoding measures vary in explaining reading comprehension based on the assessment format.

Stronger relations are seen with sentence cloze formats compared to passage reading with open-ended questions.

Decoding errors have a different influence based on whether the task involves sentence completion or passage reading.

Task and Assessment:

Various tasks like free recall, cued recall, and multiple-choice affect the association between decoding skills and comprehension.

The method of assessment, such as cued recall or multiple-choice, affects the variance explained by decoding, especially for expository texts.

Nature of Questions:

Passage-dependent questions rely on accurate word reading, while passage-independent questions can be answered from general knowledge.

The nature of questions (literal vs. inferential) influences the decoding-reading comprehension relationship.

Administration Procedures:

Differences in test administration, such as correcting word reading errors or allowing re-reading, impact the decoding-reading comprehension relationship.

Factors like providing help with decoding, time limits, re-reading, and oral reading influence the strength of the relationship.

In summary, factors like genre, format, tasks, question nature, and administration procedures can moderate the relationship between decoding skills and reading comprehension, leading to variations in the explained comprehension variance.

Rationale for this Meta-Analysis

The researchers have identified various factors that could impact the correlation between word decoding and reading comprehension, suggesting that these factors likely interact rather than act independently. Factors such as the type of assessment and reader characteristics are expected to influence this relationship differently across age groups. Conducting a meta-analysis allows for examining the contributions of these factors and their potential interactions. The meta-analysis approach enables comparison across studies with diverse samples and assessment methods, addressing how factors like age, decoding skills, listening comprehension, and vocabulary knowledge affect the decoding-reading comprehension link.

Key points included:

Factors influencing the word decoding-reading comprehension relationship may interact rather than act independently.

The meta-analysis method allows for comparing studies with different sample characteristics and assessment methods.

The analysis aims to explore how reader characteristics and assessment features contribute to variations in the strength of the word decoding-reading comprehension relationship.

The research questions focus on understanding the relative impact of reader characteristics and assessment characteristics on this relationship and how they may interact over the course of literacy development.

Literature Base

The authors conducted a comprehensive search in English peer-reviewed journals using PsycInfo and ERIC databases to identify relevant studies on decoding and reading comprehension. Here is a breakdown of the literature search process:

Search included various combinations of keywords related to decoding and reading comprehension.

Initially limited search to a 20-year range as done in other meta-analyses.

Addressed concerns about publication bias, where only studies confirming initial hypotheses are published.

Not assumed that only strong correlations between decoding and reading comprehension are found in published papers, as authors may investigate different hypotheses.

Inclusion Criteria                    

The researchers reviewed 2489 article abstracts and excluded studies based on specific criteria to narrow down to 110 relevant studies for their meta-analysis. Here are the key points of the inclusion criteria process:

Excluded studies included opinion pieces, non-empirical papers, single case studies, and those not related to text reading or involving special populations like individuals with brain lesions, deafness, autism, etc.

Studies comparing developmental problems with typically developing samples excluded data related to the former group.

Studies with participants having reading disabilities were not excluded to investigate the impact of decoding competence on the relationship between decoding and reading comprehension.

Only studies conducted in English were included to control the impact of different writing systems on decoding and reading comprehension relationships, leading to the exclusion of 320 studies.

Studies involving bilingual readers or learners of English as a second language were excluded to avoid biases from transfer effects between languages, resulting in the exclusion of 105 studies.

Objective and quantitative tasks assessing both decoding and reading comprehension were necessary for inclusion, leading to the removal of 361 studies that did not meet this criterion.

Correlations obtained from composite measures of reading skills were excluded to analyze the specific relationship between decoding and reading comprehension methods, resulting in the removal of 39 studies.

Studies with decoding and reading comprehension measures taken at different time points or age groups were excluded, unless all children were registered in the same school year, resulting in the exclusion of 55 studies.

Selected studies had to report at least one correlation between decoding and reading comprehension measures, leading to the exclusion of 207 studies that did not provide this data.

This rigorous inclusion process resulted in 110 studies meeting all criteria for the meta-analysis, providing valuable insights despite the exclusion of many potential studies.

Dependent/Criteria Variable

The dependent/criteria variable in this study regarding the decoding-reading comprehension relationship was assessed using Pearson's correlation. Here are the key points from this section:

Pearson's correlation is a widely used effect size measure in meta-analyses.

If multiple valid correlations were provided, they were considered.

When only the R^2 value was available, it was converted to the corresponding correlation value.

To prevent interpretative issues, data from the same sample were coded only once, even if they appeared in multiple papers.

The primary focus was on evaluating the strength of the relationship between variables in the analysis.

Coding

The researchers coded studies based on reader characteristics and assessment characteristics related to decoding and reading comprehension. Some studies lacked complete information, prompting the authors to contact them for missing details. This process allowed them to fill in the gaps. Additionally:

Studies were categorized based on variables such as reader characteristics and assessment types.

Contacting authors for missing information helped complete the dataset for analysis.

The researchers coded the name of the reading comprehension test and the number of participants for each correlation.

Participant numbers were used to weight effect sizes, giving more importance to correlations from larger sample sizes.

Interrater Reliability

The researchers achieved agreement on variables and categories through discussion and consensus. To ensure the coding system's effectiveness, both authors and a third coder tested it on a subset of papers from the final sample, making necessary clarifications. The first author then used this system to code all studies. Intercoder reliability was assessed by having another judge independently code ten studies, resulting in a mean kappa value of .91 across all variables. Noteworthy kappa values included:

Age: .73

Type of reader: 1

Decoding measure: .87

Reading comprehension test: 1

Reading comprehension format: .60

Type of reading comprehension task: .70

Information assessed: 1

Help provided with decoding: 1

Reading aloud: 1

Participant reads test items: 1

Overview of Studies

The meta-analysis encompasses 110 studies with data from 42916 participants across 145 samples, predominantly using a correlational design (54 studies). Various methods were employed to analyze relationships between variables, including structural equation modeling, regression equations, factor analysis, and latent variable studies. Additionally:

Group comparisons were conducted in 29 studies.

A few longitudinal studies were included.

A small number of experimental/instructional studies (6) were part of the analysis.

Detailed information on all studies is available in an online summary for reference.

Meta-Analytic Procedures

The researchers utilized Pearson's r as the effect size index to measure the correlation between decoding and reading comprehension. They removed three outliers before conducting a two-step meta-analysis. Here is an overview of the meta-analytic procedures:

Conducted a two-step meta-analysis (mixed meta-analysis) due to missing data needed for corrections and variable error of measurement.

Corrected correlations for error of measurement in both decoding and reading comprehension variables in the first step, especially those obtained from samples of poor or average decoders.

Used artefact distributions in the second step to correct for error of measurement using Cronbach's alpha or KR-20 coefficient.

Results are conservative due to the inability to fully correct for measurement error, causing a downward bias in the reported results.

Furthermore, the researchers avoided transforming correlations to Fisher's Zr to prevent biased estimations, opting for random effect methods that consider variations in population parameters across studies.

Results

The results section of the paper is structured into four main parts focusing on different aspects of the study:

Combined Correlation: The authors first present the correlation results collapsed over different task types and reader characteristics.

Reader Characteristics Impact: The second part delves into how reader characteristics influence the correlation between decoding and reading comprehension.

Assessment Characteristics Exploration: In the third section, the researchers investigate the impact of assessment characteristics on the correlation.

Interaction Analysis: The fourth section examines potential interactions between reader and assessment characteristics that could alter the decoding-reading comprehension correlation.

These results are detailed in Table in the paper.

Examining the Strength of the Decoding-Reading Comprehension Relationship

In this section, the researchers analyzed 647 uncorrected correlations related to decoding and reading comprehension. After filtering out outliers, 563 p values were examined, with 90% showing significant correlations. To refine the data, a subset of 144 independent correlations was selected, each representing a unique sample to prevent duplication. For cases where multiple relevant correlations existed for a sample, averages were calculated, prioritizing data from the youngest group in longitudinal studies.

Key Points:

The average corrected correlation between decoding and reading comprehension was substantial at 0.74, with a significant confidence interval of [0.36, 1.0].

The analysis revealed that 3.15% of the variance was due to sampling error, indicating a diverse pool of effect sizes and the need to investigate potential moderators.

The observed variance (S^2_rc), sampling error variance (S^2_ec), and confidence intervals were calculated to contextualize the average corrected correlation.

Do Different Reader Characteristics Affect the Strength of the Relationship between Decoding and Reading Comprehension?

The researchers analyzed various reader characteristics like age, type of reader, listening comprehension level, and vocabulary level to evaluate their impact on the relationship between decoding and reading comprehension. Here are the key points included:

For continuous variables like listening comprehension level, a meta-regression using SPSS macros was conducted.

Different subgroups of correlations were created for each hypothetical categorical moderator, such as age of the reader or type of reader, from a total of 647 correlations.

Average corrected correlations were calculated for each subgroup to assess the impact of reader characteristics on the decoding-reading comprehension relationship.

Age was found to be a significant moderator, with older age correlating to a decrease in the strength of the relationship between decoding and reading comprehension.

Studies classified by age groups showed a decreasing correlation from younger to older age groups, reinforcing age as an important moderator.

Reader type, despite expectations, was not a significant moderator of the decoding-reading comprehension relationship based on the analysis of poor decoders, unselected readers, and average decoders.

In conclusion, age was identified as a significant moderator influencing the decoding-reading comprehension relationship, whereas reader type did not show significant moderation effects based on the analysis conducted.

The influence of listening comprehension level

The studies analyzed 28 cases of listening comprehension, but only 10 studies had sufficient data for inclusion in the analyses. Here are the key findings regarding the influence of listening comprehension level:

Listening comprehension level significantly predicted and moderated the relationship between decoding and reading comprehension.

It explained a substantial portion of the systematic variance in the effect sizes, with an R2 value of 0.40.

The relationship between listening comprehension and the decoding-reading comprehension correlation was negative (Beta = -0.63), indicating that higher listening comprehension scores were linked to lower decoding-reading scores.

The influence of vocabulary level

In a similar analysis to that of listening comprehension, researchers looked into the impact of vocabulary level on the decoding-reading comprehension relationship. Here are the main results:

A new set of 20 correlations was examined to evaluate the influence of vocabulary level on decoding and reading comprehension.

Unlike listening comprehension, vocabulary level did not emerge as a significant predictor of the relationship between decoding and reading comprehension, with an R2 value of 0.20.

Do the Methods Used to Assess Decoding and Reading Comprehension Influence the Strength of their Relationship?

The methods used to assess decoding and reading comprehension play a significant role in determining the strength of their relationship. The study grouped decoding measures into nine categories based on various factors like stimuli (words/pseudowords), indicators (accuracy, speed), presentation format (list or context), and task (reading or lexical decision).

Key Points:

Different categories of decoding measures showed significant correlations with reading comprehension (average correlation ranging from .39 to .86), except for lexical decision measures which had a lower correlation.

Accuracy of single word reading in a list (correlation of .86) was found to be strongly related to reading comprehension compared to speed of word reading in context (correlation of .48).

Accuracy of word reading in context with fixed time (correlation of .79) showed a stronger correlation with reading comprehension than accuracy of pseudoword reading (correlation of .56).

The measure used to assess decoding acted as a moderator in influencing the relationship between decoding and reading comprehension.

Reading Comprehension

The researchers analyzed nine different tests of reading comprehension, each showing significant average corrected correlations ranging from 0.26 to 0.96. Notably, the Nelson-Denny Reading Test and the Gray Oral Reading Test had lower correlations compared to other tests. The Neale Analysis of Reading Ability showed the highest correlation. Here's how they further analyzed these assessments:

They categorized reading comprehension tasks into nine variables to explore the differences observed, including genre, format of material, type of task, information assessed, rereading option, decoding help, time limit, reading aloud, and participant interaction.

By creating multiple sets of independent correlations, they investigated the moderating effects of each variable and contrasted different levels within each.

Analyzing 23 new corrected correlations, they found that variables related to administration procedures like time limits, reading aloud, and participants reading test items were highly correlated. Tests allowing decoding help exhibited these characteristics.

Key observations from the analysis include:

Reading comprehension tasks, irrespective of nature, showed moderate to high correlations with decoding, except for expository material.

Two variables, material genre, and participant reading aloud, were identified as moderators affecting the correlation between decoding and comprehension.

Higher correlation was noted for narrative material compared to expository, and higher correlation for silent reading compared to reading aloud.

Comprehension

The researchers analyzed correlations between reader and assessment characteristics in two age groups: up to 10 years old and older than 10 years. Here's a breakdown of the findings:

Age had a significant impact on the correlation between decoding and reading comprehension, with a notable drop in strength after 10 years old.

Different sets of correlations were created for younger (87 correlations) and older (61 correlations) readers, allowing for age-based contrasts.

Average corrected correlations were generally higher for younger readers (range: .59 to .97, average = .80) compared to older readers (range: .22 to .62, average = .47).

Patterns of moderators influencing the decoding-reading comprehension correlation differed between younger and older readers.

Findings for Younger Readers:

Correlations were higher for real word reading accuracy measures compared to speed measures and lexical decision tasks.

Providing help with decoding material resulted in higher correlations with reading comprehension.

Reading silently led to a stronger decoding-reading comprehension correlation compared to reading aloud.

Findings for Older Readers:

Only one moderator emerged: the decoding measure, with real word reading accuracy showing higher correlations than speed measures and lexical decision tasks.

In summary, the study highlighted:

Lower correlations for pseudoword reading accuracy and lexical decision compared to real word reading.

Higher correlations when reading comprehension tests provided help to readers during decoding.

Stronger decoding-reading comprehension correlation when participants read silently, especially among younger readers.

Discussion

The meta-analysis explored the relationship between decoding and reading comprehension while considering various reader and assessment characteristics that moderate this relationship across different ages. Here are the key points from the discussion:

Moderators of the Relationship:

Two reader characteristics (age and listening comprehension level), nature of decoding assessment, and three reading comprehension assessment characteristics significantly influenced the decoding-reading comprehension relationship.

Characteristics of reading comprehension assessment were especially significant for younger readers.

The strength of the decoding-reading comprehension relationship declined with increasing age, supporting the Simple View of Reading (SVR).

Non-linear Relationship:

A critical change in the correlation strength was observed around 10 years, indicating a reduction in strength possibly due to a shift in decoding ability.

Assessment Characteristics:

Real word reading and pseudoword reading are not interchangeable; pseudoword reading might underestimate the impact of decoding on reading comprehension.

Measures of decoding should include both real and pseudowords to accurately identify reading ability difficulties.

Influence of Assessment Procedures:

Decoding-reading comprehension relationship was influenced by the way decoding was measured, with some procedures affecting the relationship more than others.

Genre of the text significantly impacted the decoding-reading comprehension correlation, especially strengthening it for narrative texts.

Implications:

Assessment procedures play a vital role in understanding a child's reading comprehension ability.

Assessing both decoding and reading comprehension is crucial for an accurate profile of reading ability at any age.

Limitations:

Limitations included the lack of distinct reader groups, limited studies reporting listening and language data, and confounding factors in reading comprehension assessments.

Conclusion:

The study confirmed a relationship between decoding and reading comprehension across ages but highlighted the changing nature of this relationship, emphasizing the need for comprehensive assessment methods to diagnose reading difficulties accurately.

Reader Characteristics

The section details the characteristics of the readers involved in the study, including aspects like age, word reading skill, listening comprehension level, and vocabulary level. Here is a breakdown of the reader characteristics:

Age:

The average age of readers is recorded in years using the decimal system (e.g., 8.70 years).

Type of Reader According to Word Reading Skill:

Readers are classified into three categories based on their word reading skill: a) Poor decoders b) Unselected c) Average decoders

Listening Comprehension Level:

Reader characteristics also include the percentage of success on the listening comprehension task. If multiple tasks were used, an average percentage was calculated and recorded.

Vocabulary Level:

The percentage of success in the vocabulary knowledge task is noted for each reader. This metric provides insights into the readers' vocabulary proficiency.

Note:

Genre was not classified for materials presented as single sentences as multiple sentences are typically needed to determine the structure and genre of a discourse.

For Peer Review: Online Supplemental Table 3 - Summary of Studies

This section provides a detailed overview of the studies included in the meta-analysis. The key points covered are:

Study characteristics: Different studies with varied methodologies, sample sizes, and research objectives were included.

Data sources: Researchers collected data from multiple sources, which could include databases, surveys, or experimental studies.

Variables analyzed: The studies likely examined different variables or factors relevant to the research question.

Inclusion criteria: Details about how studies were selected for the meta-analysis, including any specific criteria or filters used.

Sample sizes: Information on the number of participants or data points in each study.

Main findings: Brief highlights of the key results or conclusions from each study.

Study design: Variations in study designs, such as experimental, observational, or longitudinal studies, may be noted.

Quality assessment: Mention of any assessments done to evaluate the quality or reliability of the included studies.

This section offers a comprehensive glimpse into the studies that form the basis of the meta-analysis, outlining their diversity and relevance to the overall research investigation.”

García, J. R., & Cain, K. (2014). Decoding and Reading Comprehension A Meta-Analysis to Identify Which Reader and Assessment Characteristics Influence the Strength of the Relationship in English. Review of Educational Research, 84(1), 74–111. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654313499616

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Investigating Reading Comprehension in Adolescents with Intellectual Disabilities (2021)

ABSTRACT

“Reading comprehension difficulties are common in individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID), but the influences of underlying abilities related to reading comprehension in this group have rarely been investigated. One aim of this study was to investigate the Simple View of Reading as a theoretical framework to describe cognitive and linguistic abilities predicting individual differences in reading comprehension in adolescents with non-specific ID. A second aim was to investigate whether predictors of listening comprehension and reading comprehension suggest that individuals with ID have a delayed pattern of development (copying early grade variance in reading comprehension) or a different pattern of development involving a new or an unusual pattern of cognitive and linguistic predictors.

A sample of 136 adolescents with non-specific ID was assessed on reading comprehension, decoding, linguistic, and cognitive measures. The hypotheses were evaluated using structural equation models. The results showed that the Simple View of Reading was not applicable in explaining reading comprehension in this group, however, the concurrent predictors of comprehension (vocabulary and phonological executive-loaded working memory) followed a delayed profile.

DISCUSSION

The first aim of the present study was to examine the applicability of the Simple View of Reading (SVR) in a sample of adolescents with non-specific ID. The second aim was to identify the concurrent cognitive and linguistic predictors of listening and reading comprehension in the same sample to evaluate whether delay or difference approaches best accounted for the findings.

The results showed that the SVR was not supported in this group. For the second aim, our results were for the most part consistent with a delayed profile of predictors associated with listening and reading comprehension. The results from the present study show that listening comprehension and decoding alone are not sufficient when explaining reading comprehension abilities in adolescents with non-specific ID. In addition to these components, reading comprehension appeared to be influenced by vocabulary and phonological executive-loaded working memory (ELWM). In fact, when direct paths were established from vocabulary and phonological ELWM to reading comprehension, the impact of listening comprehension decreased to almost zero.

These results are to some extent in line with results from Ouellette and Beers (2010), where the authors argue for a “not so simple view of reading.” In their study, which investigated the SVR in a sample of typically developing children, vocabulary was found to predict reading comprehension even after decoding, listening comprehension, irregular word recognition, and phonological awareness were accounted for. Furthermore, vocabulary accounted for a higher percentage of variance compared to listening comprehension (Ouellette & Beers, 2010).

Another study found that vocabulary contributed significantly to reading comprehension in typically developing children even when decoding and listening comprehension were accounted for (Tunmer & Chapman, 2012). Studies of variables associated with reading comprehension in individuals with ID are sparse, but Nash and Heath (2011) found an association between vocabulary and reading comprehension in a sample with Down Syndrome.

The finding of the present study that phonological ELWM, rather than phonological STM, predicts reading comprehension suggests that the information processing component of ELWM might be the crucial component of memory associated with reading comprehension. However, listening span is a verbally mediated assessment of working memory, and it has been suggested that these kind of measures are heavily dependent on vocabulary and other verbal abilities (Nation, Adams, Bowyer-Crane, & Snowling, 1999; Stothard & Hulme, 1992).

For example, Nation, Adams, Bowyer-Crane, and Snowling (1999) argued that the reason that their sample of poor comprehenders exhibited difficulties with listening span was due to the nature of the assessment, where the participant is required to listen to a sentence, state whether it is true or not, and then retain the last word of the sentence. Since poor comprehenders are, by definition, less skilled at comprehending sentences compared to typical readers this could explain the difficulties, and the same line of reasoning could be applied to the sample with ID in the current study.

In contrast, a study by Cain, Oakhill, and Bryant (2004) showed that phonological ELWM explained unique variance in reading comprehension in a sample of typically developing children, even after accounting for word reading and verbal ability. A similar pattern emerged in a study investigating the predictors of listening comprehension (Kim, 2016). Phonological ELWM was found to directly predict listening comprehension, over and above vocabulary and grammatical knowledge. This could imply that there are nonlanguage processes, such as the ability to process multiple sources of concurrent information at the same time, that are of importance for reading comprehension.

In our adolescent readers, decoding had a strong and significant impact on reading comprehension, while the contribution of listening comprehension remained weak and nonsignificant. Some studies have shown that the relative contribution of the components in the SVR shifts over time (Juel, Griffith, & Gough, 1986; Lervåg, Hulme, & Melby-Lervåg, 2017; Verhoeven & van Leeuwe, 2012).

In the early stages of reading development, decoding has a strong impact on reading comprehension. Once decoding is mastered, its importance for reading comprehension decreases while the importance of listening comprehension increases.

The results of our study indicate that the readers with non-specific ID may not have reached the level of decoding skills required to go through this developmental shift. Unlike our analyses, Roch and Levorato (2009) found support for the listening comprehension component of the SVR, when applying the framework to a sample consisting of 23 individuals with Down Syndrome Nilsson et al. 15 Journal of Cognition DOI: 10.5334/joc.188 aged between 11 and 18 years. Their study involved two regression analyses, where listening comprehension and two separate measures of word decoding (fluency and accuracy) were entered. Listening comprehension significantly explained 19.2% and 16.9%, respectively, of the variance in reading comprehension, while none of the decoding measures accounted for unique variance (Roch & Levorato, 2009).

However, this study did not include other possible predictors of reading comprehension, and this may have made the role of listening comprehension more prominent. When evaluating the delay and difference hypotheses, the models corresponding to our stated hypotheses were found to be identical, preventing the non-nested model comparison to favour either the delay or difference model. However, the predictors that emerged in the identical models (vocabulary and phonological ELWM) partly corresponded to the hypothesized predictors in the delay hypothesis. This indicates that the variables explaining listening comprehension and reading comprehension in a sample with non-specific ID were similar to the variables found in research on typically developing children (e.g. Braze, Tabor, Shankweiler, & Mencl, 2007; Kim, 2015, 2016; Muter, Hulme, Snowling, & Stevenson, 2004; Ouellette & Beers, 2010).

Based on the operationalization of the concepts in the current study, our findings suggest that vocabulary and phonological ELWM are of direct importance to reading comprehension, rather than their influence being entirely mediated through listening comprehension. For both vocabulary and phonological ELWM, there was a direct link to reading comprehension and an indirect link to reading comprehension via listening comprehension. However, it should be acknowledged that these findings are not as problematic for the SVR as some alternative findings could have been. For example, finding relationships to reading comprehension that involved variables unrelated to listening comprehension or decoding, such as visuospatial working memory, would have been even less consistent with the SVR.

A related issue is that other theories about reading comprehension, such as the Lexical Quality Hypothesis (Perfetti, 2007) and the Reading Systems Framework (Perfetti & Stafura, 2014), claim that lexical knowledge can add to the explanation of reading comprehension. Our findings suggest that future research should investigate these mechanisms.”

Nilsson, K., Danielsson, H., Elwér, A., Messer, D., Henry, L., & Samuelsson, S. (2021). Investigating Reading Comprehension in Adolescents with Intellectual Disabilities: Evaluating the Simple View of Reading. Journal of Cognition, 4(1): 56, pp. 1–20. DOI: https:// doi.org/10.5334/joc.188

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The Use of Technology in Dyslexia: An Analysis of Recent Trends (2020)

“Abstract—Dyslexia is a common reading difficulty and bring difficulties in the academic and social lives of individuals. A good reader is expected to complete the reading task at a certain speed and understanding. Technological tools can be used to solve the problem for individuals who have problems in different dimensions of reading skills. Instructional technologies may be aimed at improving one's reading ability or facilitating reading action.

This study aims to generate a comprehensive literature review and determine the current trends in the studies on dyslexia and technology in order to shed light for researchers and professionals working with individuals with dyslexia. This study was carried out to determine the potential and functional value of instructional technologies in learning processes of individuals with dyslexia through literature. A total number of 180 published documents in international databases through content analysis method. Results are presented with frequency and percentages in tables and figures. Results are discussed with relevant literature on dyslexia and technology and recommendations for further research and practices are provided.

This study aims to generate a comprehensive literature review and determine the current trends in the studies on dyslexia and technology in order to shed light for researchers and professionals working with individuals with dyslexia. This study was carried out to determine the potential and functional value of instructional technologies in learning processes of individuals with dyslexia through literature. A total number of 180 published documents in international databases through content analysis method.

According to the results, it was revealed that articles on dyslexia and technology showed an increase throughout the years. When the literature is examined, it is seen that there are contradictory findings regarding this result. One study revealed that there are many studies showing the effectiveness of using assistive technologies for learning disorders [25]. In contrast, there are studies reporting that number of studies on dyslexia and technology is limited and more importance should be given for using technology to make interventions in dyslexia [15]; [12].

In addition to year of publication, studies on dyslexia were examined based on country, names and affiliations of the authors, document type, subject area and research method. Furthermore, results showed that United Kingdom, United States and Italy were the first three countries with higher publications on dyslexia and technology. Since there is limited number of similar studies providing a content analysis on dyslexia and technology, results of the present study were discussed with relevant literature on learning disorders.

Results showed that Chouaib Doukkali U dyslexia and technology, results of the present study were discussed with relevant literature on learning disorders. Results showed that Chouaib Doukkali University in Morocco and Masaryk University in Czech Republic are the top two academic institutions as affiliations involved in the articles and the remained affiliations were only with one and two frequencies. According to the results, articles, conference papers and reviews were highly preferred by the researchers for publishing and the first five frequently studied subject areas are Computer Science, Social Sciences, Engineering, Medicine and Psychology.

In a study, it was revealed that neuro-psychological properties, reading characteristics and supporting reading skills were the most studied research subject [20]. Results also showed that qualitative research method is the most used research method in the studies on dyslexia and technology. However, [20] showed that survey method was the most frequently studied research method in the studies on learning disorders.

In conclusion, this study provided a comprehensive literature review of the studies on dyslexia and technology and determine the current trends in the relevant studies. In line with the results of the study, following recommendations for further research and practices are provided:

• Other international academic databases might be analyzed in order to figure out the trends in published documents on dyslexia and technology.
• More studies need to focus on the potential function of technology on dyslexia.”

Degirmenci, N., Baglama, B., & Yucesoy, Y. (2020). The Use of Technology in Dyslexia: An Analysis of Recent Trends. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET), 15(05), pp. 30–39. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v15i05.11921

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Reading disorders revisited – the critical importance of oral language (2021)

“This paper discusses research on reading disorders during the period since their classification within the overarching category of neurodevelopmental disorders (Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 53, 2012, 593). Following a review of the predictors of learning to read across languages, and the role of language skills as critical foundations for literacy, profiles of reading disorders are discussed and putative causal risk factors at the cognitive, biological, and environmental levels of explanation considered. Reading disorders are highly heritable and highly comorbid with disorders of language, attention, and other learning disorders, notably mathematics disorders. The home literacy environment, reflecting gene-environment correlation, is one of several factors that promote reading development and highlight an important target for intervention. The multiple deficit view of dyslexia (Cognition, 101, 2006, 385) suggests that risks accumulate to a diagnostic threshold although categorical diagnoses tend to be unstable.”

Snowling, M.J. & Hulme, C. (2021). Annual Research Review: Reading disorders revisited – the critical importance of oral language. J. Child Psychol. Psychiatr., 62: 635-653. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13324

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