Accommodating remedial readers in the general education setting: Is listening‐while‐reading sufficient to improve factual and inferential comprehension?

Abstract

Word reading accommodations are commonly applied in the general education setting in an attempt to improve student comprehension and learning of curriculum content. This study examined the effects of listening-while-reading (LWR) and silent reading (SR) using text-to-speech assistive technology on the comprehension of 25 middle-school remedial readers. Participants were provided three grade-level passages, each with 10 comprehension questions (5 factual, 5 inferential) after SR and also after LWR using the assistive technology. Conditions were counterbalanced across participants. No significant differences were found between LWR and SR total, factual, or inferential comprehension, even after controlling for participant reading ability. Discussion focuses on implications of these findings for reading comprehension theory and school psychologists, study limitations, and directions for future inquiry. C 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Use of Reading Pen Assistive Technology to Accommodate Post-Secondary Students with Reading Disabilities

“…The reading passages and comprehension questions used in this study were taken from Timed Readings in Literature (Spargo, 1989), a series used in previous intervention studies involving school-aged students (e.g., Hale et al, 2005;Schmitt, Hale, McCallum, & Mauck, 2011;. This series contains a 13 th (college) grade-level book comprised of 50, 400 word passages.…”

Text-to-speech accommodations for the reading challenges of adults with traumatic brain injury

“…Study results indicate that reading interventions employing TTS aid in improving basic reading skillsincluding phonological development and sight word reading-for normally developing and struggling readers [13,17,20,21]. Researchers have also reported the beneficial effects of TTS on comprehension accuracy [17,19], although none have demonstrated a significant improvement for inferential comprehension [22,23]. Finally, research indicates that TTS used in reading-while-listening tasks increases reading rate (i.e.…”

Implementing assistive technologies: A study on co-learning in the Canadian elementary school context

“…Careful assessment of the appropriateness and type of TTS reader is important as it may interfere with comprehension and speed of reading for some students (Edyburn, 2007;Schmitt et al, 2011). For teachers who wish to implement TTS technologies in the middle grades of elementary school, the research results to date are sparse and somewhat contradictory.…”

“…Strangman (2003) finds that Grade 4 and 6 students are motivated and demonstrate better comprehension using books read on the computer, while Farmer, Klein, and Bryson (1992) find no significant difference in student comprehension for middle and high school students. A more recent study on a computer-based TTS software system finds no difference in results in reading comprehension with and without the TTS technology (Schmitt, Hale, McCallum, & Mauck, 2011).…”