Exploring individual differences in irregular word recognition among children with early-emerging and late-emerging word reading difficulty.

Abstract

Models of irregular word reading that take into account both child- and word-level predictors have not been evaluated in typically developing children and children with reading difficulty (RD). The purpose of the present study was to model individual differences in irregular word reading ability among 5th grade children (N = 170), oversampled for children with RD, using item-response crossed random-effects models. We distinguish between 2 subtypes of children with word reading RD, those with early emerging and late-emerging RD, and 2 types of irregular words, “exception” and “strange.” Predictors representing child-level and word-level characteristics, along with selected interactions between child- and word-characteristics, were used to predict item-level variance. Individual differences in irregular word reading were predicted at the child level by nonword decoding, orthographic coding, and vocabulary; at the word level by word frequency and a spelling-to-pronunciation transparency rating; and by the Reader group × Imageability and Reader group × Irregular word type interactions. Results are interpreted within a model of irregular word reading in which lexical characteristics specific to both child and word influence accuracy.

Development and Prediction of Context-Dependent Vowel Pronunciation in Elementary Readers

“…We estimated the variability explained by calculating the reduction in child and nonword variance from the base model using the formula ( r 010( Base model ) − r 010( model n ) )/ r 010( Base model ) , where n represents the model to which the base model was compared (Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992). A detailed description of these analyses is beyond the scope of this report, but these models have been widely reported in the literature (e.g., Duff & Hulme, 2012; Gilbert, Compton, & Kearns, 2011; Goodwin, Gilbert, & Cho, 2013; Kearns et al, 2015; Kim, Petscher, Foorman, & Zhou, 2010; Steacy et al, 2016; Steacy et al, 2017).…”

Past perspectives and new opportunities for the explanatory item response model

“…A significant body of research in the last decade has leaned into the explanatory item response model (EIRM) as a tool to illuminate the confluence of how person-level and item-level covariates can explain person-level and item-level differences. Many researchers have used the EIRM to explore word reading differences in young children (e.g., Steacy et al, 2017;Gilbert et al, 2014;Kearns, 2016) and all of these studies have provided salient recommendations to the scientific community regarding what is malleable about word reading based on respective level characteristics and how instruction and intervention might be formed or reformed in light of the evidence. The purpose of the present study was to revisit the root structures of EIRMs, given their wide utility, and test the extent to which new advances in the models can further inform and enhance our use of these models.…”

Tablet-based adaptation and administration of the Castles and Coltheart Reading Test 2 for a large longitudinal study

“…While it is possible that the tablet-based administration adversely affected internal consistency for the irregular words list, several other factors may account for this finding. Irregular words are words that lack consistent grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules and can vary greatly in terms of their spelling-to-pronunciation transparency [ 25 ]. In contrast to the regular words and non-words which require the child to apply knowledge of spelling-to-sound correspondence rules (a non-lexical process), the correct reading of an irregular word requires the child to be familiar with that word (i.e., stored in a mental lexicon) [ 26 ].…”