Reading errors made by children with low vision*

Abstract

Previous research has shown that, on average, children with low vision lag their sighted peers in general reading development (in terms of speed, accuracy and comprehension). This study sought to examine this apparent lag by comparing the reading profiles of 25 normally sighted readers (mean age 8 years 8 months) with 25 low vision readers. The children were tested using a reading test (the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability, NARA) and were matched on the reading accuracy score produced by the test. Therefore in terms of the reading accuracy scores (and reading ages) derived from the NARA both groups were the same. The low vision readers were on average older than the normally sighted children (mean = 10 years, 5 months). When the reading profile (i.e. accuracy, comprehension and speed) was examined in the same analysis no significant effect was revealed [d.f. = 1, 48; F = 0.05; p > 0.1], but a general lag for these children is suggested (in keeping with previous research). However, a closer analysis of the reading error profile revealed the most common reading errors made by all readers in the analysis were either mispronunciations or substitutions. The low vision readers were more prone to making substitution errors than mispronunciations and the reverse was true for normally sighted readers [d.f. = 1, 48; F = 7.1; p < 0.05]. This indicates that the reading strategies adopted by low vision readers may differ from those of normally sighted readers of the same apparent reading ability.

Low Vision Affects the Reading Process Quantitatively But Not Qualitatively

“…Recently, Douglas, Grimley, McLinden, and Watson (2004) reported a small, qualitative difference between the reading behavior of children with low vision and that of children with normal vision. Douglas et al matched a group of children with low vision with a group of children with normal vision on the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability Test (NARA, a standardized reading test for children ages 6-12 years).…”

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“…The same technique was used in study of reading errors made by children with normal and low vision [10]. Errors were categorized into mispronunciation, substitution, refusals, additions, omissions and reversal.…”

“…Both normal and low vision children made 74% and 82% errors respectively during reading. Two factors that contributed to errors during reading were inaccurately decoding the text, which the children found difficulty to recognize the print and tend to guess semantically appropriate word and mistakenly identified the words look similar to another words in term of orthographic pattern [10]. Lack of syntactic and semantic clues in …”

Access to print literacy for children and young people with visual impairment: findings from a review of literature

“…There are mixed findings in the analysis of print reading errors: Douglas et al (2004) and Cornelissen (1991) noted that children with low vision made particular types of errors (e.g., a greater tendency to make substitution errors), while Bosman et al (2006) and Corley and Pring (1993) did not find this. In spite of these inconsistent results there is consensus that there are trade-offs between reading accuracy, speed, and comprehension -as a result of the increased effort required of children with visual impairment to access and decode print, their accuracy is poorer and reading takes longer, and comprehension probably drops.…”