Subgrouping Poor Readers on the Basis of Individual Differences in Reading-Related Abilities

Abstract

The present study investigated the use of the Reading Component Model to subgroup poor readers. A large sample of poor readers was identified in second grade and subgrouped on the basis of relative strengths and weaknesses in word recognition and listening comprehension. Although homogeneous subgroups were not identified, poor readers could be classified into four subgroups that differed significantly in reading-related abilities. Further analyses showed that poor readers' strengths and weaknesses in listening comprehension, and to a lesser extent in word recognition, were foreshadowed by their abilities on related kindergarten measures. Follow-up testing in the fourth grade indicated that poor readers' individual differences in word recognition and listening comprehension were consistent and that subgroups were moderately stable. The implications of these results for the assessment and remediation of reading disabilities are discussed.

Text comprehension in Czech fourth-grade children with dyslexia

“…In accordance with the current accepted conceptualization of dyslexia, children with dyslexia show good or at least adequate listening comprehension (Hoover & Gough, 1990;Catts, Hogan, & Fey, 2003;Torppa et al, 2006). In our research, when compared to the TD children, the children with dyslexia achieved significantly worse test scores in listening comprehension with a medium size effect.…”

“…These studies (Hoover & Gough, 1990;Catts, Hogan, & Fey, 2003;Torppa et al, 2006 ), research a subgroup of poor readers on the basis of their scores in reading comprehension tests, word reading tests, and listening comprehension tests and so the diagnosis was assigned after testing, but this was not the case in our study. Even if our DX group show significantly worse average result scores in reading comprehension than the TD group, the score range points out that not all children with dyslexia score below average in the listening comprehension task.…”

“…Unlike the Czech definition of dyslexia, it is stressed that poor reading comprehension is a possible secondary consequence. The other identified subgroup of poor readers is labelled as poor comprehenders or sometimes as hyperlexia (Hoover & Gough, 1990;Catts, Hogan, & Fey, 2003;Nation, 2005;Torppa et al, 2006). For poor comprehenders it is characteristic that they can decode words without any problems; however, they do not understand the meaning of the text.…”

“…However, we should not forget about another group of poor readers-children who have problems with both decoding and reading comprehension (known in the literature as language learning disabilities (Catts, Hogan, & Fey, 2003) or garden variety poor readers (Stanovich, 1988)). It is evident that these children will need systematic help in both areas.…”

Specific reading disability (dyslexia): what have we learned in the past four decades?

“…Such findings suggest that early reading difficulties in children from this population may not be caused primarily by vocabulary and syntactic deficits and may, more often, be a consequence of prolonged reading problems. These deficits may also be co-morbid, reflecting the co-occurrence of oral language and reading difficulties (e.g., Catts et al, 2003). However, existing data do not preclude the possibility that vocabulary and syntactic deficits could contribute to difficulties in learning to read in some children.…”