Training the word recognition skills of reading disabled children: Treatment and transfer effects.

Abstract

Fifty-four disabled readers were randomly assigned to one of two word recognition and spelling training programs or to a problem solving and study skills training program. One word-training program taught orthographically regular words by whole word methods alone; the other trained constituent grapheme-phoneme correspondences. The word-training groups made significant gains in word recognition accuracy and speed and in spelling. Significant transfer was observed on uninstructed spelling content but not on uninstructed reading vocabulary. In general, the word-training programs were equally effective for instructed content, but the whole-word group was superior on some transfer measures at posttest. Although the results demonstrate that dyslexic readers can be instructed successfully, the children did not profit differentially from letter-sound over whole-word training in the present context. We speculate that severely disabled readers may require either a more extended period of letter-sound instruction to reliably adopt an alphabetic decoding strategy or additional specific training in phonological awareness and subsyllabic segmentation.There is some consensus that the reading disability of children with primary and specific reading dysfunction severe enough to warrant the label "developmental dyslexia," is attributable to pervasive deficits in all aspects of word recognition (Vellutino, 1979). A failure to acquire rapid contextfree word recognition skill appears to be the most reliable

Training reading fluency: is it important to practice reading aloud and is generalization possible?

“…One of the most important results of the present study was that it was possible to achieve generalization from sublexical level to words containing the sub-lexical items, as the interventions were associated with better learning of the transfer words than the control condition. In training programs focused on reading fluency, generalization effects to untrained material have not been widely evaluated (Berends and Reitsma 2006b), and in the few studies in which generalization has been examined, the effects have been low or absent (e.g., Berends and Reitsma 2006a, b;Lemoine et al 1993;Lovett et al 1990;Martin-Chang et al 2007;Thaler et al 2004). Typically, the results of repeated word naming studies have indicated that the effects of training are item specific; that is, the repetition of words enhances word-specific orthographic representations (e.g., Berends and Reitsma 2006b;Kuhn and Stahl 2003;Thaler et al 2004).…”

“…Previous training studies have revealed that repetitions of words or pseudowords can enhance the reading speed of poor readers (Berends and Reitsma 2006a, b;Judica et al 2002;Lemoine et al 1993;Levy et al 1999;Martin-Chang and Levy 2005;Thaler et al 2004;Wentink et al 1997). However, when this kind of training has been targeted at the poorest readers, they have not attained the level of average readers (e.g., Thaler et al 2004), or the generalization effects have been low (e.g., Berends and Reitsma 2006a, b;Lemoine et al 1993;Lovett et al 1990;Martin-Chang et al 2007;Thaler et al 2004).…”

Training reading fluency among poor readers of German: many ways to the goal

“…The training studies on the repeated reading of single words have revealed that repetitions of words or pseudowords can enhance the reading speed of poor readers (Berends & Reitsma, 2006;Judica, De Luca, Spinelli, & Zoccolotti, 2002;Lemoine, Levy, & Hutchinson, 1993;Levy, Bourassa, & Horn, 1999;Martin-Chang & Levy, 2005;Thaler et al, 2004;Wentink, van Bon, & Schreuder, 1997). However, when this kind of training has been targeted at the poorest readers, they have not attained the level of average readers (e.g., Thaler et al, 2004), or the effects have been item-specific; that is, no generalization effects have been shown (e.g., Berends & Reitsma, 2006;Lemoine et al, 1993;Lovett, Warren-Chaplin, Ransby, & Borden, 1990;Thaler et al, 2004). If the repeated reading of words does not lead to generalization effects, this type of training as a remedial one-to-one tutoring program is a time-consuming task.…”

Correlates of Reading Fluency in Arabic: Diglossic and Orthographic Factors

“…Children must learn the mappings between the phonemes in spoken words and the letters that represent them in print. This has been shown to be an important aspect of early word decoding (Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1989;Lovett, Warren-Chaplin, Ransby, & Borden, 1990;Share, 1995;Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1997;Vellutino & Scanlon, 1987). Training in grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules was also found effective in enhancing word decoding accuracy (Ball & Blachman, 1991;Bradley & Bryant, 1983, 1985Bryant & Impey, 1986;Bus & van IJzendoorn, 1999;Cunningham, 1990;Juel, 1988).…”