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Effects of orthographic depth on orthographic learning ability were examined in 10- to 13-year-old children who learnt to read in similar orthographies differing in orthographic depth, defined as consistency of grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences. Danish children who learnt to read a deep orthography underperformed their Swedish counterparts who acquired a shallow orthography on vocabulary, phonological working memory, orthographic learning ability, and a range of first-language (L1: Danish/Swedish) and second-language (L2: English as a foreign language) measures. Orthographic learning ability explained over and above vocabulary and phonological working memory the better performance of Swedish children in comparison with Danish children on L1 reading accuracy and fluency, spelling, and visual word familiarity. With respect to L2 learning, orthographic learning ability determined spelling and visual word familiarity over and above L2 vocabulary and phonological working memory. It is concluded that shallow orthographies promote orthographic learning ability more efficiently than deep orthographies.

Background: This paper is a qualitative evaluation of a small-scale pilot study that attempted to generate parental involvement in children's learning. It used problem-solving mathematics homework in order to raise the children's self-efficacy, or, put another way, the child's belief that success lies in their own hands. Purpose: Homework is often seen as a common sense practice which is conducive to the development of the attributes of an effective learner. The pilot investigated whether situating homework tasks in everyday mathematical contexts enhanced parent-child interaction. If so, the child was then more likely to commit to learning, recognise the usefulness of mathematics as a life skill, and the value of sharing ideas and accepting feedback. Design and methods: The pilot took place between April and July 2015 in a primary school in the Northwest of England. Participants were a class of nine- and ten-year-old children (n = 27), their two class teachers and a self-selecting sample of parents. Children were asked to work on open-ended problem-solving activities designed to connect with everyday use of mathematics. The parental role was to model, encourage and reinforce rather than instruct. Data was collected from focus groups, from parent feedback sheets and from a self-efficacy questionnaire. The data was analysed thematically. Findings and conclusions: Despite limitations of time and scale, evaluation of the pilot suggests that the homework strategy does justify further research. The qualitative analysis of the data indicates that greater involvement of parents in learning was generated, the homework was well received by children and self-efficacy levels remained stable. The next step should be to run an extended version of the pilot.

The aim of this study was to examine unique and common causes of problems in reading and arithmetic fluency. 13- to 14-year-old students were placed into one of five groups: reading disabled (RD, n = 16), arithmetic disabled (AD, n = 34), reading and arithmetic disabled (RAD, n = 17), reading, arithmetic, and listening comprehension disabled (TRIPLE, n = 9), and typically developing students (NON-LD, n = 40). Multivariate analyses of covariance and variance component analyses showed that reading problems are characterised by difficulties with phonological processing and with rapid automatic naming. Problems with executive functioning and with digit span were typical for students with arithmetical fluency difficulties. RAD students had problems with phonological processing, rapid naming, executive functioning, and digit span. Impairments in number fact fluency, digit span, loudness perception, speeded sound manipulation, and coding, which all share a fluency component were common to problems with reading and arithmetical fluency.

We present one of the first behavior-genetic studies of individual differences in school students' levels of achievement in instructed second language acquisition (ISLA). We assessed these language abilities in Australian twin pairs (maximum N pairs = 251) by means of teacher ratings, class rankings, and self-ratings of proficiency, and used the classic twin design to estimate the relative influences of genes, shared (family/school) environment, and unique environment. Achievement in ISLA was more influenced by additive genetic effects (72%, 68%, and 38% for teacher ratings, class rankings, and twin self-ratings, respectively) than by shared environment effects, which were generally not substantial (20%, 07%, and 13%). Genetic effects distinct to speaking and listening, on the one hand, and reading and writing, on the other, were evident for the twin self-ratings. We discuss the limitations and implications of these findings and point to research questions that could profitably be addressed in future studies. (Contains 3 figures and 1 note.)

Effects of orthographic transparency were examined by comparing children learning to read in Albanian, Welsh, and English. Twenty Year 1 Albanian children were given a reading test consisting of a 100-word stratified sample of decreasing written frequency. They were able to read accurately 80% of the words; reading latency was a direct effect of word length (R2 = .89); and errors tended to be mispronunciations rather than real word replacements, with hardly any null responses. These results were compared with Ellis and Hooper (2001), where the same design was used with English and Welsh children of the same age, but with 1 more year of formal reading instruction. The Albanian children read more words than the English and Welsh children, but they had longer reading latencies. Like the Welsh children, but unlike the English children, the Albanian children made more nonword errors. These results suggest that children acquire reading faster the more transparent the orthography, and that shallow orthographies promote an initial reliance on a phonological recoding strategy.

Notes that multimedia computer programs may provide promising opportunities for the training of initial reading and spelling skills. Examines a recently-developed program's efficacy and impact on the motivation of the users. Finds that the amount of non-task directed behavior of those who had practiced with the computer significantly decreased during both computer sessions and classroom sessions. (SG)

A study of 114 12-year-olds in the Netherlands found that dyslexia was associated with deficits in: (1) phonological recoding, word recognition in both Dutch and English, and spelling skills; and (2) naming speed for letters and digits. Dyslexia was not associated with other cognitive and motor skills evaluated. (Contains extensive references.) (DB)

A Dutch intervention program proved to be successful with 109 10-year-old children with dyslexia and 29 children with reading problems and cognitive deficits or psychiatric symptoms. The children with pure dyslexia profited most. Differences in treatment outcomes were related to the absolute level of word reading and age at intake. (Author/CR)

Ten students (age 10) with dyslexia were compared to 10 chronological-age controls and 20 reading-age controls. Response latencies of the students with dyslexia were slower when familiar words, letter clusters, and nonwords had to be named. A larger word-frequency effect and larger word-length effect indicate difficulty with increasing task demands. (Author/CR)

This study with 28 Netherlands children (mean age 9 years, 7 months) with written language disorders found that copying words from the computer screen resulted in significantly fewer spelling errors on the posttest than writing words from memory and that both these forms of practice led to fewer spelling errors than only reading the words. (Author/DB)

Investigates the use of speech feedback during independent word reading and its effects on the remediation of reading skills. Finds that speech feedback requests were not dependent on word difficulty. Concludes that the most promising way of giving support to the development of reading skills is to present segmented-word sound. (MG)

Effects of orthographic depth on orthographic learning ability were examined in 10- to 13-year-old children who learnt to read in similar orthographies differing in orthographic depth, defined as consistency of grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences. Danish children who learnt to read a deep orthography underperformed their Swedish counterparts who acquired a shallow orthography on vocabulary, phonological working memory, orthographic learning ability, and a range of first-language (L1: Danish/Swedish) and second-language (L2: English as a foreign language) measures. Orthographic learning ability explained over and above vocabulary and phonological working memory the better performance of Swedish children in comparison with Danish children on L1 reading accuracy and fluency, spelling, and visual word familiarity. With respect to L2 learning, orthographic learning ability determined spelling and visual word familiarity over and above L2 vocabulary and phonological working memory. It is concluded that shallow orthographies promote orthographic learning ability more efficiently than deep orthographies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author presents his thoughts on the theories presented in the book "The Dyslexia Debate" by Julian Elliott and Elena Grigorenko regarding the definition, measuring, and significance of reading disabilities regarding dyslexia. He comments on the common misconceptions regarding the condition outlined by Elliott and goes on to discuss why reading fluency and ability should be emphasized in dyslexia research.

The present study reports on the construction of a research instrument developed to examine preschool teachers’ beliefs and practices in relation to emergent literacy. A 130-item survey (Preschool Literacy Survey, PLS) was completed by a total of 90 preschool teachers in Norway. Items were grouped into homogenous scales, and the relationship between beliefs and practices was examined using structural equation modelling. The structural model for all preschool teachers was compared in a qualitative way with the structural model for a random group of preschool teachers (n = 54), who had not participated in literacy-awareness training to look at whether the effects of literacy-awareness training could be assessed with the PLS. The main results show that teachers who took part in the literacy-awareness training were more homogeneous in respect of their beliefs and practices, that their beliefs were strongly underpinned by their beliefs about the specific role of the preschool teacher and by their beliefs about practices consistent with current research. Finally, it seems that the literacy-awareness programme affected the beliefs rather than the practices of preschool teachers. How a PLS can further contribute to research on early literacy in preschools and preschool teacher training is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents and illustrates two areas of widespread abuse of statistics in social science research. The first is the use of techniques based on random sampling but with cases that are not random and often not even samples. The second is that even where the use of such techniques meets the assumptions for use, researchers are almost universally reporting the results incorrectly. Significance tests and confidence intervals cannot answer the kinds of analytical questions most researchers want to answer. Once their reporting is corrected, the use of these techniques will almost certainly cease completely. There is nothing to replace them with but there is no pressing need to replace them anyway. As this paper illustrates, removing the erroneous elements in the analysis is usually sufficient improvement (to enable readers to judge claims more fairly). Without them it is hoped that analysts will focus rather more on the meaning and limitations of their numeric results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Basic Skill Like Reading Is Acquired In Lower Primary Education.However, Reading Can And Should Also Be Promoted Outside The School In Order To Provide The Best Learning Opportunities For Every Student.In This Review, It Is First Looked At What Reading Is. Then It Is Disscussed Where The Large Individual Difference In Reading Skill Come From Finaly ,The Reading Research Upon Which Initiatives For Promotion Reading Outside The School Are Based And Recommendation As To What To Do For Different Age Levels Are Presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]