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In this work, two different studies are examined to evaluate the effectiveness of a novel intervention program for the improvement of reading ability in children with dyslexia, known as repeated reading with vocal music masking (RVM). The proposed remedial approach is inspired by Breznitz's original work. The studies assess a 5-week program of intensive RVM training in a pre-post-test clinical paradigm, as well as a longitudinal paradigm where it is compared to 8 months of the standard remediation program (SRP). The results of both studies support the efficacy of the newly proposed RVM method. Notably in the longitudinal study, the reading speed of children, as well as related phonological, visuo-attentional, and cognitive skills, and attitudes toward reading, were measured regularly. Significant improvements in reading efficiency and related skills were observed, as well as greater motivation to read after RVM training. A modeling of the data specifically linked executive and processing speed skills to be involved in RVM training, suggesting that RVM may help rebalance the phonological and orthographic coding procedures necessary for efficient reading. The short, intensive, and focused nature of RVM training makes it a viable and attractive intervention for clinical practice. As preliminary results are promising, RVM training may prove to be a valuable tool that clinicians can call upon to effectively treat reading fluency disorders, especially when standard programs do not provide results.

Early intervention is known to reduce reading disabilities; however, treatment response is variable, and some students have persistent deficits that require intensive supports. This study examined the immediate and 1-year outcomes of an individualized and intensive reading program for third grade students, which was delivered throughout the school day for an average of 189 hr of instruction over 3 months. These students' performances were compared with two comparison groups, including poor readers who received small group supports and good readers who did not have additional reading instruction. The intensive group showed an improvement in word recognition and decoding fluency immediately after the program and 1 year later, and there was a decrease in significant reading impairments from 62% before intervention to 35% at follow-up. Furthermore, baseline reading, spelling, phonological awareness, and rapid naming skills were predictive of persistent reading deficits at a later time point. Although improvements in reading skills were shown, a significant gap between poor and good readers persisted in the third and fourth grades. This study illustrates the importance of a tertiary intensive reading program, but also the need for continuing supports., (© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

Rehabilitation procedures recommended for developmental dyslexia (DD) are still not fully defined, and only few studies directly compare different types of training. This study compared a training (Reading Trainer) working on the reading impairment with one (Run the RAN) working on the rapid automatized naming (RAN) impairment, one of the main cognitive deficits associated with DD. Two groups of DD children (N = 45) equivalent for age, sex, full IQ, and reading speed were trained either by Reading Trainer (n = 21) or by Run the RAN (n = 24); both trainings required an intensive home exercise, lasting 3 months. Both trainings showed significant improvements in reading speed and accuracy of passages and words. Bypassing the use of alphanumeric stimuli, but empowering the cognitive processes underlying reading, training RAN may be a valid tool in children with reading difficulties opening new perspectives for children with severe impairments or, even, at risk of reading difficulties., (© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

Objective: This quasi-experimental study reported the results of a structured literacy intervention programme designed for secondary school students of Year 7 to Year 9 with dyslexia. Students of the intervention group (n = 116) participated in 40-week sessions of small-size, classroom-based, and split-group intervention setting with 45-min daily lesson on both Chinese and English language compared with students in the control group who received normal classroom instructions (n = 98)., Results: Students in the intervention group outperformed the control groups in self-regulated learning scales, which indicated that there was positive change in students' behavioural and cognitive outcomes in learning. Although students demonstrated gains in phonetic skills, posttest results in academic achievement did not exhibit significant improvement when compared with their control group peers., Conclusion: The findings provided some encouraging evidence of the effectiveness of intervention programme. Students that demonstrated gains in phonetic skills and improvement in behavioural and cognitive aspects required continuous intervention lessons to become a self-regulated learner, who would be self-motivated to improve methods of learning and adopt strategies for attaining academic goals. The study contributed to the literature by presenting one of the very first school-based, small-size, classroom-based, and split-group intervention programme for secondary school dyslexic students, which included teachers and students training on English and Chinese intervention content (phonological and literacy content), teaching curriculum integrated with school curriculum, and coteaching with school teachers in the mainstream classrooms, whereas most of the existing intervention programmes used pull-out approach involving the first language only., (© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

This paper reviews findings from four research syntheses that report the effects of academic language and/or reading interventions on language and reading outcomes for English learners who have or are at risk for learning difficulties. Studies included in the syntheses varied in research design and addressed multiple areas of reading and language. There was disagreement between syntheses as to the extent of research evidence in favor of particular instructional practices. For ELs with learning difficulties in kindergarten and first grade, however, there was strong consensus that multiple-component reading instruction that includes phonological awareness and phonics instruction is associated with improved word reading outcomes. It may also be beneficial to provide oral language, vocabulary, and reading comprehension instruction; nevertheless, there is a need for future research on instructional interventions that aim to improve reading comprehension outcomes for this population., (© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

We examine the efficacy of an intervention to improve word reading and reading comprehension in fourth- and fifth-grade students with significant reading problems. Using a randomized control trial design, we compare the fourth- and fifth-grade reading outcomes of students with severe reading difficulties who were provided a researcher-developed treatment with reading outcomes of students in a business-as-usual (BAU) comparison condition. A total of 280 fourth- and fifth-grade students were randomly assigned within school in a 1:1 ratio to either the BAU comparison condition ( n = 139) or the treatment condition ( n = 141). Treatment students were provided small-group tutoring for 30 to 45 minutes for an average of 68 lessons (mean hours of instruction = 44.4, SD = 11.2). Treatment students performed statistically significantly higher than BAU students on a word reading measure (effect size [ES] = 0. 58) and a measure of reading fluency (ES = 0.46). Though not statistically significant, effect sizes for students in the treatment condition were consistently higher than BAU students for decoding measures (ES = 0.06, 0.08), and mixed for comprehension (ES = -0.02, 0.14).

This study reports findings from studies examining potential read-aloud accommodations on standardized reading comprehension assessments for students with decoding difficulties. Three types of accommodations were evaluated: question stems and answer options read aloud; question stems, answer options, and proper nouns read aloud; and full read-aloud. Drawing from a sample of 207 fourth-grade students with and without decoding difficulties, we used 3-level hierarchical linear modeling to assess whether there were significant differences between students with and without decoding difficulties in the effect of each accommodation relative to no accommodation. Analyses showed that, for the students with decoding difficulties, all 3 read-aloud accommodations had significant effects when compared with no accommodation at all, and these effects were significantly larger than for average readers (effect sizes: 0.49, 0.55, and 0.50, respectively). When non-individualized education program students were excluded from the group of students with decoding difficulties, the effect sizes became notably larger.

Within multitiered instructional delivery models, progress monitoring is a key mechanism for determining whether a child demonstrates an adequate response to instruction. One measure commonly used to monitor the reading progress of students is oral reading fluency (ORF). This study examined the extent to which ORF slope predicts reading comprehension outcomes for fifth-grade struggling readers ( n = 102) participating in an intensive reading intervention. Quantile regression models showed that ORF slope significantly predicted performance on a sentence-level fluency and comprehension assessment, regardless of the students' reading skills, controlling for initial ORF performance. However, ORF slope was differentially predictive of a passage-level comprehension assessment based on students' reading skills when controlling for initial ORF status. Results showed that ORF explained unique variance for struggling readers whose posttest performance was at the upper quantiles at the end of the reading intervention, but slope was not a significant predictor of passage-level comprehension for students whose reading problems were the most difficult to remediate.

In this study, we examined the learning of letter-speech sound correspondences within an artificial script and performed an experimental analysis of letter-speech sound learning among dyslexic and normal readers vis-à-vis phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, reading, and spelling. Participants were provided with 20 min of training aimed at learning eight new basic letter-speech sound correspondences, followed by a short assessment of mastery of the correspondences and word-reading ability in this unfamiliar script. Our results demonstrated that brief training is moderately successful in differentiating dyslexic readers from normal readers in their ability to learn letter-speech sound correspondences. The normal readers outperformed the dyslexic readers for accuracy and speed on a letter-speech sound matching task, as well as on a word-reading task containing familiar words written in the artificial orthography. Importantly, the new artificial script-related measures were related to phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming and made a unique contribution in predicting individual differences in reading and spelling ability. Our results are consistent with the view that a fundamental letter-speech sound learning deficit is a key factor in dyslexia.

Purpose: We examined the effectiveness of a multistrategy inference intervention designed to increase inference making and reading comprehension for middle-grade struggling readers., Method: A total of 66 middle-grade struggling readers were randomized to treatment (n = 33) and comparison (n = 33) conditions. Students in the treatment group received explicit instruction in 4 inference strategies (i.e., clarification using text clues; activating and using prior knowledge; understanding character perspectives and author's purpose; answering inferential questions). In addition, narrative and informational texts were carefully chosen and sequenced to build requisite background knowledge to form inferences. Intervention was delivered in small groups of 3 students for 10 days of instruction., Results: One-way analysis of covariance models on outcome measures with the respective pretest scores as a covariate revealed significant gains on a proximal measure of Egyptian-content knowledge (g = 1.37) and on a standardized measure of reading comprehension-i.e., Wechsler Individual Achievement Test-Third Edition Reading Comprehension (g = 0.46)., Conclusion: The moderate effect on a standardized measure of reading comprehension provides preliminary evidence for the effectiveness of this multistrategy inference intervention in improving reading comprehension of middle-grade struggling readers.

The current study investigated the contribution of two linguistic intervention programs, phonological and morphological to the development of word spelling among skilled and poor native Arabic readers, in three grades: second, fourth and sixth. The participants were assigned to three experimental groups: morphological intervention, phonological intervention and a non-intervention control group. Phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and spelling abilities were tested before and after the intervention. Participants from both linguistic intervention programs and in all grades made significant progress in linguistic awareness and spelling after the intervention. The results showed that both intervention programs were successful in promoting children's spelling skills in both groups. Also, older poor readers showed a stronger response to the morphological intervention than the older skilled readers. A transfer effect was found with the phonological training contributing to the morphological skills and vice versa. The results of the current study were discussed in the light of developmental and psycholinguistic views of spelling acquisition as well as the characteristics of Arabic language and orthography.

This quasi-experimental study examined effects of a 12-week, teacher-delivered, morphologically focused intervention on writing outcomes for fifth-grade U.S. students. In order to help students gain control over the morphologically complex words that typify academic writing, the intervention called students' attention to the morphological structure of words drawn from the district's science curriculum, taught morphologically related forms of those words, and provided opportunities for students to use morphologically related forms in reading and writing. Multilevel model results of posttests showed that, compared to control students (n = 75), intervention students (n = 95) included more morphologically complex words in a sentence-combining task, whether this was scored by a strict (correct spellings only) or lenient (plausible incorrect spellings accepted) criterion, and used more morphologically complex words that had been targeted in the intervention in their extended written responses. In addition, students with lower pretest scores on the sentence-combining measure showed greater intervention effects on the sentence-combining measure than did higher performing peers. Taken together, these results support the use of morphological instruction in the classroom, especially for students who struggle with writing.

We investigated the efficacy of a morphological awareness intervention on the morphological awareness and reading skills of students from low-socioeconomic-status homes; we also examined whether the intervention was similarly effective for intervention students who differed in their initial morphological awareness abilities. The 8-week intervention was designed to increase awareness of affixes and the relations between base words and their inflected and derived forms for kindergarteners (n = 27) and first- (n = 22) and second-grade (n = 26) students. Students randomly assigned to the small group intervention were provided instruction four times a week, 25 min a day, whereas students assigned to the control group received "business as usual." Kindergarten and first- and second-grade students receiving the intervention showed statistically significant gains in morphological awareness with large effect sizes on most measures. Students in all three grades who received the intervention demonstrated nonsignificant gains in literacy abilities with null to small effect sizes. Further, students with low morphological awareness abilities at the onset of the study demonstrated similar gains from the intervention as their peers with typical morphological awareness abilities. Our results suggest that explicit morphological awareness instruction may produce gains of practical importance to young elementary students at risk for future literacy difficulties.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a multilinguistic intervention to improve reading and spelling in primary grade students who struggle with literacy. Twenty second-grade students with spelling deficits were randomly assigned to receive a multilinguistic intervention with a phonological and orthographic awareness emphasis, or one with an additional morphological awareness focus. The morphological intervention group performed better on standardized measures of reading comprehension, and spelling, and on a nonstandardized spelling test of morphological patterns. Both groups improved and no between-group differences were found on a standardized measure of word identification and word attack, as well as on a nonstandardized spelling test of orthographic patterns.

Background: This study evaluates the effects of a language and literacy intervention for children with Down syndrome., Methods: Teaching assistants (TAs) were trained to deliver a reading and language intervention to children in individual daily 40-min sessions. We used a waiting list control design, in which half the sample received the intervention immediately, whereas the remaining children received the treatment after a 20-week delay. Fifty-seven children with Down syndrome in mainstream primary schools in two U.K. locations (Yorkshire and Hampshire) were randomly allocated to intervention (40 weeks of intervention) and waiting control (20 weeks of intervention) groups. Assessments were conducted at three time points: pre-intervention, after 20 weeks of intervention, and after 40 weeks of intervention., Results: After 20 weeks of intervention, the intervention group showed significantly greater progress than the waiting control group on measures of single word reading, letter-sound knowledge, phoneme blending and taught expressive vocabulary. Effects did not transfer to other skills (nonword reading, spelling, standardised expressive and receptive vocabulary, expressive information and grammar). After 40 weeks of intervention, the intervention group remained numerically ahead of the control group on most key outcome measures; but these differences were not significant. Children who were younger, attended more intervention sessions, and had better initial receptive language skills made greater progress during the course of the intervention., Conclusions: A TA-delivered intervention produced improvements in the reading and language skills of children with Down syndrome. Gains were largest in skills directly taught with little evidence of generalization to skills not directly taught in the intervention., (© 2012 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry © 2012 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.)

Objective: Children with severe dyslexia are substantially impaired because reading and writing are key competencies necessary for a successful academic and occupational career., Methods: In this evaluation study, a cohort of 2nd- and 3rd-grade students from a variety of Hamburg primary schools was trained with the Marburger Rechtschreibtraining (MRT) by supervised university graduates. The research questions focused on the feasibility of the MRT as a within-school training, the improvement of spelling and reading skills of the participants, subjective assessments of success, as well as potential predictors. Besides established performance tests, we also considered the subjective appraisals of parents, teachers, and coaches., Results: The results demonstrate that standardized spelling training methods like the MRT can be consistently used during morning hours at schools. Within a year of starting MRT exercises, mean effect sizes in writing and reading were observed in performance tests using test norms. However, parent, teacher, and coach reports failed to replicate these improvements. Changes in writing performance were mainly associated with school class level; improvements in reading ability were dependent on initial writing performance., Conclusions: The results provide starting points for optimizing current training practices in elementary schools and for posing questions regarding the effectiveness of the MRT, as well as for training programs in general.

Studies in children and adults with the reading disability developmental dyslexia have shown behavioral improvements after reading intervention. In another line of work, it has been shown that intensive training in a variety of cognitive and sensorimotor skills can result in changes in gray matter volume (GMV). This study examined changes in GMV following intensive reading intervention in children with dyslexia using voxel-based morphometry (VBM). Eleven dyslexic children underwent an eight week training focused on mental imagery, articulation and tracing of letters, groups of letters and words, which resulted in significant gains in reading skills. This was followed by an eight week null period (control) where no intervention was administered and no further significant gains in reading were observed. Structural scans were obtained before the intervention, after the intervention and after the null period. GMV increases between the first two time points were found in the left anterior fusiform gyrus/hippocampus, left precuneus, right hippocampus and right anterior cerebellum. However these areas did not change between time points two and three (control period), suggesting that the changes were specific to the intervention period. These results demonstrate for the first time that (1) training-induced changes in GMV can be observed in a pediatric sample and (2) reading improvements induced by intervention are accompanied by GMV changes., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Reading fluency beyond decoding is a limitation to many children with developmental reading disorders. In the interest of remediating dysfluency, contributing factors need to be explored and understood in a developmental framework. The focus of this study is orthographic processing in developmental dyslexia, and how it may contribute to reading fluency. We investigated orthographic processing speed and accuracy by children identified with dyslexia that were enrolled in an intensive, fluency-based intervention using a timed visual search task as a tool to measure orthographic recognition. Results indicate both age and treatment effects, and delineate a link between rapid letter naming and efficient orthographic recognition. Orthographic efficiency was related to reading speed for passages, but not spelling performance. The role of orthographic learning in reading fluency and remediation is discussed.

We investigated the effects of enhancing orthographic knowledge on the spelling of Chinese characters and words in 131 eight-year-old Chinese children at risk for dyslexia. The traditional approach (37 children) emphasizing memory and repeated writing was the control condition. The analytic and synthetic approach (ASA, 33 children) stressed insight into character structure. The integrated analytic and synthetic approach added to ASA self-correction and metacognitive activities (INA, 61 children). The children were first asked to write down as many words as possible associated with pictures of home, school, and community; the correctly written words formed the baseline information. The children were then instructed by their classroom teachers in six especially designed short texts and assessed in eight measurable bujian or radical tasks subserving three constructs: morpheme completion, bujian analysis and synthesis and bujian compounding. Multivariate analyses of variance showed that the children in the INA condition outperformed those in the other conditions in three of the measurable bujian tasks. A confirmatory factor analysis verified the stability of the eight tasks and their clustering into three constructs. From these results, we tentatively propose a "bujian sensitivity hypothesis" as a means of helping young Chinese children at risk for spelling disorders.

A pre-post experimental design with 6-week delayed posttest was implemented to investigate the effects of reading comprehension strategy (RCS) instruction with and without attribution retraining (AR) on reading outcomes for seventh, eighth, and ninth graders with learning and other mild disabilities. Students were randomly assigned to one of three treatments: RCS+AR, RCS, or a Read Naturally (Ihnot, 1992) comparison condition. Results indicated that compared to the comparison group, both strategy instruction groups performed better on a summarization measure of comprehension after treatment producing large effect sizes. Both groups also performed better after a 6-week delay; however, only the RCS+AR group maintained a large effect size. In addition, RCS+AR students displayed higher attributions for reading success at post- and delayed posttesting. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

This experimental study was designed to validate a short-term supplemental reading intervention for at-risk first-grade children. Although substantial research on long-term supplemental reading interventions exists, less is known about short-term interventions. Thirty first-grade children were randomly assigned to intervention or control conditions. Students in the intervention received 16 hours of instruction. Analyses of pre- and posttest data and growth measures suggest that short-term supplemental reading intervention had a significant effect on children's reading skills; however, effects were not consistent across measures. Parent and teacher ratings moderated significant effects. Findings support the validity of a brief intervention for students at risk for reading failure that may inform Tier 2 interventions within a Response to Intervention framework.

Background: the Phonological and Reading Remediation Program in learning disabilities., Aim: to verify therapeutic effectiveness of the Phonological and Reading Remediation Program in students with learning disabilities., Method: participants of this study were 40 students who were divided in the following groups: GI, subdivided in: GIE (10 students without learning disabilities submitted to the Phonological and Reading Remediation Program), GIC (10 students without learning disabilities who were not submitted to the Phonological and Reading Remediation Program); and GII, subdivided in: GIIE (10 students with learning disabilities submitted to the Phonological and Reading Remediation Program), GIIC (10 students with learning disabilities who were not submitted to the Phonological and Reading Remediation Program). As a procedure, in pre and post testing situations, the Cognitive-Linguistic Performance Test was applied., Results: the results showed statistically significant differences between GIE and GIC and between GIIE and GIIC, indicating that students who were submitted to the Program presented better performances in the post testing condition when compared to the pre-testing condition., Conclusion: this study showed that the Phonological and Reading Remediation Program was effective. The use of the Program improved perception, production and manipulation of sounds and syllables, interfering directly on the reading skills and comprehension of students with learning disabilities.

Low-achieving readers in Grade 5 often lack comprehension strategies, domain knowledge, word recognition skills, fluency, and motivation to read. Students with such multiple reading needs seem likely to benefit from instruction that supports each of these reading processes. The authors tested this expectation experimentally by comparing the effects of Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) with traditional instruction (TI) on several outcomes in a 12-week intervention for low achievers and high achievers. Low achievers in the CORI group were afforded explicit instruction, leveled texts, and motivation support. Compared with TI students, CORI students scored higher on posttest measures of word recognition speed, reading comprehension on the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test, and ecological knowledge. CORI was equally effective for lower achievers and higher achievers. Explicitly supporting multiple aspects of reading simultaneously appeared to benefit diverse learners on a range of reading outcomes.

Background: an audio-visual computerized remediation program in students with developmental dyslexia., Aim: to verify the efficacy of an audio-visual computerized remediation program in students with developmental dyslexia. The specific goals of this study involved the comparison of the linguistic-cognitive performance of students with developmental dyslexia with that of students considered good readers; to compare the results obtained in pre and post-testing situations of students with dyslexia who were and were not submitted to the program; and to compare the results obtained with the remediation program in students with developmental dyslexia to those obtained in good readers., Methods: the participants of this study were 20 students who were divided as follows: group I (GI) subdivided in: GIe (five students with developmental dyslexia who were submitted to the program) and GIc (five students with developmental dyslexia who were not submitted to the program); group II (GII) was subdivided in: GIIe (five good readers who were submitted to the program) and GIIc (five good readers who were not submitted to the program). An audio-visual computerized remediation program was used--'Play on'., Results: results indicate that GI presented a lower performance in auditory processing and phonological awareness when compared to GII in the pre-testing situation. However, GIe presented a similar performance to that of GII in the post-testing situation, indicating the effectiveness of the audio-visual remediation program in students with developmental dyslexia., Conclusion: this study made evident the effectiveness of an audio-visual remediation program in students with developmental dyslexia.

Outcomes of three different types of computerized training in sub-lexical items (word-initial consonant clusters) on reading speed for 39 German-speaking poor readers in Grades 2 and 3 were evaluated. A phonological-orthographic association group, a reading aloud group, and a combined group were compared in performance with an untrained control group. During short-term training, the intervention groups showed higher gains than the control group in reading speed of the trained sub-lexical items and of the words containing the trained segments. No differences were found between the intervention groups. In the development of pseudoword reading, the groups did not show differential improvements. The generalization effect to pseudoword reading was similar, whether the pseudowords contained the trained segment as a syllable or as a non-syllabic letter string. The gains induced by training were specific to the materials used in training and did not induce gains in general reading speed.

Two groups of children with developmental dyslexia were treated over a period of four months. Fourteen children received visual hemisphere-specific stimulation (VHSS) and 11 children were treated with a customary, reading-focused training programme (RT). Reading performance was investigated before and after treatment, as were spelling abilities, phonemic awareness and verbal memory. Improvement in reading accuracy was significantly greater in the VHSS group than in the RT group. Significant improvements were also observed for memory and phonemic skills. The results were compared to existing data on spontaneous reading development. The better results after single-hemisphere stimulation (VHSS) are discussed in terms of the specific characteristics of the treatment, and of the possible contributions of visual-spatial attention, memory functions and phonemic awareness.

In two studies it is examined whether lateral presentation of words in remedial practice for reading disabled children has additional effects to central presentation. The effect of limited exposure duration (LED) is also studied as a possible factor in inducing higher level decoding processes or increased processing speed of words. Two groups of Dutch reading disabled children (n1 = 25, mean age = 9;8 years and n2 = 36, mean age = 7;1 years) repeatedly practiced reading words presented in the left, right or the central visual field. The results show that all children improved substantially both in reading speed and accuracy, which demonstrates the importance of repetitive practice in reading to attain fluency in reading disabled children. Further analysis demonstrated that neither site of presentation nor limited exposure duration added significantly to the training results. These findings do not corroborate neuropsychological theories suggesting a special role for lateral presentations.

Background: We evaluate the effectiveness of three theoretically motivated programmes for the teaching of reading to four-year-old children., Method: Four hundred and ten children, of pre-kindergarten age, in 20 UK Reception-year classrooms were divided into four matched groups and randomly assigned to one of three experimental teaching conditions, Reading with Rhyme, Reading with Phoneme, Reading with Rhyme and Phoneme, or to a taught control condition (Reading). In each condition the Reading element contained a strong phonic component., Results: There were no selective effects of the different experimental teaching programmes for normally developing children. However, for those children identified as being at risk of reading failure, training in phoneme skills resulted in selective gains in phoneme awareness and in reading skills., Conclusions: A reading programme that contains a highly structured phonic component is sufficient for most 4.5-year-old children to master the alphabetic principle and to learn to read effectively, without additional explicit phonological training. In contrast, for young children at risk of reading delay, additional training in phoneme awareness and linking phonemes with letters is beneficial.

Additional analyses of a previously published study addressed three questions about growth in word reading during early reading intervention: (1) How well do Verbal IQ, reading-related language abilities (phonological, rapid naming, and orthographic), and attention ratings predict reading growth? (2) How well do language deficits predict reading growth? and (3) How well does Verbal IQ-word reading discrepancy predict reading growth? Univariate analyses showed that Verbal IQ, phonological skills, orthographic skills, rapid automatized naming (RAN), and attention ratings predicted the response to early intervention, but multivariate analyses based on a combination of predictors for real-word reading and pseudoword reading showed that Verbal IQ was not the best unique predictor. Students with double or triple deficits in language skills (RAN, phonological, and orthographic processing) responded more slowly to early intervention than students without language deficits. Verbal IQ-word reading discrepancy did not predict the response to early intervention in reading. Overall results supported the use of reading-related language and attention measures rather than IQ-achievement discrepancy in identifying candidates for early reading intervention.

Objectives: The Marburg Spelling Training Program was administered to a sample of 10 spelling-disabled primary school pupils (2nd-4th graders) over three months in an individual setting., Results: Statistical analyses yielded significant improvements in spelling and reading test performances, but none yet in the emotional stress caused by the problems., Conclusion: The Marburg Spelling Training Program has now proven to be effective not only in long-term, but also in short-term intervention.

The aim of this study was to test the validity of Bakker's (1983, 1990) theory and treatment paradigm of dyslexia. Twenty-one children (mean age = 9.9 years) categorized as P-type dyslexics (showing accurate but slow and fragmented reading) and 19 children (mean age = 9.7 years) categorized as L-type dyslexics (fast but inaccurate readers) were presented with hemisphere-specific stimulation (HSS) and hemisphere-alluding stimulation (HAS). HSS was produced by presenting words to either the left or the right visual half-field, or to the left or right hand of the participant. HAS training was achieved through the presentation of either semantically/phonetically demanding or perceptually demanding text. Participants were given either a treatment program that was specifically designed for their particular dyslexia subtype, or a program that had been deliberately chosen to be inconsistent with their subtype. Contrary to predictions, participants made gains on all of the reading measures, regardless of the type of treatment given. On the basis of these findings it is suggested that treatment gains made are due to nonspecific training effects and not to the specific nature of Bakker's remedial strategies.

This study tries to distinguish between the effects of spoken text in reading-while-listening (RwL) and those of text repetition by determining whether repeated RwL of the same text leads to better results than RwL of different texts. Moreover, it is investigated whether the results of RwL can be improved by asking the reader to detect mismatches between written and spoken texts. Subjects were 36 young backward readers (25 boys, 11 girls) from the Netherlands. Mean age was 111 months. With all three methods a practice effect was found for texts as well as for single words. Reading the same text, however, did not lead to better results than reading different texts. Nor were the effects of RwL of different texts improved by mismatch detection. Only the reading speed for the training texts increased following text repetition and mismatch detection.

This study presents a method for analyzing and remediating the visual perceptual deficits often found in persons with acquired right brain injury due to stroke. A total of 57 patients were randomly assigned to experimental (N=25) or control (N=32) groups. All patients were administered the same test battery prior to assignment. Experimentals received the specific training program and the controls received standard rehabilitation. Both groups were retested after a period of one month. Analysis revealed the superior performance of the experimental group. The results suggest that the academic disorders found in right brain damage can be treated as secondary to a primary disturbance in visual scanning behavior.

Examined the effectiveness of specific psychoeducational tutoring methods on achievement in reading, self-esteem, auding, and verbal language, Ss (N = 132) were youths and adults reading below fifth level who volunteered to participate in an adult tutorial project. After the assessment of entry level achievement, Ss received psychoeducational tutoring. Comparison of pre- with posttest scores scores indicated that Ss made significant improvement in reading, self-esteem, auding, and verbal language. Pretest scores were related most strongly to posttest scores. Initial verbal language scores were related significantly to posttest reading and auding scores. The study also tested the adequacy of a developmental reading model for adult illiterates. Auding and verbal language scores exceeded reading scores, as theorized. Further research is needed to determine whether gains in achievement continue and whether low intellectual levels or specific language disabilities are contributing to the low levels of reading, auding, and verbal language.

The effectiveness of training mothers as home reading tutors was assessed using a sample of 42 mother-child pairs. The children were aged 8 to 9 yr. Analyses showed that the amount of time parents spent listening to a child read at home was positively related to both reading accuracy and comprehension scores. A short group-program training mothers as home reading tutors achieved the anticipated changes in mothers' behaviours: delayed intervention, increased use of meaning and contextual cues rather than direct word prompts, and greater use of praise. Children's reading accuracy was marginally improved and reading comprehension was significantly increased as a result of training the mothers as home reading tutors.