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Browsing by Subject "Dyslexia"

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    A comparison of academically-successful struggling adult readers' and academically-successful non-struggling adult readers' fluency skills: Implications for college reading instruction
    (2008-09) Willcutt, Jennifer Ruth
    Students who are struggling readers manage to succeed in college despite their difficulties. How do they manage to overcome their reading difficulties? This study addressed this research question both quantitatively and qualitatively. The quantitative analysis of reading skill was necessary to measure and compare the fluency achievement of adult struggling readers who have succeeded in obtaining some postsecondary education with their typical adult reader peers. How fluent are these successful struggling readers, as measured by their grade level of word recognition, their reading rate and comprehension, and their performance on a lexical decision task? The qualitative survey and interviews were used to learn the reading, study, and social strategies that successful struggling readers have used to overcome their reading difficulties in college. Twenty-two self-identified adult struggling readers with some postsecondary education were compared to twenty-three typical adults readers enrolled in 4-year undergraduate and graduate school courses. One-way analysis of variance was used to test differences between the groups in reading fluency. Results indicate that there are no significant differences in word-recognition accuracy between typical and struggling readers on high-frequency real word identification; however, there are significant differences between typical and struggling groups on the recognition accuracy of non-words of 4, 5, and 6 letters in length. There are also significant differences between struggling and typical readers on 3, 4, and 5-letter, high-frequency word recognition latency, and 3, 4, 5, and 6-letter non-word recognition latency. Successful struggling readers report that they don't do a lot of reading, but when they do read, it takes them longer, they must take copious notes, and their reading is likely to be nonfiction that is related to their career goals. Academically-successful struggling readers also develop relationships with people who can help them succeed. College reading instructors can use these findings to help students choose appropriate materials and develop their reading fluency skills.
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    Typical and Atypical Acquisition of Mathematics, Reading, and Writing: Cognitive Profiles in Early Development
    (2020-08) Schmied, Astrid
    Academic success is at the heart of educational systems. Nevertheless, underachievement in core academic domains (mathematics, reading, and writing) and Specific Learning Disorders (SLDs) (dyscalculia, dyslexia, and dysgraphia) are widely reported across the globe. Research on the cognitive abilities that associate with the acquisition of these academic domains has primarily concentrated on school-age children. In contrast, little is known about this topic prior to formal schooling. Understanding preschool periods is critical, because the preschool years set the stage for subsequent learning. We need to better understand better the cognitive abilities mostly/particularly associated with the early development of mathematics, reading, and writing. The Early Academic Skills Development study collected data to gain a deeper understanding of the cognitive abilities that are associated with the development of core academic domains. It used a cross-sectional design and primarily quantitative data to explore these associations. A comprehensive battery of academic, cognitive, and behavioral measures was collected for 32 preschoolers aged 3-5 years old during November 2019 and March 2020. The tests Number Sense, Letter-Word Identification, and Writing were used as proxies for measuring mathematics, reading, and writing, respectively. For assessing cognitive abilities, the indexes of Working Memory (WMI), Visual Spatial (VSI), Verbal Acquisition (VAI), Verbal Comprehension (VCI), and Nonverbal (NVI) were utilized as proxies. The selection of these cognitive variables was based on the existing literature in elementary school-age children and SLDs. As hypotheses, Number Sense, Letter-Word Identification, and Writing were expected to be positively associated with WMI and VSI, VAI and VCI, and VSI and NVI, respectively. The analytical approaches for testing the hypotheses included regression models. The expected findings of this study were not supported by the quantitative analyses; none of the hypotheses of this investigation resulted in statistically reliable associations. None of these results varied while controlling for gender, childcare system, household income, and highest level of mothers’ education. The findings of this study are largely inconclusive, presumably due to the limited sample size. More in-depth interpretations require more intensive data collection to increase the sample size. By filling this gap, the resulting data could inform early education, as well as intervention programs aimed to reduce academic underachievement later on in school. These new data may also enlighten early screening procedures of SLDs that can inform mental health diagnoses, treatments, and remedial education programs, which would avoid short- and long-term consequences and most likely lead to improving academic success.