Purpose: Using data from 1,868 children from the US, Australia, and Sweden who took a 10-word spelling test in kindergarten and a standardized spelling test in Grades 1, 2, and (except for the Australian children) Grade 4, we examined two questions. First, does the quality of a child's errors on the kindergarten test help predict later spelling…

Recent studies have proposed developments to the Simple View of Reading to reflect reading development across age groups and differences among learner profiles and account for additional factors that explain reading comprehension performance beyond word recognition and language comprehension. One of these proposals is the inclusion of cognitive…

The ubiquitous weekly spelling test assumes that words are best learned by memorisation and testing but is this the best way? This study compared two well-known approaches to spelling instruction, the rule based and visual memory approaches. A group of 55 seven-year-olds in two Year 3 classrooms was taught spelling in small groups for three…

Several gaps exist in the standardised assessment of pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in the Irish mainstream education context at the point of transition from primary to post-primary school. These gaps may lead to a lack of adequate focus on the continuity of resources at this timepoint. The current study examined…

All students should have opportunities to develop their ability to reason mathematically. Gersten and Chard (1999) support this stance with respect to students with learning disabilities: "Even if students are not automatic with basic facts, they still should be engaged in activities that promote the development of number sense and…

We evaluated the impact of teaching complex grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPC) derived from the Simplicity Principle to at-risk poor readers in Grade 2 classrooms, using a two-arm dual site matched control trial intervention. Poor word readers (n = 149) were allocated to either a) Simplicity GPC (n= 79) or b) Letter-Name Control (n= 70) small…

This exploratory study compares the shared book reading behaviours of five school aged children with DS (aged 11 years 6 months to 15 years 6 months) before and after participation in an intervention which included selected components of the MultiLit Reading Tutor Program. The program was delivered 1:1 to participants each week over a 12 week…

The "automatic letter-sound integration hypothesis" (Blomert, [Blomert, L., 2011]) proposes that dyslexia results from a failure to fully integrate letters and speech sounds into automated audio-visual objects. We tested this hypothesis in a sample of English-speaking children with dyslexic difficulties (N = 13) and samples of…

Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) have demonstrated general spelling and writing difficulties. We investigated the sensitivity of children with SLI to the consistent spelling of root morphemes, a feature to which young typically developing children demonstrate sensitivity. We asked children with SLI and two groups of typically…

Although there are a number of standardised measures to assess dyslexia in children, there are comparatively fewer instruments suitable for the assessment of dyslexia in adults. Given the growing number of students entering UK higher education institutions, there is a need to develop reliable tools for assessing the additional needs of those with…

The reciprocal effects model (REM) predicts a reciprocal relation between academic self-concept and academic achievement, whereby prior academic self-concept is associated with future gains in achievement, and prior achievement is related to subsequent academic self-concept. Although research in this area has been extensive, there has been a…

This study aimed to explore the spatial numerical association of response codes (SNARC), the flanker, and the numerical distance effects in children with mathematical difficulties. From a sample of 720 third, fourth, and fifth graders, 60 children were selected and divided into the following three groups: typically developing children (TD; n =…

Error analyses using a multidimensional measure were conducted on the misspellings of Kindergarten children speaking English as a first (EL1) and English as a second language (ESL) in order to detect any differences in early spelling ability between language groups. Oral vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, phonological processing, letter/word…

Across multiple schools and sites, the impact of grade-at-intervention was evaluated for children at risk or meeting criteria for reading disabilities. A multiple-component reading intervention with demonstrated efficacy was offered to small groups of children in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade. In a quasi-experimental design, 172 children received the…

Computers have taken an increasingly prominent role in education around the world in recent years in developed and developing countries alike. As developing country governments have turned their focus from increasing enrollment to improving the quality of education in their schools, many have made access to computers a key component to their…