As reading is vital to success in life and opens the door to nearly all other learning opportunities, it is essential that educators understand why students with learning how to read. Therefore, it is key for both professionals and researchers to establish their own approaches to assist those with reading difficulties. "Developing Effective…

Research on visual and phonological coding in reading words for meaning is reviewed, and two studies are described that examined the word processing of skilled and less skilled elementary school readers. Findings revealed support for previous studies stressing the importance of the automatic nature of reading skills. (CL)

Fourth graders who were good readers (N=95) and poor readers (N=27) were given tests of syntactic competence, vocabulary, and auditory and reading comprehension. Scores on the auditory and reading comprehension tests were significantly correlated. Poor readers performed significantly poorer on the syntactic test, but results did not support the…

A five-year retest of 69 pairs of reading disabled children (7-12 years old) and matched controls revealed the persistent nature of reading disability. Despite substantial differences in reading performance and symbol processing speed, both groups exhibited similar rates of change in reading performance. (CL)

Reports on two experiments which examined whether normal and disabled readers differed in the ability to use orthographic structure information to process printed material. Finds that disabled readers use orthographic structure information as much or more than normal readers. (MM)

In the author's experience, a significant source of reading difficulty for many beginning and struggling readers are misconceptions about print concepts so basic teachers assume their students are aware of them. Many children fail to grasp implicit principles of print such as the following: the reader cannot make up the words, the order of letters…

Examines (longitudinally) contributions of naming speed measured on serial-list and various discrete-trial formats to several reading subskills to determine their impact independent of other reading-related skills on reading disabilities. Tests 38 poor and average readers in grades 2, 3, and 4. Finds that phonological awareness, vocabulary, and…

The relative frequency of poor readers in Dutch general elementary education (GEE) and special elementary education (SEE) and the characteristics of their reading performance were investigated using a lexical decision procedure. According to the same norms that identified 9% of students as poor readers in GEE, no less than 73% of the students in…

Many factors influence a child's development of reading skills. Without effective instruction in reading, students fail to realize their potential. Limited English-speaking students and students in rural communities appear to lose the most. Reforms for disadvantaged students must address their needs directly, rather than assume that raising…

Among findings were that as reading proficiency increased, ability to use graphic information increased considerably, although not significantly; and low readers were least efficient in their use of grammatical form class cues, with their errors more often than not being of a different form class. (SBH)

Identifies five phases of development to distinguish the course of word reading; notes each phase is characterized by students' working knowledge of the alphabetic system, which is central for acquiring word reading skill. Explains the usefulness of this information for teachers of problem readers. Explains the processes that students acquire in…

Two roles for phonological recoding, as a back-up mechanism used when visual word identification fails and as a self-teaching mechanism for visual word identification, are examined in view of research findings on development of reading comprehension and on the relationship of reading disabilities and phonological processing deficits. Teaching…

This review of research focuses on three issues in reading development: (1) the relationship of phonemic awareness to the variance in reading development not accounted for by rapid naming; (2) the relationship of rapid naming to the variance not accounted for by phonemic awareness; and (3) whether phonemic awareness and rapid naming contribute…

An elementary school reading teacher describes how she restructured her teaching methods by encouraging children to read and write as part of an integrated process, rather than teaching reading alone as a set of fragmented steps. (GC)

Examines and supports the notion that many of the problems evidenced by poor readers are related to their passive response to the interactive task of reading. (MM)