Deficits in phonological information processing in upper elementary students with specific learning disabilities in reading or spelling may increase, decrease, or remain stable over time. The authors examined the development of phonological processing longitudinally in 209 students (109 with learning disabilities and 100 typically achieving;…

This study examined the effects of a small group intervention targeting paraphrasing and text structure instruction on the main idea generation and reading comprehension of students with reading disabilities in Grades 4 and 5. Students (N = 62) were randomly assigned to receive the Tier 2-type intervention or business-as-usual instruction.…

The role of executive function (EF) in the reading process, and in those with reading difficulties, remains unclear. As members of the Texas Center for Learning Disabilities, we review multiple perspectives regarding EF in reading and then summarize some of our recent studies of struggling and typical readers in grades 3-5. Study 1a found that a…

Reading fluency involves a complex interaction of different cognitive skills and abilities that develop with instruction and practice and relies on the automaticity of many distinct reading skills (e.g., pacing, word recognition, expression, phonological awareness). Fluent reading frees cognitive resources, such as working memory, for more…

Several studies in Spanish and other languages have shown that, in a lexical decision task, children are more likely to accept pseudowords with a known morphological structure as words as compared to non-morphological pseudowords. Morphology also facilitates visual word recognition of actual words in children with reading difficulties. In the…

Struggling readers often lack fluency and motivation and many exhibit dyslexic characteristics. Often these children sit undiagnosed in regular education classroom with interventions that are limited in scope and fail to have the motivational element which will encourage these struggling readers to actively engage in reading and writing. Students…

Researchers have used various theories to explain deaf individuals' reading skills, including the dual route reading theory, the orthographic depth theory, and the early language access theory. This study tested 4 groups of children--hearing with dyslexia, hearing without dyslexia, deaf early signers, and deaf late signers (N = 857)--from 4…

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the various neurocognitive processes concomitant to reading by attempting to identify various subtypes of reading disorders in a referred sample. Participants were 216 elementary school students in grades two through five who were given select subtests of the Woodcock Johnson-III Tests of…

Two Canadian First Nations samples of Grades 3 and 4 children were assessed for cognitive processing, word reading, and phonological awareness skills. Both groups were from Plains Cree rural reservations in different provinces. The two groups showed significant differences on several key cognitive variables although there were more similarities…

To implement Response to Intervention with intermediate-grade struggling readers, there is a need for interventions that are responsive to individual student needs, and sufficiently comprehensive to support the many dimensions of the reading process. This research examined the efficacy of such an intervention, the Interactive Strategies…

Many children struggle to learn to read, and these difficulties can persist well into adulthood. To address this problem, researchers have investigated the processes that underlie reading. An informative body of work has thus identified basic skills (e.g., decoding, vocabulary knowledge) as necessary for successful reading. Researchers also have…

As part of a larger study of developmental deficits in the skills of automaticity of name retrieval, phonological awareness, and memory span and their role in reading disabilities, a study tested 13 average and 14 poor fourth-grade readers for digit and letter naming speed, phonological awareness, and digit span. Among the reading skills assessed…

To understand what kinds of mental processing take place during reading and how the child encodes information that is presented, a study investigated the comprehension of a story by asking the reader to take part actively in the decision-making of the protagonist. Subjects, 56 children from a fourth- and sixth-grade class at an elementary school…

Examines associations of multiple measures of naming speed, phonological awareness, and verbal intelligence with word reading in poor readers and good readers. Reveals that for poor readers naming speed and phonological awareness were associated with word reading, but not verbal intelligence--for good readers, phonological awareness and verbal…

A study examined the theory that partially independent deficits in phonemic awareness and symbol naming speed contribute to reading disability. Subjects of the study were chosen from six second-grade classrooms to represent poor and average readers, rather than a regular class distribution. On the basis of AAT (phonemic deletion scores) and DNS…