Wim H. J. van Bon

Training of poor readers' phonological decoding skills: Evidence for syllable-bound processing

A flash card computer program designed to increase decoding speed in reading was evaluated with a sample of 55 eight- to twelve-year-old Dutch poor readers by using a pretest-training-posttest control group design. The reading level of the poor readers was comparable to the reading level of normal readers in grade two. After 8 weeks of practicing (twice a week) for 30 minutes per session, children in the training group showed substantial improvements in decoding speed not only on pseudowords directly practiced during the training, but also in untrained pseudowords and in existing words. The no-training control group did not improve in decoding speed from pre- to posttest. The results, furthermore, indicate that syllable-bound processes play a role in phonological decoding in Dutch, and that the flash card method used in this study stimulates poor readers to decode letter strings into syllabic units, which leads to an increase in decoding speed. The role of the syllable in phonological decoding and the potential of a specific flash card technique as a means to improve decoding skills of poor readers are discussed.

Mode of acquisition of word meanings: The viability of a theoretical construct

This article examines the reliability and validity of the construct, mode of acquisition (MOA). The MOA of a word denotes the way in which the word’s meaning is learned. A word’s meaning can be acquired perceptually, linguistically, or by some combination of both. In Experiment 1, 26 student volunteers from third year special education courses rated 566 words, taken from reading texts in elementary school, on MOA. Our findings show that MOA ratings gradually change over grades, shifting from mainly perceptually acquired word meanings in Grade 1 texts to mainly linguistically acquired concepts in Grade 6 texts. In Experiment 2, 34 educational professionals completed a list on MOA, concreteness, or imageability. Judgments on the MOA proved to be different from judgments of concreteness and imageability. We suggest that the increasingly linguistic character of word meanings contribute to explaining some of the reading difficulties of deaf children.

In Search of Factors in Deaf and Hearing Children's Reading Comprehension

The present study examined whether specific item characteristics, such as mode of acquisition (MoA) of word meanings, make reading comprehension tests particularly difficult for deaf children. Reading comprehension data on nearly 13,000 hearing 7-to-12-year-olds and 253 deaf 7-to-20-year-olds were analyzed, divided across test levels from second to sixth grade (not necessarily corresponding to chronological age). Factor analyses across item scores suggested that, of the determinants studied, MoA—referring to the type of information (perceptual, linguistic, or both) used in word meaning acquisition—was the only factor that contributed significantly to deaf and hearing childrens reading comprehension. For hearing children, MoA influenced item scores at the third- and fourth-grade levels. For the deaf children, MoA influenced item scores through the sixth-grade level.

The Prevalence of Poor Reading in Dutch Special Elementary Education

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 SEE were classified as poor readers. On average, the GEE poor readers were better readers than those in SEE, but the findings do not point to substantial differences in reading processes between the two reader groups. Hypotheses about the nature of the referral process that may cause this surprisingly strong relation between poor reading ability and SEE placement are advanced.

Difficulties with Consonants in the Spelling and Segmentation of CCVCC Pseudowords: Differences among Dutch First Graders.

The goal of the present study was to explore the errors made by Dutch first graders in spelling syllable-initial and syllable-final consonants clusters in CCVCC pseudowords, to look for error types that discriminate poorer spellers from better spellers, and to relate these error types to the errors made when segmenting the same words. Such a correspondence across tasks would point to problems with the phonemic conceptualization of the spoken word as a source of spelling difficulty. The most prominent spelling error among poor spellers was omission of the consonant immediately following the vowel. This error seemed to be reflected in segmentation by omission of that consonant, but even more by the consonant being left unsegmented from the preceding vowel. The spelling and segmentation errors that we observed in Dutch are similar to those previously observed in English. The finding that such errors are made with a disproportionate frequency by poor spellers is new and suggests a basic problem in developing a phonemic conceptualization of spoken words (and of postvocalic consonant clusters in particular) that is adequate for spelling.

Training in phonemic segmentation: The effects of visual support

Two experimental studies examined the effects of different types of phonemic segmentation training on phonemic segmentation, reading and spelling. Children with learning disabilities, who were weak in phonemic segmentation, were trained with the use of diagrams and alphabet letters, with alphabet letters only, or with no visual support at all (the control condition). For this purpose three computer-assisted training programs were developed. In the first experiment, 48 children were assigned to one of the three programs. The training period lasted five weeks. Although in each training program the children improved their phonemic segmentation skill, there were no significant differences among the three training programs. This result may have been influenced by the different types of feedback that were provided in the three training programs. In a second experiment, therefore, these differences in feedback were eliminated and 49 different children were trained with the same three programs. The results of this experiment, however, were the same as those of the first experiment. The finding that visual support had no beneficial effects could therefore not be attributed to differences in explicit feedback. It was concluded that with these children, in contrast to preschoolers, phonemic segmentation training using visual support does not have any advantage over auditory training alone. The results of this study indicate that preschoolers and children with reading and spelling problems cannot be treated in the same way. It underlines the importance of further examination of the problems that poor readers and poor spellers encounter in grasping the structure of spoken language.

Low Vision Affects the Reading Process Quantitatively But Not Qualitatively

In this article, the authors compare the reading behavior of students with low vision to that of two groups of students with normal vision (reading-match and age-match students). In Experiment 1, students identified the first letter in words and nonwords and the researchers measured latency and accuracy. No group differences were found for latency, but the reading-match group differed from the other two groups on accuracy. All three groups identified the first letter of words faster than they did for nonwords. In Experiment 2, students named words with typical and atypical letter—sound relationships; the researchers measure latency and accuracy. Both the low-vision and the reading-match groups were slower than the age-match group; only the reading-match group made more errors on typical stimuli than on atypical stimuli. The absence of significant interactions between group and any experimental-word variable justified the conclusion that low vision affects the reading process quantitatively but not qualitatively.

Improving word reading speed: individual differences interact with a training focus on successes or failures

The effect of two training procedures on the development of reading speed in poor readers is examined. One training concentrates on the words the children read correctly (successes), the other on the words they read incorrectly (failures). Children were either informed or not informed about the training focus. A randomized controlled trial was conducted with 79 poor readers. They repeatedly read regularly spelled Dutch consonant–vowel–consonant words, some children their successes, others their failures. The training used a computerized flashcards format. The exposure duration of the words was varied to maintain an accuracy rate at a constant level. Reading speed improved and transferred to untrained, orthographically more complex words. These transfer effects were characterized by an Aptitude-Treatment Interaction. Poor readers with a low initial reading level improved most in the training focused on successes. For poor readers with a high initial reading level, however, it appeared to be more profitable to practice with their failures. Informing students about the focus of the training positively affected training: The exposure duration needed for children informed about the focus of the training decreased more than for children who were not informed. This study suggests that neither of the two interventions is superior to the other in general. Rather, the improvement of general reading speed in a transparent orthography is closely related to both the children’s initial reading level and the type of words they practice with: common and familiar words when training their successes and uncommon and less familiar words with training their failures.

Lexical decision and oral reading by poor and normal readers

The primary goal of this study was to compare a paper-and-pencil version of the lexical decision task, which can be administered groupwise, with reading aloud a differently ordered list of the same words and pseudowords. Participants were first and second graders (“normal readers”) and students from schools for children with learning difficulties. On the average, the latter “poor readers” scored at the same oral reading level as the normal readers, but were older. The correlation between both tasks appeared to be high and both tasks had comparable correlations with third variables, suggesting that performance is determined by the same processes. Because the lexical decision task showed little evidence for guessing, it may be an — even better — alternative for oral reading. No differences between participant groups were found that point to different reading strategies. Error analysis, however, indicates that the poor readers probably have a specific problem in the oral reading of pseudowords.RésuméLe but premier de l’étude était de comparer une version papiercrayon d’une tâche de décision lexicale, administrée collectivement, avec la lecture à haute voix d’une liste différemment ordonnée des mêmes mots et pseudo-mots. Les sujets étaient des élèves de première et deuxième années (lecteurs normaux) et des élèves d’écoles pour enfants présentant des difficultés d’apprentissage. En moyenne, les faibles lecteurs en retard, donc plus vieux, ont obtenu des scores de même niveau en lecture orale que les lecteurs normaux. La corrélation entre les deux tâches s’est avérée élevée et les deux tâches ont eu des corrélations comparables avec une troisième variable, ce qui suggère que la performance dépend des mêmes processus. Du fait que la tâche de décision lexicale laissait peu de chances à une résolution par la supposition, elle pourrait être une alternative intéressante à une tâche de lecture orale. On n’a pas trouvé de différences entre les groupes qui puissent témoigner de différentes stratégies de lecture. Les erreurs d’analyse, cependant, indiquent que les faibles lecteurs ont probablement un problème spécifique dans la lecture orale des pseudo-mots.

Reading Development in Elementary School: Do Syllables Play a Role in Phonological Decoding?

The present study assessed the relation between the development of reading skills and syllable-bound progress in naming latency of grades 1 to 6 children for monosyllabic pseudowords of three orthographic structures: CVC, CCVC/CVCC and CCVCC. The naming task was a modified replication of van den Bosch (1991), in which poor readers were trained in reading aloud monosyllabic words and pseudowords. Based on the results of van den Bosch, parallel progress in naming latency over adjacent reading levels was expected between these three orthographic structures. However, the results of the present study replicated the findings of van den Bosch only partially. In the development of phonological decoding skills, beginning readers seem to use grapheme-phoneme conversions while processes at the syllabic level appear to play a role in phonological decoding when children become more competent readers. These findings are discussed in relation to current theories about the development of phonological decoding in normal readers.