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Summaries in English and Afrikaans / Leesmotivering is van uiterste belang vir toekomstige akademiese sukses. Tog toon heelwat skoolleerlinge 'n geleidelike onwilligheid om te lees soos die jare vorder, met stygende skoolverlating tot gevolg. Een van die moontlike redes hiervoor is reeds in die skrywer se vorige navorsing uitgewys, naamlik, onderontwikkelde leervaardighede as gevolg van morfofonologiese bewustheidstekortkominge. Morfofonologiese bewustheid is leerlingbesef van die klankeenhede van gesproke woorde wat nodig is vir die vloeiende dekodering en begrip van woorde van die geskrewe teks. Leerlinge, geidentifiseer in die vorige studie as potensiele swak lesers, het 'n morfofonologiese bewustheidstekort getoon. Om hierdie skoliere by te staan, is 'n morfofonologiese bewustheidsopleidingsprogram (MSO) deur die navorser opgestel wat vir amper 'n jaar tegelykertyd met die konvensionele leesonderrigmetodes deur die leerkrag geimplementeer is. Daaropvolgende leesresultate het sonder twyfel die kwintessensiele rol van morfofonologiese bewustheid vir leesvaardigheidontwikkeling bevestig, en het verder die rehabiliterende gevolge van die MBO-program vir risiko lesers openbaar. Of hierdle gevofge buite die lmplementeringstydperk kon funksioneer en toekomstige lees kon motiveer, was nog onbekend. Ole doelstelling van die huidige ondersoek was om die vroee bevindinge te verleng deur die langtermyneffekte van die MBO-program op leesvaardighede en motivering oor 'n tydperk van drie jaar na te vors. In die natuurlike klaskameromgewing het die studie op die oorspronklike steekproeflede gefokus wat voorheen vir die eksperimentele en kontrole groep op regverdige wyse geselekteer is. Motiveringsverskynsels is in terme van attribusie teorie, spesifiek, en sosiaal-kognitiewe teorie, oor die algemeen, bespreek. Gestandaardiseerde, projektiewe, waarnemings - en onderhoudsmetodes het openbaar dat, in vergelyking met die kontrole groeplede, eksperimentele leerlinge meer leesmotivering getoon het. Ander konstruktiewe langtermyneffekte van die MBO-program is opgemerk: vir akademiese prestasie, spelling, woordeskat, persoonlikheid, attribusies, emosies, leerling-leerkrag en leerling-ouer interpersoonlike verhoudings wat die motiverende effekte blyk te konsolideer. Daar word beweer dat leesmotivering minstens twee vereistes benodig, naamlik, vroee identifikasie van probleemlesers en vroee implementering van die leerkragvriendelike MBO-program. / Reading motivation is of paramount importance for future academic success. Yet numerous school pupils display gradual reluctance to read in advancing years, the outcomes of which compound drop-out rates. One of the possible reasons for this was already identifioo in the earlier research of the writer, namely, underdeveloped reading skills as a result of morphophonological awareness deficits. Morphophonological awareness is pupil consciousness of the sound units of spoken words whlch are vital to fluently decode and understand the sound elements of written text. Pupils Identified in the previous study as potential at-risk readers capable of later reading difficulties indicated a lack of morphophonological awareness. To assist these pupils, a morpho phonological awareness training (MAT) programme was constructed by the researcher and implemented by the class teacher for almost a year in tandem with the conventional reading instructional methods. Subsequent reading results unequivocally confirmed the quintessential role of morphophonological awareness for reading skill development, and moreover revealed the rehabilitating effects of the MAT programme for at-risk readers. However, it was not known at that time whether these effects could extend beyond the period of application and mollvate future reading. The aim of this current investigation was to extend the earlier findings by exploring the long-term effects ofthe MAT programme on reading skills and motivation ov·er a period of three years. In the naturalistic classroom setting, the study focused on the original sample members previously randomly assigr.ed to experimental and control groups. Motivational phenomena are discussed in terms of attribution theory, in particular, and social-cognitive theory. in general. Standardized, projective, observational and interview methods revealed that, relative to control group rnambers, experimentals exhibited more motivation to read. Other constructive long-term effects of the MAT programme were noted for general academic achievement, spelling, vocabulary, personality. attributions. emotions, pupil-teacher and pupil-parent interpersonal relationships which appear to consolidate the motivational effects. It Is concluded that reading motivation requires at least two conditions to be met, namely, early identification of problem readers and early implementati9n of the teacher-friendly MAT programme. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)

Learning disabled students have been described as "inactive" learners. They have difficulty organizing their learning environment and seem to lack the awareness of a need to develop methods or strategies to help themselves in accomplishing tasks. Research suggests that learning disabled students are able to learn strategies. In examining the academic area where most of these students have the greatest difficulty, it was found that reading comprehension is the predominate area of need for remediation. The major purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of using a questioning strategy with learning disabled students to increase discussion participation and to increase reading comprehension. The study had a dual research focus: a teacher training component and a student component. Twenty randomly selected resource teachers were chosen to participate. One-half of these teachers were involved in a five weekend workshop course on questioning strategies where teachers learned how to ask higher cognitive level questions. The other half of the teachers received no training during the study. The 60 students were all learning disabled fifth and sixth graders having difficulty with reading, but reading at least on a third grade level. The data collection instrument TICOR, a mini-computer, was used to collect observational data reflecting student-teacher interaction (discussion) following the reading of a narrative story. The techniques taught to the students focused on the oral discussion. Written comprehension tests were administered before and after the workshops as well as one month later. It was found that there were significant differences between the two groups; the teachers in the workshops asked significantly higher cognitive level questions. As this group asked higher level questions, the students would respond with higher level answers. It was also found that there was no difference between the two groups in their performance on the written comprehension tests. Because of the emphasis on the oral discussion skills, this finding seems to demonstrate that learning disabled students have difficulty using strategies acquired through incidential learning and also have difficulty transferring oral skills to written tasks.

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This study aimed to investigate the relationship between rapid automatized naming (RAN) and reading in Chinese through manipulating four processes involved in RAN’s production: access and retrieval, articulation, naming and serial processing, as well as the developmental pattern of this relationship. A total of 126 Hong Kong children with 42 in Grade 1, 41 in Grade 3 and 43 in Grade 5 were assessed on both the digit and picture versions of Discrete RAN, Continuous RAN, Yes/No Naming and Cancellation tasks, in addition to Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices, Chinese word and text reading fluency. The results of the regression analyses suggested serial processing and articulation were core component processes that underlied the RAN-reading relationship in Chinese across all three grades, while naming, i.e. the oral production of names of stimuli, was found to be a significant underlying process in Grades 1 and 3 only. Comparison between the present findings and those of a past research on an alphabetic language, i.e. Greek, indicated serial processing and naming were common component processes of their RAN-reading relationships, while the role of articulation was only significant in Chinese. Implications for developing visual scanning and articulation training for Chinese poor readers were suggested. / published_or_final_version / Educational Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

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The purpose of this study has been to discover print awareness of kindergarten children in Taiwan and the evidence that they are constructing knowledge about written Chinese. The study utilized Print Awareness Tasks including twenty environmental print items chosen from the Taiwanese society. Sixteen kindergartners age from three to six were the informants. These children were asked to read and respond to environmental print items with a different degree of decontextualization in each of the two task sessions. The results of the study showed that kindergarten children in Taiwan are highly aware of print in their environment. These young children demonstrated high semantic intent when they read environmental print. They used various information sources available to them, which include contextual clues in the print setting and their personal experience and background knowledge. They also showed that they used their developing concepts about the Chinese writing system as linguistic strategies to help them read the print items. There were differences between the responses to the two task sessions in terms of semantic and pragmatic characteristics and use of information. The contextual clues appeared to play a significant role in reading of environmental print. There were also differences between age groups. Three and six year olds differed from other age groups in terms of the semantic and pragmatic characteristic of their responses and their use of information. The children demonstrated that they were developing important concepts about the Chinese writing system. They were hypothesizing the representational relationships in language between: (a) written representation and the object it represents; (b) written representation and oral utterance--character-syllable correspondence; and (c) segmentation in written representation--language units. Most of the children had developed the concept of character as a written segment and word as a semantic segment. Very few of them had concept of the radical. They appeared read in a holistic way. The older children tended to develop concepts which were more specific and were closer to the conventions; however, no fixed linear developmental progress by age is suggested by the data.

A single-case research design was used to test the effectiveness of combining three instructional strategies to improve the word recognition, reading comprehension, and reading fluency of one post-primary child with a history of reading difficulty. The strategies selected, phonological decoding, metacognitive thinking, and rehearsal were shown throughout the literature to be effective on their own and in various combinations for supporting children with reading difficulty. The ten-year old female subject was given instruction in using these strategies in an intensive 1 : 1 setting. The subject met with a Research Assistant for three, 1-1 54 hour sessions each week over a ten week period. Prior to collecting baseline data, pre-testing was conducted using standardized instruments, the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test 11 (2002) and the Slosson Oral Reading Test (1 963) and a non-standardized instrument, the Classroom Reading Inventory (Silvaroli, 1982). Graded word lists and passages taken from the Diagnostic Reading Program, an inventory prepared for the Alberta Ministry of Education, Student Evaluation Branch (1 986) were used to assess the subject's skills in word recognition, comprehension, and fluency. During Session #9, the intervention, a combination of phonological decoding, metacognitive thinking, and rehearsal strategies were taught prior to testing and data collection. At Session #15, the intervention was applied to comprehension. Although data was collected for fluency scores throughout the study, the intervention was not directly applied to this variable. Post testing revealed the subject's word recognition and comprehension skills improved after the intervention was introduced, demonstrated by the generally positive trend on the multiple baseline whereas fluency scores actually dropped as she slowed her reading down to use the strategies for decoding unknown words. The quantitative data collected during post-testing with the WIAT I1 indicates an increase in percentile and age level scores that the subject's scores in word recognition (13%, 1 year), comprehension (57%, 4.4 years), and pseudoword decoding (lo%, 1 year) and scores on the SORT demonstrate a grade level equivalent growth of 1.2 years. Qualitative data in form of daily field notes by the Research Assistant signifl an overall positive change in the subject's view of herself as a reader. The strategies gave her more confidence, she abandoned her key strategy of guessing in favor of metacognitive thinking and decoding strategies, and focused on meaning, all of which contributed to higher post-testing scores for word recognition and in particular, comprehension as well as generally positive trends in baselines. After the study was completed, the subject was observed by her classroom teacher to have improved her performance and participation in the reading program and most significantly, was presenting a more positive and enthusiastic attitude toward reading. It is acknowledged by the researcher that although provision of intensive 1 : 1 instruction in the use of reading strategies is not always feasible for schools attempting to provide quality instruction and programming for students with a wide range of abilities, these strategies, when applied, can significantly improve the word recognition and reading comprehension skills of a post-primary student with a history of reading dificulty although they caused a reduction in reading fluency scores.

The problem of this study is to determine by testing and observation which of three specific procedures for the improvement of general reading ability was the most effective when used with groups of sixth-grade children in the Bowie Elementary Schools.