This correlational study examined the Beginning of the Page Procedure (B.O.P.P) and the "instant" Beginning of the Page Procedure as measures for assessing readability: One hundred ninety-six grade nine students (106 male and 90 female) took part in the study and their scores on the cloze procedure, the B.O.P.P. and the "instant" B.O.P.P. were correlated with the Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test Form A - Blue Level (hereafter referred to as the Stanford Diagnostic ). The Stanford Diagnostic was used as the anchor test and the students were randomly assigned to each of the three groups; Analyses included the calculation of means associated with the Stanford Diagnostic scores for each subgroup, and analysis of the variance between sexes within each subgroup. An equivalency table is provided which estimates the Stanford Diagnostic scores for a given cloze procedure, B.O.P.P. or "instant" B.O.P.P. score; Using the Stanford Diagnostic grade score equivalent to 40 percent on the cloze procedure, the readability level of the passage was determined. This was then compared to the readability level estimated by the Fry Graph. Respective correlations of .53 and .67 were found between the B.O.P.P. and "instant" B.O.P.P. with the Stanford Diagnostic suggesting both are good indicators of the students' ability to handle the given passage. Similarly the Fry Graph and the Stanford Diagnostic, grade score equal to 40 percent on the cloze procedure, found the passages to be at virtually the same level of difficulty. All results however, were limited to the passage studied and should not be generalized to other materials. When a significance level of .05 was used no significant difference was found between the male and female performance levels on any of the tests administered. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

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In Western countries, there are around 8-10% of school age children suffering from mild to moderate reading difficulties. Similarly, in Hong Kong the prevalence of reading difficulties among school age children was found to be 9.7- 12%. An understanding of the mechanisms involved in reading helps us to determine the skills necessary for successful reading. The Phonological Mediation Hypothesis (PMH), which claims that phonological recoding is a necessary phase during lexical access, is widely known for its postulation that phonological awareness would be a significant prognostic indicator of reading development. Theoretically, individuals who have difficulties in phonological recoding during lexical access should also encounter reading difficulties. Good readers with hearing impairment are, therefore, considered as counter examples of PMH. If the above prediction of PHM is true, skilled readers with hearing impairment should have the ability to develop an intact phonological representation and hence are more capable of phonological recoding. In this study, the reading behaviors of children with hearing impairment (HI), that of their reading level matched (RL) and that of their chronological age matched (CA) controls were compared in three tasks—an auditory perceptual task of onset rime awareness (TAPOR); a synonym decision task (SDT); and a homophone decision task (HDT). The results for TAPOR showed that auditory perceptual ability (APOR) accounted for 49% of the variance in the reading ability of children with hearing impairment. In addition, results of cross group comparisons on the scores in TAPOR demonstrated a possible causal relationship between APOR and reading ability in subjects with hearing impairment. On the other hand, SDT and HDT results indicated a significant preference for orthographic foils in RL and HI subjects with low reading ability. An increasing tendency to choose synonyms or homophones, and a decreasing tendency to use orthographic distractors was observed across subject groups with Primary 1, Primary 2 and Primary 6 reading abilities. A similar but delayed pattern of change in preference for distractors was observed in HI subjects. The results only partially agree with PMH. An alternative hypothesis—the Psycholinguistic Grain Size Theory (PGST) — might be a better model to explain the observed results. With reference to the results of TAPOR, the correlation between reading ability and auditory perceptual ability could be explained in terms of the ‘availability problem’ postulated in this latter model. In the same way, the early emergence of orthographic effect in almost all subjects except CA controls and the late emergence of a number of reading strategies operating at different levels of grain size can be better explained by ‘consistency problems’ and ‘granularity problems’ proposed in PGST. These findings are considered, and directions for further studies are outlined. / published_or_final_version / Speech and Hearing Sciences / Master / Master of Philosophy

Generally, females are regarded as the group who has better verbal and reading abilities (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974; Denno, 1982), although there are still some disagreements on particular aspects or language systems (Hyde & Linn, 1988; Hetherington & Parke, 1986). We asked whether gender differences of reading ability exist in Chinese children and if so, how the difference may be demonstrated. In addition, we investigated whether the development of reading ability follows a hierarchical model (Gough &Hillinger, 1980; Ehri, 1980; Ehri & Wilce, 1985), according to which, the gender differences may vary with age and reading experience. We tested children’s character reading ability and phonological awareness in a Shandong primary school. Fifty-five second graders and forty-three fourth graders performed behavioral tasks containing a Chinese character reading test, a Chinese onset-rime oddity test and an English onset-rime oddity test. We found that Chinese children exhibited a significant gender difference in Chinese character reading ability. However, we have not found gender differences on onset-rime level phonological awareness. Thus, gender differences of reading ability exist in Chinese children, even if the differences only cover partial phonological or orthographic skills. The present data have also yielded the predicted result that the development of gender differences change with age and reading experience. Specifically, the gender difference on Chinese character reading ability emerged after Grade 2. In terms of the onset-rime oddity task, the performances of boys and girls showed no striking difference at any grades. These results reveal that gender differences of reading ability exist in Chinese children, especially in children in higher grades (Grade 4). Different types of verbal skills and learning attitude should be taken into account, and be examined in the future. / published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

abstract / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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The purpose of this study is to investigate the technical adequacy of two reading Curriculum—Based Measures (CBM5), to examine the relationships of the CBM5 to normreferenced tests, and to compare the strength of relationship of both kinds of measures to school—based indices of reading performance. The two CBMs (a word list sampled from several reading series and a passage reading test composed of ten Ginn 720 passages) were taken from the literature; comprehensive information about their technical adequacy had not been previously available. A review of the literature indicates that CBM, particularly reading CBM, is gaining increased attention in education because of claims regarding its utility in monitoring pupil progress, its ease of administration, and its relationship to local curricula as well as to learning gains. This study examined how reading CBMs and two subtests from the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement (Kaufman & Kaufman, 1985) relate to each other and to three school—based indices of reading performance: a school district reading test, program placement status (learning disabled or regular education), and a teacher rating scale of reading skill. Grade four students from one metropolitan Vancouver school district served as subjects (n=105). Of these, 35 were classified as learning disabled and 70 were classified as regular education. Learning disabled status was determined by judgments of a school district screening committee and by examining previous psychoeducational assessments. Reliability indices calculated on the CBMs supported claims for technical adequacy. These estimates were as follows: internal consistency of the word list was .97, internal consistency of the reading passages was .98 and .94 for reading speed and accuracy, test—retest reliability of the reading passages was .89 and .79 for reading speed and accuracy, and inter—rater reliability of the reading passages was .99 and .96 for reading speed and accuracy. Results indicated that the CBMs used in this study have high reliabilities. CBM5, especially the speed score from the- reading passages, demonstrated strong relationships to the two norm—referenced subtests. The pattern of correlations between the measures differed between the learning disabled and normal sample; analyses of variance demonstrated that all measures used in the study discriminated between the learning disabled and the regular education groups. Stepwise multiple regression and canonical analysis indicated that the two norm—referenced subtests, the speed score from the Curriculum—Based Reading Passages, and the accuracy score from the Curriculum—Based Word List were most efficient in “predicting” the three school-based indices of reading performance. Evidence for concurrent validity of curriculum—based and norm—referenced measures was found in this study. When administration time, instructional utility, and technical properties are considered, results indicated that the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement Reading Decoding subtest and the Curriculum—Based Reading Passages speed score are the most efficient of the predictor measures investigated in identifying and programming for Year Four children with significant reading difficulty. Implications for further research and the potential of CBM to accommodate instructional and measurement needs is discussed.