M. Ed. (Educational Psychology) / Reading is a complex activity which is of the utmost importance for successful progress in mainstream education, but which is seldom fully understood by professionals in the field of education. It is also an ability which is often problematic for children to master. The purpose with this study was to gain a better understanding of the reading process and to explore the reasons why some children fail to learn to read effectively. The research was based upon the following research questions: what constitutes beginning reading; how these problems manifest in the reading behaviour of the child with reading problems; and how the child with reading problems describes his knowledge about reading. The first aim of the study was to establish what the nature of reading is, how it develops in beginning readers (in the junior primary phase) and what the possible causes of reading problems are. This was achieved by an analysis of reviewed literature, emphasising the child as a system whereby his inner world is in interaction with the world around him. The additional aim was to conduct a qualitative analysis was undertaken in which the reading actions of two eight year old readers were presented and analyzed by means of a protocol analysis. The data of the two early readers were compared and the following categories of their reading actions identified: the mechanics of reading. construction of meaning and metareading knowledge. It was argued that these categories are interrelated in the sense that the one influences the other to such an extent that they cannot be separated for purposes of teaching reading skills. The mechanics of reading seems to be the foundation of meaning construction as it was apparent that the readers could not answer the comprehension questions when they were unable to recognise the words. This promotes a "back to basics" approach of teaching reading. On the other hand it also came to light that the readers could read certain words, but did not understand them due to the fact that they did not comprehend the context thereof and clearly had not constructed schema in the domain previously. The levels of functioning of the two readers were explained by using comparative matrices which indicated that they function on pre-conceptual and systematic conceptual levels, that is below the level that could be expected for their reading age group. Arguing from the findings of the research it was evident that teachers, as well as therapists concerned with reading remediation, probably address reading problems without fully understanding what the act of reading entails. Furthermore, school curricula which have the teaching of reading skills as objective could adopt a "back to basics" approach whereby phonics teaching and the accompanying emphasis on word recognition could be the point of departure. Thereafter comprehension and meta-reading aspects could be emphasised. It is, however, extremely important to keep in mind that each of these components of the teaching of reading, namely phonic recognition, word recognition, comprehension and meta-reading are not seen in isolation, but that the interaction of these aspects is understood and taught.

I conducted 2 experiments to analyze the effects of a reading curriculum, Corrective Reading, which has a sequence that trains derived relations, on the emission of (a) derived relations defined as combinatorial entailment in Relational Frame Theory and (b) metaphors with first grade students. In Experiment 1, I compared the curriculum, which has the sequence to train derived relations to a well-known reading curriculum, RAZ Kids. RAZ Kids served as the content control. I used an experimental group design with a simultaneous treatment and a crossover feature. I selected 14 participants, who were matched then randomly assigned into 2 groups of 7. Both groups received matched instructional trials either in Corrective Reading or RAZ Kids condition, and each group was post-tested. Upon completion of the Post intervention 1 probes, each group was placed in an alternative condition, where Group 1 received the content control intervention, and Group 2 received instruction from the curriculum that has the sequence to train derived relations. Both groups increased in number of correct responses following the Corrective Reading intervention. Two kinds of analyses were done, small group and individual. In Experiment 2, I replicated Experiment I using a delayed multiple probe design across 2 first-grade dyads without a content control curriculum. I tested the effects of 5 lessons of the curriculum that has the sequence to train derived relations on the same dependent measures with an addition of implicit/explicit reading comprehension probes. The results showed that the curriculum sequence found within Corrective Reading was effective in increasing the number of correct derived relation responses, while also improving reading comprehension responses.