Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur Rydaholmsmetoden kan fungera för elever i lässvårigheter på högstadiet. Syftet var också att undersöka hur eleverna uppfattade arbetet med metoden. Som utgångspunkt valdes en kvantitativ ansats i form av en interventionsstudie med 15 elever i årskurs 7. Även en kvalitativ ansats i form av samtal användes för att ta reda på hur eleverna uppfattat arbetet. Resultatet av undersökningen visade att de flesta elever ökade testresultaten vad gäller avkodning. Interventionen genomfördes under fem veckor med för- och eftertest, vilket kan ha bidragit till viss inlärningseffekt av testresultaten. Under samtalen framkom en positiv inställning till arbetet med metoden, men ett antal elever upplevde exkludering på grund av att arbetet med metoden innebar en-till-en-undervisning utanför ordinarie undervisning. I strävan efter relationellt perspektiv är det viktigt att arbetet sker i samråd med eleven, men de organisatoriska förutsättningarna kan innebära svårigheter för interventioner av detta slag. / The purpose of this study was to examine how the Rydaholm method works for pupils within reading difficulties in secondary school. The aim was also to analyze how students perceive the work with the method. We used a quantitative method in terms of a study of intervention with 15 students in grade 7. A qualitative method was also used with interviews, this to assess how the students perceived the work with the Rydaholm method. The results of the study showed that most students increased their test results in terms of decoding. The intervention was conducted over a period of five weeks, which may have contributed to a certain effect of learning of the test. The interviews with the students revealed a mainly positive attitude to the work with the method. During the interviews some students revealed that they experienced exclusion by working with the method, specifically as one-to-one tutoring was required outside the normal timetable. In search of a relational perspective, it’s important that the work is done in cooperation with the student. Thus, the organizational conditions may implicate difficulties for interventions of this kind.

There are continuing concerns regarding literacy standards within education with these concerns having resulted in many literacy initiatives being introduced over the past 5 years. Much research has focussed on improving our understanding of literacy, our ability to identify literacy needs and our ability to subsequently address these needs. As a result of an independent review into the early teaching of reading the Government have promoted the use of the ‘Simple View of Reading’ (SVOR) in the Primary Framework for Literacy (DCSF, 2007c). The study reported in this thesis considers whether the Simple View of Reading is perceived by teachers as providing a useful framework for the identification of literacy learning needs. In addition, it also aims to contribute to our understanding of teacher development, identifying for whom, and in what circumstances, the introduction of the SVOR results in a change in practice. Teachers working within five primary schools participated in this study. Data was collected through questionnaires and a small number of follow up interviews. It is important to note that these findings are likely to have been influenced by certain changes in context during the study, for example the delegation of funding to schools, a reduction in central support services and the introduction of the Primary Framework for Literacy. Questionnaire data indicates that, on the whole, teachers perceived the SVOR as easy to use, as providing useful information and as providing an easy visual reference. Results also indicate reported increases in teacher understanding of, and use of, the SVOR, coupled with increased confidence relating to the identification of literacy learning needs. These differences were all statistically significant. Key findings from the interviews suggest that teachers who perceived the SVOR to be useful and helpful to them on a personal level, made links between the SVOR and their existing practice and were more concerned with improving outcomes for children rather than meeting their own personal needs were more likely to incorporate the SVOR into their practice. This study has implications for promoting the SVOR as a framework for identifying literacy needs, future teacher development and the use of realist research approaches within Educational Psychology.

The aim of the study was to investigate if an intensive reading intervention based on decoding word and text through repeated reading could improve the students’ reading fluency and thereby their reading comprehension. Reading fluency can be defined as reading with suitable speed, good decoding and word recognition, by using prosody and showing understanding of what has been read. The method in the study was an experimental intervention combined with interviews with participating students. Eight students in grades 2 and 3 were included, and they were divided into two comparable groups, an intervention group and a control group. Pre- and post-test examined whether the intervention had effects on the students’ decoding and reading comprehension compared to the control students. The interviews explored how the students experienced the intervention and how they felt that the training affected their ability to read. The results showed that most of the students in the intervention-group improved their reading accuracy, which in turn may have affected their reading comprehension in a positive way. According to the interviews, the students experienced the activities mostly as meaningful and fun (with one negative thing, they missed class teaching) and they all think they have learned things that have been positive for their ability to read. In conclusion, this study proposes that an intensive reading intervention can be a good way for specialist teachers to assist students in their early reading development.

Thesis advisor: Arthur Madigan / Thesis advisor: Jorge L. Garcia / The relationship between intention, intentional action, and moral assessment is of fundamental importance to ethical theory. In large part, moral responsibility is based on an assessment of agent responsibility, which in turn is based on the connection between an agent's intentions and the actions which they cause. In the last twenty-five years, there has been a debate in contemporary action theory about the relationship between intentions and intentional action. Objecting to what he calls the "Simple View," which he characterizes as the view that all intentional actions are intended under some description, Michael Bratman, among others, argues that not all intentional actions are intended. In this dissertation, we will defend the Simple View by appealing to Aristotle's theory of action as developed in his psychological and ethical works. In the first part of the dissertation, we argue that all intentional actions are intended under some description; however, we argue that distinctions between different types of intention are essential: specifically, the distinction between deliberate and non-deliberate intentions and the distinction between the intention of the end and the intention of the means. Our account centers on Aristotle's concept of prohairesis, which he identifies as the distinctly human principle of action. The term prohairesis in Aristotle's works seems to have at least three senses: 1) primarily, the deliberate intention with which a person acts, an `occurent' choice; 2) the habitual or `dispositional' choice or resolve of `decent' people; and 3) general purposes that men have which may encompass voluntary action as a whole. The first sense of the term is the primary one that properly signifies the concept. Prohairesis fits within the general framework of animal motion which Aristotle sets out in the De Anima and De Motu Animalium. For Aristotle, orexis or desire is the cause of all animal motion, including human motion. Prohairesis is a deliberate desire for the means to an end. It is a principle of action peculiar to mature human beings capable of deliberating, as it is the intention which is the result of deliberation. It marks off a narrow but important stretch of intentional action. Prohairesis is set off against other types of intention, like boulesis, which is an intention of the end, and epithumia (bodily appetite) and thumos (anger), which are non-deliberate intentions relating to non-rational appetites like lust and anger. Aristotle, in contrast to contemporary accounts of intentional action, is unusually specific in his designation of the different kinds of intention. Different orexeis differ not only with regard to specific objects but also with regard to time, planning, and detail. Aristotle traces both the causal and moral responsibility agents have for their actions to the action of these internal principles of desire. Moral assessment is linked to the operative internal principle of an act. This allows for an action to be voluntary and intentional, even if the agent does not fully understand or plan for the consequences of an action. Intention, for Aristotle, if we correctly understand it as orexis and what results from orexis, is not reducible to one mode but is irreducibly plural. Furthermore, each person's capacity for intentional action is shaped by his character, and each character has correspondingly different kinds of intention, both with respect to the objects of intention and in their relation to action. Finally, the scope of intention is not definite, and depending on the agent, can include those things which attend to the means of which he has cognizance, for instance, harmful side-effect consequences or other costs of his action. In the second part of the dissertation, we examine at length the objections to the Simple View, lodged by Bratman, Gilbert Harman, and Joshua Knobe. We give an overview of objections by Bratman, Harman, and Knobe which center on three cases and four objections. The cases are: 1) a hypothetical video game; 2) unexpected success; and 3) unintended consequences. The objections are: 1) with respect to the hypothetical video game, the Simple View ascribes an irrational intention to a gamer playing the game; 2) When agents are doubtful of the success of an action they undertake, the Simple View requires that they intend the act the perform rather than that they merely try to perform the act, which opponents argue that this is irrational and false; 3) The Simple View entails the rejection of the distinction between intention and foresight which itself entails that agents intend all the results of their actions, even when those results are merely foreseen and not intended; 4) The Simple View does not adequately explain ordinary language usage with respect to ascriptions of intention for side-effect consequences, and therefore does not reflect basic, commonly shared notions of intentional action. The first two objections center on cases where it seems irrational for an agent to intend the act he performs. In the case of the video game, the scenario is so set up that the player wins a prize for hitting either target but knows that he cannot hit both or the game will shut down. It seems irrational for him to intend to hit both if he cannot; however, in order to maximize his chance winning, it would be rational to aim at both. In the case of unexpected success, it seems that agents do not intend acts whose chances of success they doubt because intending seems to require the positive belief that one will succeed; rather, it is argued that agents merely try but do not intend the act they perform. Against these cases and objections, we argue that agents are capable of conditional and complex intentions, such that one may conditionally intend to hit whichever target is opportune, while aiming at both. Likewise, we argue that intending to act does not require the positive belief that one will succeed; only that it is possible for one to succeed. Furthermore, the distinction between trying and intending is specious. Finally, we respond to the third and fourth objections centering on the intentionality of side-effect consequences. It is argued by Bratman et al. that the Simple View entails the rejection of the distinction between intention and foresight, and that such a rejection further entails consequentialism. Likewise it is also argued that the Simple View fails to account for ordinary language ascriptions of intentionality for side-effect consequences. We agree that the Simple View entails rejecting the distinction between intention and foresight as it is currently applied, but deny that this entails consequentialism, i.e., the view that the consequences of an action are the primary basis for moral evaluation and not the agent's intentions. Likewise, we agree that the Simple View does not model ordinary language ascriptions of intention; however, this is not necessarily a defect since such ascriptions are inconsistent and imprecise. Furthermore, we argue that the Simple View might be used to more adequately explain such usage. We center our response to these objections on the Doctrine of Double Effect. We argue that the doctrine arises from a mistaken interpretation of St. Thomas Aquinas' treatment of defensive killing. We argue that Aquinas does not hold that the death of an attacker is a foreseen but not intended side-effect, as proponents of Double Effect and opponents of the Simple View hold; rather it is intended as a means to the end of self-defense. Therefore, the two effects are not the desired end and a side-effect but rather the intended end and the intended means. Furthermore, we argue that this does not entail doing evil for the sake of good because Aquinas' Aristotelian account of action specification incorporates circumstances as essential components of intentions which give an act its moral quality. Furthermore, the necessary references to an agent's intentions show how the rejection of the application of the distinction between intention and foresight does not entail consequentialism. Finally, we tackle the underlying assumptions about intention and desire which lead to the rejection of the Simple View. Opponents of the Simple View hold that intention is not a form of desire because then it would not have an essential role in the genesis of action or in rational deliberation. We, however, argue that the major objections to the Simple View are defeasible once one understands intention as a species of desire, i.e. a deliberate desire, whose scope includes consequences beyond acts performed and goals achieved. The paradoxes at the heart of the debate hinge on the ambiguity of the English word `intention' and its usage, as well as the inherent difficulty of examining psychological concepts. `Intention' has several senses unified by the purposiveness of the mental states to which the word is referred. These senses can often, but not always, be distinguished in English usage by the degree and kind of deliberation attendant to them. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

No description available.

The Simple View of Reading is a well-known lens for understanding the skills that contribute to proficient reading. The Simple View explains reading comprehension as the product of decoding and listening comprehension. There is a gap in the literature regarding the applicability of the Simple View for Spanish-speaking English language learners, and also whether oral reading fluency would be valuable to include in the model as an intermediate variable. In the present study two groups of third grade students, one group comprised of students classified as English language learners and a comparison group of non-ELL students, were assessed on several reading skills. Data were collected on listening comprehension, decoding, oral reading fluency, and reading comprehension. Data were analyzed using generalized least squares estimation for path analysis and partial invariance testing. Findings support the inclusion of oral reading fluency in the Simple View model, highlight the significance of listening comprehension, and suggest the Simple View model applies equally well across ELL and non-ELL groups. Limitations and future directions are addressed.

I den svenska läroplanen för grundskolan står det att skolan ska arbeta med strategier i läsförståelse. Samtidigt visar forskning att fokus i Sverige har legat på att arbeta med elever som har avkodningssvårigheter. Detta innebär att det finns ett behov av att se hur arbetet med läsförståelse ser ut i den svenska skolan. Syftet med studien är att få en ökad förståelse för hur lärare, speciallärare och specialpedagoger arbetar med läsförståelse och läsförståelsestrategier i de tidiga skolåren med de elever som har läsförståelsesvårigheter. I en kvalitativ studie undersöktes detta genom att fem olika fokusgrupper bestående av lärare, speciallärare och specialpedagoger samlades för att diskutera studiens frågeställningar. Resultatet visar att lärarna i studien arbetar med läsförståelse och läsförståelsestrategier på olika sätt. Deltagarna i studien menar att förmågan att ha ett gott ordförråd, att kunna göra inferenser och att kunna gå bortom textens rader ger en god läsförståelse. För att kunna lära ut läsförståelsestrategier menar samtliga deltagare i studien att det är viktigt att arbeta med tydlig modellering. I studien visar samtliga deltagare att även om de inte nämner metoden vid namn arbetar de med reciprocal teaching med inslag av andra läsförståelsestrategiprogram. Slutligen bekräftar studien den forskning som finns, att eleverna med förståelseproblem får en mindre del av de specialpedagogiska insatserna som istället till största del ges till elever med avkodningsproblem.

The aim of this study is to explore the use of a Swedish assessment and instruction program called LegiLexi. This new program is free of charge and it provides primary school teachers with assessment data in order to target indiviual needs. Our study shows that teachers are good at using the program in order to test the students but they fail in order to link the data into instructions. The skills in analysing the data into individual instructions is something that has to improve. The need of developing these skills are urgent and it shows the importance of specialeducational competence. By improving this skills, student in need of more support, can be helped to improve their reading abilities.

Forskning har fokuserat på avkodning men inte på att identifiera förståelseproblem trots att problem med läsförståelsen får stora konsekvenser för individen. Det finns även behov av mer forskning kring vilken läsförståelseundervisning som är den mest effektiva. Syftet med studien är att få en ökad förståelse om speciallärares erfarenheter av läsförståelseundervisning och därför ville vi undersöka speciallärares framgångsrika erfarenheter av läsförståelseundervisning. Detta undersökte vi genom en kvalitativ intervjustudie genom att intervjua tolv speciallärare/specialpedagoger. Resultatet visar att samtliga informanter lyfter vikten av att identifiera behovet hos eleverna och lärarna och att det är behovet som styr insatserna. Framgångsrik läsförståelseundervisning enligt studien fokuserar på en god avkodning och förmågan att använda sig av läsförståelsestrategier. Andra framgångsfaktorer som studien lyfter är en god språklig förmåga med fokus på begreppsförståelse, läsflyt, läslust, engagemang för sin läsning och en god kompetens kring läsförståelsestrategier hos pedagogerna. För en framgångsrik läsförståelseundervisning framhåller studien vikten av att specialläraren/specialpedagogen har ett bra samarbete med rektor, klasslärare och hemmet samt att eleven blir lyssnad på.

Enligt läsmodellen The Simple View of Reading (L = A x S) är både avkodning och språkförståelse avgörande för en god läsförståelse. Elever med svag språkförståelse upptäcks sällan före mellanstadiet, då textinnehållet i de lägre skolåren inte ställer så höga krav på elevernas förståelse av skrivet språk. Syftet med studien är att fördjupa förståelsen för hur undervisningen, utifrån lärares perspektiv, kan främja språkförståelsen för alla elever och därmed förebygga läsförståelsesvårigheter. Studien har en kvalitativ forskningsansats och utgår från halvstrukturerade intervjuer. Tio lärare, med behörighet att undervisa i ämnet svenska i årskurs 1–3, deltog i undersökningen. En främjande språkförståelseundervisning bygger, enligt lärarna i studien, på muntliga och gemensamma aktiviteter kring ord och begrepp, aktivering av förkunskap, textstrukturer, inferenser och till viss del förståelse av meningar. Lärarens vägledning och stöttning, scaffolding, framhålls som betydelsefullt för samtliga elevers förståelse av texter. Även lärarens högläsning ses som ett viktigt inslag för att eleverna ska få möta texter som ligger på en mer avancerad nivå i förhållande till den egna avkodningsförmågan. Språkförståelsen genomsyrar hela skoldagen och samtliga ämnen, men begreppet i sig är för lärarna diffust. I studien framkom även att tid och kunskap för att möta elever med svag språkförståelse samt brist på adekvat undervisningsmaterial framhålls som begränsande faktorer. Språkförståelsen behöver belysas och aktualiseras i tidiga skolår. Likväl behöver forskning kring förebyggande och stödjande arbete implementeras på skolorna för att möta teori och praktik.