The major purpose of this study was to determine the causes for reading difficulties of a group of fifth-grade children. On this study much emphasis was placed on selecting, preparing and applying appropriate remedial measures, and to ascertain the character and the amount of improvement in reading. In this particular study much emphasis was placed on the various methods used in teaching mass remedial reading.

The main purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the method of teaching a "How to Study" class in helping students more adequately meet their reading needs. Research was conducted to test the reading gains made by students in the program with respect to ability and group size. The results indicate that group size had the greatest effect as to changes in reading behavior. Instruction was based on diagnosing student needs. It was shown that a significant number of students who decreased in rate of reading, increased in comprehension. The same diagnostic principle was observed for those who were judged able to increase rate, since a significant number in this category also increased in comprehension. It was concluded that the training was effective in helping students to adjust their rate of reading in order to facilitate an increase in comprehension. There was a wide range of individual differences in the actual amount of comprehension increase. The average increase of 14.5 percent was not significant. However, of the 163 students in the program 82 made a 10 percent increase or better. The principle problem of students making no progress was motivation. While 13.8 percent rated the course as one of the best, 30.2 percent rated the course as above average, and 34.5 percent rated the course average, 14.5 percent rated the course below average, and 6.2 percent were very critical of the course.

The problem of this study is to demonstrate the effectiveness of certain recommended procedures in the improvement of reading skills in a sixth-grade class in the Lewisville Elementary School, Lewisville, Texas.

The present study had three purposes. The first was to determine which of seven variables were significantly correlated with improvement in reading in a representative sample of elementary school children who had received remedial reading instruction. The second was to ascertain whether these variables could be used in developing an equation for predicting improvement that would be simple and quick enough to be of practical value in the remedial clinic. The final purpose was to determine whether the relationship between intelligence and reading improvement was the same over three different intelligence ranges.

This study describes the development and evaluation of a parent training model to test if a correlation exists between effective tutoring and locus of control. The model utilized parents of boys previously referred to the Educational Clinic for reading difficulties. The parents became the major treatment resource for remediating reading problems of their 8 to 11 year old boys. The venue was a local public library where a series of five lessons and three follow-up sessions were held with both parents and their sons present over a six month period. Reading strategies to develop the utilization of contextual clues were introduced and practiced at these sessions. Control group children from a variety of schools in Canberra were selected to match the 21 treatment children by the criteria of chronological age and pre-test results on an objective word recognition test. The parents were pre- and post-tested using the Rotter I-E Scale while all boys were given the IAR Scale, the Neale Analysis of Reading, ACER Word Recognition, a Goodman-Eurke Miscue passage and the Survey of General Reading Attitude. Analysis of results indicated that sample size limited the number of significant results obtained. No significant results between I-E ratings and dependent variables were found. The tutor's and spouse's initial I-E perceptions were correlated at p=.08. Correlations between tutor final I and subject final I ratings were nonsignificant but positively correlated. The initial and final I-E ratings of tutors were correlated at the p<.0l level. A negative correlation significant at p=.0l or better was noted between tutor behaviours and reading speed gains. This was also true of correlations between speed and both accuracy and comprehension (at p<.02 or greater). A trend to greater gains on all reading measures (at p=>.2 or higher) favouring the treatment group (when compared with the control group) suggests that a tutor programme based on improving reading comprehension may be of value to the clinic-referred retarded reader. A more comprehensive study bypassing the problems of sample size and differing causes for reading retardation is outlined using the n=l paradigm. Both locus of control and motivational factors of tutors and learners will be investigated.

Auf der Grundlage psycholinguistischer, deutsch-didaktischer und linguistischer Forschungsergebnisse wurde ein Lesetraining auf Silbenbasis entwickelt, in dem Kindern mit Leseschwierigkeiten explizit Strategien zur visuellen Gliederung von Wörtern in größere funktionale Einheiten (Silben, einzelne Wörter (bei Zusammensetzungen), Präfixe) vermittelt werden. Es wird davon ausgegangen, dass Kinder mit Leseschwierigkeiten Wörter in zu kleinen linguistischen Einheiten erlesen. Das Training basiert linguistisch auf der Schreibsilbe als funktionaler Einheit beim Lesen. Basis des Lesetrainings ist ein von Scheerer-Neumann (1981) durchgeführtes Training zur Verbesserung der Lesegenauigkeit von Grundschulkindern. <br><br> Die empirische Überprüfung des Lesetrainings hatte zum einen das Ziel, die Wirksamkeit des Trainingsprogramms als solches zu überprüfen und zum anderen, ob das Training zu einer deutlich verbesserten Lesegeschwindigkeit und -genauigkeit bei Grundschulkindern der 3. und 4. Klassen führt. Das Training wurde von der Autorin ohne den Einsatz von Hilfskräften mit einer relativ kleinen Zahl von Kindern (N=11) durchgeführt, um so intensiv auf die Bedürfnisse der einzelnen Kinder eingehen und gegebenenfalls flexibel reagieren zu können. Aus organisatorischen und ethischen Gründen wurde auf eine Kontrollgruppe verzichtet. Die Wirksamkeit des Trainings wurde als Prätest-Training-Posttest-Follow-up Test-Design überprüft. Das Training umfasst 18 Einheiten (je 45 Minuten) und fand zweimal wöchentlich statt. Trainingsgruppen bestanden aus einer Dreiergruppe und einer Zweiergruppe; die anderen sechs Kinder wurden einzeln trainiert. <br><br> Der Posttest nach Abschluss des Trainings zeigte deutliche Verbesserungen der Lesegeschwindigkeit und -genauigkeit, die zum Teil auch signifikant waren. Der Follow-up Test drei Monate nach Ende des Trainings zeigte weitere Verbesserungen, die ebenfalls zum Teil signifikant waren. <br><br> Die Befunde sprechen dafür, dass das Trainingsprogramm geeignet ist, die Lesefähigkeit von leseschwachen Grundschulkindern der dritten und vierten Klasse zu verbessern. Die Teilnehmerzahl ist allerdings relativ gering, so dass die Ergebnisse nicht ohne weiteres auf die allgemeine Population von Kindern mit Leseschwierigkeiten übertragen werden können. Eine erneute Durchführung des Trainingsprogramms mit einer größeren Stichprobe und einer parallelisierten Kontrollgruppe, bei der die Kinder der Experimentalgruppe in größeren Gruppen trainiert werden, erscheint deshalb sinnvoll. / A syllable-based training program for reading disabled children was developed on the basis of psycholinguistic, educational and linguistic research results. The program teaches explicit strategies to visually segment words in larger functional linguistic units (syllables, prefixes, single words (in compound words)). <br><br> It is assumed that children with reading difficulties process words in linguistic units that are too small to make use of the linguistic structure of words. The training program, Potsdamer Lesetraining, emphasizes the role of the orthographical syllable as a functional unit in reading development. The program is based on a training program developed by Scheerer-Neumann (1981) that aimed at improving reading accuracy in reading disabled elementary school children. <br><br> The aim of the empirical test was to check if the training program had a positive effect on the decoding speed and accuracy of elementary school children with reading disabilities (3rd and 4th grade). The program was carried out by the author with a relatively small sample of children (N=11) and without further staff. This procedure made it possible to react intensively and flexible to the children's individual needs. A control group was not implemented for ethical and organizational reasons. <br><br> The validity of the training program was tested with a pretest-posttest-follow-up-test design. The program consisted of 18 training units (45 minutes each) and took place twice a week. The training groups consisted of one group with three children, another group with two children; the remaining six children were trained individually. <br><br> The posttests which were carried out immediately after training ended, showed significant effects of training for decoding speed and an increase of accuracy for several subtests. Follow-up tests carried out three months after the training had ended showed further improvement in decoding speed and an increase in accuracy; several subtests revealed significant effects. <br><br> The results indicate that the training program is suitable to improve the decoding speed and accuracy of dyslexic elementary school children in 3rd and 4th grade. A transfer of this conclusion to the general dyslexic population, however, is limited due to the small number of participants. <br><br> A replication of the study with a larger sample of reading disabled children trained in groups of two and three children and a matched control group would therefore seem necessary.

The major purpose of this descriptive study was to identify the reasoning strategies used by seventh- and eighth grade severely disabled remedial reading students when attempting to comprehend expository and narrative prose. Additional research questions dealt with the most frequently used strategies; correct responses to questions through the use of strategies; strategies used when responding to narrative and expository prose; strategies used when answering literal and inferential questions; and the strategies used by individual students.

This study determined the instructional approaches and teaching techniques and materials reading specialists perceived to be the most effective for the seventh and eighth grade remedial reading courses mandated by Texas House Bill 246. It also determined the most effective inservice procedures for training teachers assigned to teach these courses. Fifty-four Texas reading specialists, representing school districts, service centers, and colleges and universities, participated as panelists in the Delphi, completing three rounds of questionnaires. Perceived recommendations were rated by panelists according to levels of effectiveness.

The problem of this study was to determine some relations between changes in reading skills and changes in certain selected aspects of self-concept accompanying a remedial-reading program for elementary school boys with low reading ability and reasonably normal intelligence.

<p>Complex Word Processing in Teenage Poor Readers- Does Morphological Knowledge Help or Hinder?</p> <p>Abstract</p> <p>This longitudinal study addressed development of morphological awareness in fourteen-to-seventeen-year-olds reading disabled (RD) high school students enrolled in the Wilson Reading Program (Wilson, 1989). Our lexical decision experiment and reading fluency assessment took place in the first (session 1) and last months (session 2) of the school year that included training with morphologically complex English words. The lexical decision stimuli were composed of derived (<em>critical</em>), compound (<em>bathtub</em>) and pseudo-complex (<em>postpone</em>) words from the training program (trained words), matched complex words not in the training program (untrained words), and nonwords. Accuracy and response times were compared between sessions, and with a comparison group of age-matched typical readers. The RD group did not demonstrate large post-training gains in reading fluency, but, there were significant improvements in accuracy and speed in visual lexical decision. These improvements did not extend to auditory lexical decision, suggesting that the observed improvements in visual word recognition were a result of the training, and not a practice effect due to multiple testing sessions. Additionally, there was post-training improvement in both trained and untrained words implying that the RD students were able to generalize their acquired knowledge of grapheme-phoneme mappings and morphological processing to novel words. Both the RD and comparison group demonstrated the same hierarchy of accuracy and response time patterns for complex words suggest a processing advantage for visually presented derived and compound words that is not skill dependent.</p> / Master of Science (MSc)