Incidence of Meares-Irlen/visual stress syndrome in reading and learning disorders : Does fluorescent lighting in classrooms affect literacy and numeracy?

Resumen tomado de la publicación

Effect of phonetic complexity on word reading and repetition in deep dyslexia

This investigation moves beyond the traditional studies of word reading to identify how the production complexity of words affects reading accuracy in an individual with deep dyslexia (JO). We examined JO’s ability to read words aloud while manipulating both the production complexity of the words and the semantic context. The classification of words as either phonetically simple or complex was based on the Index of Phonetic Complexity. The semantic context was varied using a semantic blocking paradigm (i.e., semantically blocked and unblocked conditions). In the semantically blocked condition words were grouped by semantic categories (e.g., table, sit, seat, couch,), whereas in the unblocked condition the same words were presented in a random order. JO’s performance on reading aloud was also compared to her performance on a repetition task using the same items. Results revealed a strong interaction between word complexity and semantic blocking for reading aloud but not for repetition. JO produced the greatest number of errors for phonetically complex words in semantically blocked condition. This interaction suggests that semantic processes are constrained by output production processes which are exaggerated when derived from visual rather than auditory targets. This complex relationship between orthographic, semantic, and phonetic processes highlights the need for word recognition models to explicitly account for production processes.

Student teachers’ perceptions of reading and the teaching of reading: the implications for teacher education

This article reports on research which identified perceptions of reading and the teaching of reading held by trainee teachers and the impact on my provision as a teacher educator. It found that students’ past and present experiences of learning to read and being a reader influenced their perceptions of what reading is and of what it means to teach reading. As a teacher educator, I am not able to give students long experience of seeing children becoming readers, but I am able to give them richer experiences of reading in personally and culturally relevant contexts. This has implications for the nature of subject knowledge required by a student teacher of reading and the curriculum and practice of teacher education.

The Operation of the Crichel Down Rules (Final Report to the DETR by The University of Reading and Gerald Eve)

Report for the DETR on the operation of the Crichel Down Rules (July 2000). The Crichel Down Rules are non-statutory rules relating to the offer back to the previous owners of surplus government land that was acquired from the previous owners by, or under the threat of, compulsory purchase.

Writing-to-Learn Using Social Pedagogy and Technology

Accounting faculty from LaGuardia will share the structure and results of an initiative centered on using ePortfolio and social pedagogy to facilitate writing-to-learn for accounting students. Through a series of ePortfolio-based assignments that connected two classes, along with an in-class writing workshop conducted by non-discipline faculty, students worked together to understand the importance of writing in the accounting discipline and strengthened their writing abilities.

Contextual Reading and Metalinguistic Processing in Brazilian Portuguese: A Longitudinal Study

Metalinguistic skill is the ability to reflect upon language as an object of thought. Amongst metalinguistic skills, two seem to be associated with reading and spelling: morphological awareness and phonological awareness. Phonological awareness is the ability of reflecting upon the phonemes that compose words, and morphological awareness is the ability of reflecting upon the morphemes that compose the words. The latter seems to be particularly important for reading comprehension and contextual reading, as beyond phonological information, syntactic and semantic information are required. This study is set to investigate - with a longitudinal design - the relation between those abilities and contextual reading measured by the Cloze test. The first part of the study explores the relationship between morphological awareness tasks and Cloze scores through simple correlations and, in the second part, the specificity of such relationship was inquired using multiple regressions. The results give some support to the hypothesis that morphological awareness offers an independent contribution regarding phonological awareness to contextual reading in Brazilian Portuguese.