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Contribution to the study of the impact between the phonological and the verbal memory deficits on reading comprehension of pupils with learning difficulties.
by Antonia Georgia Xagoraris
A thesis submitted to
The University of Bolton
for the degree of
Master of Philosophy
University of Bolton 2016
Acknowledgments
The completion of this research would not have been possible without the
help of several individuals that supported me throughout this endeavour.
Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Dr
David Kitchener (University of Bolton) for the continuous support of my MPhil
study and research, for his patience, motivation, feedback and immense
knowledge. His guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of
this thesis.I would also like to express my sincere thanks to my supervisor Dr
Konstantinos M. Ntinas for his leadership, guidance and encouragement and
the University of Bolton for this opportunity. Last but not least I am deeply
thankful to my family for their patience, unconditional love and support in
everything I do. This thesis is heartily dedicated to them.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments..................................................................................................2
ABSTRACT......................................................................................................................8
Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................10
Chapter 2 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE.............................................................13
2.1 Learning Disability-Difficulty...............................................................................13
2.2 Socio-economic status and language development............................................14
2.3 Vocabulary..........................................................................................................15
2.4 Diglossia as a Sociolinguistic Situation................................................................16
2.5 Diglossia and Language Shift...............................................................................18
2.6 Dyslexia...............................................................................................................19
2.7 Definition of dyslexia...........................................................................................20
2.8 The impact of dyslexia on a person’s life............................................................21
2.9 Impact of dyslexia on self-esteem.......................................................................23
2.10 Diagnostic criteria and Characteristics of Dyslexia..............................................25
2.11 Dyslexia as a social construct..............................................................................27
2.12 Heritability of Dyslexia........................................................................................28
2.13 Aetiology.............................................................................................................30
2.14 Categories...........................................................................................................33
2.15 The process of Reading.......................................................................................33
2.16 Reading disabilities.............................................................................................35
2.17 Working memory deficits and dyslexia...............................................................37
2.18 Cognitive processes.............................................................................................38
2.19 Oral Language Difficulties....................................................................................38
2.20 Phonological processing......................................................................................39
2.21 Phonological awareness deficits.........................................................................40
2.22 Reading comprehension and working memory..................................................44
2.23 Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension...................................................48
2.24 Working memory................................................................................................50
2.25 Verbal Working Memory.....................................................................................54
3
2.26 Sentence Memory...............................................................................................55
2.27 Stories Memory...................................................................................................56
2.28 Assessing Executive Working Memory................................................................56
2.29 Assessment.........................................................................................................57
2.30 Reading Span......................................................................................................59
2.31 Rapid Automatic Naming....................................................................................61
2.32 Working Memory Performance and Reading Skills.............................................62
2.33 Summary of the Review Literature.....................................................................64
Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY......................................................................................65
3.1 Aim......................................................................................................................65
3.2 Research questions.............................................................................................66
3.2.1. Research Question 1.......................................................................................66
3.2.2. Sub-questions:................................................................................................66
3.2.3. Research Question 2.......................................................................................66
3.2.4. Sub-questions:................................................................................................66
3.3 Method...............................................................................................................67
3.4 Settings...............................................................................................................68
3.5 Participants.........................................................................................................68
3.6 Chamomile..........................................................................................................69
Family History...................................................................................................................69
Educational History..........................................................................................................69
3.7 Poppy..................................................................................................................70
Family History...................................................................................................................70
Educational History..........................................................................................................70
3.8 Rosebud..............................................................................................................71
Family History...................................................................................................................71
Educational History..........................................................................................................71
3.9 Geranium............................................................................................................72
Family History...................................................................................................................72
Educational History..........................................................................................................72
3.10 Clover..................................................................................................................73
Family History...................................................................................................................73
Educational History..........................................................................................................74
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3.11 Data collection tools...........................................................................................75
3.12 Description of the project...................................................................................76
3.13 Time Frame.........................................................................................................78
3.14 Ethics...................................................................................................................79
Chapter 4 RESULTS...................................................................................................81
4.1 Experimental phase............................................................................................81
4.2 Chamomile..........................................................................................................81
Observations.....................................................................................................................81
Reading.............................................................................................................................81
Working memory..............................................................................................................82
General comments...........................................................................................................82
4.3 Poppy..................................................................................................................83
Observations.....................................................................................................................83
Reading.............................................................................................................................83
Working memory..............................................................................................................83
General comments...........................................................................................................84
4.4 Rosebud..............................................................................................................85
Observations.....................................................................................................................85
Reading.............................................................................................................................85
Working memory..............................................................................................................86
General comments...........................................................................................................87
4.5 Geranium............................................................................................................87
Working memory..............................................................................................................87
General comments...........................................................................................................88
4.6 Clover..................................................................................................................89
Observations.....................................................................................................................89
Reading.............................................................................................................................89
Working memory..............................................................................................................89
General comments...........................................................................................................90
4.7 Analysis of the results.........................................................................................90
4.8 Research Question 1...........................................................................................90
4.9 Sub-questions:....................................................................................................91
4.10 Research Question 2...........................................................................................93
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4.11 Chamomile..........................................................................................................96
4.12 Poppy..................................................................................................................97
4.13 Rosebud..............................................................................................................98
4.14 Geranium............................................................................................................99
4.15 Clover................................................................................................................100
4.16 Sub-questions:..................................................................................................101
Chapter 5 DISCUSSION...........................................................................................102
5.1 Implications for practice...................................................................................103
5.2 Implications for further research......................................................................104
5.3 Limitations of the study....................................................................................104
5.4 Conclusion.........................................................................................................106
REFERENCES...........................................................................................................107
APPENDICES..................................................................................................................136
Appendix 1........................................................................................................................136
Appendix 2........................................................................................................................136
Appendix 3........................................................................................................................138
Appendix 4........................................................................................................................138
Appendix 5........................................................................................................................139
Appendix 6........................................................................................................................140
Appendix 7........................................................................................................................141
Appendix 8........................................................................................................................141
Appendix 9........................................................................................................................143
Appendix 10......................................................................................................................144
Appendix 11......................................................................................................................144
Appendix 13......................................................................................................................145
Appendix 14......................................................................................................................146
Appendix 15......................................................................................................................146
Appendix 16......................................................................................................................149
Appendix 17......................................................................................................................149
Appendix 18......................................................................................................................150
Appendix 19......................................................................................................................151
Appendix 20......................................................................................................................152
Appendix 21......................................................................................................................153
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Appendix 22......................................................................................................................153
Appendix 23......................................................................................................................157
Appendix 24......................................................................................................................157
Appendix 25......................................................................................................................158
Appendix 26......................................................................................................................158
Appendix 27......................................................................................................................159
Appendix 28......................................................................................................................160
Appendix 29......................................................................................................................160
Appendix 30......................................................................................................................163
Appendix 31......................................................................................................................163
Appendix 32......................................................................................................................164
Appendix 33......................................................................................................................164
Appendix 34......................................................................................................................165
Appendix 36......................................................................................................................166
Appendix 37...................................................................................................................168
Appendix 38......................................................................................................................171
Appendix 39......................................................................................................................174
Appendix 40......................................................................................................................174
Appendix 41....................................................................................................................177
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ABSTRACT
Some pupils fail to obtain reading fluency and/or reading comprehension skills
even if they are given access to specialized instruction of high quality. These
pupils may have a learning difficulty. Particularly pupils with dyslexia are likely
to face problems in one or more cognitive processes, including phonological
processing, auditory processing, long-term retrieval, attention, short-term
memory, and working memory (Masoura, 2006). In this study we tried to
investigate and analyze the problems that pupils with learning difficulties
encounter.
Five pupils of 3rd to 4th grade of primary school, from 9 to 10 years of age,
(given the names) Chamomile, Poppy, Rosebud, Geranium and Clover,
volunteered to participate in this study. The participants were officially
diagnosed with dyslexia by an approved centre. Data were collected though
interviews which were conducted both with the parents and the educators of
the participants in order to collect data regarding the participants' family and
school history.
The materials that helped the researcher to identify the reading skills
(phonological processing) and reading comprehension level of the participants
of this experiment were a text taken from the third and fourth-grade of a
reading programme used in the mainstream.
Additionally, there were questions that the researcher posed to the
participants in order to check understanding. Last but not least, participants
were asked whether they thought these facilitators helped them.
Also we used four flashcards as facilitators in the retelling process.
Flashcards utilize metacognitive faculties as well as allow for confidence-
based repetition. Therefore, they improve memory performance. The results
indicated that pupils with learning difficulties encounter problems in reading
8
comprehension, retelling and working memory. Those problems are more
severe in pupils coming from bilingual or socially disadvantaged
environments. There are many Bilingual pupils in Greece, mainly refugees,
and these pupils take a large part of Greek schools. Especially for these
pupils the learning difficulties are more often and their parents faces many
problems as they are not familiar with the Greek language but also in their
new country's system of education.
As the size of the sample is small, further research is needed in order to
establish the impact between the phonological and the verbal memory deficits
on reading comprehension of pupils with learning difficulties.
Keywords: learning difficulties, verbal working memory, reading
comprehension.
9
Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION
Language is the most important tool of communication in the human world.
However, though the spoken language may develop as a natural process
without explicit instruction, the ability to read written language cannot be
obtained in such an effortless way. People learn to read at school. If their
instruction is inappropriate then their reading ability may be limited and well
below the expected level according to their age and intelligence. Some pupils
fail to obtain reading fluency and/or reading comprehension skills even if they
are given access to specialized instruction of high quality. These pupils may
have a learning disability.
The term “learning disability” is a generally approved term that is used internationally
(National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities,1988) both at the level of research
and practice. It refers to "an heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by
significant difficulties in learning, oral comprehension, speaking, reading,
writing, reasoning and math skills. These disorders are intrinsic to the
individual and presumed to be due to a malfunction of the central nervous
system and can occur throughout life. (Nikolopoulos, 2010: 10).
Behavioural problems may coexist with learning disabilities, but on their own
do not constitute a learning disability. Learning disabilities may coexist with
other disorders such as sensory impairment, mental retardation, serious
emotional disorders, or external influences such as cultural differences,
insufficient education.
Dyslexia is a learning disability that influences many aspects of the quality of
a person’s life. The definition provided by the British Dyslexia Association
(2007) suggests that “Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty, which mainly
affects the development of literacy and language related skills. It is likely to be
present at birth and to be lifelong in its effects. It is characterised by difficulties
10
with phonological processing, rapid naming, working memory, processing
speed, and the automatic development of skills that may not match up to an
individual’s other cognitive abilities. It tends to be resistant to conventional
teaching methods, but its effects can be mitigated by appropriately specific
intervention, including the application of information technology and
supportive counseling.”
Developmental dyslexia is defined as the failure to acquire age-appropriate
reading skills regardless of the level of intelligence and of the educational
performance. Research (e.g. Goswami & Bryant, 1990; Snowling, 2000)
suggests that dyslexic pupils perform poorly in orthographic unit to
phonological unit conversion and are less sensitive to the sound structures of
the spoken words.
There is strong supporting evidence to suggest a phonological deficit as the
main problem of dyslexia across all languages (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005).
More particularly, phonological awareness problems are evident in most
dyslexic children (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005; Goswami, 2000). Phonological
awareness is the ability to perceive, discriminate and manipulate the
phonological sub-parts within the pronunciation of a lexical unit (Goswami &
Bryant, 1990). The development of phonological awareness follows a
hierarchical sequence from the syllable level, to the onset-rime level and
finally to the phoneme level (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005).
Pupils with dyslexia are likely to face problems in one or more cognitive
processes, including phonological processing, auditory processing, long-term
retrieval, attention, short-term memory, and working memory (Masoura,
2006). The term working memory refers to a “system responsible for
temporarily storing and manipulating information needed in the execution of
complex cognitive tasks” (Alloway and Temple, 2007, p.473), like learning,
reasoning and comprehension.
Thus the present study involved the evaluation of the reading and retelling
abilities of five pupils who were diagnosed with dyslexia. Regarding their 11
reading skills, emphasis was given to specific words of a particular
phonological difficulty.
The aim of the study was to identify the reading problems of dyslexic pupils
coming from diverse socioeconomic and linguistic backgrounds, analyze the
phonological problems identified while reading a specific familiar text and
investigate whether there was a problem in their working memory.
Chapter 2 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
2.1 Learning Disability-Difficulty
In the U.S.A the term ‘learning disability’ is used for a wide range of specific
12
learning disorders (e.g. dyslexia, dyscalculia) (www.bild.org.uk). According to
Kirk (1962), the term learning disability is synonymous with the concept of
under-achievement in the fields of listening, speaking, writing, and developing
mathematical skills even though pupils have been offered access to adequate
learning opportunities. In the UK following the Valuing People Act the term
learning disability is used when ability to learn new skills and to understand
new or complex information is limited. Also, when the ability to cope
independently is limited and the impairment has started before adulthood and
has a lasting effect on the person’s development. On the other hand, UK
education services use the term learning difficulty for persons who have
dyslexia for example, but who do not have a significant general impairment of
intelligence (www.bild.org.uk).
Consequently, for the present study the term learning difficulty (LD) has been
chosen because it describes more accurately the cognitive deficits of the
participants. However, it has to be noted that since the international
community prefers the term learning disability this appears in many of the
references in the present study. LD is associated with problems in reading, spelling and arithmetic which lead
to lower performance compared to the one which is potentially expected with
reference to the pupils’ developmental stage, and level of intelligence. Lyon
et al, (2001) suggest that LD can also include attention, memory problems
and disorders in thinking and using the language.
Dyslexia is one of the most common forms of LD. In this the pupil has
difficulties learning to read, which are caused by difficulties in phonological
awareness and processing. Children with dyslexia face difficulties in the
acquisition of basic skills in reading, writing, and calculating from the
beginning of their school life. These difficulties persist or increase over the
years and occur regardless of the quality of education they receive even if this
is relevant to their special learning needs.
13
2.2 Socio-economic status and language development
Several studies (e.g. Blachowicz et al., 2006: Graves, Brunetti, & Slater, 1982;
Graves & Slater, 1987) have indicated a link between the socio-economic
status of families and children's language development, including studies that
have measured children's language through formal standardized test
procedures. Results prove that a high number of children with low
performance belong to lower socio-economic groups. A number of factors
influence the speech and language development of young children. The
interactionist-transactional theory of language development sees the
development of a child’s language as a product of both nature and nurture.
More specifically, language is developed through the interaction of a child’s
biological make-up and the impact of the environment (Bohannon and
Warren-Leubecker, 1989). It is argued that infants develop language through
cyclical and reciprocal social interactions with their caregivers. Infants
influence their caregivers’ behaviour through communicative behaviours such
as crying, body gestures and facial expressions, and, in turn, caregivers
respond with verbal language which becomes more complex as a child begins
to produce meaningful language sounds. Therefore, children may learn more
sophisticated and complicated language forms (Hulit and Howard, 2011).
Roulstone et al. (2011) suggest that there is a strong correlation between
children’s social background and their school readiness, and that language
development is influenced by an enriched quality of communicative
environment in which children are brought up. For example an enriched
environment (e,g, books, toys, interactive activities, limited access to
television) leads to better results
Letts, Edwards , Sinka, Schaefer, and Gibbons (2013) conducted a study ιn
order to investigate the relationship between the level of maternal education
14
and the postcode-related indicators of socio-economic status on the
children's performance on the New Reynell Developmental Scales (NRDLS).
The participants were 1266 children aged between 2 and 7 years and they
were recruited for the standardization of a new assessment procedure
(NRDLS). They were divided into four groups with reference to the years of
maternal education, and five groups with reference to SES (socio economic
status). Groups were compared using analysis of covariance, with age as a
covariate, in order to identify which might be affected by the two SES
variables. Where relationships were found between SES and performance on
the scales, individual children's standard scores were looked at in order to
define those potentially at risk for language delay. It also emerged that
children whose mothers had minimum years of education performed less well
than the other children. This was particularly so for the younger children of
the sample. Higher than expected numbers with language delay were found
for younger children whose mothers had minimum years of education, and for
children in quintile schools and nurseries children attending schools.
2.3 Vocabulary
The gap in vocabulary knowledge between economically disadvantaged and
economically advantaged children begins in preschool (Blachowicz et al.,
2006: p. 526). Furthermore, vocabulary growth seems to be highly correlated
with the socio-economical status of the family. A study conducted by Hart &
Risley (1995) showed that three-year-old children, whose parents were
professionals, had larger vocabularies than children of parents on
welfare. More particularly, children raised by parents who were of a high
educational level than the ones raised by parents who were in receipt of
benefits heard at an average of 167 words an hour. Over a month, the
difference in words heard was 1,100 (professional parents) to 500 (parents on
benefits). The findings of Hart and Risley’s support Becker’s (1977)
suggestion that the not adequate vocabulary knowledge is a major
15
determining factor in the school failure of “disadvantaged” children. Other
studies showed that first-grade children from higher SES groups knew about
twice as many words than children from lower SES (Graves, Brunetti, &
Slater, 1982; Graves & Slater, 1987). The high school seniors class knew
about four times as many words as their lower-performing classmates (Smith,
1941). Finally, highly performing third graders had vocabularies almost equal
to the lowest-performing pupils of twelfth grade (Smith, 1941). Problems with
the vocabulary are noted too in the condition of diglossia.
2.4 Diglossia as a Sociolinguistic Situation
Diglossia, which is considered to be a sociolinguistic condition, has attracted
wide attention since the publication of Ferguson's seminal article (1959).
Ferguson defined diglossia (1959: 435) as follows:
Diglossia is a relatively stable language situation in which, in addition to the
primary dialects of the language (which may include a standard or regional
standards), there is a very divergent, highly codified (often grammatically
more complex) superposed variety, the vehicle of a large and respected body
of written literature, either of an earlier period or in another speech
community, which is learned largely by formal education and is used for most
written and formal spoken purposes but is not used by any section of the
community for ordinary conversation.
Although it occurs mostly in non-Western societies, it is not only a
phenomenon of third-world cultures. It characterizes a number of languages
found in various parts of the world, including Western Europe. Diglossic
languages are usually described as consisting of two (or more) varieties that
coexist in a speech community. The domains of linguistic behaviour
complement each other and are usually found in a kind of hierarchy; from
highly valued (H) to less valued (L). Formal domains, such as public speaking,
16
religious texts and practice, education, and other prestigious kinds of usage
are dominated by the H norm. Τhe L norm is used for informal domains like
jokes and telephone conversations. Regarding diglossic situations, which
involve two different genetically unrelated linguistic codes, the one dominating
the H domains has the greater international prestige. It is either the language
of the local powerful elite or the dominant religious community. In such cases
the H variety language is clearly the language of the more powerful section of
the society. Regarding lexicon, it is somewhat shared, but generally there is
differentiation. H has vocabulary that L lacks, and vice-versa. Regarding
phonology, two kinds of systems are discerned. One is where H and L share
the same phonological elements. In this case, H may have more complicated
morphophonemics or is a special subset of the L-variety inventory. It should
be stressed that speakers often fail to keep the two systems separate. A
second type is one where H has contrasts that L lacks. It systematically
substitutes some other phonemes due to the lack of contrast. L may `borrow'
elements using the H-variety contrast in that particular item.
Research on diglossia, which was conducted after 1959, has concentrated on
a number of variables and important issues such as function, prestige, literary
heritage, acquisition, standardization, stability, grammar, lexicon and
phonology. Diglossia has often been noted as a factor in language shift,
especially in speech communities where a minority language is in a diglossic
relationship with a majority language.
2.5 Diglossia and Language Shift
The use of language use is determined by a set of demographic, social and
cultural factors (Pendakur, 1990). Fishman (1967: 36) had noted that:
17
Bilingualism without diglossia tends to be transitional both in terms of the
linguistic repertoires of speech communities as well as in terms of the speech
varieties involved per se. Without separate though complementary norms and
values to establish and maintain functional separatism of the speech varieties,
that language or variety which is fortunate enough to be associated with the
predominant drift of social forces tends to displace the other(s).
When discussing language maintenance and shift, it is essential to indicate
external factors which result in the selection of language and determine how
well a minority language is learned in the community and define the
influence of the majority group on the preservation of the language of the
minority group (Weinreich, 1964). Pendakur (1990, p. 5) suggests that
“these are the social and demographic attributes in a society or group which
cause a language to be maintained or dropped in favour of another”.
The first main factor contributing either to language maintenance or shift is the
family environment. It is considered to be the first environment, which is
responsible for acquiring native language and passing it over to the next
generations (Rohani, Choi, Amjad, Burnett, & Colahan, 2005). As Clyne and
Kipp (1999) note home is the key element in language maintenance. If a
language is not maintained in the home environment, then it cannot be
maintained elsewhere. Since spoken language within the family is tied to its
cultural self-identity, it is up to the parents to decide whether to teach their
mother tongue to their children, or not (Fishman, 1991). Some parents are
keen to have their children quickly assimilated into the majority culture. That
encourages majority language learning as soon as possible while others who
wish to retain their native culture look for ways and means to maintain fluency
in their mother tongue (Rohani et al., 2005). Therefore, parents, consciously
or unconsciously, create an environment that will either nurture or impair
heritage language acquisition (Rohani et al., 2005).
18
As children attend school, they are exposed to the majority language as the
media of instruction. As a consequence, they may become more assimilated
into a majority language and society (Rohani et al., 2005). Additionally, they
may start feeling less positively towards their mother tongue and thus use it
less. That leads to the conclusion that if language maintenance is going to
occur, the language must be incorporated into the home domain. If not, it may
lead to language loss (Rohani et al., 2005).
As Rohani et al. (2005, p. 2) suggest “attitudes toward language
maintenance vary from one language group to another, and from one family
to the next”.
2.6 Dyslexia
Specifically, ‘dyslexia is characterized by a specific and significant impairment
in the development of reading skills (often accompanied by poor spelling), and
also by deficits in the areas of social and emotional development. In addition,
deficiencies in the memory of basic facts, immature strategies, and a less
developed sense of numbers are considered attributing factors to dyslexia
(Geary, 2004).
Dyslexia is one of the most common LD with the pupil having difficulties in
learning to read caused by difficulties in phonological awareness and
processing. Pupils with LD face difficulties in the acquisition of basic skills
such as reading, writing, and arithmetic from the beginning of their school life
(ICD-10, 2005; DSM-V, 2013). Vocabulary deficits may be a basic cause of
difficulties in learning to read in some readers with RD (Dickinson & Tabors,
2001; Snow & Tabors, 1993; Vellutino, 1979, 1987; Vellutino & Scanlon,
1982).
19
2.7 Definition of dyslexia
There are numerous approaches to the definition and diagnosis of dyslexia’.
(ICD-10, 2005; DSM-V, 2013).
According to the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) of USA (2002),
“dyslexia is a specific LD that is neurological in origin. It is characterized by
difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling
and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the
phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to
other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction.
Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension
and reduced reading experience that can impede the growth of vocabulary
and background knowledge.”
This definition, along with the one from the British Dylexia Association (2007),
reported earlier, shares a strong consensus in attributing the main difficulties
of dyslexia to the processing of the structure of the spoken language, known
as phonological processing. Dyslexia is defined as a language-based disorder
which might originate from neurological and genetic abnormalities (Klingberg,
Hedehus, Temple, Salz, Gabrieli, Moseley, & Poldrack, 2000; Lyon, Shaywitz
& Shaywitz, 2003; Olson, 2007; Shaywitz et al., 1998). The disability of
learning to read is not related to lower intelligence. However, in behavioural
manifestations may change in relation to teaching strategies or environmental
interactions.
Widely accepted definitions are also found in the International Classification of
Diseases (ICD-10), which was published by the World Health Organization
(2005), and in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th
edition, text revision (DSM-V-TR), which was published by the American
Psychiatric Association in 2013.
20
2.8 The impact of dyslexia on a person’s life
The majority of people believe that dyslexia is only associated with reading,
writing, spelling and maths difficulties a pupil faces at school. However, each
dyslexic person experiences dyslexia in a different way because dyslexia is a
self-created condition. To be more specific, dyslexia has been defined as a
phonological deficit. As stated above, dyslexics have difficulties in
distinguishing speech sounds verbally on the one part and in written language
on the other part (Shaywitz & Shaywitz, 1999). Recent research findings show
that dyslexics possess visual spatial strengths, despite their condition (von
Karolyi et al., 2003).
Having a difficulty in reading, writing, spelling or maths does not mean that a
person lacks specific skills. Dyslexic people are believed to be highly
instinctive and perceptive. They anticipate and perceive using all their senses,
and they have vivid imaginations. They can advance the brain's capability to
accustom and create perceptions, are deeply aware of the environment, more
curious than average and think essentially in pictures instead of words.
Many dyslexic people make specific mental processes if they consider
something to be interesting. They are prone to daydreaming. Both educators
and parents are usually cautious of this because they consider it a
disadvantage. However, according to Einstein, daydreaming is the process of
becoming a genius.
Dyslexics are also famous for their multi-dimensional thinking. They may
experience thoughts as realities. It should be noted that reality is what the
person perceives it to be, and the disorientation changes the perception. The
21
person's thoughts become the person's perceptions. Therefore, the thoughts
are a reality to that individual.
Curiosity is considered to be the beginning of knowledge and the dynamic
force behind creativity is also a characteristic of dyslexic people. In addition,
more, picture thinking, intuitive thought, multi-dimensional thought, curiosity
and creativity are strong parts of dyslexic individuals. It should be stated that
the gift of dyslexia is different for every person but there are some general
common characteristics.
However, this suggests that dyslexics should be differentiated from other
categories of Special Educational Needs (SEN). According to Everatt et al.
(2007) there should be a differentiation not only between typically developing
children and children with SEN but a differentiation between children within
SEN (this is where dyslexics are included).
As it was previously underlined, this is again a matter of measurement. If one
relies only on single measures of a difficulty, this may lead to inaccurate
assumptions about the individual’s cognitive functioning and the potential
causes of educational deficits (Everatt, 2007). This is why, a more detailed
and holistic approach is needed in order to identify the different profiles of
strengths and difficulties of children with literacy deficits.
Research has shown that dyslexics possess certain strengths that need to be
taken into account when planning the intervention programme. Any
individualised lesson plan should be built on strengths in order to prove itself
effective. These positive side effects of dyslexia generate an impression that
dyslexia is a gift. However, as the following study of McNutty (2003),
indicates, dyslexia has a negative impact on the individuals' quality of life and
self-esteem.
22
2.9 Impact of dyslexia on self-esteem
Self-esteem reflects a person's overall subjective emotional evaluation of his
own worth. It is the judgment that a person has of himself. Self-esteem
encompasses beliefs about oneself, as well as emotional states. Smith and
Mackie (2007) defined self-esteem by stating that:
‘The self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, is the positive
or negative evaluations of the self, as in how we feel about it’.
McNulty (2003) conducted a study aiming to answer the following question:
“What are the life stories of adults who were diagnosed with dyslexia as
children?” (p. 365). McNulty (2003) described his non-intervention research
design as the “life story method of narrative analysis,”. The life story research
design refers to the study of a phenomenon by comparing and contrasting a
number of people who share the same experience. It is a method of
qualitative research that “articulates the experiences” of a group by describing
the “qualities within a type of life in a manner that is accurate, relevant, and
compelling as determined by those who are familiar with it” (p. 365).
The following statements highlight his rationale for selecting a qualitative
research design: “Rather than approaching the study with a specific set of
questions or variables, a more open-ended inquiry into the events and
emotions related to living with diagnosed dyslexia over the course of life was
thought to be a useful way to authentically articulate participants’
experiences”. (p. 365)
McNulty began his study by defining dyslexia by its primary symptoms. These
are reading and spelling difficulties due to a problem with the phonological
coding of written language. He selected 12 adults aged 25 to 45 and
interviewed them extensively with the use of audiotapes. He used transcripts
23
in order to determine common and contrasting elements of the shared story.
Then he developed a typology that fitted all cases, and in this way, he finally
created a collective life story based on participants’ own testimonials.
Validation of the life story was achieved by a “self- validation circle” in which
the participants reviewed the collective story and judged whether it was an
“accurate, relevant, and compelling depiction of the experience”(p.365). In
order to review the collective story’s accuracy and generalization investigated
the testimonials of persons who were not among the participants but had
undergone the shared dyslexia experience. In this way, he revised the
collective life story from the perspective of the wider community, which was
similarly affected by the phenomenon of dyslexia.
McNulty’s creative life story research design effectively uncovered the
negative experiences of persons with dyslexia over the course of life. It
proved that what he labelled “LD trauma” and the importance of a “niche” for
overcoming problems that are related to low self-esteem.
This issue has psycho-social parameters. However, dyslexia usually are not
relevant to the intelligence, but with biological agents, the underlying cognitive
processes and the individual profile of each one.
2.10 Diagnostic criteria and Characteristics of Dyslexia
From a scientific perspective, as stated by Popper (1969), it is impossible to
set strictly unambiguous criteria of demarcation at either the genetic or the
functional boundaries of what dyslexia is.
Stanovich points out that dyslexia, in common with many ‘developmental
disabilities carries with it so many empirically unverified connotations and
24
assumptions’ that the term might be helpfully abandoned (Stanovich, 1994, p.
579). From the perspective of natural science, it is obvious that in the
continuum of highly skilled to less-skilled readers, there is no clear
discontinuity that provides an absolute categorical boundary for a diagnostic
category of ‘dyslexics’ since the nature of the underlying difficulties
experienced by dyslexics can be highly diverse.
In addition, research studies comparing dyslexics with ‘non-dyslexics’
frequently select participants as representative of ‘normal’ and ‘non-normal’
groups on the basis of how the researcher defines the diagnostic criteria for
dyslexia.
Therefore, dyslexics are often considered to present characteristics such as:
speech and language difficulties,
poor working memory,
difficulties in ordering and sequencing,
clumsiness,
a poor sense of rhythm,
limited speed of information processing,
poor concentration, inconsistent hand preference,
poor verbal fluency,
poor phonological skills,
frequent use of letter reversals ,
a difficulty in undertaking mental calculations,
low self-image, and
anxiety when they are asked to read aloud. (Stanovich, 1994, p. 579).
The problem with such lengthy lists is that they fail to offer meaningful
differentiations, which are essential for the diagnosis. Similar items to those
listed above are often found in lists of signs of other developmental conditions
like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or dyspraxia.
25
In an attempt to define dyslexia, Lyon (1995) argued that dyslexics are those
individuals whose literacy difficulties cannot be explained by low intelligence,
socio-economic disadvantage, poor schooling, sensory (auditory or visual)
difficulties, emotional and behavioural difficulties, or severe neurological
impairment that go significantly beyond literacy. However, this view may
mislead educators to exclude from the provision of specialist support, pupils
simply because they attend schools that are considered to be for the poor, or
live in disadvantaged neighborhoods (Rutter, 1978) and score poorly on IQ
tests.
It is worthy to note that the appropriateness of using IQ tests has been
questioned (e.g. Cernovsky, 1997; Flanagan and McGrew, 1997; Lopez,
1997). On the other hand, differentiating between groups of poor readers on
the basis of intelligence may help to shed light on the mechanisms of reading.
The differentiation used by Snowling (2008) is employed to investigate
potential differences in underlying cognitive processes.
The British Psychological Society (1999) provides the following definition:
‘Dyslexia is evident when accurate and fluent word reading and/or spelling
develops very incompletely or with great difficulty. This focuses on literacy
learning at the ‘word’ level and implies that the problem is severe and
persistent despite appropriate learning opportunities (p.64)’.
2.11 Dyslexia as a social construct
One of the major risks in the debate about dyslexia lies in the failure to
acknowledge any socio-cultural dimensions. Dyslexia may be considered as,
at least partially, a social construct. This is in fact relatively uncontentious. As
Ferrari (2002) argues, ‘psychological development itself cannot be understood
as a uniquely individual thing involving only an individual’s brain and how that
brain interacts with the world. Development depends crucially on the
26
sociocultural context in which (normal and abnormal) children develop’
(Ferrari, 2002, p. 756). Similarly, Pennington and Olson state that ‘Dyslexia is
an interesting example of the intersection between an evolved behaviour
(language) and a cultural invention (literacy)’ (Pennington and Olson, 2005, p.
453).
Cook-Gumpertz (2006), in attempting to explore the relationship between
literacy, education and social power suggested that the definitions of
‘functional literacy’ are very problematic. Cook-Gumpertz underline that
universal literacy is a recently formulated aspiration. Literacy was previously
possessed only by a powerful elite. It was this elite that maintained power
through literacy. As Cook-Gumpertz indicated ‘The reversal of position, from
seeing a dangerous radicalism inherent in acquiring literacy to the opposite
view that the social and political danger was in having illiteracy in the
population, began at this time [in the late 19th century]’ (p. 32).
Therefore, the social rationale for maintaining a construct of literate/non-
literate might be considered as subject to change according to societal
priorities and anxieties. As Goody and Watt argue ‘the literate tradition sets up
a basic division that cannot exist in non-literate society: the division between
the various shades of literacy and illiteracy. This conflict, of course, is most
dramatically focused in the school, the key institution of society’ (Goody and
Watt, 1968, p. 5).
For example, in England, schools are judged with reference to their
performance, which is largely determined by the pupils' performance in
measures that are either explicitly or implicitly dominated by competence in
literacy. Therefore, in order to be considered successful, schools may refuse
to enrol pupils with inadequate levels of literacy. Thus, the creation of a
category is inconvenient for them. In both cases, the dyslexic pupil is left to
deal with his or her individual perceptions of failure and bear responsibility for
the school’s failure. In this way, s/he is excluded from full social and
27
educational inclusion in lessons alongside her or his peers. The American
typology of ‘reading-disabled’ also clearly identifies illiteracy as a disability.
More particularly, without those who are deemed ‘unsuccessful’, the
successful lose power and position. Although we see that public and political
intent may be stated as an attempt to ‘eradicate illiteracy’ (MacKay, 2007),
there remains a paradoxical need to maintain a group who remain ‘illiterate’.
Although the aforementioned indicate that the concept of dyslexia has social
dimensions that need to be taken into account in order to explain its existence
there is the opposite view which attributes dyslexia to hereditary factors.
2.12 Heritability of Dyslexia
Several authors agree (e.g. Grigorenko, 2001; Pennington, 1999; Olson,
Forsberg, Gayan, & DeFries, 1999; Olson & Gayan, 2001) that environmental
factors play a crucial role to the heritability of dyslexia. Family segregation
studies indicate that the risk of dyslexia is eight times higher in children where
there is a parental history of RD. Fisher and DeFries (2002) have conducted
extensive studies of dyslexia which indicate that the heritability of dyslexia has
both biological and environmental influences. Olson and Gayan (2001)
provide an elaborate discussion of shared and non-shared environmental
factors.
Genetic studies show that environmental factors are determinants of
individual reading profiles for many children with dyslexia. Snowling et al.
(2003) followed the progress of 56 children from families in which at least one
parent was dyslexic. These children were assessed from the age of 3 years
and 9 months to the age of 8 years. Their performance in reading related
cognitive abilities was assessed and compared to that of a normal reading
control group of children from similar socioeconomic backgrounds, but with no
history of reading failure in family members. Sixty-six percent of the children
28
had reading skills more than one standard deviation below the mean of the
normal reading control group.
Further evidence for a broader phenotype of dyslexia derives from a study of
Danish children, which was conducted by Elbro et al. (1998). They reported
that on tests evaluating morphological awareness and articulatory accuracy,
non-dyslexic children in dyslexic families had deficits, relative to controls.
McArthur, Hogben, Edwards, Heath, and Mengler, (2000) studied the
reading and oral language performance of 110 children with SRD in the
mainstream and 102 children with SLI from Language Development
Centres. Results showed that 55% of children initially classified as SRD also
had impaired oral language skills. At the same time, 51% of children who
were initially identified as SLI had a reading disability. Therefore, 53% of the
212 children who were tested met the criteria for both SLI and SRD because
of their impaired oral language and reading, posing an issue as to how
‘specific’ their disabilities are. As McArthur et al. (2000) suggest it is
inappropriate to assume that there are specific deficits in children identified as
SLI or SRD.
It was also proved that co-morbidity of these disorders cannot be assumed. In
an attempt to compare children with SRD and SLI, Kamhi and his
colleagues (Kamhi & Catts, 1986; Kamhi, Catts, Mauer, Apel, & Gentry, 1988)
found that the performance of these groups did not differ on measures of
phonemic awareness.
2.13 Aetiology
Initially the aetiology of dyslexia was attributed to visual deficits. Later, specific
deficits in the processing of phonological information were considered to be
responsible (Vellutino, Fletcher, Snowling, & Scanlon, 2004). Research has
29
shown a particular interest in deficits in working memory which is responsible
for the processing and the short-term storage of information.
The research history in the etiology of reading disabilities can be traced back
to the 19th century. There have been a variety of terms to describe the
phenomenon of acquired reading impairments, such as word-blindness, word
amblyopia or strephosymbolia (Wolf & Ashby, 2007). At this time, reading
disabilities were considered to derive from visual weaknesses and a potential
disorder in the central nervous system (Wolf & Ashby, 2007). Subsequent
studies on the basis of developmental dyslexia led to psycholinguistics-based
theories and to the identification of universal deficits in phonological
processing. Impaired phonological processing is now regarded as the primary
cause of developmental dyslexia (Welbourne & Lambon Ralph, 2006). There
are both intrinsic factors i.e. genetic and extrinsic ones i.e. social (Silver &
Hagin, 2002) which account for LD.
Dyslexia has been attributed to deficiencies in visual, linguistic, and low level
sensory functions, and to deficiencies in the general learning abilities that are
involved in all learning domains and not just in learning to read. Considering
that reading is primarily a linguistic skill, it appears that the reading disability
can be caused by deficiencies in the semantic, syntactic, or phonological
components of language. Thus it has been suggested that vocabulary deficits
may be a basic cause of difficulties in learning to read in some readers with
RD (Dickinson & Tabors, 2001; Snow & Tabors, 1993; Vellutino, 1979, 1987;
Vellutino & Scanlon, 1982).
Subsequently it can be suggested that a pupil will have less difficulty in
learning to read words that belong to his or her speaking vocabulary rather
than in learning to read words that are not in his or her speaking vocabulary.
In other words the more famliar a word is the less evident the reading difficulty
will be.
30
The vocabulary knowledge is also involved in the mastering of reading-related
phonological skills. Several authors (e.g. Goswami, 2001; Metsala, 1999;
Metsala & Walley, 1998; Walley, 1993) suggest that the phonological
representations become increasingly less spherical and are more highly
specified with reference to the developmental changes in vocabulary
knowledge. This is the case especially in words with similar phonological
properties.
The strongest evidence that there is a causal relationship between
phonological skills deficiencies and low achievement in beginning readers is
provided by studies that have been designed to facilitate phonological
awareness and letter-sound mapping as a positive effect on word
identification, spelling, and reading ability in general. These studies (e.g.,
Blachman, 2000; Fletcher et al., 1994; Shankweiler et al., 1979; Share &
Stanovich, 1995; Stanovich & Siegel, 1994; Snowling, 2000a; Torgesen,
Wagner, & Rashotte, 1994; Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1994; Vellutino,
1979, 1987; Vellutino & Scanlon, 1987a, b; Vellutino et al., 1994, 1995a, b,
1996; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987) suggest that poor readers perform below
the level of normal readers on phonological awareness and letter-sound
decoding tasks. Poor readers have also performed below the level of normally
achieving readers on tests evaluating confrontational naming, rapid naming,
verbal learning, and verbal memory (Blachman, 1997; Bowers & Wolf, 1993;
Katz 1986; Snowling, 2000a; Torgesen et al., 1994; Vellutino, 1979, 1987;
Vellutino & Scanlon, 1987a, b; Vellutino et al., 1994, 1995a, b, 1996; Wagner
et al., 1994; Wolf, Bowers, & Biddle, 2000a).
However, there is strong evidence to suggest that the updating of verbal
information is important for reading decoding (De Jong, 2006). In addition,
research indicates the role of inhibitory functions during reading. Palmer
(2000) found that good readers could better inhibit visual representations -
orthographic representations-and focus on the phonological representation.
His findings show that poor readers may continue to focus on visual encoding
31
when it would be more productive to recode phonologically. Palmer postulates
that a delay in inhibiting the disruptive visual representations may contribute
to dyslexia.
Many scientists agree on a new, and meaningful, explanatory role for the
dyslexia construct (Wadlington & Wadlington, 2005). The construct is
considered to be dimensional, rather than categorical. it is used by some to
describe all individuals who encounter difficulties in reading decoding. It may
be used interchangeably with terms such as reading disability or specific RD.
Some suggest that ‘dyslexia represents the lower end of a normal distribution
of word reading ability’ (Peterson & Pennington, 2012). On the other hand,
many researchers claim that dyslexia represents far more than merely reading
problems, comprising a wide variety of linguistic, self-regulatory and adaptive
skills that impact upon daily living and social and emotional
functioning. Additionally, the term ‘dyslexia’ describes a biological condition
that can be contrasted with environmental explanations for an individual’s
reading problems. Moreover, the relationship between the child’s biological
potential and the influence of their particular environment is highly complex
and not realistically unpicked by means of current clinical procedures. At the
current time it is impossible to separate poor readers into clear causal groups
based upon biological phenomena – there are no established biomarkers,
either genetic or brain-based, that can currently be used to make such a
distinction. It is believed that complex developmental difficulties such as
reading disability are best considered as heterogeneous conditions which are
influenced by multiple genetic and environmental risk factors (Petrill et al.,
2010; Willcutt et al., 2010). Research results (e.g., Jednoróg et al., 2012)
prove that socio-economic status has an influence upon the structure of the
brain. Additionally, heritability declines linearly in relation to lower levels of
parental education (Friend et al., 2008; Rosenberg et al., 2012). Most
researchers and clinicians have emphasised sensory, cognitive and motor
processes as underlying markers of dyslexia. However, despite extensive
research there is still rudimentary understanding about the causal
mechanisms. The general consensus of researchers is that the basis of
32
dyslexia is linguistic and not visual has been challenged by findings from
studies of visual attentional processes (Bosse et al., 2007; Collis et al., 2013;
Dehaene, 2009; Franceschini et al., 2012; Hari & Renvall, 2001; Lallier et al.,
2010). While phonological processes appear to be particularly important,
there is uncertainty as to the precise nature, operation and role of these in
respect of reading difficulty (Boets et al., 2013; Ramus & Szenkovits, 2008).
2.14 Categories
Wolf, Bowers, and colleagues (Bowers & Wolf, 1993; Wolf & Bowers, 1999;
Wolf et al., 2000a) outline the existence of three subtypes of reading disability.
According to Wolf, Bowers (1999), one of them is caused by deficiencies in
phonological skills such as phonological awareness and letter-sound
decoding.
2.15 The process of Reading
Learning to read is the main educational activity undertaken by pupils during
their first school years (Chapman & Tunner, 1995). The development of their
literacy skills influences their overall attitude towards learning.
Russ (1989) argues that pupils’ attitudes towards reading significantly
influence their reading achievements. The attitudes children have towards a
specific reading activity affect the amount of reading in which they engage in
as well as their reading achievement (Burns, Roe &Ross, 1999; Ghaith &
Bouzeineddine, 2003). The main factors shaping reading attitudes are the
quality of the instruction (Saracho & Dayton, 1989) and the pupils' cognitive
skills (Cothern & Collins, 1992).
33
Among the other cognitive functions, phonological processing, a subtype of
auditory processing, and long-term retrieval, especially rapid automatic
naming, are the most important ones. Phonological processing, which
includes phonemic awareness, is considered to be the basis of reading
decoding (Kamhi & Pollock, 2005).
Phonological processing ability and phonological short-term memory are
interdependent with verbal working memory (De Jong, 2006). That makes it
difficult to identify the reasons underneath the limited phonological short-term
memory span. In some cases, a deficit in phonological processing is
responsible for the poor performance on phonological short-term memory
tasks. In other cases, phonological processing is normal and the deficit is
related to the short-term memory capacity.
The relationship between working memory, reading and phonological
processing has been widely investigated (De Jong, 2006). The results show
that the phonological short-term memory and the verbal working memory
components contribute to reading skills and phonological processing.
Nevertheless, phonological short-term memory and verbal working memory
have a common underlying ability with phonological processing. That common
underlying ability is responsible for the close association that short-term and
working memory have with reading decoding (De Jong, 2006). When
phonological processing skills are intact, poor readers are either not using
phonological short-term memory effectively or have a limited capacity in that
memory subcomponent. Another explanation is that poor readers have a
deficit in phonological short-term memory that prevents them from retaining
the sequence of sounds (Baddeley, 1986).
Other factors that may be responsible for poor short-term and working
memory performance are the speed of articulation and the use of verbal
rehearsal strategies (Baddeley, 1986).The fact that speech rate does not
appear to have a strong relationship with individual differences in normal
34
readers, partly explains the short-term memory impairment in children who
have a reading disability. In addition, poor readers might not be
spontaneously using verbal rehearsal strategies to the same extent as normal
readers (Torgesen & Goldman, 1977). O’Shaughnessy and Swanson (1998)
found that children with reading disabilities use phonological rehearsal
processes inefficiently. Reading decoding is more than a simple storage of
phonological sequences in short-term memory. The blending of the phonemes
into a word requires processing of sequential information. That is a
contribution from working memory and more particularly verbal and executive
working memory.
Although the relationship between reading and working memory has been
extensively investigated, it remains unclear whether short-term phonological
storage or executive and verbal working memory play a role in the reading
progress (Swanson & Jerman, 2007). What is proved is that when an
individual becomes a fluent reader and basic reading decoding becomes
automated, short-term and working memory play a less important role in
reading decoding. In addition, long-term memory becomes more prominent.
2.16 Reading disabilities
Most theories are based on the outcomes of qualitative investigations, which
indicate whether a child either has or does not have dyslexia. That is because
they are based on the assumption that RD are ultimately caused by structural
or functional anomalies in the brain. However, several scholars (e.g., Olson &
Gayan, 2001; Pennington & Lefly, 2001; Shaywitz et al., 1992; Snowling,
Gallagher, & Frith, 2003; Stanovich, 1988; Vellutino et al., 1996) paid attention
to the quantitative differences regarding the theories of reading disabilities.
According to this assumption reading ability is a multifactorial characteristic,
which is determined by the action of a particular assortment of genes that are
important for acquiring reading skills and sub-skills. These interact with
35
various environmental factors in order to produce quantitative variation in
cognitive skills underlying both reading ability and reading achievement.
It is worth pointing out that there is a lot of controversy concerning the
reliability of the discrepancy criterion (Francis et al., 2005, Siegel, 1989;
Stanovich, 2005) and that consensus has not yet been reached regarding the
cognitive deficits that underlie different learning disorders. Nevertheless, the
World Health Organization and American Psychiatric Associations still adhere
to these selection criteria. According to Silver & Hagin, (2002) and Shaywitz,
(2003), dyslexia is also classified as specific or developmental.
School-age children with dyslexia have difficulties on non-word repetition
tasks that tap output phonological processes (Snowling, 1981; Snowling,
Goulandris, Bowlby, & Howell, 1986). Kamhi and Catts (1986) claimed that
performance on a test that required the repetition of multisyllabic non-words
was equally poor for reading impaired children as it was for children with
primary oral language impairments.
There is a relationship between phonological skills deficiencies and
inadequate achievement in beginning readers. Furthermore, poor readers
have been found to perform below the level of normal readers on phonological
awareness and letter-sound decoding tasks (Blachman, 2000; Fletcher et al.,
1994; Shankweiler et al., 1979; Share & Stanovich, 1995; Stanovich & Siegel,
1994; Snowling, 2000a; Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1994; Wagner,
Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1994; Vellutino, 1979, 1987; Vellutino & Scanlon,
1987a, b; Vellutino et al., 1994, 1995a, b, 1996; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987).
The risk of dyslexia is increased among children with speech problems. The
risk though, is dependent on the age at which the speech problems resolve
and the nature and severity of the speech difficulty. Taking this as a starting
point, Stackhouse et al (2000) argue that children with speech problems are
at risk of literacy problems if they have metaphonological difficulties and
36
deficits in phoneme awareness. Furthermore, pupils with a reading disability
are proved to perform poorly on measures of executive working memory
(Siegel & Ryan, 1989).
2.17 Working memory deficits and dyslexia
Schuchardt, Maehler, and Hasselhorn (2006) assessed the working memory
deficits of pupils with LD with a battery of 16 tasks which included seven
phonological tasks (memory spans for digits, one-syllable and three-
syllable words, one-syllable and three-syllable non-words, and images;
non-word repetition), five visual–spatial tasks (memory span for locations,
matrix span simple and complex, corsi-block simple and complex), and four
central executive tasks (double span, backward spans for one-syllable words
and digits, counting span).
The aim of their study was to analyze the role of the different components of
working memory in various LD defined according to ICD-10. The study
indicated the existence of distinct patterns of working memory deficits in
participants with LD. In addition, all participants with specific reading disorders
performed poorly in tasks testing central executive functioning. It is worth
pointing out that the main differences in all task measures disappeared when
phonological working memory scores were taken out. This showed that the
deficits of children with specific reading disorders (SRD) in working memory
relate to the phonological impairment rather than to deficits in central
executive functioning. Specific deficits were also indicated in children with
specific disorders in arithmetic skills. However cognitive processes are
involved in reading decoding apart from most aspects of working memory
(Evans et al., 2002).
37
2.18 Cognitive processes
The academic achievement of an individual is highly associated with his/her
cognitive processing abilities. Therefore, cognitive processing impairments
such as speed and working memory contribute to failure in academic
achievement (Archibald and Gathercole, 2006).
2.19 Oral Language Difficulties
An oral language difficulty is a condition in which a child experiences a delay
in language development despite exhibiting adequate progress in other
cognitive areas. Research suggests that people with language impairments
perform poorly on verbal working memory tasks, and more particularly on
tasks involving phonological processing (Masoura, 2006). For instance,
children with language impairment exhibit poor performance on digit span and
non-word repetition tasks (Baddeley, 2003a).
Gutierrez-Clellen, Calderon, and Weismer (2004) proved that children with a
specific language impairment possessed word recall two standard deviations
below their expected level as indicated by their age. Gathercole and Baddeley
(1990) reported that children with a language disability have poor
phonological short-term memory when compared to controls matched on
nonverbal intelligence. Children with a language disability also face specific
difficulties on dual-processing tasks. The speech perception difficulties also
contribute to phonological processing difficulties and that in turn affect reading
skills.
2.20 Phonological processing
It is widely accepted that learning to read depends on phonological skills and
38
that phonological processing is basic to reading acquisition (Bradley & Bryant,
1983). Phonological processing is basic to reading acquisition (Bradley &
Bryant, 1983) and plays a major role in the development of reading skills
since children who develop the ability to hear the individual sound categories
within a word are able to associate these phonemes with their written letter
representations (Lyytinen et al., 2005). Thus it can be suggested that children
who have phonological difficulties are at risk of experiencing problems in
reading. Viceversa, children who face problems in reading present problems
in the phonological part of language. More particularly, their deficits are
related to phonological awareness, verbal short-term memory and rapid
automatised naming (Snowling, 2000a).
Children with problems in expressive phonology are also vulnerable to RD.
They present phonological impairments that can be noticed in speech output
processes (Dodd, 1995; Stackhouse & Snowling, 1992). Nevertheless, it is
still investigated whether their reading problems are only due to deficits in
phonological skills, and not due to accompanying language impairments.
According to Stackhouse & Wells (1997) and Snowling (2000b), reading and
phonological awareness difficulties in dyslexic children and reading and
phonological awareness difficulties indicated in children with speech
difficulties lie on a continuum. More specifically, it is believed that
phonological processing difficulties are at the core of the continuum (cf.
Stanovich & Siegal, 1994).
2.21 Phonological awareness deficits
Inadequate phonological awareness has been considered to be one of the
most prominent characteristics of dyslexia (Goswami, 2002; Snowling, 2000).
The term ‘phonological awareness’ refers to the conceptual understanding
and the explicit awareness that spoken words consist of individual speech
39
sounds (phonemes) and combinations of speech sounds (syllables, onset-
rime units).
Bishop and Adams (1990) proposed the critical age hypothesis. According to
this, the extent to which a child is vulnerable to reading failure depends on the
level of his/her phonological processing skills at the stage when children are
expected to be able to learn to read.
Regarding the spoken features of a language, the operational definition of
phonological awareness refers on the ability to divide a spoken stream into
distinct sound units (e.g. syllables), to classify words based on their identical
sound elements (e.g. onsets and rimes), to delete a phoneme from a syllable
or to blend individual phonemes into a syllable. In other words, deficient
phonological awareness can be demonstrated at different phonological “grain
sizes,” such as syllables, onset-rhymes or phonemes (Goswami & Bryant,
1990; Ziegler & Goswami, 2005).
Traditionally, phonological awareness has been examined through several
ways. Different tasks may be used to test different levels of phonological
awareness and researchers should consider the age and learning
experiences of participants when selecting their tasks.
Examples of phonological awareness tasks are the following:
Tapping to repeat a word spoken by the examiner and count the
number of syllables or phonemes by tapping with a small dowel
(Liberman, Shankweiler, Fischer, & Carter, 1974).
Counting to tell the number of syllables or phonemes in a word by
giving coins (Treiman & Baron, 1981).
Same-different to hear two words presented together in time and to tell
whether the two words shared the same syllable, onset-rhyme or
phoneme (Adams, 1994).
40
Deleting the first or the last "sound" of each word and to answer what is
left. The sound can be instructed as a syllable or phoneme (Bruce,
1964; Stanovich, Cunningham & Cramer, 1984).
Blending to integrate individual syllables or phonemes into words
(Anthony et al., 2002; Fox & Routh, 1975).
Oddity to listen to three or four mono-syllables and identify the odd one
out, with different first, middle or final sounds (Bradley & Bryant, 1978;
Bradley & Bryant, 1983).
Segmentation to tell what individual sound elements were heard in a
word (Fox & Routh, 1975).
Phonological awareness, phonological memory, and speed of access to
production of phonological codes have been frequently grouped as a
phonological construct (Wagner & Torgesen, 1987). Research on alphabetical
languages has indicated that phonological awareness is usually the best
causal predictor of reading success (Adams, 1994; Bradley & Bryant, 1983).
In a three-year longitudinal investigation, Torgesen, Wagner, and Rashotte
(1994) found significant correlations between all the measures of phonological
performance in 244 kindergarten children and alphabetic reading skills at both
1st and 2nd grade, when IQ, general verbal ability and pre-reading skill (i.e.,
knowledge of letters) were controlled. However, only phonological awareness
appeared as a unique predictor of word-reading development in a structural
equation model.
MacDonald and Cornwall (1995) investigated the long term effect of early
phonological awareness on subsequent word identification and spelling in
English. Twenty four kindergarten children participated in the study and were
tested later again when they were 17 years old. Their early phonological
awareness at kindergarten significantly contributed to later reading and
spelling skills at high school. It showed that within the domain of phonology,
longitudinal and cross-sectional studies have repeatedly isolated phonological
awareness as the most significant predictor of reading development (Lonigan,
41
Burgess, & Anthony, 2000).
The significant role of phonological sensitivity in predicting reading ability
seems to be universal across languages (Lafrance & Gottardo, 2005; Chow,
McBride-Chang, & Burgess, 2005) and across development (Molfese,
Molfese, & Modglin, 2001, Ziegler & Goswami, 2005).
Tunmer and Hoover’s (1992) suggest that phonological awareness is
essential for the recoding process between phonemes and graphemes.
Previous findings consistently prove that:
(a) During the decoding process, skilled readers deal with phonological
information better than less-skilled readers.
(b) Early performance of phonological awareness can predict subsequent
reading achievement at school, even when preschool verbal and letter
knowledge are controlled.
(c) Phonological awareness training significantly improves reading
performance and development.
(d) Phonological awareness influences reading performance through the
mediation of phonological recoding skill.
Therefore, phonological awareness affects the development of single word
reading and decoding through its relationship with phonological recoding.
Empirical evidence supports the role of phonological awareness as a critical
developmental factor in reading acquisition.
Impaired phonological awareness, arising from poorly-specified phonological
representations of spoken sounds, hampers children’s development of
reading acquisition, no matter what writing system has been used.
For instance, using reading-age (RA-match) match designs, Bradley and
42
Bryant (1978) employed oddity tasks at the onset-rhyme level to identify the
poor phonological awareness of English “backward readers.” Compared with
typically developing children, the dyslexic children performed significantly
worse in both onset-rhyme awareness and rhyme production. Similar findings
have been reported by many other studies, and even in different languages
(English: Bowey, Cain & Ryan, 1992; German: Landerl, Wimmer & Frith,
1997; Chinese: Ho, Law & Ng, 2000; Korean: Kim & Davis, 2004; Japanese:
Seki, Kassai, Uchiyama, & Koeda, 2008). Also there are unexpected
symmetries in the left versus the right hemispheres of those whose brains
were studied (Galaburda, Sherman, Rosen, Aboitiz, & Geschwind, 1985;
Humphreys, Kaufmann, & Galaburda, 1990). This area of the left hemisphere
supports language functions that may relate to reading problems. A second
set of research findings involves small, focal anomalies that appear when
microscopic evaluations of the brain are performed. These anomalies were
found to be more common in the left hemispheres of individuals who were
diagnosed as dyslexic. Microscopic tests of subcortical structures have also
indicated differences in the thalamus that may be related to visual processing
(Livingstone et al., 1991).
For the planum temporale, several studies (e.g. Hynd, Semrud-Clikeman,
Lorys, Novey, & Eliopulos, 1990; Larsen, Høien, Lundberg, & Odegarrd,
1990) report symmetry as well as reversals in the expected pattern of
asymmetry (Hynd et al., 1990). However, they did not prove any relationships
of size or symmetry of the planum temporale in dyslexia (Rumsey et al., 1997;
Schultz et al., 1994).
Leonard et al. (1996) proved that higher degrees of asymmetry of the
temporal lobes were associated with better reading performance, regardless
of whether the child had RD. Other studies report that the temporo-parietal
brain areas are smaller (Duara et al., 1991; Kushch et al., 1993), or not
different in those with or without RD (Hynd et al., 1990; Jernigan, Hesselink,
Sowell, & Tallal, 1991).
43
Other research studies that measured the corpus callosum found either
differences (Duara et al., 1991; Hynd et al., 1990) or no differences in its size
(Larsen et al., 1990; Schultz et al., 1994) between groups of dyslexic
individuals and typically developing ones.
2.22 Reading comprehension and working memory
This refers to the ability of a person to identify the words that are found in a
text with enough accuracy and fluency in order to allow estimation of the
meanings embodied in it within the limits of working memory. In addition, a
person should have adequate language comprehension as well as adequate
world knowledge and adequate domain specific knowledge.
In order to comprehend text, a reader is required to store recently decoded
text while complex processes that construct meaning take place (De Beni,
Borella, & Carretti, 2007). While reading a text, working memory stores the
gist of the information from every sentence until a meaning-based
representation of the text’s content is formed. That is called a ‘mental model’
(De Beni, Borella, & Carretti, 2007).
Text comprehension involves several activities and abilities of working
memory. These are:
decoding individual words and accessing their meanings;
assembling word meanings into larger meaning units;
constructing representations of sentences;
linking information across sentences;
detecting inconsistencies between parts of the text;
focusing attention on the main ideas; creating visual images;
44
forming new knowledge representations; drawing plausible inferences
on the basis of prior knowledge;
monitoring the understanding of text as reading progresses;
integrating information from different parts of a text; and
Integrating information with related long-term memory representations.
It is proved that reading comprehension depends on the capacity of working
memory to retain text information that facilitates the comprehension of
subsequent sentences. Just & Carpenter (1992) found that individuals with
advanced capacities are more competent at integrating information across
longer readings. Apart from reading decoding skills and vocabulary level,
working memory capacity is the next highest predictor of reading
comprehension among children, adults, and pupils with a reading disability
(Seigneuric et al., 2000).
Numerous studies have uncovered a moderate to strong relationship between
working memory capacity and reading comprehension (Daneman & Carpenter
1980; Seigneuric et al., 2000). In a meta-analysis of 77 studies conducted by
Daneman and Merikle (1996), the average correlation between reading
comprehension and verbal working memory tasks was .41. Differences in
working memory capacity can greatly affect the success of reading
comprehension. That is more evident when the text is either difficult or
complex (Linderholm & Van Den Broek, 2002; Swanson, 1999b).
Reading comprehension problems are highly related to working memory
deficits (Goff, Pratt, & Ong, 2005). In persons who have a reading
comprehension deficit but do not have a deficit in phonological processing
and word decoding, the specific reading comprehension deficit may not be
attributed to a working memory impairment (Cain, Oakhill, & Bryant, 2004).
45
On the other hand, phonological short-term memory seems to play a limited
role in reading comprehension. The relationship between verbal working
memory and reading comprehension is much stronger than the relationship
between phonological short-term memory and reading comprehension (Engle,
Carullo, & Collins, 1991). Leather and Henry (1994) found that phonological
short-term memory accounted for 5% of the variance in 7-year-olds’ reading
comprehension level and that verbal working memory explained an additional
33% of the variance.
Daneman and Carpenter (1980) supported that simple span tasks do not tap
the higher level working memory processes, which are important for reading
comprehension. Cain et al., (2004) argue that short-term storage of
information does not correlate significantly with reading comprehension while
Seigneuric et al. (2000) argue that verbal working memory capacity constrains
reading comprehension in young readers. Verbal working memory includes
short-term memory for words and sentences and tasks that certainly include
phonological short-term memory. At the basic level, verbal working memory
facilitates reading comprehension (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980).
However, research proved that early RD in children diagnosed with dyslexia is
manifested primarily as a difficulty in identifying printed words as well as in
inadequate facility in related skills such as spelling and phonological
decoding. These difficulties might be accompanied by significant deficits in
language comprehension, but that is not always the case. Therefore, it can be
claimed that specific reading disability (dyslexia) in otherwise typically
developed children will continue to be defined as a basic deficit in learning to
decode print.
Reading-comprehension impairment is not identified in the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition (DSM-IV; American
Psychiatric Association, 1994). Therefore, children with this profile might be
identified as having a form of language impairment. A simple definition of
46
reading-comprehension impairment may be that a child shows deficits in
reading comprehension that are markedly discrepant with their reading
accuracy. Many tests, which are commonly used in order to identify reading
comprehension impairments (e.g., Wechsler Individual Achievement Test,
WIAT-II; Wechsler, 2005) contain separate measures of reading accuracy and
reading comprehension that have been standardized on the same population.
An interesting finding was reported by Gough, Hoover, & Petersen (1996).
They found out that at an older age, reading comprehension is likely to
depend more on language-comprehension ability and less on the ability to
decode print text.
According to Gough & Tunmer (1986), adequate reading comprehension
depends critically on the ability both to decode print, i.e. to translate written
language into speech, and to understand spoken language. If either of these
components is deficient, then problems in reading comprehension emerge.
Nation, Clarke, Marshall, & Durand (2004), used a more stringent criterion in
order to identify children as poor comprehenders. According to their pattern,
poor comprehenders show broad language difficulties that are present before
reading develops and are probably the causes of their later reading-
comprehension difficulties.
These early-emerging problems in language include poor vocabulary
knowledge, difficulties related to processing grammatical information in
spoken language, and finally poor performance on general parts of language
comprehension.
2.23 Reading Fluency and Reading Comprehension
An understanding of the reading comprehension processes may not be
reached without acknowledging the influence of reading fluency on reading
47
comprehension. The level of reading fluency is the most important predictor of
reading comprehension. Once decoding proceeds in a smooth, quickly, and
effortless way, reading is considered to be fluent.
Reading fluency is usually assessed with a test, which measures the number
of correct words that a person reads per minute. A high level of fluency is a
predictor that reading decoding is made in an automatic way. When reading
decoding, sight-word recognition as well as phonetic decoding become
automated, more working memory capacity becomes available for reading
comprehension. In essence, the development of automaticity contributes to
reading comprehension by reducing the working memory resources, which
are necessary for decoding words. Automaticity in reading leads to an
automatic activation of semantic representations in long-term memory. That
accounts for the pool of activated long-term memory items which are
accessible to working memory. However, this is a rather demanding process
which includes the segmenting, the blending, and the holding of phonemes.
Poor readers who continue to struggle with reading decoding have fewer
working memory resources for comprehension. As a result, their inefficient
word reading impairs comprehension. Even when a person has no deficits in
phonological processing, short-term memory, and working memory,
inadequate reading speed may hinder comprehension. That happens
because information may be lost before it is fully both processed and
integrated with a current mental model.
On the other hand, readers with high working memory capacity have an
important advantage. Even before they master fluency, they have larger
residual resources available to devote to comprehension than low working
memory capacity readers.
It is worth mentioning that the level of reading comprehension is not entirely
constrained by the reading decoding skills. A number of readers with poor
48
decoding skills are able to attain normal levels of reading comprehension.
That proves that reading comprehension skills are in a way independent of
phonological decoding abilities (Swanson & Berninger, 1995), and of
phonological short-term memory span (Swanson & Howell, 2001). The
difference may be attributed to a strong overall working memory capacity, the
application of other cognitive processes and of well-developed reading
comprehension and working memory strategies.
Prior knowledge or expertise on a topic can also facilitate comprehension.
Even after an adequate level of reading fluency is reached, working memory
makes a direct contribution to comprehension (Seigneuric & Ehrlich, 2005).
This gradually develops their skills.
As readers progress at school, there is an increased demand on tasks related
to working memory since the texts are gradually becoming lengthier and more
complex. By the end of the third grade, working memory capacity becomes a
specific and significant contributor (Cain et al., 2004) to the development of
reading comprehension. Of course, not all reading comprehension problems
occur due to poorly developed reading fluency or insufficient working memory
capacity. That is proved by a significant number of pupils with poor reading
comprehension skills who have average decoding skills, normal phonological
short-term memory, and adequate working memory capacity (Nation et al.,
1999). These readers tend to exhibit poor vocabulary knowledge, use context
clues less efficiently, and face serious difficulties in making inferences.
Usually, their comprehension difficulties are attributed to delayed language
development, weak fluid reasoning, or even insufficient reading
comprehension strategies (Westwood, 2007).
2.24 Working memory
A strong link between phonological short-term memory and language/literacy
49
acquisition has been shown by many empirical studies. Further research
highlighted the existence of an association between LD and impairments in
working memory (Alloway & Gathercole, 2006; Pickering, 2006a).
Investigations of typical and dyslexic children converge on the viewpoint that
the ability and efficiency of phonological storage in short term periods is
important when learning novel words and influences reading achievement in
childhood.
The concept of phonological short-term memory is derived from the working
memory model, proposed by Baddeley and Hitch (cited in Baddeley & Logie,
1999). Researchers have expressed an intense interest in deficits in memory,
and most particularly the working memory, which is responsible for the
processing and short-term storage of information. Although various models of
working memory have been developed, the model provided by Baddeley
(1986), has proved to be a useful theoretical tool in the field of LD. According
to this model, there are three components of working memory. The modality-
free central executive, which is a kind of supervisory system that aims to
control and regulate the cognitive processes taking place in its two limited
capacity slave systems, the phonological loop and the visual-spatial
sketchpad. Further functions include coordinating the slave systems, focusing
and switching attention, and retrieving representations from long-term
memory. The two slave systems, according to Baddeley’s model of working
memory, perform modality-specific operations since verbal and auditory
information are stored temporarily and processed in the phonological loop.
The two components of phonological loop are the phonological store and the
sub vocal rehearsal process. The visual-spatial sketchpad is related with
remembering and processing visual and spatial information (Logie, 1995;
Pickering, Gathercole, Hall, & Lloyd, 2001).
According to several researchers (e.g. Pickering, 2006a; Swanson, 2006;
Vellutino et. al., 2004), children with specific reading disabilities have deficits
50
in phonological processing and storage. In addition, there is evidence
suggesting that they experience deficits in central executive functioning
(Landerl, Bevan, & Butterworth, 2004; Palmer, 2000; Siegel & Ryan, 1989;
Swanson, 1993, 1999).
Specific stimuli received from the environment activate specific learning
processes. This process of selecting stimuli from a multisensory environment,
i.e. an environment which provides multiple sources of sensory stimulation, is
determined not only by the physical characteristics of the stimuli themselves
but also by the individual interests, motives and cognitive strategies of the
person who is perceiving the stimuli.
Attention plays a crucial role in learning as well (Fuster, 2003). According to
Gilger and Kaplan (2001), attention disorders are responsible for the
identification of LD at different ages. Reading and working memory
researchers argue that diminished short-term and working memory capacities
are related to impaired development of reading decoding skills and reading
comprehension (Swanson, 2000).
.
The differences between skilled readers and those with a reading disability
may be attributed to deficiencies in working memory (Swanson, 1992, 1993,
2000). Although working memory deficits have not been identified as a cause
of reading disabilities, it has been found that working memory contributes a
unique and significant variance to reading (McCallum et al., 2006).
Because of the fact that phonological processing, phonological short-term
memory, and verbal working memory are highly interrelated, it is difficult to
identify the causality or the exact nature of their relations with reading
(Torgesen, 1996). One possible explanation is that the weak phonological
storage is a reflection of deeper phonological processing deficits (Baddeley,
2003a). For example, poor readers do not exhibit phonemic similarity effects
as normal readers do. This is probably because they are weak in phonological
51
processing and as a result they do not rely on phonemic coding in short-term
memory as much as normal readers do. Another explanation may be that
early differences in phonological short-term span play a significant role in the
growth of phonological awareness skills (Torgesen, 1996). It is proved that
phonological processing is related to phonological short-term memory span.
All things considered, the current consensus among reading researchers is
that phonological processing and phonemic awareness skills are responsible
for individual differences in reading more than phonological short-term and
verbal working memory (Torgesen, 1996).
Individuals with LD are likely to face problems in one or more cognitive
processes (Masoura, 2006), including phonological processing, auditory
processing, long-term retrieval, attention, short-term memory, and working
memory. A wealth of evidence (e.g. Koenig, Kosslyn, & Wolff, 1991; Rudel &
Denckla, 1976; Rugel, 1974; Siegel & Ryan, 1989; Sinatra, 1988; Smith,
Coleman, Dokecki, & Davis, 1977; Bannatyne, 1971; Benton, 1984; Johnston
& Ellis Weismer, 1983; Morris et al., 1998; Naidoo, 1972; Rourke, 1985)
suggests the existence of impaired working memory in dyslexics.
The research of Swanson and Berninger (1996) indicated that children with
LD display poor working memory performance. This is particularly the case in
the areas of verbal and executive working memory (Swanson & Alexander,
1997). Pupils with specific LD, especially in literacy and mathematics perform
poorly in all aspects of working memory. On the contrary, children with only
one specific LD demonstrate deficits in working memory limited to one or two
components.
For instance, children with a specific reading disability frequently have
impairments in phonological short-term memory and verbal working memory
(Pickering & Gathercole, 2004). Children with a specific mathematics disability
tend to have deficits in visuo-spatial and executive working memory.
Research has proved that pupils with specific learning difficulties have serious
52
deficits in the executive processing component of working memory (Swanson
et al., 1990). Executive working memory serves a main function which is
controlling and regulating memory subsystems. Executive-loaded working
memory tasks provide the best discrimination between children with and
without LD (Henry, 2001). People with limited executive processing tend to fail
to spontaneously use rehearsal, organization, and other executive-dependent
strategies. These strategies allow effective and efficient use of working
memory resources. In a sample of 11- to 12-year-old children, Henry (2001)
proved that children with a moderate LD could retain verbal instructions that
contained up to three units of information. Typically developed children could
manage five units of information. It was also found that when pupils are
required to process other information while retaining verbal instructions, pupils
with LD are able to maintain only one item of information, whereas typically
developed pupils can handle an average of three units of information (Henry,
2001).
A working memory deficit creates several problems in the classroom for pupils
with LD. The working memory deficits of those with LD seem to originate from
neurobiological limitations in working memory. Working memory deficits are
significantly resistant to change (Swanson, 2000). However, Swanson
(2000) claims that a working memory deficit is not entirely a capacity deficit.
A working memory problem for some pupils with LD is initially a strategy
deficit. That is, pupils with a LD often possess sufficient working memory
resources and the ability to apply effective strategies. However, they fail to
use these strategies spontaneously or consistently.
Therefore, the working memory performance of pupils with LD often reflects
the extent of effective strategy use (Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995). The strong
relationships between working memory deficits and LD suggest that working
memory should be assessed whenever a child is referred for a possible LD.
Research evidence shows that working memory performance is one source of
data that may differentiate between pupils with a LD and those who are slow
53
learners (Swanson et al., 1990). It should be noted that working memory
scores are insufficient for a diagnosis. Other assessment data need to be
taken into consideration.
We must bear in mind that there are often multiple causes of a LD. Therefore
the cognitive processing profile of each person with LD may vary. A deficit in
the working memory is rarely the only deficiency found within people with LD.
For instance, people with a basic reading skills disability might have
coexisting deficits in phonological processing or long-term storage.
People with lower general cognitive ability are likely to be low in working
memory. Some investigators (Swanson & Siegel, 2001) claim that intrinsic
working memory deficits are the primary cause of LD.
However, due to the fact that most of the research on working memory and
LD is correlational, it is not easy to estimate the casual factors.
An alternative explanation is that a working memory deficit is the result of
learning failure rather than its original cause (Torgesen, 2001). In addition,
Nation et al (1999), argue that working memory problems are secondary to
other cognitive processing deficits. Such arguments are consistent with the
viewpoint of MacDonald’s and Christiansen’s (2002) who support that working
memory is a sub-skill within various cognitive areas. One of them is verbal
working memory.
2.25 Verbal Working Memory
This term refers to the capacity a person has to hold in mind and manipulate
verbal information over brief periods of time. Verbal working memory abilities
are closely associated with a wide range of measures of academic ability,
including literacy and mathematics. The majority of individuals with LD in
54
these areas have working memory impairments. Poor working memory skills
in the early years of education are also effective predictors of poor scholastic
attainments over the subsequent school years.
Phonological short-term memory deals with verbal information when only a
few verbal items are involved. No transformation of the information is
required. On the contrary, verbal working memory is required when the
information is long and complex. Measures of verbal working memory do not
involve any interference tasks, a dual-processing task, or a secondary
processing task.
Therefore, the complex spans, which are classified as verbal working memory
tasks also tap executive working memory. Verbal working memory span tasks
require knowledge and processes which go beyond working memory. That
may be tasks that involve verbal ability and some other tasks that require
quantitative ability (Conway et al., 2003).
Poor working memory skills in the early years of education are also effective
predictors of poor scholastic attainments over the subsequent school years.
These can be assessed in assessing sentence memory, memory for stories
and the executive working memory.
2.26 Sentence Memory
Assessing memory of sentences may be the purest form of verbal working
memory. It does not involve any dual processing. It has the benefit of being
distinct from phonological storage because meaning-based encoding will
occur with sentences. This results in spans that are significantly longer than
spans for series of unrelated words.
55
2.27 Memory for stories.
Another short-term retention activity involves the retelling of short stories.
Immediately after hearing a story, the examinee is required to retell as much
of the story as s/he can remember. Complete and sequential recall is not
required. Points are awarded for each key element recalled and paraphrasing
is usually allowed.
2.28 Assessing Executive Working Memory
The dual-task technique is the classic method for assessing executive
working memory. Dual-task activities require the individual to simultaneously
perform two tasks. One is called the primary and the other the secondary.
The primary task is the short-term maintenance of stimuli. The secondary one
is created as interference. Its purpose is to disturb any strategies that would
facilitate maintenance of the information in the primary task. The introduction
of interference assures the involvement of executive working memory.
The main idea behind the dual-task paradigm is that there are a limited
number of working memory resources that the primary and secondary tasks
must share. Without the full amount of resources, performance on the primary
task which is related to the retaining of information is believed to decrease.
Dual-task measures apply well to working memory functioning in reality.
Pupils are required to continually deal with distracting interference in the
classroom.
Some of this interference is internally generated. In order to introduce this
interference, the secondary tasks should be in the same modality. For
instance, the maintenance of visuo-spatial information is disrupted by
concurrent visuo-spatial tasks but not by secondary verbal tasks (Olive,
2004).
56
2.29 Assessment
Vellutino et al (2004) suggested that clinicians should not employ
psychometric measures in attempting to identify underlying biological or
cognitive causes for the purposes of categorical labeling. They should rather
undertake assessments that can inform individually tailored educational
interventions.
A lot of studies have been conducted regarding the relationships between
verbal memory subsystems and both language development and oral
language comprehension (Crain et al., 1990). They proved that there are
many aspects of language learning and comprehension that depend on both
phonological short-term memory and verbal working memory. Service (1992)
claimed that verbal working memory accounted for 47% of the variance in the
second language learning.
Verbal working memory tasks have been found to discriminate developmental
delays from disorders in language. These are often attributed to a curtailed
capacity or dysfunction in verbal working memory. Although the results were
controversial, relationships between language comprehension and short-term
and working memory have ranged as high as .70 to .90. Montgomery (1996)
proved a correlation of .62 between sentence comprehension and
phonological short-term memory. Regarding the oral language
comprehension, working memory plays the major role of constructing and
even integrating ideas from a stream of successive words (Just & Carpenter,
1992). That means that a person must be able to remember previous words in
order to relate them to later occurring words. During this process, working
memory must both store the partial results of comprehension and encode
some items for later retrieval. Verbal working memory is also important for
the acquisition of new vocabulary. That is because it links the correct
pronunciation with a semantic representation.
57
Deficient working memory capacity is related to difficulties in processing
individual sentences (Moser et al., 2007). The role of verbal working memory
is to extract a meaningful representation, which corresponds to the
phonological input functions (Crain et al., 1990). According to Baddeley
(1990), an intact phonological store is very important for oral language
comprehension since it stores word sequences that are long enough for the
person to decode them into their constituent meaning. As a result, the
capacity of the whole working memory system as well as the amount of
temporary storage capacity has important implications for comprehension.
Many studies have proved that placing demands on working memory harms
language comprehension and slows down retrieval from long-term storage
(Baddeley, 1986).
On the other hand, much of the spoken-language processing takes place
without help from working memory (Gathercole & Baddeley, 1993). For
instance, most comprehension of spoken sentences happens immediately
(Montgomery, 1996) since concepts and other representations in long-term
memory are directly accessed.
Phonological short-term memory plays an important role as well in the
language development and processing of young children. Poor language
development seems to be directly related to impaired functioning of
phonological short-term memory (Baddeley, 1996). People with delayed
language development often have problems related to their ability to retain
unfamiliar pseudo-words. This poor verbal memory span is considered to be
one reason of delayed language development. More particularly, vocabulary
learning has been connected to the phonological short-term memory capacity
(Gathercole & Baddeley, 1990). That means that if children are unable to
retain the phonological sequence that constitutes a new word, they may
require repeated exposures to the word before they retain its phonetic and
semantic representation (Leonard et al., 2007).
58
2.30 Reading Span
Reading span, a complex-span task originally developed by Daneman and
Carpenter (1980), has been a prototype for many verbal and executive
working memory measures. Reading span requires the examinee to read a
series of sentences and then sequentially recall the final word of each
sentence. More complex sentences require more working memory resources
and a consequent reduction in span. The task has been used in a variety of
forms so far (Duff & Logie, 2001).
Dyslexics usually perform worse on digit, letter or word span tasks. Word
span is a series of words the examinee is asked to recall in order. They are
typically presented at the rate of one per second. The words should not be
related and categorical groupings should be avoided. In that way, verbal
working memory and long-term representations will have less impact on
performance. In addition, the words should be relatively short. Typically they
should have a length of one or two syllables.
Such a test usually requires participants to recall the items they hear from the
experimenter. This suggests that poor readers may suffer from impaired
phonetic coding in working memory (Wagner & Torgesen, 1987). However, it
has been claimed that defective phonological short-term memory may result
both from poorly specified phonological representations and inferior phonetic
coding skills. For instance, Thomson, Richardson and Goswami (2005)
explored the effect of rime neighborhood density on word and non word serial-
recall in typically-developing children and in dyslexic children. In typically
developing children, words in dense neighborhoods had better-specified
rimes. Both groups performed better on words or nonwords, which had rimes
from dense phonological neighborhoods, suggesting an important role for
representational specificity. In addition, dyslexic children were generally poor
at word and non word recall, compared to chronological-age matched
59
children. In fact, many non word items tended to be replaced by real-words in
dyslexic children’s responses, suggesting that their long-term phonological
representations were inadequate for supporting the recall of novel
phonological items.
In addition, a wealth of research (e.g. Gathercole & Baddeley, 1990;
Gathercole, Willis, Emslie, & Baddeley, 1992; Windfuhr & Snowling, 2001;
Lee, Ng, Ng, & Lim, 2004) proved that working memory supports children’s
development in a variety of cognitive areas such as reading, language and
arithmetic processing. More particularly, some evidence (e.g. Ram-Tsur,
Faust, & Zivotofsky, 2008; Jeffries & Everatt, 2004; Smith-Spark & Fisk, 2007)
suggests that poor verbal working memory may be one of the underlying
mechanisms of RD because typical reading comprises the maintenance of
phonological representation in the working memory system. Limited transient
retain-and-compare abilities may interfere with remembering the correct
sequence/order of the sounds of words (phonemes) and the temporal patterns
of sound stimuli, and this in turn can lead to performance mistakes of
individuals with reading impairment.
Non-words are also known as pseudo-words or nonsense words. They are an
ideal material for narrowing the assessment to simple phonological short-term
memory span. In addition, they help the examinee to test long-term semantic
memory since such items have no long-term representations other than basic
phonetic properties. The best non-words are those that have no resemblance
to recognizable syllables or words. The number of syllables in each non-word
should be no more than two and sequences of non-words should not include
any items that rhyme. People with phonological processing problems often
face more difficulties with non-words than with actual words. Thus a non-word
span is considered to be a better predictor of vocabulary development than
word span (Gathercole, 1999).
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2.31 Rapid Automatic Naming
Rapid Automatic Naming is a timed long-term retrieval task, which is found in
several types of scales. The examinee is asked to repeat the names of
symbols or pictured objects. The proficiency of this task is influenced by
several factors, including processing speed and the strength of the
associations which are stored in long-term memory. Rapid Automatic Naming
demands fewer working memory resources than retrieval by category.
Denckla and Rudel (1974, 1976) took the lead in the investigation of naming-
speed deficits in dyslexic children. In their study, a series of Rapid
Automatised Naming (RAN) tests of colors, letters, numbers, and objects
were designed to discriminate children with dyslexia from children without
dyslexia. It appeared that children with dyslexia took relatively more time to
name objects and letters. However, there was no clear explanation for the
reason that could account for the rapid naming failure.
The double-deficit hypothesis (Wolf & Bowers, 1999) claims that naming-
speed deficits may be distinct from phonological processing deficits in
dyslexics who may present either one dysfunction or both. Theoretically, the
underlying mechanisms of naming-speeding deficits could be independent.
The slow naming process may be due to a defective visual magnocellular
system or of the lower-level visual-verbal integration processes, which are
crucial for the immediate recognition of visual characteristics. It is also
possible that the delayed retrieval process might result from a general
processing-speed difficulty with respect to orthographic or phonological
information therefore affecting reading automaticity and fluency (Wolf, Bower
& Biddle, 2000).
Another hypothesis is that naming-speeding deficits may be behavioural
symptoms of dyslexics’ inefficient phonological recoding in lexical access
(Wagner & Torgesen, 1987), which is a natural consequence of impoverished
61
phonological representations (Snowling, 2000).
2.32 Working Memory Performance and Reading Skills
Over the last 30 years a wealth of research studies indicate the existence of a
powerful association between working memory performance and reading
skills (Smith-Spark & Fisk, 2007; Swanson & Jerman, 2007).
Reading skills are divided into two main categories. These are the reading
decoding skills and the reading comprehension skills. Reading decoding
primarily depends on phonological processing, which is the ability to detect
and manipulate the sound units, i.e. phonemes of oral language. Reading
decoding is primarily related to phonological short-term memory and verbal
working memory, whereas reading comprehension is primarily related to
verbal working memory, executive working memory, and long-term memory
(Swanson et al., 2006). Reading comprehension is more complex and
involves several higher level cognitive processes. Each type of reading skill
draws from short-term, long-term, and working memory somewhat differently.
Verbal working memory span, also referred to as complex span, correlates
highly with children’s reading abilities, especially with their reading
comprehension (De Jong, 2006; Hulme & Mackenzie, 1992). Even short-term
memory span, referred to as simple span, is highly related with reading,
especially with basic reading skills. For instance, Hutton and Towse (2001)
reported a correlation of .45 between digit span and tests of reading. The
extent of involvement of visuo-spatial memory components during reading is
less clear, as very little reading research has examined its role. Those who
challenge the implication that working memory capacity underlies reading
development sometimes claim that the relationship is merely an artifact of
language development or verbal IQ. Yet, when verbal IQ, reasoning,
processing speed, and other cognitive abilities are factored out, a significant
correlation between working memory and reading remains (Swanson &
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Jerman, 2007).
In the mainstream, pupils have to face considerable academic demands,
which pose additional demands on their working memory. For example, some
of the common classroom activities that require simultaneous demands on
both storage and processing include the following: listening to a speaker and
on the meantime time trying to keep notes, following multi-task instructions,
decoding unfamiliar words, writing sentences retrieved from memory. In every
case, the pupil is required to process new information and associate it with
previously stored information. Learning is lessened, or at least slowed down,
when the available working memory capacity is reduced either due to the
overload of information or to the requirement for divided attention.
Experimental research, which has been conducted with dual-task paradigms,
has proved that a secondary working memory task impairs working memory
performance on the primary task, and interferes with learning. Reber and
Kotovsky (1997) proved that additional working memory load interfered with
learning to solve a problem. Additionally, it was found that the severity of the
impairment was in proportion to the degree of working memory load.
Even for individuals with normal working memory capacity and functioning,
classroom instruction and learning activities can overload working memory
many times during the course of a day. Individuals who have weak working
memory may face serious learning problems when there is a high demand in
the functions of working memory. To be more specific, children with poor
working memory often face problems when they are asked to do a complex
task that requires frequent repetitions of directions.
For this reason they tend to abandon a task before completing it (Alloway et
al., 2005). Beyond that, there are socio-economic factors which influence
performance.
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2.33 Summary of the Review Literature
The greatest part of the above literature has been dedicated to dyslexia, its
definitions and theories and its relationship to verbal memory and
phonological difficulties. So far the above literature search indicates that In
sum LD may include attention and memory problems. Dyslexic pupils have
difficulties in learning to read caused by difficulties in phonological awareness
and processing. In addition, the literature search indicated that there is a
relationship between LD and diglossia as well as between LD and a low
parental educational level. Considering all of the above it emerged that there
is a need for further research in this area. Thus the present investigation has
been carried out in order to identify and investigate the reading problems of
pupils with dyslexia by asking them to read a familiar text and analyse the
phonological problems that will be identified while reading the specific text.
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Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY
This chapter focuses on the methodology of the current study. More
specifically it introduces the Research Questions and subsequently presents
the Method of the study, the Research Tools, and the Research Procedure.
Τhe chapter closes with a review of Ethical issues.
3.1 Aim
The aim of the present investigation is to examine the unique characteristics
of the difficulties encountered by dyslexic pupils in the field of reading and
reading comprehension and contribute to the discovery of new elements that
can lead to a better understanding of their difficulties.
Overall this research aims to:
a) Identify and investigate the reading problems of a group of pupils with
dyslexia by asking them to read a familiar text.
b) Analyse the phonological problems that are identified while reading the
specific text.
c) Investigate the working memory functioning of participants by asking
them to retell the story they have read.
It is expected that this study might identify specific reading errors made by the
dyslexic pupils as well as deficits related to their working memory. These
deficits would be checked though the narration of the text they would initially
read. Understanding would also be checked because is highly affected since
dyslexic pupils face problems while reading aloud.
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3.2 Research questions
Specifically the research questions raised are the following:
3.2.1. Research Question 1
Do phonological errors have a negative impact on the reading comprehension ability of children with dyslexia?
3.2.2. Sub-questions:
To what extent is the severity of the problem related to the quality of the specialist support and/or the home support?
Is the impact more negative on children who lack adequate home support?
Are the reading and phonological problems as well the working memory problems in dyslexia related to:
a. parental educational level?b. quality of specialist support?c. low motivation and low self esteem of the pupils?
3.2.3. Research Question 2
Το what extent do children diagnosed with dyslexia have reading and reading comprehension problems which are associated with phonological errors in words of a specific type (CC, VV, CCVV) as well as in words that consist of more than two syllables?
3.2.4. Sub-questions:
Is the reading comprehension ability of children with dyslexia related with the chronological order of the story and with their poor vocabulary?
Do flashcards assist children to overcome working memory problems related to reading comprehension?
66
3.3 Method
For the current study, the case study method was selected. This method, is
selected when the existing theory does not respond adequately to the needs
of the researcher (Eisenhardt, 1989) and the limits between the framework
and the phenomenon are clear (Yin, 1994).
A case study can help to explain presupposed potential links between
variables (Yin 2009) and focuses on the investigation of a specific
phenomenon in a real context with the use of multiple sources of evidence. Its
aim is to answer the why and how questions without manipulating the
behaviour of participants (Yin, 2003). In addition, it is the preferred method
when the researcher has little or no control on the events (Yin, 1994’ 2003a).
Considering that the present investigation aims to study a particular
phenomenon (i.e. the link between verbal memory and phonological ability on
reading comprehension) within a particular context (a classroom for pupils
with LD attending a private center) and to answer why and how research
questions it emerges that the case study method is highly appropriate. Also,
because the researcher has no control of the events and/or of the behaviour
of the units of analysis i.e. pupils with LD who were observed in the context of
a private Greek center.
The case study methodology is widely considered in social sciences as a
highly appropriate methodology for descriptive and explanatory research
(Eisenhardt, 1989; Stake, 2000; Yin, 1994, 2003a) since it is both a process of
inquiry about a case and the product of this inquiry (Stake, 2000). However
there are the following limitations to be taken into account. First, is the lack of
generalization and transferability of the results (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 1994).
Second, the possibility of researcher bias, which has a negative impact on the
precision of the data collected (Yin, 1994). In order to avoid this, the 67
researcher should act as an active listener and rely on multiple sources of
evidence. In this way generalization of the findings at least at a theoretical
level might be reached.
Following Yin (2003b), the case study strategy consists of the research
questions, the analysis of the units and the linking of the units, as well as by
the criteria to analyze the findings. Since the present study aims to study in-
depth a phenomenon from a range of sources of evidence it employs the
multiple-case study strategy which allows the researcher to explore the
potential associations between the variables (Yin, 1994) and the analysis of
cases in order to provide a theoretical background to the study’s main
question i.e. the relationship between verbal memory and phonological
decoding ability on pupils’ reading comprehension.
3.4 Settings
As far as the settings of the research are concerned, the experiment took
place at a private school located in Athens. The interviews conducted during
this experimental process took place at the school premises (for teachers)
and participants’ houses (for parents).
3.5 Participants
Five pupils of 3rd to 4th grade of primary school, from 9 to 10 years of age,
volunteered to participate in this study. The participants were officially
diagnosed with dyslexia by an approved diagnostic centre.
68
3.6 Chamomile
Family History
Chamomile is 9 years old. Her family consists of five members. Her parents,
herself, her little sister and her little brother. Her sister is 5 years old and her
brother is 3 years old. Her mother is a hairdresser and works all day in a
beauty salon. Her father is self – employed. He owns a garage. According to
the mother’s statement, the three children get along well. They seem to enjoy
each other’s company and spend adequate time playing at home. A
significant information that should be taken into consideration regarding
Chamomile’s family history is that her father was diagnosed with LD when he
was a child. Chamomile is considered to be a nervous child. She doesn’t get
along well with her parents.
Educational History
Chamomile was diagnosed with LD at the age of 6 by her teacher at first and
then by a child psychiatrist. In addition, she has been diagnosed with
dyscalculia. She had serious problems at mathematics and finds it hard to
understand and follow the rules in order to solve even simple exercises.
Chamomile attends the fourth class of a public primary school in her
neighborhood. Chamomile does not attend any intervention programme that
would enable her to deal with the difficulties she faces due to her LD. After
receiving the official diagnosis, the parents decided not to seek help since
they face considerable financial problems that deprive them of the opportunity
of hiring a special educator for their daughter or taking her to a certified
private centre which caters for LD.
The parents' level of education, and especially her father’s, who also has LD,
plays a very important role in the learning support of the child. As the mother
works all day, it is very difficult for her when she returns at home to help the
child in doing her homework. The level of education of the mother is low and
69
the father, who most of the time is at home, finds it difficult to help his
daughter, because of his own LD.
3.7 Poppy
Family History
Poppy is 10 years old. Poppy’s family consists of four members: her two
parents, herself and her little sister who is 6 years old. Poppy is bilingual, She
comes from India but she was born and raised in Greece. Her parents are not
able to help her do homework study since they have a limited command of the
Greek language. Her mother is a housewife and deals all day with the
housework but she is unable to help her children to do their homework. Her
father works hard at a supermarket and he is not at home often.
Educational History
Poppy was diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of six by her teacher at first
and then by a child psychiatrist. Her major difficulties are in spelling and
reading.
She attends the fifth class of a state primary school in her neighborhood. In
addition she attends an individualised supportive programme in the afternoon,
three times weekly at a private learning centre in order to increase her
effectiveness in order to deal with her LD. That helps her meet the school
requirements and address the difficulties arising from the diagnosis, as her
parents are unable to provide her with any language support. According to her
school teacher, Poppy seems to have given up any effort to progress
academically. Her school performance has worsened in comparison to the
previous academic year. According to the teacher’s statement, her self-
esteem is very low too. The teacher believes that she might have been tired
from the school requirements, which she finds hard to accomplish. Poppy
claims that she finds it very difficult to cope with her school lessons and that
she hates school since it makes her feel useless.
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3.8 Rosebud
Family History
Rosebud’s family consists of four members: his two parents, himself and his
17 year old sister. His mother is a hairdresser and works all day in a beauty
salon. His father is self – employed. He owns a garage. The children of this
family share strong bonds and enjoy playing all day at home. A significant
detail that should be taken into account about Rosebud’s family is the fact that
his father was also diagnosed with LD when he was a child.
Educational History
Rosebud was diagnosed as having dyslexia and dyscalculia at the age of 6 by
his teacher at first and then by a child psychiatrist.
Rosebud attends the fourth class of a state primary school at his
neighborhood. Rosebud attends an intervention programme that runs after the
completion of the school programme. He receives help from specialists in
order to cope with his LD. Apart from that, a special teacher helps him to do
his homework.
His teacher in the primary school claims that Rosebud tries really hard but he
is very anxious about his performance in reading and spelling. He realizes his
gaps in these two lessons and makes a great effort in order to reach the other
classmates’ level in reading in spelling.
The special educator that teaches Rosebud after school claims that he is
always keen to learn and that he remains anxious all the time because he is
under constant pressure to accomplish every day the study of all his lessons
for the school. He always tries to find time to repeat reading before going to
bed because he is afraid that if he does not manage to read well in class, he
will be ridiculed.
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3.9 Geranium
Family History
Geranium is 10 years old. Geranium’s family consists of five members: her
two parents, herself, her little sister and her little brother. Her sister is three
years old and her younger brother is seven years old. Her mother is a solicitor
and works many hours per day. She hardly sees the children before going to
bed every night. She also spends some time with them in the mornings; that is
before the children leave for school.
Her father is an accountant. He has managed to work many hours at home.
That offers to children every day the opportunity to see their father more hours
than the mother. The grandmother on the father’s side plays a very important
role in the family since she is the one who is responsible for the children’s
upbringing.
Educational History
Geranium was diagnosed as having dyslexia and ADHD at the age of eight by
her teacher at first and then by KEDDY (i.e. the official state centre for the
diagnosis and assessment of LD of the Greek Ministry of Education).
Geranium faces serious problems which are related to her hyperactivity.
However, she is a curious child and uses her curiosity in a creative fashion.
She wants to learn and to explore new things.
Geranium attends the fourth class of a primary private school at a very nice
suburb of Athens. She also attends an intervention programme at a private
centre for children with LD twice a week. In addition, she sees an
occupational therapist who is helping her to deal with her hyperactivity and
inability to stay focused for a long period of time.
Her school teacher claims that Geranium is a very hyperactive child who often
72
causes problems in the classroom. She tends to stand up without being told to
do so. Books and pencils slip from her hands and she finds it very difficult to
obey school rules. That makes it very hard for her to follow the lessons. The
difficulties she faces in reading and spelling make Geranium nervous at
school and provoke a negative attitude towards the school. Sometimes, she
becomes aggressive. Her aggressiveness is targeted towards objects and not
towards other children. More particularly, she throws books or breaks pencils.
Geranium often throws her things in the classroom or expresses herself by
doing intense movements of the hands whenever she is asked to read or
spell. She also finds it very difficult to obey to a simple command such as
“Please write the spelling again!”
The teacher claims that any attempt she made to cooperate with the special
educator of the afternoon school and the occupational therapist did not prove
fruitful. At this time, Geranium’s parents decided to visit a child psychiatrist in
order to ask for help regarding her hyperactivity. Geranium’s parents
considered the possibility of asking the child psychiatrist to provide medical
treatment for their child since they were very desperate regarding Geranium’s
hyperactivity. They believe that this symptom is responsible for her low school
performance.
3.10 Clover
Family History
Clover is 9 years old. His family consists of three members. His two parents
and himself. His mother is a kindergarten teacher and works from morning to
noon at a nursery school. His father is a police officer. He does not work
regular hours and has many night swifts. The only people who help the family
with the housework and chores are the grandparents who live in the same
block of flats.
Clover often expresses his desire to have a brother since he does not want to
sleep alone at nights. He also claims that his grandparents do not seem to
73
understand what kind of toys he requests. The relationship with his mother is
good but he misses his parents who are not at home most of the time.
According to his mother, when he misses his father a lot he tends to become
aggressive.
Educational History
Clover was initially diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of 7 by his English
teacher at first and then by a child psychiatrist.
Clover attends the fourth class of a public primary school in his neighborhood.
He also attends an individualized programme at a learning centre near his
house every day after school. The programme focuses on helping him cope
with his difficulties in reading and spelling and it is designed and implemented
by a special educator.
The rest of the time he spends at the centre, he studies his homework for
history and religion lessons. Clover finds it difficult to study these lessons
because he faces many problems that have to do with understanding and
retaining new information. His mother states that she cannot help him deal
with these difficulties.
74
Table 1 summarises the demographic information about the participants
Table 1. Demographic characteristics of the participants.
Participant Age Siblings
Age of diagnosis
Type of school
Enjoy the procedure
Diglossia Hyperactivity Additional support
Chamomile 9 Yes 6 State Yes No Yes No
Poppy 10 Yes 6 State Yes Yes No Yes
Rosebud
Geranium
Clover
9
10
9
Yes
Yes
No
6
8
7
State
Private
State
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
3.11 Data collection tools
At first, interviews were conducted both with the parents and the educators of
the participants in order to collect data regarding the participants family and
school history. (see appendix 39)
The materials that helped the researcher to identify the reading skills
(phonological processing) and reading comprehension level of the participants
of this experiment were chosen from a chapter of their school books (that is, a
text taken from the third and fourth-grade of a reading programme used in the
mainstream). This was done because all pupils had practised this chapter as
part of their learning material. It was also checked by their teacher to confirm
achievement level. Therefore, the results of participants’ performance in this
75
text would be considered as important indicators of certain difficulties in the
specific field.
Flashcards that represented items from the story were used as facilitators in
the retelling process. The use of flash cards increases pupil’s automaticity and
incorporates the above needs. Flashcards are proven to be effective with
struggling readers to improve sight word fluency, basic math facts and general
education and Special Education populations. Generally, flashcards are
proven to engage active recall. Active recall creates stronger neuron
connections and because flashcards can so easily facilitate repetition, they
are the best way to create multiple memory-enhancing recall events.
Additionally, flashcards utilize metacognitive faculties as well as allow for
confidence-based repetition. Therefore, they improve memory performance.
Additionally, there were questions that the researcher posed to the
participants in order to check understanding. Last but not least, participants
were asked whether they thought these facilitators helped them.
3.12 Description of the project
The experiment consisted of two parts. In the first part, all participants were
asked to read a particular text that they had learned and analysed during their
previous academic year. This was a 10 line text chosen from their school
books comprising of pictures that accompany the story within a specific time
frame (see appendix 39). The reading skills of the participants were studied
but emphasis was given to eight target words of a specific phonological
difficulty in the text that was checked while reading.
These eight words have the same degree of difficulty and phonological
complexity for the participants. They were selected by the researcher on the
base of the data collected about the reading difficulties and on the
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researchers’ observations.
The researcher identified and calculated the mistakes made during reading. A
qualitative analysis took place and involved the retelling of the text that the
pupils had read.
The eight target words are presented in Table 2. In this the complexes of
vocals and consonants of higher phonological difficulty in each target word
are highlighted with bold letters.
Table 2 Target words
Words Pronunciation Phonological difficulty
Υγιείς /iγiis/ VCVVC
Ευτυχείς /eftichis/ VCCVCVC
Βάλθηκε /valthike/ CVCCVCV
Μαρέγκα /marega/ CVCVCCV
Αναύλυζε /anavlize/ VCVCCVCV
Μονοκοπανιά /monokopanjia/ CVCVCVCVCVV
Παχύρευστη /pachirefsti/ CVCVCVVCCVΤσαλαβουτούσε /tsalavutuse/ CCVCVCVVCVVCV
All mistakes made by the participants were recorded and studied.
In the second part, all participants were asked to retell the story they had
read. The retellings were audio-taped.
The retellings were elicited with the use of four flashcards (see Appendix 40)
that represented items from the story and served as facilitators. The working
memory of the pupils was evaluated through the retelling process by asking
the participants to state what part of the plot was easy or difficult to
remember. Τhe use of flash cards helped the children to remember the
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illustrated text in order to recount and answer those nine target questions and
indentify the reading comprehension.
Finally, all participants were asked to answer nine questions (see Appendix 2)
which were related to the text they had read. This added to the investigation
of their reading comprehension skills.
Both parts of the experiment were concluded in 30 minutes for each
participant. In the post experimental phase the relationship of the types of
mistakes made while retelling with the memory deficits of dyslexic pupils was
explored.
Oral readings were analysed and the retelling ability was assessed for each
pupil.
3.13 Time Frame
The experiment took place in November 2014. The interviews with parents
and teachers lasted two days and the experiment was conducted the following
weekend. Each participant was seen one time.
The first stage lasted one week and included interviews with teachers in order
to select participants.
The second stage involved Interviews with teachers and parents in order to
gain demographic information study on the pupils (see appendix 38).
The third stage lasted two weeks, one week in each classroom in order to
observe and get acquainted with the participants. Students were selected
according to their background and their diagnosis. They had to feel
78
comfortable in my presence both in the classroom and later in our session
where it was just the two of us.
The fourth stage lasted one week with each day devoted to one participant.
3.14 Ethics
A letter was initially sent to all parents informing them of the aim of the
interview and the information that was intended to be collected (see appendix
36). Once agreed, I received emails from them expressing their willingness to
participate in the interview. Appointments were set and interviews were made.
Both parents and educators seemed to be comfortable with the whole
process. It is worth mentioning that confidentiality was initially guaranteed
before the interview, so there was no hesitation whether certain difficulties
that pupils face should be revealed. Open ended questions were also used in
the interview providing some additional credibility to the study. All people that
participated in the interview were given the choice to opt out whenever they
wanted. Generally, all seemed to be at ease and no one opted out of the
interview.
As a researcher, I tried to remain neutral, not be emotionally involved and
avoid commenting on or emotionally respond to the statements provided by
both parents and teachers. A relaxed atmosphere was established and
everyone appeared to be happy at the end of the interview.
Since the pupils were young children, official consent from their parents was
taken. The private school agreed voluntarily to participate in this research and
informed all the parents of the pupils in order to get their consent. Private
interviews were arranged with the researcher in order to explain to the parents
the aim of the research and the procedure. The researcher reassured them
that the information that would be collected would be used for the particular
79
experiment and that it would be strictly confidential. No private information
would be made public and under no circumstances would the researcher use
this information for other reasons. Once the parents understood and agreed to
allow their children to participate in this study, they were asked to sign the
official consent form (see appendix 37) stating their approval.
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Chapter 4 RESULTS
4.1 Experimental phase
The following refer to the researchers' observations about each participant.
4.2 Chamomile
Observations
Chamomile came to our appointment feeling very excited. She was willing to
participate and enjoyed the fact that we would do things together. She arrived
accompanied by her father and her two younger siblings. At first, we chatted
for a couple of minutes in order to break the ice and then I explained to her
the process of the experiment. She seemed to be very sociable but when I
asked her the name of her best friend, she told me that her best friends are
her siblings since she does not have another friend. She also stated that she
does not attend any out of school activities and her parents do not let her go
to parties. When I asked her to pick up a flower name, she told me
‘Chamomile’ without any second thought.
During the experiment, Chamomile stated that she did not like the fact that her
siblings were near since she was worried whether they would be quiet. She
was often disturbed by such worries.
Reading
Chamomile did not seem to enjoy the reading process since she faced many
problems pronouncing many words. That caused her nervousness. She
placed her hands in her pockets and would then take them out abruptly.
Additionally she used to keep her pencil tightly gripped while struggling to
read. She also used her pencil as a guide in order not to skip lines and read a
different part of the text. She seemed to understand the difficulties she faced
trying to read well and gave me the impression that she wanted the process to
81
end quickly.
Working memory
After reading the text, I asked Chamomile to retell the story using her own
words. In order to help her recall the basic information 4 flashcards were
shown to her. Although there were 4 flashcards that served as facilitators,
Poppy gave me a very brief statement:
« Ένας άνθρωπος (παύση) που έβλεπε τηλεόραση (παύση)……
Και μετά πνίγηκε ... εεε… και η μαμά του μπήκε μέσα και φώναζε»
‘There was a man (pause) who watched TV (pause)………..
Then he drowned…..eeeeer……..and his mother entered the room and
started yelling.’
General comments
Chamomile was not enthusiastic about the reading process. That is probably
because she faced serious problems pronouncing new words. She made
particular mistakes while reading, mainly in words that include the following
phonological type: CCV, CVV. CCVV, CC, VV. There are also problems
related to the working memory. In the retellings, she gave brief answers.
Although she believed that the use of flashcards helped her, she was limited
in her use of some of the words from the text she had read. Problems were
also seen in retelling the facts in the hierarchical order they were written in the
text. Finally, regarding the questions that were asked in the end, she
managed to answer only four out of the nine questions. Some of them were
answered after a lot of effort on behalf of the participant. Some of her answers
also proved that she had not comprehended the main idea of the text she had
read.
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4.3 Poppy
Observations
Poppy was very stressed throughout the reading process. She looked
nervous and did not seem to enjoy the whole procedure. She was anxious to
get it over with and visit her friend at the park. She was looking closely at the
text all the time and was worried not to skip any line. She told me that she
often finds it very hard to find the line she reads when she stops for any
reason.
Reading
According to the findings, we see that Poppy:
Omits syllables (/iγiis/- /iγis/ ) (/marega/- /mare/ )
Transfers intonation (/momokopanjiά /- /momokopάnjia/ )
Omits letters and diphthongs (τσαλαβούτουσε –τσαλαβότούσε)
(/anavlize/- /anamize/)
According to the above finding we see that Poopy also :
Omits syllables (/platsurise/- platsose) (/vriskete/- /vriske/)
Transfers intonation (/δjiafίmisi /- /δjiafimίsi / )
Omits letters and diphthongs (αφρόλουτρο- αφρόλοτρο) ( /παντού/ -
pado) (/olo/-/οla/) (χτυπούσε- χτυπόσε)
Spells the endings of the words wrongly (/γinotan/-/ γinotas/)
(/scorpizodan/- / scorpizodas/) (/sapunaδas/-/ sapunaδes/)
Working memory
After reading the text, I asked Poppy to retell the story using her own words.
In order to help her recall the basic information 4 flashcards were shown to
her. Although there were 4 flashcards that served as facilitators, Poppy gave
me a very brief statement:
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« ήθελε να κάνει μπάνιο και γέμισε σαπουνάδες
‘He wanted to have a shower and was filled with soap’
She gave the impression that she found it very difficult to recall the
appropriate words in order to retell the story she had just read. She gave me
the impression that she had not understood the core meaning of the story she
was asked to read.
Verbal working memory refers to the capacity to hold in mind and manipulate
verbal information over brief periods of time. Verbal working memory abilities
are closely associated with a wide range of measures of academic ability,
including literacy and mathematics. The majority of individuals with
recognized LD in these areas have working memory impairments. Poor
working memory skills in the early years of education are also reliable
predictors of poor scholastic attainments over the subsequent school years.
Poppy did not show any evidence of understanding of the text she had read.
Therefore, she was unable to recall some details in order to retell the story
correctly. She indicated low ability to use the words correctly. Her syntax was
poor and she found it very hard to use basic grammatical and syntactic rules
that would have helped her put her thoughts in order.
General comments
Poppy came to our session not being in a good mood. When she was told to
read the text, she started complaining saying that she does not want an extra
teacher since she already has two. One in the morning school and one in the
afternoon school. She also yelled that she hates reading.
When I informed her that she was going to read a funny story and that our
session has nothing to do with her school lessons, she started feeling a little
relaxed. She agreed to read and told me that she would visit her friend at a
park after we finished. When I asked her to pick up a flower name, she chose
‘poppy’ because she likes them a lot. Although I reassured her that I would 84
not be an extra teacher that would ask her do things for school, Poppy was
nervous and anxious to finish during the whole session.
She made particular mistakes while reading, mainly in the words that include
the following phonological type: CCV, CCVV. CCVCCVV, CC. There are also
problems related to the working memory. In the retellings, she gave brief
answers. She had difficulty recalling the appropriate words even with the use
of the flashcards. She claimed that she felt that the flashcards did not help
her. Her responses indicated that she had great difficulty understanding the
core meaning of the text she has read. She managed to answer correctly five
out of the nine questions.
4.4 Rosebud
Observations
Rosebud came to our appointment feeling stressed as he felt it was going to
be another assessment that he would have to go through. Soon he realized
that it was not going to be an assessment and felt more comfortable. He liked
the text he read and in the end he was amused by the story. He laughed at
the lesson that the protagonist learned. I asked him to pick up a flower name
and he chose ‘Rosebud’. He said that he felt like a Rosebud that blossoms at
school. During the experiment, Rosebud seemed to enjoy himself.
Reading
Rosebud felt really anxious while reading. He moved his legs nervously. He
used to look at me very often in order to be reassured that he was performing
well. He also lost his lines twice while reading.
More particularly he could not find where he had stopped at the parts of the
text indicated with red color:
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Οι σαπουνάδες πύκνωναν και σκορπίζονταν ψηλά και γίνονταν
σαπουνόφουσκες.
Ο αφρός φούσκωνε και μεγάλωνε και ανέβαινε.. Αυτός βέβαια δεν
αισθανόταν «υγιής και ευτυχής».
Η γυναίκα του και τα παιδιά του έσπασαν τρομαγμένοι την πόρτα. Ένα πηχτό
άσπρο σύννεφο σαπουνάδας ανάβλυζε μες’ απ’ το μπάνιο και πάνω σ’ αυτό ο
άνθρωπος χτυπούσε πόδια και χέρια λαχανιάζοντας, φτύνοντας και βήχοντας.
He made the following mistakes in the target words
According to the findings, we see that Rosebud: Omits syllables (/iγiis/- /iγis/ )
Transfers intonation (/momokopanjiά /- /momokopάnjia/ )
Omits letters and diphthongs (monokopanjia – monokama-njia)
(pachirefsti – pachi-re-fti) (tsalavutuse – tsalavu-tuse) (valthike –
vathlike) (eftichis – aftichis)
According to the above finding we see that Rosebud also:
Omits syllables (/platsurise/- platsose) (/vriskete/- /vriske/)
Transfers intonation (picnonan – picnόnan) (scorpizodan –
scorpizόdan) (s ena – sa ena) ( s afto – sa afto)
Omits letters and diphthongs (itan –otan ) , (esthanodan – esfanotan),
(γinotan – γinontu) , (porta-potra),
Spells the endings of the words wrongly (stin- sti ) , (lachanjiazodas-
lachanjiazotan), (ftinodas – ftinotan)
Working memory
After reading the text, I asked Rosebud to retell the story using his own words.
In order to help him recall the basic information, flashcards were shown to
him. Although there were 4 flashcards that served as facilitators, Rosebud did
not manage to recall what the protagonist saw. Neither could he remember
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the ending of the story.
« Ένα παραμύθι ….διαβάσαμε ότι ο κύριος που έβλεπε όλο διαφημίσεις , είδε
κάτι πολύ ωραίο και πήγε και το…. Την άλλη μέρα αμέσως το πήρε και….
Άρχισε…. Μπήκε μέσα στο μπάνιο και άρχισε να λουζότανε…»
Σημ. Λανθασμένη χρήση των συντακτικών και γραμματικών κανόνων.
It is a fairytale…..we read that the gentleman, who watched advertisements all
the time, saw something very nice and went to ……. The other day he
immediately took it and …started…… He got in the bathroom and started
washing his hair. .’
General Comment: The retelling was grammatically and syntactically wrong.
General comments
Rosebud was stressed at first thinking that he would go through another
evaluation process. He was relaxed later after being informed that he would
not be tested. He made particular mistakes while reading, mainly in words that
include the following phonological type: CC, CCV, CCVC. CCVV, VVV. There
are also problems related to working memory. In the retellings, he gave brief
answers and had difficulty remembering the end of the story. He managed to
produce meaningful sentences but he did not manage to use the target words
related to the text. He claimed that he felt that the flashcards helped him.
His responses show that he understood the core meaning of the text he read
but tended to add imaginary facts that were not related to the text.
4.5 Geranium
Working memory
After reading the text, I asked Geranium to retell the story using her own
words. In order to help her recall the basic information 4 Flashcards were
shown to her. Although there were flashcards that served as facilitators,
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Geranium gave me a very brief statement:
« ένας έβλεπε τηλεόραση….. εεε… μπήκε στο μπάνιο και… μετά έσκασε .»
‘There was a man who watched TV…errrr…he entered the bathroom and
then he exploded.’
Geranium did not mention all the heroes of the story. She did not manage to
retell some basic information such as what was the man watching, what he
liked, what he bought, in what quantity, what happened after he entered the
bathroom and who rescued him. She focused only on two words of the text
(television and bathroom).
General comments
Geranium came to our session thinking that we would draw (probably that
was her parents’ argument in an attempt to convince her to come to the
session). I gave her some time before starting the experiment to draw since I
did not want to let her down. Then I explained the whole procedure of the
experiment to her and she agreed to cooperate with me.
Geranium was very cooperative throughout the experiment. During reading
Geranium cooperated smoothly except three times when the text and the
flashcards slipped from her hands on the floor. That caused her some
confusion but soon she managed to focus on the text.
When I asked her to pick up a flower name as a nickname, she chose
Geranium because it reminded her of her grandmother who liked this flower
very much. During the experiment, Geranium seemed particularly curious and
looked around as if she wanted to explore the room.
While conducting the experiment, there were some problems related to her
hyperactivity. Flashcards slipped from her hands and she had a little trouble
staying focused. She made particular mistakes while reading, mainly in words
that include the following phonological type: CCV, VV, CC, VVCCV, CVV,
VCC.
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There are also problems related to working memory. In the retellings, she did
not mention all the heroes of the story and had serious problems retelling
basic information. She used only two words from the text although she
thought that the flashcards helped her. Regarding the questions asked she
found it difficult to produce meaningful sentences. She did not answer four out
of nine questions. Her answers were very short and in some cases
incomplete.
4.6 Clover
Observations
Clover came to our appointment feeling very bored. It was afternoon and
Clover was disappointed because he had missed his football lessons. He told
me that football is very important for him since he believes that he is very
good at it compared to school subjects that he believed that he will never
become a very good pupil.
During the experiment, Clover was looking out of the window most of the
time since he was anxious to see when the rain would stop in order to do
some training. That caused some distraction.
Reading
Clover did not seem to enjoy the reading process. During reading, he used
to keep his rubber tightly in his hands. He had brought his rubber with him
believing that he would have to write.
Working memory
After reading the text, I asked Clover to retell the story using his own words.
In order to help him recall the basic information four flashcards were shown to
him. Although there were 4 flashcards that served as facilitators.
« ο άνθρωπος κοιτούσε όλο το βράδυ στον καναπέ και μετά ……έμπλεξε…
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στο μπάνιο…. και τον έσωσαν οι γονείς του.»
“ The man was looking at the coach all night…..then he was messed up….in
the bathroom……and his parents saved him.’’
General comments
Clover came to the experiment feeling bored. He did not seem to enjoy the
reading process. He made particular mistakes while reading, mainly in words
that include the following phonological type: CCV, CCVV, VCVC, VV, CCVC.
There are also problems related to the working memory. In the retellings, he
did not use specific vocabulary from the text he had read. He thought that the
flashcards did not help him. Regarding the questions asked he answered only
four out of the nine questions correctly. He proved that he had understood the
core idea of the text he had read although he used his imagination in the
answers he gave.
4.7 Analysis of the results
In the section the results are analysed with reference to each research
question.
4.8 Research Question 1
Do phonological errors have a negative impact on the reading comprehension ability of children with dyslexia?
Indeed the phonological errors have a negative impact on reading
comprehension of children with dyslexia. Dyslexic children found it difficult to
edit the letters in the text, especially in words of a specific type (CC, VV,
CCVV). So the reading process becomes difficult because the children do not
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read the words correctly so they do not understand the meaning of the text
they read. There were a few times when pupils with dyslexia could not explain
what they had just read because of their difficulty reading properly.
4.9 Sub-questions:
To what extent is the severity of the problem related to the quality of the specialist support and/or the home support? Is the impact more negative on children who lack adequate home support?
The experimental findings indicate that children lacking adequate home
support performed worse than the rest of the participants. Similar is the case
for participants lacking the provision of specialist support. The support of
children with dyslexia, by specialists is certainly very helpful in dealing with
the difficulty both in reading and in understanding but also in learning new
studying strategies. Children receiving support from specialists appear to face
their difficulties better and to meet school requirements better than children
who are not receiving additional support. Similarly, children with dyslexia that
are not supported by a specialist are not performing as well as other children.
Thus dyslexic children should be given access to specialist support so that the
possibility of becoming adults with dyslexia is reduced. In addition, in order to
learn as early as possible didactic strategies that will make their life easier.
Are the reading and phonological problems as well the working memory problems in dyslexia related to:
a. parental educational level?
The findings of the experiment indicate that participants whose parents are of
a low educational level performed worse than the other participants. This was
particularly so for the two participants whose fathers had LD. Τhe educational
level of parents is not always responsible for the learning difficulties of their
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children. However, the present investigation indicates that the participants’
performance is related to the parents’ educational level.
Parents with a low educational level are unable to adequately help their
children in school and homework as they encounter many learning problems
themselves. Thus as is shown in the present study parents with higher
education level are more able to help their children in doing their homework
and to provide them a more suitable and supportive background.
b. quality of specialist support?
The results of the experiment indicated that participants receiving specialist
support performed better than the rest of participants. This finding highlights
that the quality of specialist support is very important for the progress of the
pupil with dyslexia. A dyslexia specialist would be able to provide a
personalized support programme for the pupils based on their individual
needs. Considering that each pupil with dyslexia is different and may
encounter difficulties at different areas and to different degrees the expert
must be able to identify these difficulties after observation and to cooperate
with teachers and parents so that the programme is adapted to the child
needs and can be used by all parents and teachers as well in order to help
the child to cope with the school obligations. The present study showed that
participants receiving specialist support performed better
c. low motivation and low self esteem of the pupils?
The results of the experiment indicate that participants with low self esteem and motivation performed worse than the rest of participants.
Very often children with dyslexia seem to have low self-esteem because of their inability to meet the challenges of the school environment. This feeling makes those children lose their motivation and to resign more easily than children without dyslexia. It is important to allow the right incentives and
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appropriate stimulation to these children in order not to feel that they are in the margins but instead feel they can manage their difficulties in their own way for their benefit. Τhe role of the environment, parents and teachers should be supportive and make the children to feel satisfied and not weak in front of their difficulties. It should be structured in a suitable environment so that the child can get support and assistance whenever s/he needs it. Children with dyslexia needed a different way of learning to accomplish what the typical students do without specialist support.
4.10 Research Question 2
Το what extent do children diagnosed with dyslexia have reading and reading comprehension problems which are associated with phonological errors in words of a specific type (CC, VV, CCVV) as well as in words that consist of more than two syllables?
The results of the present study indicate clearly that children diagnosed with
dyslexia encounter difficulty in recognizing words of a specific type and letters
in particular when these consist of CC, VV, CCVV sequences. It is difficult for
them to read, decode and recognize these types of words because of their
dyslexia. Words that consist of more than two syllables are also a challenge
for those children. The phonological errors in reading are the reason why
those children cannot understand clearly what they have just read.
Table 3 shows the performance of the children in relation to the target words
that they were asked to read. The results were summed up on Likert type
scale (1= the least accurate, 5 the most accurate).
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Table 3. Participants’ performance to the target words
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Name Mean
Chamomile 1.28
Poppy 1.85
Rosebud 2.42
Geranium 1.57
Clover 2.14
Table 4. Likert scale, assessing the retelling process and the understanding
of the core meaning of the text that five pupils have read.
1 = the least accurate
5 = the most accurate
1 2 3 4 5
1. Managed to produce meaningful sentences.
GeraniumChamomile
PoppyClover Rosebud
2. The sentences were related to the text he/she had just read.
Chamomile
PoppyGeranium
Rosebud
Clover
3. S/he used specific vocabulary from the text he/she had read.
Chamomile
Clover
Poppy
Rosebud
Geranium
4. The retelling of the story was coherent and complete.
Chamomile
Poppy
Rosebud
Geranium
Clover4. The sentences he/she
produced were grammatically correct
Chamomile
Rosebud
Geranium
Poppy
Clover
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6. The sentences he/she produced were syntactically correct
Chamomile Poppy
Rosebud
Geranium
Clover
7. The ultimate product of the retelling was in the hierarchical order that was written in the text.
Chamomile
Geranium
Poppy
CloverRosebud
4.11 Chamomile
Considering her background I expected Chamomile to do specific reading
errors of the phonological type CC, VV, CCVV. However, Chamomile made
particular mistakes while reading, mainly in words that include the following
phonological type: CCV, CVV. CCVV, CC, VV. Additionally, phonological
errors were indicated in words of more than two syllables. In retellings, errors
were expected to be indicated both in the chronological order of the story and
in the problems related to her poor vocabulary use. According to the Likert
scale (see appendix Table 2), the ultimate product of the retelling was not in
the hierarchical order that was written in the text. Finally, it was expected that
the use of flashcards will facilitate problems related to working memory.
In this case, although Chamomile believed that the use of flashcards helped
her, she demonstrated a very limited use of words from the text she had read.
Chamomile’s overall performance was 1.28 (see appendix 36). Looking back
at her history as well as to the specific characteristics regarding her school
performance, it emerges that her score is relatively low compared with the
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other participants. Her performance is related to the fact that Chamomile does
not receive any additional help in order to better meet school requirements.
Specifically in reading difficult phonological words, taught at school and in
accordance with the level of the class, she has no extra help. The
hyperactivity as well as the attention deficit disorder that she faces also play
an important role as Chamomile is not able to stay focused on a specific
activity. In this case, the activity is the reading of a taught text.
4.12 Poppy
Considering the background information, we expected Poppy to make specific
reading errors of the type (CC, VV, CCVV). She made particular mistakes
while reading, mainly on words that included the following phonological type:
CCV, CCVV. CCVCCVV, CC. Phonological errors were also made in more
than two syllable words.
Ιn retellings, errors were expected to be indicated in the chronological order of
the story as well as problems related to poor vocabulary use. According to the
Likert scale, the ultimate product of the retelling was not in the hierarchical
order that was written in the text. Finally, the use of flashcards facilitated
problems related to working memory.
Poppy believed that the use of flashcards did not help her. In fact, she
produced very limited words coming from the text. She produced very brief
answers and showed that she had great difficulty understanding the core
meaning of the text she read.
Poppy scored an overall average of 1.85. Looking back at her score as well
as her specific characteristics regarding her school performance, we
understand that the score is relatively low compared with the other children.
Her performance may be a result of the fact that Poppy is bilingual. Her
mother is from India and the main language heard in the house is not Greek
(the one that was used in the experiment).
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Therefore, it is reasonable for her to score relatively low as the child’s
difficulties are multifaceted and it seems that she has not yet been able to
adjust to the Greek school environment.
4.13 Rosebud
Considering the background information, we expected Rosebud to make
specific reading errors of the type ( CC, VV, CCVV).
Rosebud made particular mistakes while reading, mainly in words that include
the following phonological type: CC, CCV, CCVC. CCVV, VVV. In addition,
phonological errors were also made in more than two syllable words.
According to our hypothesis, in retellings, errors were expected to be
indicated in the chronological order of the story as well as problems related to
poor vocabulary use. According to the Likert scale, the ultimate product of the
retelling was not in the hierarchical order that was written in the text. Finally,
as stated in Research Question 2, it is expected that the use of flashcards will
facilitate problems related to working memory. In the retellings, Rosebud gave
brief answers. He managed to produce meaningful sentences but he did not
manage to use the target words related to the text. He claimed that he felt
that the flashcards helped him though. Therefore, the research question was
not validated in this part although the participant thought that he was helped
by the use of flashcards.
Rosebud scored an overall average of 2.42 (see appendix 36). It is the
highest score among the five children who were examined.
Looking back at the child’s history and the special characteristics regarding
the school performance, we understand that his score is quite high compared
with the other children.
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Despite the hyperactivity and the attention deficit disorder that he faces,
Rosebud managed to respond very well to the examination process and
scored pretty well. He managed to overcome the difficulties arising from the
ADHD and finally concentrated on the examination process. It seems that the
early diagnosis and the additional support that he receives make Rosebud a
reader who tries to overcome the RD he has in very good way.
4.14 Geranium
Considering the background information, it was expected that Geranium
would make specific reading errors of the type (CC, VV, CCVV). Geranium
made particular mistakes while reading, mainly in words that include the
following phonological type: CCV, VV, CC, VVCCV, CVV, VCC. Phonological
errors were also made in more than two syllable words. Retelling, errors were
indicated in the chronological order of the story. Problems related to poor
vocabulary use were also found. According to the Likert scale, the ultimate
product of the retelling was not in the hierarchical order that was written in the
text.
Finally, the use of flashcards facilitated problems related to working memory.
Geranium had serious problems retelling basic information. She used only two
words from the text although she thought that the flashcards helped her.
Geranium scored an overall average of 1.57. Her score is relatively low in
comparison with the scores of the other children. This comes at no surprise
considering both the diagnosis and the characteristics and history in relation
to the reading skills and the school performance. The hyperactivity as well as
the attention deficit disorder that he has did not help him stay focused to the
text. The images also seemed to distract his attention.
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Despite the additional support that he receives in relation to the difficulties he
faces at school, he seems to need a lot of work in order to be able to manage
his difficulties as well as the ADHD that he faces.
4.15 Clover
Considering the background information, Clover was expected to do specific
reading errors of the type CC, VV, CCVV. Clover made particular mistakes
while reading, mainly in words that include the following phonological type:
CCV, CCVV, VCVC, VV, CCVC.
Phonological errors were also made in more than two syllables words. In the
retelling, errors were expected to be indicated in the chronological order of the
story. Problems related to poor vocabulary use were also expected to be
found. According to the likert scale (see appendix table), the ultimate product
of the retelling was not in the hierarchical order that was written in the text.
In the retellings, Clover did not use specific vocabulary from the text. He
thought that the flashcards did not help him. .
Clover scored an average of 2.14. His score is the second highest score
among the five children who took part in the experiment.
Despite the difficulties Clover faces in his school performance, he managed to
respond very well to the experimental process of examination and score high.
Looking at his score, we understand that this may be due to the fact that
Clover receives additional educational support in the afternoons in order to
respond effectively to the school requirements and manages to deal with his
LD. It is important to note that Clover’s performance may be in relation to the
fact that Clover does not have ADHD. So, it was easier for him to remain
concentrated on the text. That played a crucial role.
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4.16 Sub-questions:
a. Is the reading comprehension ability of children with dyslexia related with the chronological order of the story and their poor vocabulary?
Based on the evidence gained from the present investigation one
cannot be certain that the reading comprehension of children with
dyslexia is related to the chronological order of history nor with the
complexity. The main difficulty of dyslexic children is to recognize the
symbols governing the words and understand what they read so they
can retell the story. The vocabulary is not the cause that the children
with dyslexia cannot recognize the words but we have to do more work
about it so their vocabulary is enriched and they can recognize visually
the words they read.
b. Do the flashcards assist children to overcome working memory problems related to reading comprehension?
The results indicate that a reason why children understand the
meaning of the text were the flashcards that they looked at the right
and left of the text. Thus although the participants cannot correctly
recognize all the symbols or the words, they can understand the
complexity of the story because of the flashcards that explained the
story. When they do not have the text in front of them any longer but
only the flashcards, they could remember what happened in the story.
So the flashcards help to activate the memory of the pupils and answer
the comprehension questions. Thus it emerges that the use of
flashcards is an effective way to learn and understand a text.
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Chapter 5 DISCUSSION
The outcomes of the present research indicated the impact of the
phonological and the verbal memory deficits on reading comprehension.
In sum with reference to the research questions it emerged that:
The phonological errors have a negative impact on reading
comprehension of children with dyslexia.
The quality of specialist support is very important for the progress of
the pupil with dyslexia.
The support of children with dyslexia, by specialists is certainly very
helpful both in reading and in understanding but also in learning new
studying strategies.
Τhe educational level of parents may play a significant role on the
learning difficulties of their children .
Children with dyslexia very often seem to have low self-esteem
because of their inability to meet the challenges of the school
environment.
Children diagnosed with dyslexia often encounter difficulty to recognize
words of a specific type and letters. This is particularly so when these
consist of CC, VV, CCVV.
We cannot be sure that the reading comprehension of children with
dyslexia is related to the chronological order of a story or to its
complexity.
The use of flashcards is an effective way to learn and understand a
text. The fact that all participants demonstrated improvement with
flashcards, indicates that this technique did work effectively in
improving their memory.
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The study showed distinct patterns of working memory deficits in the
participants. Reading decoding problems derive primarily from deficiencies in
phonemic awareness and phonological processing (National Reading Panel,
2000).
5.1 Implications for practice
Τhe results of the present investigation might assist several professionals in
the field of LD, like special educators, teachers, early childhood teachers,
speech therapists, child psychologists. Also they might help parents trying to
support their children at home.
From the research I did I found that children with dyslexia encounter
difficulties in reading and reading comprehension, which means that they are
not able to cope in school requirements without professional support.
Everyone who is involved with children with LD, should know that they need
special educational approach with these children.
Also, parameters such as diglossia, the low educational level of the parents
and the low self-esteem of these children are inhibiting factors for school
success.
Some metahypotheses can be proposed based on the evidence gained are
the following:
Can bilingual children cope with their LD without professional support;
Are learning difficulties related to bilingualism;
Are learning difficulties related to the low education level of parents;
Do teachers have to use multisensory methods of teaching in the
classroom for all students;
Does the cooperation between the teacher and the family help the
child with learning difficulties;
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5.2 Implications for further research
Dyslexia is an area that has been examined several times in the past but still
has many parameters to be explored.There are many areas that need to be
investigated further.
One area that should be looked into is the impact between diglossia and
dyslexia and to what extent the school performance of the pupil with dyslexia
is affected. Also whether parents can help their child to cope with these
difficulties. Another field for potential research would be to look at the
strategies that teachers can use and incorporate into their teaching to help
their special students cope with dyslexia and their difficulties. Τhe way of
teaching should be more interesting for students and teachers using a multi-
sensory method to teach with the use of interactive whiteboards, more images
and audiovisual material so dyslexic children have more motivation for
learning.
Further research will be necessary for special educators and the way they can
support pupils with dyslexia in the learning process but also their parents and
teachers who do not have specialization, so everyone can operate in the
same way towards the child.
It is important to remember that if a child cannot learn with the way we have to
teach it the way it can learn.
Τhere is not a single way of teaching for all. Each student has their own
educational needs and has to be taught in their own unique way. The learning
process and the teaching of a pupil must be customized to its specific needs .
5.3 Limitations of the study
The main limitation of this study is the small number of participants that
took part in the experiment. Thus the results cannot be generalised to the
wider population. On the other hand, this study was basically a pilot study. 104
It was initially expected that a generalization of the above presented
results may fail to be implemented to a bigger number of pupils.
Nevertheless, it is believed that any effort made to validate or not the
aforementioned results would contribute to further research. In other
words, the initial assumption in comparison with the results of the
treatment could constitute a useful tool to any researcher who might be
interested in expanding the results and investigate the reading problems
that pupils with LD face.
As the study included oral interviews, certain limitations should be taken into
consideration:
(1) Selective memory;
(2) Telescoping which is recalling events that happened at one time as if
they occurred at another time;
(3) Attribution, that is attributing positive events and outcomes to one's
own but negative events and outcomes are attributed to others; and,
(4) Exaggeration which is the act of representing outcomes as more
important than they actually are.
Another factor that needs to be taken into consideration is the time that the
intervention processes took place. It was in the afternoon after the pupils had
returned from school. Therefore, they might have been tired.
Last but not least, there is a contradiction that needs to be further
investigated. Some participants thought that they were helped by the use of
flashcards when the results proved that flashcards did not help them use
certain vocabulary from the text.
105
5.4 Conclusion
The findings indicate clearly that students with learning difficulties need
specialist support at least in the early years of their education. This is
particularly the case for children with dyslexia who are bilingual or for children
coming from families with a low educational level. With this knowledge,
teachers of all disciplines should work to help the pupils and so the family. It is
clear that the use of some kind of tools, such as flashcard or multisensory
learning helps students with dyslexia to cope with their difficulties. Teachers
should not only use these strategies in class, they should also help students
to learn to enjoy reading and face their fear of it. It is also important the
teacher makes the students feel comfortable in classrooms and not feel
inadequate towards other classmates. The goal is that as the student is
growing up to be able to do his/her homework without help, to be more self
sufficient and to have conquered the strategies learned. These skills will be a
valuable asset as they continue with their education.
Learning disabilities is a field that is constantly changing. With the new
techniques that the researchers studying , allow scholars to study the brain in
action, we may understand not only the normal process of reading but also
what happens when the system is not working. There is a hope that we will be
able to prevent learning disabilities or, at the least, to develop innovative and
successful interventions. It is also hoped that we will become more adept at
identifying children at earlier ages to prevent some of the emotional and social
difficulties that can be associated with a learning disability. Neuroscience is
now promising new avenues in our study of learning disabilities as is genetics.
Families with a learning disability history need further study to provide
appropriate support for them as well as to assist with early interventions. We
also hope that Schools in Greece are becoming more adept at working with
children with differing types of learning disability and it is hoped that our ability
to assess minority children appropriately will also improve.
106
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APPENDICES
Appendix 1 TARGET WORDS MEANING
/iγiis/ Υγιείς Healthy
/eftichis/ Ευτυχείς Happy
/valthike/ Βάλθηκε Started
/marega/ Μαρέγκα Meringue
/anavlize/ Ανάβλυζε Gushed
/monokopanjia/ Μονοκοπανιά Outright
/pachirefsti/ Παχύρευστη Thick
/tsalavutuse/ Τσαλαβουτούσε slosh about
Appendix 2 Questions related to the text they had read.
ΕΡΩΤΗΣΕΙΣ ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΕΙΣQUESTIONS ANSWERS
1. Τι έκανε κάθε βράδυ ο
άνθρωπος της ιστορίας μας;
What did the man in the story
used to do every night?
2. Ποια διαφήμιση του έκανε
μεγαλύτερη εντύπωση;
Which advertisement
impressed him the most?
3. Τι έδειχνε η διαφήμιση που του
άρεσε;
136
What was the advertisement
that he liked about?
4. Τι αγόρασε αφού είδε την
διαφήμιση;
What did he buy after seeing
the advertisement?
5. Πόσα μπουκάλια αφρόλουτρο
αγόρασε ;
How many bottles of soap did
he buy?
6. Τι συνέβη όταν άδειασε το
αφρόλουτρο μέσα στην
μπανιέρα;
What happened after putting
all the bathing soap in the
bathtub?
7. Ποιοι μπήκαν μέσα στο
μπάνιο;
Who entered the bathroom?
8. Πώς μπήκαν η γυναίκα του και
τα παιδιά του μέσα στο
μπάνιο;
How did his wife and children
enter the bathroom?
9. Τι έκανε ο άνθρωπος της
137
ιστορίας μας όταν τον βρήκαν
η γυναίκα του και τα παιδιά
του;
What was the man in the story
doing when he was found by
his wife and children?
CHAMOMILE
Appendix 3 The mistakes Chamomile made in the target words while reading
TARGET WORDS MEANING - WORDS PRONOUNCED WRONG
√ Υγιείς Healthy /iγiis/ Iγi-is
Ευτυχείς Happy /eftichis/
Βάλθηκε started /valthike/
√ Μονοκοπανιά outright /monokopanjia/ Monokapanjia
√Τσαλαβουτούσε slosh about
/tsalavutuse/ Tsalavu-tuse
√ Παχύρευστη Thick /pachirefsti/ Pachiresti
√ Μαρέγκα meringue /marega/ Mare-ga
√ Ανάβλυζε gushed /anavlize/ a-na-v-li-ze
Appendix 4 Additional mistakes Chamomile made while reading. The words she
pronounced wrong are the following:
ADDITIONAL MISTAKES
Αγόραζε /aγoraze/ Aγorazi
Μπανιέρα /banjiera/ Blanjiera138
Απλώθηκε /aplothice/ Anthrothice
Αφρός /afros/ Άfros Μετάθεση
τόνου
Περισσότερος /perisoteros/ Perisotere
Σαπουνάδες /sapunaδes/ Stapunaδες
Σκορπίζονταν /scorpizodan/ scorpizonan
Μετάθεση τόνου
Σύννεφο /sinefo/ Sinέfo
Λαχανιάζοντας /lachanjiazodas/ La-cha-nia-zο-das
Βήχοντας /vichodas/ vichόdas
Μετάθεση τόνου
Appendix 5
Assessment of the Phonological Difficulty in the additional mistakes
Chamomile made.
/aγoraze/ VCVCVCV
/afros/ VCCVC
/sapunaδes/ CVCVVCVCVC
/perisoteros/ CVCVCCVCVCVC
/banjiera/ CCVCVVCV
/aplothice/ VCCVCVCV
/sinefo/ CVCCVCV
/vichodas/ CVCVCCVC
139
/scorpizodan/ CCVCCVCVCCVC
/lachanjiazodas/ CVCVCVVCVCCVC
Appendix 6
Likert scale, assessing the retelling process and the understanding of the core
meaning of the text Chamomile read.
Likert Scale 1- 5
1 = the least accurate
5 = the most accurate
1 2 3 4 5
1. Managed to produce meaningful sentences.
√
2. The sentences were related to the text he/she had just read.
√
3. S/he used specific vocabulary from the text he/she had read.
√
4. The retelling of the story was coherent and complete.
√
5. The sentences he/she produced were grammatically correct
√
6. The sentences he/she produced were syntactically correct
√
7. The ultimate product of the √
140
retelling was in the hierarchical order that was written in the text.
Appendix 7
Questioning Chamomile whether she believed that the use of flashcards
helped her in the retelling process.
YES NODo you believe that the flashcards helped you retell the story?
√
Appendix 8
Reading Comprehension Questions with the answers provided assessing the
understanding of the text Chamomile read. The tables provide the questions
and answers first in Greek and then in the English language.
ΕΡΩΤΗΣΕΙΣ ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΕΙΣQUESTIONS ANSWERS
10.Τι έκανε κάθε βράδυ ο
άνθρωπος της ιστορίας μας;
What did the man in the story
used to do every night?
Κοίταζε τηλεόραση όλο το βράδυ.
Ηe watched TV all night.
11.Ποια διαφήμιση του έκανε
μεγαλύτερη εντύπωση;
Which advertisement
impressed him the most?
Το σαπούνι.
Soap
12.Τι έδειχνε η διαφήμιση που του (παύση)..γέμισε όλο μεσαπούνι.
141
άρεσε;
What was the advertisement
that he liked about?
(pause)..it was filled with soap.
13.Τι αγόρασε αφού είδε την
διαφήμιση;
What did he buy after seeing
the advertisement?
ΔΕΝ ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΕ
NO ANSWER
14.Πόσα μπουκάλια αφρόλουτρο
αγόρασε ;
How many bottles of soap did
he buy?
(παύση)…Τρία.
(pause)..…Three
15.Τι συνέβη όταν άδειασε το
αφρόλουτρο μέσα στην
μπανιέρα;
What happened after putting
all the bathing soap in the
bathtub?
Ήταν όλο με σαπούνι.
It was filled with soap
16.Ποιοι μπήκαν μέσα στο
μπάνιο;
Who entered the bathroom?
Τα παιδιά και η μαμά… εεε και η
γυναίκα του.
The children and the mother…………
errrrr ……and his wife.
17.Πώς μπήκαν η γυναίκα του και
τα παιδιά του μέσα στο
μπάνιο;
How did his wife and children
Από την πόρτα.
They opened the door.
142
enter the bathroom?
18.Τι έκανε ο άνθρωπος της
ιστορίας μας όταν τον βρήκαν
η γυναίκα του και τα παιδιά
του;
What was the man in the story
doing when he was found by
his wife and children?
Έκανε (παύση) ήτανε ευτυχισμένος
και (παύση)
He was doing ………..( pause)
………………… He was happy
( pause)
The mistakes are indicated with red colour
Chamomile did not seem to understand the text she had read. Few answers
were correct.
More specifically,
3 rd Question: The answer she gave was not related to the question
9 th Question: She didn’t seem to have understood the main idea of the text.
The answer was completely irrelevant.
POPPY
Appendix 9 The phonological difficulty of target words
TARGET WORDS PHONOLOGICAL DIFFICULTY
√ /iγiis/ VCVVC
/eftichis/ VCCVCVC
/valthike/ CVCCVCV
√/marega/ CVCVCCV√/anavlize/ VCVCCVCV
√ /monokopanjia/ CVCVCVCVCVV√ /pachirefsti/ CVCVCVVCCV
143
√ /tsalavutuse/ CCVCVCVVCVVCV
Appendix 10 The mistakes Poppy made in the target words while reading
TARGET WORDS MEANING WORDS PRONOUNCED WRONG
√ Υγιείς Healthy /iγiis/ Iγis
Ευτυχείς Happy /eftichis/
Βάλθηκε started /valthike/
√ Μονοκοπανιά outright /
monokopanji
a/
Monokopάnjia
(μετάθεση τόνου)
√Τσαλαβουτούσε slosh about
/tsalavutuse/ Tsalavοtuse
√ Παχύρευστη Thick /pachirefsti/ Paγiristi
√ Μαρέγκα meringue /marega/ Mare
√ Ανάβλυζε gushed /anavlize/ Anamize
According to the findings, we see that Poppy :
Omits syllables (/iγiis/- /iγis/ ) (/marega/- /mare/ )
Transfers intonation (/monokopanjiά /- /monokopάnjia/ )
Omits letters and diphthongs (τσαλαβούτουσε –τσαλαβότούσε)
(/anavlize/- /anamize/)
Appendix 11
Assessment of the Phonological Difficulty in the additional mistakes Poppy
made.
144
Additional mistakes Poppy made while reading. The words she pronounced
wrong are the following:
ADDITIONAL MISTAKES
Αφρόλουτρο /afrolutro/ afrolotro
Διαφήμιση /δjiafimisi / δjiafimίsi Μετάθεση
τόνου
πλατσούρησε /platsurise/ platsose
Παντού /padu/ pado
Γινόταν /γinotan/ γinotas
Όλο /olo/ ola
Βρίσκεται /vriskete/ vriske
Σκορπίζονταν /scorpizodan/ scorpizodas
Σαπουνάδας /sapunaδas/ sapunaδes
Χτύπούσε /chtipuse/ chtipose
Appendix 13
Likert scale, assessing the retelling process and the understanding of the core
meaning of the text Poppy read.
Likert Scale 1- 5
1 = the least accurate
5 = the most accurate
1 2 3 4 5
1. Managed to produce meaningful √
145
sentences.
2. The sentences were related to the text he/she had just read.
√
3. S/he used specific vocabulary from the text he/she had read.
√
4. The retelling of the story was coherent and complete.
√
5. The sentences he/she produced were grammatically correct
√
6. The sentences he/she produced were syntactically correct
√
7. The ultimate product of the retelling was in the hierarchical order that was written in the text.
√
Appendix 14
Questioning Poppy whether she believed that the use of flashcards helped
her in the retelling process.
YES NODo you believe that the flashcards helped you retell the story?
√
Appendix 15
Reading Comprehension Questions with the answers provided assessing the
understanding of the text Poppy read. The tables provide the questions and
answers first in Greek and then in the English language.
146
Reading Comprehension QuestionsThen, Poppy was asked to answer the following questions:
ΕΡΩΤΗΣΕΙΣ ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΕΙΣQUESTIONS ANSWERS
1. Τι έκανε κάθε βράδυ ο
άνθρωπος της ιστορίας μας;
What did the man in the story
use to do every night?
Αγόραζε κάποια πράγματα που….
Και έβλεπε τηλεόραση και…
He bought some things that…..and
watched TV and….
2. Ποια διαφήμιση του έκανε
μεγαλύτερη εντύπωση;
Which advertisement
impressed him the most?
Σαπουνάδες….
Soap
3. Τι έδειχνε η διαφήμιση που του
άρεσε;
What was the advertisement
that he liked about?
ΔΕΝ ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΕ
No answer
4. Τι αγόρασε αφού είδε την
διαφήμιση;
What did he buy after seeing
the advertisement?
Αγόρασε …..σαπουνάδες
He bought…soap
5. Πόσα μπουκάλια αφρόλουτρο
αγόρασε ;
How many bottles of soap did
he buy?
ΔΕΝ ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΕ
No answer
6. Τι συνέβη όταν άδειασε το
αφρόλουτρο μέσα στην
ΔΕΝ ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΕ
147
μπανιέρα;
What happened after putting
all the bathing soap in the
bathtub?
No answer
7. Ποιοι μπήκαν μέσα στο
μπάνιο;
Who entered the bathroom?
Η γυναίκα του και τα παιδιά του
His wife and children
8. Πώς μπήκαν η γυναίκα του και
τα παιδιά του μέσα στο
μπάνιο;
How did his wife and children
enter the bathroom?
ΔΕΝ ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΕ
No answer
9. Τι έκανε ο άνθρωπος της
ιστορίας μας όταν τον βρήκαν
η γυναίκα του και τα παιδιά
του;
What was the man in the story
doing when he was found by
his wife and children?
Τα παιδιά και η γυναίκα του…
χτυπούσε τα πόδια και τα χέρια στην
πόρτα.
His children and wife…..he knocked
his feet and hands at the door
1. The answer was partly wrong because the man would not buy products
every night. He only bought a bubble bath named ‘Bloom Bloom’ only
once.
2. The correct answer would be ‘..the advertisement with the girl that was
having a shower with the use of the bubble bath¨. Therefore, her
answer was incomplete and not correct.
3. She didn’t answer
148
4. Wrong answer. She answered using one word. The answer is
considered wrong. The correct answer would be that the man had
bought the bubble bath.
5. She did not answer
6. She did not answer
7. She answered correctly
8. She did not answer
She mentioned the wife and children in the answer she gave but the question
does not refer to them. It refers to the protagonist of the story. She also said
that the man was knocking his hands and feet at the door which is incorrect.
Rosebud
Appendix 16
The phonological difficulty of target words
TARGET WORDS PHONOLOGICAL DIFFICULTY
√ /iγiis/ VCVVC
√ /eftichis/ VCCVCVC
√ /valthike/ CVCCVCV
/marega/ CVCVCCV
/anavlize/ VCVCCVCV
√ /monokopanjia/ CVCVCVCVCVV√ /pachirefsti/ CVCVCVVCCV√ /tsalavutuse/ CCVCVCVVCVVCV
Appendix 17
Assessment of the Phonological Difficulty in the additional mistakes Rosebud
made.
ADDITIONAL MISTAKES PHONOLOGICAL DIFFICULTY
/itan/ VCVC
/stin/ CCVC
149
/δjiafimizun/ CVVCVCVCVVC
/etsi/ VCCV
/s’ena/ C ‘VCV
/proi/ CCVV/bukaljia/ CCVVCVCVV
/aδjiase/ CVVVVCV
/platsurise/ CCVCCVVCVCV
/γjinotan/ CVCVCVC
/vriskete/ CCVCCVCVV
/picnonan/ CVCCVCVC
/scorpizodan/ CCVCCVCVCCVC
/γinotan/ CVCVCVC
/esthanodan/ VVCCVCVCCVC
/iγiis/ VCVVC
/sinechia/ CVCVCVVV
/s’afto/ C’VCCV
/tromaγmeni/ CCVCVCCVCVV
/porta/ CVCCV/lachanjiazodas/ CVCVCVVCVCCVC
/ftinodas/ CCVCVCCVC
Appendix 18
The mistakes Rosebud made in the target words while reading
TARGET WORDS MEANING WORDS PRONOUNCED WRONG
√ Υγιείς Healthy /iγiis/ Iγi-is
Ευτυχείς Happy /eftichis/ Aftichis
Βάλθηκε started /valthike/ Vathlike
√ Μονοκοπανιά outright /momokopanjia/ Monokama-njia
√Τσαλαβουτούσ slosh about /tsalavutuse/ Tsalavu-tuse
150
ε
√ Παχύρευστη thick /pachirefsti/ Pachi-re-fti
√ Μαρέγκα meringue /marega/
√ Ανάβλυζε gushed /anavlize/ Δεν το διάβασε
According to the findings, we see that Rosebud: Omits syllables (/iγiis/- /iγis/ )
Transfers intonation (/momokopanjiά /- /momokopάnjia/ )
Omits letters and diphthongs (monokopanjia – monokama-njia)
(pachirefsti – pachi-re-fti) (tsalavutuse – tsalavu-tuse) (valthike –
vathlike) (eftichis – aftichis)
According to the above finding we see that Rosebud also:
Omits syllables (/platsurise/- platsose) (/vriskete/- /vriske/)
Transfers intonation (picnonan – picnόnan) (scorpizodan –
scorpizόdan) (s ena – sa ena) ( s afto – sa afto)
Omits letters and diphthongs (itan –otan ) , (esthanodan – esfanotan),
(γinotan – γinontu) , (porta-potra),
Spells the endings of the words wrongly (stin- sti ) , (lachanjiazodas-
lachanjiazotan), (ftinodas – ftinotan)
Appendix 19
Additional mistakes Rosebud made while reading. The words she pronounced
wrong are the following:
ADDITIONAL MISTAKES WORDS PRONOUNCED WRONG
Ήταν /itan/ Otan
Στην /stin/ Sti
Διαφημίζουν /δjiafimizun/ Djiafi-djiafimizun
151
Έτσι /etsi/ e-e-etsi
Σ’ ένα /s’ena/ Sa ena
Πρωί /proi/ Pro-proi
Μπουκάλια /bukaljia/ Blum-blum (μάντεψε τη λέξη)
Άδειασε /aδjiase/ a-δjia-se
Πλατσούρισε /platsurise/ Pla-pla-tsurise
Γινόταν /γjinotan/ Otan
Βρίσκεται /vriskete/ Vriske-te
Πύκνωναν /picnonan/ Picnόnan μετάθεση τόνου
σκορπίζονταν /scorpizodan/ scorpizόdan μετάθεση τόνου
Γινόταν /γinotan/ Γinontu
Αισθάνονταν /esthanodan/ Aisfanotan
Υγιής /iγiis/ Aγios (μάντεψε τη λέξη)
Συνέχεια /sinechia/ Sine-chia
Σ’ αυτό /s’afto/ Sa afto
Τρομαγμένοι /tromaγmeni/ Troma-gmeni
Πόρτα /porta/ Potra
λαχανιάζοντας /lachanjiazodas/ Lachanjiazotan
Φτύνοντας /ftinodas/ Ftinotan
Appendix 20
Likert scale, assessing the retelling process and the understanding of the core
meaning of the text Rosebud read.
Likert Scale 1- 5
1 = the least accurate
152
5 = the most accurate
1 2 3 4 5
1. Managed to produce meaningful sentences.
√
2. The sentences were related to the text he/she had just read.
√
3. S/he used specific vocabulary from the text he/she had read.
√
4. The retelling of the story was coherent and complete.
√
5. The sentences he/she produced were grammatically correct
√
6. The sentences he/she produced were syntactically correct
√
7. The ultimate product of the retelling was in the hierarchical order that was written in the text.
√
Appendix 21
Questioning Rosebud whether she believed that the use of flashcards helped
her in the retelling process.
YES NO
Do you believe that the flashcards √
153
helped you retell the story?
Appendix 22
Reading Comprehension Questions with the answers provided assessing the
understanding of the text Rosebud read. The tables provide the questions and
answers first in Greek and then in the English language.
Reading Comprehension QuestionsThen Rosebud was asked to answer the following questions:
ΕΡΩΤΗΣΕΙΣ ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΕΙΣQUESTIONS ANSWERS
1. Τι έκανε κάθε βράδυ ο
άνθρωπος της ιστορίας μας;
What did the man in the story
use to do every night?
Κοίταζε τηλεόραση όλο το βράδυ.
He watched TV all evening.
2. Ποια διαφήμιση του έκανε
μεγαλύτερη εντύπωση;
Which advertisement
impressed him the most?
Το … (πώς το λένε ατό το πράγμα;)…
το Μπλουμ-Μπλουμ.
The ….(what’s its name?) ….Bloom
Bloom.
3. Τι έδειχνε η διαφήμιση που του
άρεσε;
What was the advertisement
that he liked about?
Η διαφήμιση που του άρεσε πάρα
πολύ έδειχνε ένα σαμπουάν που είχε
πολύ καλή τιμή και άρχισε να …. Που
το λέγαν Μπλουμ-Μπλουμ.
He liked the advertisement very
much. It showed a sampoo that was 154
in a very good price and started……
its name was Bloom Bloom.
4. Τι αγόρασε αφού είδε την
διαφήμιση;
What did he buy after seeing
the advertisement?
Αγό… ο άνθρωπος που έβλεπε όλο
διαφημίσεις πρωί –βράδυ , μια μέρα
είδε μια ωραία διαφήμιση που τη
λέγαν Μπλουμ-μπλούμ.
That……the man that watched
advertisement day and night , one
day he saw a very nice advertisement
that was named Bloom Bloom.
5. Πόσα μπουκάλια αφρόλουτρο
αγόρασε ;
How many bottles of soap did
he buy?
Τρία.
Three
6. Τι συνέβη όταν άδειασε το
αφρόλουτρο μέσα στην
μπανιέρα;
What happened after putting
all the bathing soap in the
bathtub?
Ο άνθρωπος που όλο έβλεπε
διαφημίσεις και όλο τις έπαιρνε , μια
μέρα όμως είδε μια πολύ ωραία
διαφήμιση και μόλις την είδε….. όταν
άδειασε το αφρόλουτρο έγινε κάτι… οι
φούσκες και τα νερά πήγαν ως το
ταβάνι.
The man that watched
advertisements and kept taking, one
day he saw a very nice advertisement
and when he saw it …. he put all the
product and something happened
…..the bubbles and the water filled
the room till the ceiling.
7. Ποιοι μπήκαν μέσα στο
μπάνιο;
Η μητέρα του και τα δύο διδυμάκια
.
155
Who entered the bathroom? His mother and two twins
8. Πώς μπήκαν η γυναίκα του και
τα παιδιά του μέσα στο
μπάνιο;
How did his wife and children
enter the bathroom?
Η μητέρα του και τα δύο διδυμάκια
(θα τα λέω δύο διδυμάκια) μπήκανε
με μια δυνατή κλωτσιά στην πόρτα
.
His mother and the two twins ( I will
call them two twins) entered the room
after kicking the door strongly.
9. Τι έκανε ο άνθρωπος της
ιστορίας μας όταν τον βρήκαν
η γυναίκα του και τα παιδιά
του;
What was the man in the story
doing when he was found by
his wife and children?
Εεεεμ όταν τον βρήκαν …έβηχε και
έβγαζε από το στόμα του φούσκες.
Errrrrrrrrr…… when they found him,
he was coughing and he took bubbles
out of his mouth.
3) The advertisement did not advertise hair shampoo but bubble bath.
Additionally, Rosebud almost lost the central meaning of the story.
4) Answer that was completely irrelevant to the question.
6) The beginning of the story is wrong. The second part of the answer is
correct.
6) Wrong answer. The right answer would be : his wife and children.
8) Wrong answer. The right answer would be his wife and children. The
correct part is that they kicked at the door.
The mistakes are indicated with red color
General Comments:
156
Rosebud seems to have understood the core idea of the story he was asked
to read as well as the moral. However, he used to add things or alter some
parts of the story. In other words, he added imaginary information that was
irrelevant to the text he read.
Geranium
Appendix 23
The phonological difficulty of target words
TARGET WORDS PHONOLOGICAL DIFFICULTY
√ /iγiis/ VCVVC
/eftichis/ VCCVCVC
√ /valthike/ CVCCVCV
/marega/ CVCVCCV
√ /anavlize/ VCVCCVCV
√ /monokopanjia/ CVCVCVCVCVV√ /pachirefsti/ CVCVCVVCCV√ /tsalavutuse/ CCVCVCVVCVVCV
Appendix 24
Assessment of the Phonological Difficulty in the additional mistakes Geranium
made.
ADDITIONAL MISTAKES PHONOLOGICAL DIFFICULTY
/itan/ VCVC
157
/aneveve/ VCVCVVCV
/vichodas/ CVCVCCVC
/valthike/ CVCCVCV
/afrolutro/ VCCVCVVCCV/skorpizodan/ CCVCCVCVCCCV
/platsourise/ CCVCCVVCVCV
/lachanjiazodas/ CVCVCVVCVCCVC
/sapunofusces/ CVCVVCVCVVCCVC
Appendix 25
The mistakes Geranium made in the target words while reading
TARGET WORDS MEANING WORDS PRONOUNCED WRONG
Υγιείς Healthy /iγiis/ Iγis
Ευτυχείς Happy /eftichis/
Βάλθηκε started /valthike/ va-valthice
Μονοκοπανιά outright /monokopanjia/ mono-copάnjia
Transfer of intonation
Pause
Τσαλαβουτούσ
ε
slosh about /tsalavutuse/ tsala-vu-tu-se
pauses
Παχύρευστη thick /pachirefsti/ pachi-re-sti
pauses
Μαρέγκα meringue /marega/
Ανάβλυζε gushed /anavlize/ Ana-vli-ze
158
Pauses
Appendix 26 Additional mistakes Geranium made while reading. The words she
pronounced wrong are the following:
ADDITIONAL MISTAKES WORDS PRONOUNCED WRONG
Ήταν /itan/ Otan
Αφρόλουτρο /afrolutro/ aflolutro
Πλατσούρησε /platsourise/ Platsurίse
Transfer of intonation
Σκορπίζονταν /skorpizodan/ Skorpizόdan
Tranfer of intonation
Βάλθηκε /valthike/ Vathlike
σαπουνόφουσκε
ς
/sapunofusces/ Sapuno-fousces
Ανέβαινε /aneveve/ Anevena
Λαχανιάζοντας /lachanjiazodas/ lachanjia-lachanjiazόdas
Transfer of intonation and pause
Βήχοντας /vichodas/ vichόdas
Transfer of intonation
Appendix 27
Likert scale, assessing the retelling process and the understanding of the
core meaning of the text Geranium read.
Likert Scale 1- 5
1 = the least accurate
159
5 = the most accurate
1 2 3 4 5
1. Managed to produce meaningful sentences.
√
2. The sentences were related to the text he/she had just read.
√
3. S/he used specific vocabulary from the text he/she had read.
√
4. The retelling of the story was coherent and complete.
√
5. The sentences he/she produced were grammatically correct
√
6. The sentences he/she produced were syntactically correct
√
7. The ultimate product of the retelling was in the hierarchical order that was written in the text.
√
Appendix 28
Questioning Geranium whether she believed that the use of flashcards helped
her in the retelling process.
YES NO
Do you believe that the flashcards helped you retell the story?
√
160
Appendix 29
Reading Comprehension Questions with the answers provided assessing the
understanding of the text Geranium read. The tables provide the questions
and answers first in Greek and then in the English language.
Reading Comprehension QuestionsThen Geranium was asked to answer the following questions:
ΕΡΩΤΗΣΕΙΣ ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΕΙΣQUESTIONS ANSWERS
1. Τι έκανε κάθε βράδυ ο
άνθρωπος της ιστορίας μας;
What did the man in the story
use to do every night?
Άνοιγε την τηλεόραση… και έβλεπε
διαφημίσεις.
He opened the TV….and watched
advertisements
2. Ποια διαφήμιση του έκανε
μεγαλύτερη εντύπωση;
Which advertisement
impressed him the most?
…. ….. …. Μπλουμ μπλουμ.
……….Bloom Bloom
3. Τι έδειχνε η διαφήμιση που του
άρεσε;
What was the advertisement
that he liked about?
Το μπλουμ-μπλουμ.
The Bloom Bloom
4. Τι αγόρασε αφού είδε την
διαφήμιση;
Αφρόλουτρο
161
What did he buy after seeing
the advertisement?
Bubble bath
5. Πόσα μπουκάλια αφρόλουτρο
αγόρασε ;
How many bottles of soap did
he buy?
Τρία
Three
6. Τι συνέβη όταν άδειασε το
αφρόλουτρο μέσα στην
μπανιέρα;
What happened after putting
all the bathing soap in the
bathtub?
ΔΕΝ ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΕ
She did not answer
7. Ποιοι μπήκαν μέσα στο
μπάνιο;
Who entered the bathroom?
ΔΕΝ ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΕ
She did not answer
8. Πώς μπήκαν η γυναίκα του και
τα παιδιά του μέσα στο
μπάνιο;
How did his wife and children
enter the bathroom?
ΔΕΝ ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΕ
She did not answer
9. Τι έκανε ο άνθρωπος της
ιστορίας μας όταν τον βρήκαν
η γυναίκα του και τα παιδιά
του;
What was the man in the story
ΔΕΝ ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΕ
She did not answer
162
doing when he was found by
his wife and children?
She did not answer in 4 out of 9 questions. The rest of her answers were very
short (one word) and one sentence that she managed to form was
incomplete.
The mistakes are indicated with red colour.
Clover
Appendix 30
The phonological difficulty of target words.
TARGET WORDS PHONOLOGICAL DIFFICULTY
√ /iγiis/ VCVVC
/eftichis/ VCCVCVC
√ /valthike/ CVCCVCV
/marega/ CVCVCCV
√ /anavlize/ VCVCCVCV
√ /monokopanjia/ CVCVCVCVCVV√ /pachirefsti/ CVCVCVVCCV√ /tsalavutuse/ CCVCVCVVCVVCV
Appendix 31
The mistakes Clover made in the target words while reading
163
TARGET WORDS MEANING WORDS PRONOUNCED WRONG
√ Υγιείς Healthy /iγiis/ Iγi-is
Ευτυχείς Happy /eftichis/
√Βάλθηκε started /valthike/ Va-valtice
√ Μονοκοπανιά outright /monokopanjia/ Monokopάnjia
Μετάθεση τόνου
√Τσαλαβουτούσ
ε
slosh about /tsalavutuse/ Tsalavu-tuse
√ Παχύρευστη thick /pachirefsti/ Pe-chiresti
Μαρέγκα meringue /marega/
√ Ανάβλυζε gushed /anavlize/ a-ne-v-li-ze
Appendix 32
Assessment of the Phonological Difficulty in the additional mistakes Clover
made.
ADDITIONAL MISTAKES PHONOLOGICAL DIFFICULTY
/copela/ CVCVCV
/chothice/ CVCVCV
/proi/ CCVV
/picnosan/ CVCCVCVC/espasan/ VCCVCVC
/sapunaδas/ CVCVVCVCVC
/lachanjiazodas/ CVCVCVVCVCCVC
Appendix 33
Additional mistakes Clover made while reading. The words she pronounced 164
wrong are the following:
ADDITIONAL MISTAKES WORDS PRONOUNCED WRONG
Κοπέλα /copela/ Capela
Πρωί /proi/ Proion
Χώθηκε
(η λέξη
εμφανίζεται 2
φορές μέσα στο
κείμενο)
/chothice/ chorithice
chirithike
πύκνωσαν /picnosan/ Pnicosan
Έσπασαν /espasan/ Epiasan
σαπουνάδας /sapunaδas/ Sapunaδes
λαχανιάζοντας /lachanjiazodas/ Lachaniasmenodas
Appendix 34
Likert scale, assessing the retelling process and the understanding of the core
meaning of the text Clover read.
Likert Scale 1- 5
1 = the least accurate
5 = the most accurate
1 2 3 4 5
1. Managed to produce meaningful sentences.
√
165
2. The sentences were related to the text he/she had just read.
√
3. S/he used specific vocabulary from the text he/she had read.
√
4. The retelling of the story was coherent and complete.
√
5. The sentences he/she produced were grammatically correct
√
6. The sentences he/she produced were syntactically correct
√
7. The ultimate product of the retelling was in the hierarchical order that was written in the text.
√
Appendix 35
Questioning Clover whether she believed that the use of flashcards helped
her in the retelling process.
YES NO
Do you believe that the flashcards helped you retell the story?
√
Appendix 36
Reading Comprehension Questions with the answers provided assessing the
understanding of the text Clover read. The tables provide the questions and
answers first in Greek and then in the English language.
166
ΕΡΩΤΗΣΕΙΣ ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΕΙΣQUESTIONS ANSWERS
1. Τι έκανε κάθε βράδυ ο
άνθρωπος της ιστορίας μας;
What did the man in the story
use to do every night?
Έβλεπε τηλεόραση και ότι έδειχνε
το΄παιρνε.
He was watching television and used
to buy whatever he saw.
2. Ποια διαφήμιση του έκανε
μεγαλύτερη εντύπωση;
Which advertisement
impressed him the most?
Το Μπουμ-Μπουμ
Bloom ..Bloom
3. Τι έδειχνε η διαφήμιση που του
άρεσε;
What was the advertisement
that he liked about?
ένα σαπούνι που λάτρευε….. που
λάτρευε….. που μετά έγινε πάρα
πολύ μεγάλο και γέμισε όλο το σπίτι
σαπουνάδες.
A soap he adored…..he
adored…..which then became big and
became full of soap.
4. Τι αγόρασε αφού είδε την
διαφήμιση;
What did he buy after seeing
the advertisement?
ΔΕΝ ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΕ
NO ANSWER
5. Πόσα μπουκάλια αφρόλουτρο
αγόρασε ;
How many bottles of soap did
he buy?
(παύση)…Τρία.
(pause)….three
167
6. Τι συνέβη όταν άδειασε το
αφρόλουτρο μέσα στην
μπανιέρα;
What happened after putting
all the bathing soap in the
bathtub?
Γέμισε όλος ο τόπος σαπουνάδες.
The whole place was full of soap.
7. Ποιοι μπήκαν μέσα στο
μπάνιο;
Who entered the bathroom?
Τα παιδιά και η μαμά του.
The children and ..his mother
8. Πώς μπήκαν η γυναίκα του και
τα παιδιά του μέσα στο
μπάνιο;
How did his wife and children
enter the bathroom?
Τρομαγμένοι. Άνοιξαν την πόρτα και
έπεσε όλο σαπουνάδες.
They were scared. They opened the
door and it was filled with soap.
9. Τι έκανε ο άνθρωπος της
ιστορίας μας όταν τον βρήκαν
η γυναίκα του και τα παιδιά
του;
What was the man in the story
doing when he was found by
his wife and children?
Φοβήθηκε . Κρύφτηκε.
He was scared. He tried to hide
himself.
The mistakes are indicated with red color
Clover has grasped the main idea of the text. Nevertheless, he has used his
imagination in many answers. That has altered the story of the texts in some
parts.
More specifically,
168
7 th Question: The woman is not his mother. It is his wife.
9 th Question: The man did not hide himself when his wife and children
entered the room.
Appendix 37
Informative letter to the parents
New York College - EUROPEAN & AMERICAN EDUCATION
2011-2012 Special Education Department, New
York College- ΚΕ.ΜΕ. Address : Amalias 48 Street, Athens ,
Phone: 210 3225961
Athens , / /2014
Subject: Conduction of scientific research
Dear pupil, dear parent,
My name is Georgia Antonia Xagorari and I am a speech therapist and
special educator. I am doing a research in the in the framework of my Mphil
research under the title “Contribution to the study of the impact between
the phonological and the verbal memory deficits on reading
comprehension.
More particularly, the current study involves the evaluation of
reading and retelling skills of pupils diagnosed with dyslexia.
Regarding the reading skills, emphasis will be given to specific
words of a particular phonological difficulty. The aim of my study is
to identify and investigate the reading problems of pupils with
dyslexia, analyse the phonological problems that will be identified while
reading a specific text and investigate the working memory functioning of
169
pupils with dyslexia. For the purpose of my research, I am seeking for pupils
of 3rd to 4th grade of primary school, 9 to 10 years of age.
The experiment consists of two parts. In the first part, all participants will
asked to read a particular text that they have learned and analysed during
their previous academic year. This text is a 10 line text chosen from their
school books comprising of pictures that accompany the story within a specific
time frame. The reading skills of the participants will be studied but emphasis
will be given to 10 target words of a specific phonological difficulty in the text
that was checked while reading. Apart from these words, all mistakes that will
be made by the participants will be recorded and studied.
In the second part, all participants will be asked to retell the story they have
read. The retellings will be audio-taped as well.
Retellings will be elicited with the use of flashcards that represent items from
the story and serve as facilitators and the relationship of the types of mistakes
that will be made while retelling with the memory deficits of dyslexic pupils will
be studied as well. Pupils will also be asked to evaluate what is easy or
difficult for them. The reading comprehension skills will be evaluated with the
use of 9 targeted questions. The working memory of the pupils will also be
evaluated through the retelling process.
Whoever wishes to contact me about the experiment, my contact information
is: [email protected].
I would like to thank you in advance for you cooperation.
With respect,
Georgia Antonia Xagorari , Mphil candidate.
Consent form
DECLARATION OF CONSENT
170
I have read the foregoing information about the purpose and the procedures of the current experiment, or it
has been read to me. I have had the opportunity to ask questions about it and any questions that I have
asked have been answered to my satisfaction. I consent voluntarily for my child to participate as a
participant in this research.
Print Name of Participant__________________
Signature of Participant ___________________
Date___________________
ΔΗΛΩΣΗ ΣΥΓΚΑΤΑΘΕΣΗΣ
Ο/Η κάτωθι υπογεγραμμένος/η κηδεμόνας του /της ……………………………………δηλώνω ότι
ενημερώθηκα και κατανόησα επαρκώς τον σκοπό και τις διαδικασίες διεκπεραίωσης της
έρευνας
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
που αφορούν κηδεμόνα και παιδί και συναινώ στην συμμετοχή του στην ανωτέρω έρευνα.
Ονοματεπώνυμο Κηδεμόνα
____________________________________________________________________________
Υπογραφή ___________________________________________________
Ημερομηνία: ____________________________
Appendix 38
Phase 1
Interview 1(Parents/Background)
171
Date: …………………
Parent:………………………………………………………………………
Interviewer:………………………………………………………………..
This is an interview on how you see your child’s efforts in reading skills
(phonological processing) and reading comprehension. There are no right or
wrong answers. Your opinion matters. Please take your time and feel free to
ask any questions you like.
Family Background
1. Child’s age
2. School class / year
3. Home address
4. Does the child live with both parents?
5. What is the parents’ occupation?
6. Are both parents involved in the child’s education?
7. Describe your attitude towards him/her
8. Does he/she have any siblings? If yes, how old are they?
9. Describe their attitude towards him/her
Diagnoses - Interventions
1. What is the child’s diagnosis?
2. When diagnosis was originally obtained?
3. Background of diagnoses
4. Intervention programmes the child attends
School Background
1. School progress (problems, challenges, achievements)
2. Did he/she start school at the age typically developing children start?
3. Does he/she have an assistant teacher at school?
172
4. Talk to me about his school schedule ( favorite subjects, subjects he/she excels, subjects he has difficulties, skills he/she masters, skills he lacks)
5. How do teachers assess him/her? (marks, behaviour)
6. Do you help him/her with homework?
7. Does he/she complain about homework? If yes about what exactly?
8. Does he/she talk about things he/she would like to be different in class?
9. Do you believe that school plays a supportive role?(explain)
Thank you for your time! You have been very helpful!
Interview 2 (Teacher/Opinion)
Date: …………………
Teacher:………………………………………………………………………
Interviewer:………………………………………………………………
Please read carefully and answer by ticking the most appropriate box. It is important that you
give truthful answers TO ALL THE QUESTIONS. Please take your time and remember there are
no right or wrong answers. Only your opinion matters. Feel free to ask any questions you like.
1. How would you describe your pupil attitude towards reading?
2. How would you describe your pupil attitude towards reading comprehension?
3. What are the strong points in relation to the learning of your students?
4. Does he/she talk about any problems in class? If yes, what?
173
5. Does he/she has participation during the lesson?
6. What activities bore or frustrate him/her?
7. Does he/she talk about things he/she would like to be different in class?
Thank you for your time. This has been very helpful!
Interview 3 (student)
Date: …………………
Student:………………………………………………………………………
Interviewer:……………………………………………………………….. Family Background
1. How old are you?2. Do you have any siblings? 3. What is your favorite color?4. What is your favorite flower/why?
School Background
1. Do you like school?2. What class do you attending?3. What do you like the most in school?4. What is your favorite lesson? 5. Do you like reading texts? If no, why?6. What is your teacher’s name?7. Do you like your teacher?8. Who is helping you with your homework?9. What would you change in your class?
Thank you for your time! You have been very helpful!
Appendix 39
174
Text taken from from the fourth-grade school book
Appendix 40 The flashcards that represented items from the story
175
176
177
Appendix 41
The school book
178
![My Antonia[1]](https://img.dokumen.tips/doc/110x75/5528a62155034666588b48b4/my-antonia1.jpg)