The effects of different approaches to reading instruction on letter detection tasks in normally achieving and low achieving readers |
| |
| Authors: | Miriam Faust and Osnat Kandelshine-Waldman |
| |
| Institution: | (1) Department of Psychology and Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel;(2) Department of Communication Disorders, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel |
| |
| Abstract: | The present study used two letter detection tasks, the classic missing letter effect paradigm and a single word versus familiar
word compound version of this paradigm, to study bottom-up and top–down processes involved in reading in normally achieving
as compared to low achieving elementary school readers. The research participants were children in grades first to sixth who
had been taught to read by three approaches to reading instruction (ARI): the whole language/global approach, the phonic/synthetic
approach or the eclectic approach. Thus, the study attempted to clarify how different ARIs activate these processes in these
two types of readers. The main hypothesis was that since low achieving readers rely on top–down processes for word recognition
(see, e.g., Stanovich, 1980), the whole language ARI will reduce the difference in bottom-up tasks between them and the normally achieving readers. In
the two experiments included in the study, participants were required to perform a letter detection task while reading short
texts in Hebrew for comprehension. Contrary to this study hypotheses, the main finding was that the whole language ARI does
not compensate for difficulties in bottom-up processes of low achieving readers. Moreover, the results of this study imply
that any improvement in basic processes involved in reading proficiency produced by the whole language ARI for both the normal
and the low achieving readers dissipates by grade three. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
| 本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录！ |
|
