Reading Processes

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Reading Processes

• Interpreting the findings

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The structure of your interpretation

• Structure of a full report
• abstract
• introduction
• method
• results
• discussion
• references
• appendices

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The structure of your interpretation

• What needs to be in the discussion
• An introduction linking to the theoretical base
  (shortest section of all)
• A very brief account of the hypotheses tested and
  results of those tests
• Most space should then be given to an
  interpretation of these results, their importance
  and significance in the light of the theoretical
  base

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1. Submitting your assignment

• To clarify your discussion, I suggest that you do
  the following
• Attach a single page appendix on which you list
  the hypotheses tested as they appear in your
  report ( the one you will have handed in already)
  and the statistical results of those tests. If
  you are discussing tables or graphs, this may be
  slightly longer, but not the whole report.

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1. Submitting your assignment

• This page will not be part of your final
  assignment, but will enable the person reading it
  to interpret any ambiguous statements in your
  interpretive assignment.
• Since you may be using only part of the group
  results or a different set from those submitted
  jointly, be clear by formally stating hypotheses
  and reporting the result in terms of the
  statistic and p value or clearly presented
  descriptive data, what you are discussing.

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2. Submitting your assignment

• Provide a short introduction - the length will
  depend to some extent on the number of hypotheses
  tested, but is more dependent on how succinctly
  you can recapitulate the major theoretical points
  in your study. 2-3 sentences at most.
• You need to refer only to those theoretical
  points relevant to the hypotheses you discuss

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3. Submitting your assignment

• Make a clear statement of the hypotheses tested
  (these may be different from those in your small
  group results report if you wish) - maximum to
  be discussed 5 minimum 3
• It is foolish to discuss too many.
• Dont use too much technical language here. State
  your result clearly but remember that in a real
  report or journal article the technical part will
  be available to the reader in the results
  section. You need to refer to your results but
  not repeat the results section.

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Writing your conclusions

• Give a brief description of the hypotheses tested
  and the outcomes This means that you need to
  name the variables and give the values of the
  statistic used to test the hypotheses, and report
  the level of significance (p) of the result.

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Writing your conclusions

• These two functions may be combined. For example,
  
• The hypothesis tested in a technical sense might
  be that
• There is no difference between the JP group and
  the P group in speed of naming symbols.
• This hypothesis follows from the research
  question you might have first asked, namely
• Is there a difference in speed of naming symbols
  between JP and P students?

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Writing your conclusions

• In writing your conclusion, you can report the
  results of the hypothesis testing in ordinary
  language

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Writing your conclusions

• The Junior Primary group were slower than the
  Primary group in naming symbols (t?, plt.001)

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Writing your conclusions

• Discuss the significance of these findings in the
  light of the published literature, citing sources
  used.
• This does not mean just looking at the value of
  p.
• It means looking at why this result may be of
  importance.
• It may be consistent with the published
  literature, or it may contradict it.

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Writing your conclusions

• Since you are looking at research findings which
  may have consequences for classrooms, you may
  wish to comment on the results in that light.
• In the case of the reading study there are many
  significant relationships.
• Negative findings (non significant relationships)
  may be as important as significant ones for
  assessing a theory.

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Writing your conclusions

• Give an account of any shortcomings in the
  methodology of the research project
• One obvious one I will refer to below
• Provide suggestions for future research or
  refinements to the research methodology
• List references in APA style.

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Design of the study

• Experimental vs correlational studies
• Experiments require comparison, control and
  manipulation
• Because these requirements have been met,
  conclusions can be drawn about the causal
  relationship between variables
• Correlational studies can only show that
  variables are related, not necessarily causally

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Design of the study

• Correlational studies
• Whole population measure variables across all
  members of a population
• For example
• Correlate years for which an individual has been
  a smoker with lung capacity
• Correlate parental income with childs score on
  LAN

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Design of the Study

• Cross sectional measure variables within
  discrete groups at the same time often used to
  study growth, learning, development
• Studies which show, for example that people get
  more conservative politically as they get older.
  Is this due to aging, or due to the fact that
  the older group has had a different learning
  history?
• The reading processes study is cross sectional

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Design of the Study

• Cohort or developmental studies
• These follow the same group through the
  developmental process
• For example Sieglers studies on strategy
  development.

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Siegler on Childrens Problem Solving

• Adaptive Strategy choice
• Multiple strategies exist and compete with each
  other
• Multiple strategies exist at every age
• With practice and maturation the child will use
  more effortful but more efficient strategies more
  frequently
• How do the simpler strategies develop into the
  more efficient ones used by older children and
  adults? (Siegler 1996)

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Siegler on Childrens Problem Solving

• Multiple strategies are available
• Having a more efficient one in the repertoire
  does not necessarily mean it is used
• Overlapping waves not stages of development
• (Siegler 1996)

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What the reading processes study can and cant do

• Cant tell us about progress of individuals or
  give us unequivocal information about the
  development of reading skills and subprocesses.
• Does give information which can be seen as
  consistent or inconsistent with prevailing theory.

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Where we began

• Understanding the processes which underlie
  skilled reading and the way these may alter
  during the process of acquisition would obviously
  be of benefit to teachers and students in the
  primary years
• This is particularly true of those students who
  might have difficulties in the beginning stages
  of reading.

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Where we began

• Difficulties in early reading can have lasting
  effects.
• Bradley and Bryant (1983)
• Matthew effect (Stanovich,1993)
• Juel (1988) reported a probability that a poor
  reader in Year 1 would still be so classified in
  Year 4 of 0.88.

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Where we began

• Phonemic awareness, measured by the ability to
  segment, blend, and delete phonemes, is now
  acknowledged as a basic and important
  prerequisite for learning to read in English.
• More recently, a second factor has been put
  forward as a possible cause of difficulties in
  learning to read Rapid Automatic Naming - RAN

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Where we began

• Wolf, Bowers and Biddle (2000) suggest that RAN,
  the ability to name a series of images, symbols
  (numbers and letters), colours etc. as rapidly as
  possible, may make a unique contribution to
  reading ability.
• Other researchers see RAN as a subskill but
  within the phonological domain, ie it does not
  make a significant contribution to reading
  achievement beyond that made by phonemic
  awareness, and it measures something like access
  to phonological information. (Torgesen et al,
  1997)

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Where we began

• Some researchers in the field of reading
  disability assume 3 possible causes for early
  reading difficulties
• 1. Difficulty in phonemic awarenesss
• 2. Difficulty with rapid naming
• 3. A double deficit combining both areas

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Where we began

• The relationship between RAN and reading
  achievement is complex.
• Summaries of research findings (Swanson, Trainin,
  Necoechea Hammill, 2003) indicate low to
  moderate correlations (0.4) between RAN and
  reading achievement.
• But RAN is meant to be a predictor of reading
  achievement, not an ongoing correlate, so many
  studies which look at it in a cross sectional
  sample are inappropriate

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Where we began

• Some authors (eg Paris, 2005) argue that
  correlation is an inappropriate way to look at
  reading development.
• Some skills such as learning the alphabet, are
  vital to reading achievement, but there are
  obvious constraints on their achievement there
  are only 26 letters in the alphabet.

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Where we began

• What is most important is that there are some
  skills that are more constrained than others
  they are learned quickly, mastered entirely, and
  should not be conceptualized as enduring
  individual difference variables.
• (Paris, 2005, p184)
• So we shouldnt expect that there will be an
  enduring correlation between scores on RAN or
  phonemic awareness, and other reading
  achievements.

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Where we began

• A low to medium correlation between RAN or PA and
  reading scores might mask different contributions
  to the reading process over time.
• How might this apply to RAN?
• One explanation for the contribution of RAN
  scores in explaining reading achievement is that
  there are two separate ways in which RAN may
  contribute.

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Where we began

• RAN may explain some differences in early reading
  achievement because the underlying ability
  measured via RAN is the ability to make arbitrary
  associations between words and symbols.
• This is important in early reading because at
  that point, the learner is beginning to associate
  the letters of the alphabet with the sounds of
  the language.

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Where we began

• In the middle stages of reading acquisition, RAN
  does not play such a central role because mostly
  what is being mastered are two skills
• 1. rapid phonological decoding of regular words
  (eg dog, treetop, quick)
• 2. recognition of short frequently occurring
  irregular words (eg though, have, once)

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Where we began

• The rapidity with which regular words are decoded
  continues to be a factor in reading achievement.
• RAN does appear to be a factor in later reading
  achievement

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Where we began

• A possible explanation for this is that in later
  primary years learning of new vocabulary, both
  regular and irregular is occurring, and this is a
  major contributor to reading comprehension.
• Since the irregular words are low frequency
  words, they will only be learned quickly by
  readers who have a good ability to relate
  arbitrary symbols with words (ie readers who are
  good at RAN).

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Where we began

• RAN, which is a pre-reading ability, continues to
  contribute to measures of spelling and
  orthography.
• Possibly the rapid learning of correct spelling
  is a contributor to later vocabulary acquisition,
  and hence to reading comprehension.
• This will be revealed in choice of correct
  spellings for alternate homophones, or for low
  frequency irregularly spelled words

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Possible links
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Time course
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What to look for

• Phonemic awareness
• Does it correlate with measures of reading
  fluency across the years?
• Whats the correlation for R-3, 4-7?
• Does it correlate only with regular word reading
  or with both regular and irregular word reading?

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What to look for

• The most important prediction about rapid naming
  was that the better you are at it, the easier it
  should be to learn the letters of the alphabet
  initially, and the better you should be at
  rapidly learning those common words for which
  there is no regular spelling (ie such as those in
  Irregular words Set 1) .

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What to look for

• In R-3 does a good performance at rapid naming
  correlate well with a good score on common
  irregular words?
• Does this endure over years 4-7, or is this again
  an effect that eventually washes out because
  everyone can do it?

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What to look for

• Does rapid naming have a quite separate effect in
  learning of less common irregular words and
  learning to spell? This was only really tested in
  our study in years 4-7

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What measures to use

• The score on rapid naming does not discriminate
  well because too may people get the maximum
  score.
• The time taken is a more sensitive measure and
  will yield more useful correlations

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Did we design the study well?

• We used some tests for years R-3 and others for
  4-7.
• Was this the appropriate split?
• Are the gender and location variables relevant?

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What does it all mean in the grand scheme of
things?

• Assumptions made
• Individual differences explain some variance in
  learning to read
• These individual differences vary in their
  effects at different stages of learning

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What does it all mean in the grand scheme of
things?

• If these differences are important, what
  implications are there for how we teach?
• May imply we need to take special care with some
  students at both the initial alphabet learning
  and phoneme awareness stages
• May mean we need to again take special measures
  to ensure spelling and vocabulary development
  with these students at later stages.
• How many times do they need to see a word before
  they learn it?
• What happens if students see incorrectly spelled
  words (such as their own spellings) before they
  have learned the correct ones?