Perfetti's representational quality hypothesis suggests that orthographic learning in developing readers is associated with two important changes to the orthographic lexicon that drive continued word reading development, namely, addition of word-specific representations and acquisition of complex context-dependent decoding skills. Perfetti further…

The Double Deficit Hypothesis of dyslexia is one approach to classifying students with reading disabilities. The theory offers four distinct groups of readers: (a) average readers, (b) students with phonological deficits, (c) students with naming speed deficits, and (d) students with double deficits: those having both (b) and (c). This study…

In this study, the authors explore a newly constructed dynamic assessment (DA) intended to tap inference-making skills that they hypothesize will be predictive of future comprehension performance. The authors administered the test to 100 second-grade children using a dynamic format to consider the concurrent validity of the measure. The dynamic…

The purpose of this study was to examine the cognitive and academic profiles associated with learning disability (LD) in reading comprehension, word reading, applied problems, and calculations. The goal was to assess the specificity hypothesis, in which unexpected underachievement associated with LD is represented in terms of distinctive patterns…

A meta-analysis of vocabulary interventions in grades pre-K to 12 was conducted with 37 studies to better understand the impact of vocabulary on comprehension. Vocabulary instruction was found to be effective at increasing students' ability to comprehend text with custom measures (d = 0.50), but was less effective for standardized measures (d =…

The authors used a pretest-posttest control group design with random assignment to evaluate whether early reading failure decreases children's motivation to practice reading. First, they investigated whether 60 first-grade children would report substantially different levels of interest in reading as a function of their relative success or failure…

A study investigated predictors of individual differences in responsiveness to word reading instruction in 55 typical first-graders and 41 identified as at-risk. A combination of rapid naming speed, letter sound knowledge, and phonemic awareness skill predicted word and nonword reading growth in the at-risk group. Growth modeling increased reading…

A study investigated whether changing the letter composition of the Denckla and Rudel rapid automatized naming (RAN) task influenced task performance and the RAN word identification skill relationships in 383 first graders. Substituting a letter that was visually similar to other letters had the greatest influence on RAN speed and accuracy…