This study focuses on similarities and differences in the processing of written text by individuals with prelingual deafness from different reading levels that used Hebrew as their first spoken language and Israeli Sign Language as their primary manual communication mode. Data were gathered from three sources, including (a) a sentence…

This article presents a critical review of the literature surrounding the potential impact of undiagnosed and untreated vision impairment on reading development in the early years of primary school. Despite pre-school screening programmes, it is still possible for children to enter school with undiagnosed, uncorrected vision impairments. This can…

This study examined the effects of an intervention helping struggling readers improve their reading and writing skills in English as a foreign language (L2), and those same skills in Arabic, which was their first language (L1). Transferring linguistic skills from L2 to L1 is termed "cognitive retroactive transfer". Tests were…

The study compared early literacy of Israeli children aged five to six years with and without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), contrasted parental writing mediation in the two groups and tested the relations between parents' mediation characteristics and children's early literacy skills. Each of 62 parent-child dyads (32 with ADHD)…

We investigated the effects of a highly rated commercial electronic book (e-book) for young children on kindergarteners' emergent literacy skills within the context of paired peer versus individual use of the e-book. The sample of 110 kindergarteners had a mean age of 5.64 years and approximately equal numbers of boys and girls, randomly chosen…

The researchers addressed two questions: (1) Does maternal reading mediation and family home literacy environment (HLE) relate to children's emergent literacy (EL) level? and (2) Do the relationships among these variables differ as a function of socioeconomic strata (SES) level. A total of 94 5-6-year-old children, 47 from low SES (LSES) and 47…

The purpose of the present study was to examine the contribution of phonological and nonphonological language skills to reading among Hebrew-speaking children with and without reading disabilities (RD) aged 10?13. We expected that the performance of children with RD would be significantly poorer in all of the language processes compared with those…

Finds a significant relationship between the acquisition of word and pseudoword reading skills, working memory, and syntactic awareness skills within and across the three languages among a group of Israeli-Arab students ages 14-15 years. Notes that trilingualism of this nature seems not to have negative consequences for the development of oral…

This review of cross-national data on educational achievement indicates that the U.S. educational system has clearly been responsive both to the rapid changes in society and to its basic democratic ideology. (Author)

The authors examined the processing of phonological and orthographic word representations among 17 dyslexic and 16 normal college-level readers using Event-Related Potential measures. They focused on 2 early components--the P200 and the P300. The results revealed P200 and P300 components of lower amplitude and later latency among dyslexic readers…

The question of whether human thinking can come to simulate computer intelligence--i.e., AI in reverse--is addressed in this paper. Examples are given of three computer tools which perform several functions that constitute an intellectual partnership between student and tool. Such functions include: (1) assuming part of the intellectual burden in…

A significant difference in phonological awareness (PA) skills was found between 35 students measured in grades 1 and 3 who had received PA training in kindergarten and 35 who had not. The PA tasks of initial phonological isolation and sound deletion were highly predictive of success in first-grade reading. (SLD)

This study compared two interventions: one focusing on language and storybook reading and the other on alphabetic skills and writing. Seventy-one preschoolers aged 3-5 from a low SES township in central Israel (35 in the reading program and 36 in the writing program) participated in evaluation of the interventions. Twenty-four untreated…

A "reading gap" exists in Israel in teaching of intermediate-level English. Reading aloud, focusing on new words and on literal comprehension questions may conflict with the goal of reading for meaning. A dual approach is proposed and demonstrated to achieve reading for language and for meaning. Sample mini-units are included. (CHK)

An experiment involving fourth graders examined effects of syntactic context on auditory word identification and ability to detect and correct syntactic errors in speech. Severely disabled readers were inferior to good and poor readers in syntactic awareness and ability to use syntactic rules. (RH)