A wide share of secondary school children does not reach the expected competence level in reading. These children could benefit from more efficient intervention responses, providing a better understanding of their cognitive weaknesses/deficits. Our aim was to explore the cognitive heterogeneity of a population of poor readers identified from a…

For the first time, a pan-European study offers a comprehensive picture of reading literacy and identifies some of the key factors impacting on the acquisition of reading skills for 3-15 year olds. It addresses four key topics: teaching approaches, tackling reading difficulties, teacher education and the promotion of reading outside school. It…

This study investigates the syllable's role in the normal reading acquisition of French children at three grade levels (1st, 3rd, and 5th), using a modified version of Cole, Magnan, and Grainger's (1999) paradigm. We focused on the effects of syllable frequency and word frequency. The results suggest that from the first to third years of reading…

Instructional reforms are essentially worthwhile as they help students improve their reading from 13th percentile to the 25th or 34th percentile. Only with an expansion of expert tutoring, the goal of all students reading on grade level can be achieved.

In this article, the author describes G. Reid Lyon, the director of the branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development that sponsors studies on reading, whom crisscrossed the country to herald the findings of scientific research on the subject and press for sweeping change in reading instruction. Lyon's presentations on the…

The student of English as a second language in the French school system is confronted with morpho-syntactic and lexical difficulties when he or she reads texts on the university level. In addition to these difficulties, the method of approaching the text may also prove to be a problem. A method is outlined to help the student achieve an active and…

Phonological awareness is thought to become increasingly analytic during early childhood. This study examines whether the proposed developmental sequence (syllable[right arrow]onset-rime[right arrow]phoneme) varies according to the characteristics of a child's native language. Experiment 1 compares the phonological segmentation skills of English…

Reports on two studies to determine if teaching poor readers to use inner speech could improve their reading and writing skills. Finds that both experimental groups improved significantly in both reading and writing. Includes three tables containing comparative experimental data. (CFR)

Reports on a study of reading and writing skills of 110 French and German first-grade students. Finds that the best way to help children to learn to read is to encourage them to read material for content rather than by using training exercises external to reading. (CFR)