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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Reading ability'
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1
Fuller, Frank D. (Frank Davidson). "The association between reading ability and test performance among adults of limited reading ability." Thesis, University of North Texas, 1990. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc332849/.
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This study examined adult students of limited reading ability, determining the extent to which their performance on a standardized examination was a function of their reading ability, rather than function of their knowledge of the material tested by the examination.
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Simpson, Lauree Smith. "Multiple intelligences and reading ability." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 1996. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/1159.
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The following research focuses on intelligence as it relates to reading. To make reading possible for every child, varied reading materials, methods, and models must be available. Once these elements are in place for the potential reader, does intelligence make the difference in reading ability?
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Manning, Margaret. "Laterality, reading and ability in children." Thesis, University of Leicester, 1990. http://hdl.handle.net/2381/34667.
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Various hypotheses derived from Annett's (1972; 1985) genetic theory of handedness are experimentally tested. Results from the first investigation show that excessive bias in favour of right handedness is due to a weakness in left rather than superiority of right hand skill, and is associated with poor nonverbal reasoning ability. A second investigation indicated that risks to reading problems were increased in children with either too little or too much bias in favour of dextrality. A further three studies investigated patterns of ability and disability at both laterality extremes. It was found that language deficits were more frequent in children reduced in bias towards the right hand. An attempt to find a task which those at the dextral tail of the laterality distribution were worse at than those at the sinistral tail met with inconclusive results. The experimental findings are, in general compatible with Annett's hypothesis of a human balanced polymorphism with heterozygote advantage for ability.
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McCartney, Rebecca Eisenberg. "Rapid Automatized Naming and Reading Ability." Digital Archive @ GSU, 2008. http://digitalarchive.gsu.edu/psych_diss/48.
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The Rapid Automatized Naming test (RAN) has been shown to be a strong predictor of reading ability (Katzir et al., 2006), however the nature of this relationship remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the underlying components of RAN, and to then determine whether these components partially account for the relationship between RAN and reading ability. The sample consisted of 100 undergraduate students. The underlying components of RAN that were evaluated included, visual search and scanning, auditory and visual sequencing, discrete naming, confrontation naming, executive functioning and phonological processing. The findings suggest that visual search and scanning, auditory sequential processing, discrete naming and executive functioning are all significant underlying components of RAN. Additionally, the findings suggest that visual scanning and auditory sequential processing partially mediate the relationship between RAN and reading fluency.
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Yoshida, Tomoko. "Phonological awareness and reading ability in Japanese children." Thesis, Click to view the E-thesis via HKUTO, 2005. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record/B31937287.
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Jia, Fanlu, and 贾凡路. "Gender differences of reading ability in Chinese children." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2013. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B50639420.
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Generally, females are regarded as the group who has better verbal and reading abilities (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974; Denno, 1982), although there are still some disagreements on particular aspects or language systems (Hyde & Linn, 1988; Hetherington & Parke, 1986). We asked whether gender differences of reading ability exist in Chinese children and if so, how the difference may be demonstrated. In addition, we investigated whether the development of reading ability follows a hierarchical model (Gough &Hillinger, 1980; Ehri, 1980; Ehri & Wilce, 1985), according to which, the gender differences may vary with age and reading experience.
We tested children’s character reading ability and phonological awareness in a Shandong primary school. Fifty-five second graders and forty-three fourth graders performed behavioral tasks containing a Chinese character reading test, a Chinese onset-rime oddity test and an English onset-rime oddity test.
We found that Chinese children exhibited a significant gender difference in Chinese character reading ability. However, we have not found gender differences on onset-rime level phonological awareness. Thus, gender differences of reading ability exist in Chinese children, even if the differences only cover partial phonological or orthographic skills.
The present data have also yielded the predicted result that the development of gender differences change with age and reading experience. Specifically, the gender difference on Chinese character reading ability emerged after Grade 2. In terms of the onset-rime oddity task, the performances of boys and girls showed no striking difference at any grades.
These results reveal that gender differences of reading ability exist in Chinese children, especially in children in higher grades (Grade 4). Different types of verbal skills and learning attitude should be taken into account, and be examined in the future.<br>published_or_final_version<br>Linguistics<br>Master<br>Master of Arts
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Alsawar, Radah. "Using The Qualitative Reading Inventory to Assess A Saudi Reader’s Reading Ability." University of Toledo / OhioLINK, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1493394444213539.
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Frey-Toompere, Linet. "Suppression in L1 and L2 reading comprehension." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.608937.
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Nicholson, Ann L. "The Effects of Repeated Readings on the Fluency Scores of Low Ability Third Grade Readers." Bowling Green State University / OhioLINK, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1163077388.
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Thompson, Meri Dawn. "Authentic reading assessment: The reading portfolio." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 1995. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd-project/1134.
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Barnie, Charlene. "Parent and teacher estimates of children's reading ability." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2001. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp04/MQ58320.pdf.
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勞皓珍 and Ho-chun Rebecca Lo. "The relationship between phonological awareness and reading ability." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2003. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B2682274X.
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Wass, Malin. "Children with Cochlear Implants : Cognition and Reading Ability." Doctoral thesis, Linköpings universitet, Institutet för handikappvetenskap (IHV), 2009. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-51735.
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The present thesis investigated cognitive ability in children with severe to profound hearing impairment who have received cochlear implants (CIs). The auditory stimulation from a cochlear implant early in life influences most cognitive functions as a consequence of the plasticity of the brain in the young child. It is important to understand the cognitive consequences of auditory stimulation from CIs in order to provide adequate support to these children. This thesis examined three specific aspects of cognitive ability (working memory, phonological skill and lexical access), and reading ability in children with CIs, as compared to children with normal hearing in the same age. The relations between cognitive abilities and reading skills were also investigated, as well as the associations between demographic variables (e.g., age at implantation and communication mode), cognitive abilities and reading skills. The children with CI generally had lower performance levels than the normal hearing children in tasks of phonological and general working memory, phonological skills and lexical access. They had specific problems in tasks with high demands on phonological working memory, whereas their performance levels in tasks of visuospatial working memory were on par with the hearing children. A majority of the children with CI demonstrated reading skills within the normal range for hearing children, both for decoding and reading comprehension. The relations between demographic factors and cognitive skills varied somewhat between the studies. The patterns of result are discussed with reference to contemporary theories of working memory, phonological skills, and lexical access.<br>Avhandlingens övergripande syfte var att studera kognitiva förmågor hos barn med grav hörselskada eller dövhet som fått cochleaimplantat (CI). Auditiv stimulering från CI i tidig ålder påverkar de flesta kognitiva funktioner som en följd av hjärnans plasticitet hos små barn. Det är viktigt att förstå de kognitiva konsekvenserna av auditiv stimulering från CI för att kunna ge dessa barn bästa möjliga stöd. Avhandlingen undersökte tre specifika aspekter av kognitiv förmåga (arbetsminne, fonologiska förmågor och lexikal aktivering), samt läsförmåga hos barn med CI, i jämförelse med barn med normal hörsel i samma åldrar. Relationerna mellan kognitiva förmågor och läsförmåga studerades också, liksom sambanden mellan demografiska faktorer (t ex implantationsålder och kommunikationssätt) och kognitiva förmågor samt läsfärdigheter. Barnen med CI hade generellt lägre prestationsnivå än barnen med normal hörsel i uppgifter som mäter fonologiskt och generellt arbetsminne, fonologiska förmågor och lexikal aktivering. De hade specifika problem i uppgifter som i hög grad belastar fonologiskt arbetsminne, medan deras visuospatiala arbetsminneskapacitet var jämförbar med den hos barnen med normal hörsel. Majoriteten av barnen med CI hade läsfärdigheter i nivå med normalhörande barn, för både avkodning och läsförståelse. Sambanden mellan demografiska faktorer och kognitiva förmågor och läsförmåga varierade mellan studierna. Resultatmönstren diskuteras utifrån teorier om arbetsminne, fonologiska färdigheter och lexikal aktivering.
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Ali, Sumaya Nader. "Reading ability and diglossia in Kuwaiti primary schools." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2014. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/7457/.
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This project investigated the relationship between children‘s reading ability and their phonological awareness, phonological short term memory and visual short term memory in a diglossic setting. The study was conducted in Kuwait where children grow up speaking a Kuwaiti local form of the Arabic language. This form of Arabic is linguistically distinct from the literate Arabic. The children also deal with another type of words, which are Kuwaiti shared words. The effect of these different types of Arabic words on children‘s reading ability and phonological sensitivity was investigated. Four measures were administered in both studies; single word reading ability, phonological deletion, phonological short term memory and visual short term memory. Two studies were conducted; a cross-sectional study and a longitudinal study using four measures. In the cross-sectional study, forty-nine 6 year-old students participated. Results indicated that all predictor measures, phonological awareness, phonological short term memory and visual short term memory, correlated with reading ability. But regression analysis showed that only children‘s phonological awareness uniquely predicted reading ability when controlling for age and Verbal IQ. Anova showed that there was also a significant effect of word type on children‘s reading ability but not their phonological awareness. So children found it easier to read the modern standard Arabic and shared words than the local dialect words. In the longitudinal study, all tasks were administered to participants three times; 85 children at the beginning of first grade, 81 children at the end of first grade, and 78 children at the start of second grade. All participants‘ reading abilities and both phonological and visual short term memory improved over time. Phonological awareness still uniquely predicted reading ability when controlling for age and Verbal IQ across all the time points. But there was a change in how word types affected phonological awareness. Very few studies have investigated reading ability in Arabic. This project helps further understanding about the unique contribution of the different cognitive skills towards reading ability. Also, it improves the awareness of Arabic children‘s needs and complications in acquiring a successful Arabic reading in a diglossic setting.
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Von, Spiegel Jacqueline Janice. "Reading ability and summarization effects on metacomprehension accuracy." The Ohio State University, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1400152139.
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Lorenson, Susan Beth. "Phonemic Awareness and Reading Ability in Literate Adults." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/316779.
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This dissertation is an examination phonemic awareness and its relationship to reading ability in literate adults. Phonemic awareness is an indisputable predictor of reading ability in children, but whether the same relationship between phonemic awareness and reading exists in adult readers is unknown. All alphabetically literate adults are understood to be phonemically aware to a certain degree. Moreover, adults pay attention to sound/symbol relationships when reading. Yet, the relationship between phonemic awareness and reading ability in alphabetically literate adults has not been explicitly studied, even though phonemic awareness is understood to be a key component of reading strategy and proficiency. A study was conducted on phonemic and syllabic awareness in adults. The results indicate that adults, despite years of alphabetic reading experience, are differentiated with regard to phonemic awareness and are more syllabically aware than phonemically aware. Additionally, the study demonstrates that phonemic awareness is associated with reading ability in adults, though syllabic awareness is not. Implications and directions for future study are discussed.
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Chan, Lik-hang, and 陳力行. "Effectiveness of using reading assessment to enhance the grade 8 students' reading ability." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2010. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B50175312.
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本研究目的在於應用促進學習的評估理念，設計一套以評估提升香港中學二年級學生基本和高層次閱讀能力的實驗教學課程，以了解利用評估提升學生閱讀能力的成效。研究利用前測及後測考卷，對比學生在接受實驗教學前後的閱讀能力水平，結果發現利用評估有助提升學生的閱讀能力，特別是「理解篇章深層意義」和「建構個人新知識及看法」的能力。而利用評估提升學習成效，又以低程度閱讀能力的學生得益最大，對於「理解基本／表層文意」、「理解篇章深層意義」和「建構個人新知識及看法」三個能力層次均有顯著提升。研究結果顯示利用評估有助提升學生的閱讀能力，但亦須注意評估與教學內容的配合，特別是結合篇章理解策略教學，才可進一步發揮遷移及持久作用，達到促進學習的效果。
This study investigated the effectiveness of using reading assessment to enhance the Grade 8 students’ basic and higher-order reading ability. A group of 39 grade 8 students were assigned to learn an experimental reading instruction programme which is based on the theories of assessment for learning. Comparing the results of pre-test and post-test, students’ reading ability is found to be improved. The results indicated that students demonstrated significant gains from pre-test to post-test. Moreover, low achievers benefited most from the reading instruction programme. Their three levels of reading ability, including “understanding of basic / surface meaning”, “understanding of implicit meaning” and “construction of personal new knowledge and views”, were found to be improved. This study suggests using assessment for learning can enhance students’ reading ability.<br>published_or_final_version<br>Education<br>Master<br>Master of Education
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黃珮詩 and Pui-sze Catherine Wong. "Hong Kong secondary three students' reading comprehensionprocess." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2002. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B31963274.
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Keidel, Lora L. "Third grade teachers' instructional groupings for reading and improvement of Idaho reading indicator scores /." ProQuest subscription required:, 2003.
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Li, Wing-yan Michelle, and 李穎昕. "Understanding the relationship between rapid automatized naming and reading in Chinese." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10722/209658.
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This study aimed to investigate the relationship between rapid automatized naming (RAN) and reading in Chinese through manipulating four processes involved in RAN’s production: access and retrieval, articulation, naming and serial processing, as well as the developmental pattern of this relationship. A total of 126 Hong Kong children with 42 in Grade 1, 41 in Grade 3 and 43 in Grade 5 were assessed on both the digit and picture versions of Discrete RAN, Continuous RAN, Yes/No Naming and Cancellation tasks, in addition to Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices, Chinese word and text reading fluency. The results of the regression analyses suggested serial processing and articulation were core component processes that underlied the RAN-reading relationship in Chinese across all three grades, while naming, i.e. the oral production of names of stimuli, was found to be a significant underlying process in Grades 1 and 3 only. Comparison between the present findings and those of a past research on an alphabetic language, i.e. Greek, indicated serial processing and naming were common component processes of their RAN-reading relationships, while the role of articulation was only significant in Chinese. Implications for developing visual scanning and articulation training for Chinese poor readers were suggested.<br>published_or_final_version<br>Educational Psychology<br>Master<br>Master of Social Sciences
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Henson, Janice M. "Procedures for recognition and transformation of nonefficacious personal constructs about reading and learning /." free to MU campus, to others for purchase, 2002. http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/mo/fullcit?p3060104.
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YAMASHITA, JUNKO. "Transfer of L1 Reading Ability to L2 Reading : An Elaboration of the Linguistic Threshold." 名古屋大学大学院国際言語文化研究科, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/2237/7937.
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Wang, Wei. "Reading tutors using the iPod to enhance and motivate struggling literacy learners' reading ability." [Ames, Iowa : Iowa State University], 2008.
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Morles, Armando. "The improvement of leaming ability by means of reading." Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2013. http://repositorio.pucp.edu.pe/index/handle/123456789/99772.
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This study discusses the importance of instruction in the ability to learn from texts. First learning through reading is defined, followed by the identificaction of the factors that determine this learning. It provides guidelines for the improvement uf such an ability. Finally, it gives i'deas about ways of conducting the student training, including exercising modalities and the program placement in the educational context.<br>El presente estudio discute la importancia de la instrucción en la capacidad para aprender el contenido de textos escritos. Al inicio se define el aprendizaje a través de la lectura para luego continuar con la identificación de los factores que condicionan este aprendizaje. Luego se suministra lineamientos para mejorar esa capacidad. Finalmente se aportan ideas acerca de cómo conducir el entrenamiento de los estudiantes, incluyendo las modalidades y su ubicación dentro del contexto educativo.
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McLain, Katherine Victoria Mayer. "Effects of two comprehension monitoring strategies on metacognitive awareness and reading achievement in third and fifth grade students." Virtual Press, 1990. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/720162.
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This study compared the effects of two comprehension monitoring strategies on the reading comprehension awareness in expository text read by third and fifth grade students. A secondary purpose was to determine if the comprehension monitoring strategies influenced reading comprehension achievement. The effects of gender were also studied. The participants were 51 third grade students and 57 fifth grade students from six intact classrooms in four elementary schools in a midwestern school district.One third and one fifth grade classroom was randomly assigned to each of the two experimental groups and the one control group. During a 4-week intervention, one experimental group was taught the comprehension monitoring strategy K-W-L; the other the comprehension monitoring strategy Predicting/Evaluating. The control group read the same expository text as the experimental groups during sustained silent reading for the 4-week period with no instruction in a comprehension monitoring strategy. A metacognitive instrument and a standardized norm-referenced test were used as pretest (covariate) and posttest (dependent variable) measures. Two separate analyses of covariance were used to address the four research questions. The following results were suggested.1. Third grade males with no strategy instruction outperformed third grade males with strategy instruction in reading comprehension awareness.2. Fifth graders outperformed third graders in reading comprehension awareness regardless of gender and regardless of strategy taught for comprehension monitoring.3. Females outperformed males in reading comprehension awareness regardless of grade level and regardless of strategy taught for comprehension monitoring.4. Third and fifth graders achieved equally well in reading achievement whether or not they received instruction and practice using a comprehension monitoring strategy.5. Males and females achieved equally well in reading achievement whether or not they received instruction and practice using a comprehension monitoring strategy.6. Third graders outperformed fifth graders in reading achievement regardless of gender and regardless of strategy taught for comprehension monitoring.<br>Department of Elementary Education
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Bourne, R. J. (Roger John). "Two studies on the effectiveness of contiguous, graphemic and phonological interventions on measures of reading and spelling." Master's thesis, Faculty of Education, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/6270.
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Lau, Sin-Yee. "Cognitive and metacognitive strategies of English as second language readers in Hong Kong primary schools." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.251558.
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Gibeault, Kimberly. "The use of ability grouping and flexible grouping within guided reading." Online version, 2008. http://www.uwstout.edu/lib/thesis/2008/2008gibeaultk.pdf.
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Roloff, Vera Lucia Posnik. "Foreign language reading comprehension: Text representation and the effects of text explicitness and reading ability." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/8791.
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The present study investigated text reconstruction performance of EFL university-level students reading a fairly long naturally-occurring popular magazine article taking two factors into consideration: degree of text content explicitness and EFL reading ability level. More specifically, it attempted to examine a deeper level of text representation, or what Kintsch and his associates label the situation model (Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978; van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983; Kintsch, 1974, 1988, 1992, 1994, 1998), by subjects of two reading ability levels in EFL [high and low]. Subjects performed an immediate written reconstructive recall after reading one of the two versions [fully explicit and less explicit ] of a popular science article. This recall or text representation reflected (1) the comprehension or the reconstruction of the text as a whole, (2) the distribution of information in the text, i.e., in terms of its macro and microstructure, and (3) any correct inferences that may have been generated. In addition, the study considered the influence of text difficulty, topic interest, and topic familiarity in the reconstructive representation. Ninety-two Brazilian university-level subjects participated in this study. Comprehension was measured quantitatively in terms of: (1) the number of propositions recalled from reading one of the two versions, (2) textbase recall, and (3) inferential recall. In both text versions, six hierarchical levels of information were considered. There were four main findings of the present study: (1) Text version had an impact on the reconstructive process. Readers benefited from reading a less explicit version of the text regardless of their reading ability level, although high reading ability level readers outperformed low reading ability ones. (2) The fully explicit version had an advantage over the less explicit version only with respect to the construction of the textbase representation. (3) Results respected the Hierarchy Principle, that is, higher-level propositions were better and more frequently recalled than lower-level ones. (4) Text difficulty and topic familiarity were not determining factors in the reconstructive representation. Topic interest, however, was shown to be a significant factor in the construction of the textbase as well as in the reconstructive process as a whole of low reading ability subjects. The findings of the present study are broadly consistent with those reported in earlier cognitive research in the area of text representation, particularly with those which examined text comprehension in the context of the Kintsch & van Dijk (Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978; van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983, Kintsch, 1974, 1988, 1992, 1994, 1998) model of reading comprehension.
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Roloff, Vera Lúcia Pósnik. "Foreign language reading comprehension, text representation and the effects of text explicitness and reading ability." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/NQ36793.pdf.
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Guo, Lin. "Explore the relationship between metacognition, L1 reading ability, L2 language proficiency and L2 reading comprehension." The Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1405090119.
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Parker, Cynthia T. "An evaluation of student reading attitudes : does ability affect attitude? /." Electronic version (PDF), 2004. http://dl.uncw.edu/etd/2004/parkerc/cynthiaparker.pdf.
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Wolfe, Christopher B. "Motor control and reading fluency contributions beyond phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming in children with reading disabilities /." unrestricted, 2007. http://etd.gsu.edu/theses/available/etd-11282007-113346/.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2007.<br>Title from file title page. Rose A. Sevcik, committee chair; MaryAnn Romski, Rihana Williams-Smith, Robin D. Morris, committee members. Electronic text (99 p. : ill.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Jan. 28, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 90-99).
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Brez, Sharon. "Adult learners' perspectives on screening reading ability for patient teaching." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 1995. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/9879.
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The expectation of greater individual responsibility for health promotion practices and decision making in hospitals is dependent upon knowledgeable consumers. The heavy reliance on printed material for both gathering and disseminating information in hospitals has led to recommendations that literacy screening tests be considered to enhance the efficacy of patient teaching interventions for the significant number of adults with low literacy skills. A qualitative case study design was used to investigate the response of adults with low literacy skills to literacy screening. Data were collected through in depth interviews including an experience using the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine (REALM) word recognition tool. Analysis was achieved using a constant comparison technique. A conceptual model of response to screening was developed and compared to the Health Belief Model and Knox's Proficiency Theory of adult learning. While all participants supported the principle of screening in the context of the hospital, response to the REALM experience was variable. Factors found to influence responses to screening included perceived risks of illiteracy exposure, perceived risks of non-disclosure during hospitalization and the attribution of characteristics to the hospital leading to it's designation as a "special" place. Specific responses to the REALM were found to be further influenced by a set of individual historic factors. The results have lead to several recommendations for health care professionals considering utilization of literacy screening instruments.
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Sperring, Rachael. "Magnocellular processing and reading ability : the effect of test sensitivity." Thesis, University of Reading, 2013. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.603524.
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Research into reading difficulties is continuously evolving, with a plethora of suggested causes. Lovegrove, Heddle, and Slaghuis (1980) suggested that one such cause was an abnormality of the visual magnocellular system which can result in visual confusion in some people with reading difficulties. However, failure to replicate findings have led some to disregard the theory (Skottun, 2000). This controversy can in part be attributable to the range of processing levels within the visual system and the range of parameter levels that have been used by studies assessing magnocellular function. Consequently the aim of this research was to investigate the relationship between mag nocellular function and reading ability at varying levels of the visual system, under systematic variations in parameter levels and with varying methods of assessment, to identify the test that produces the most sensitive relationship between reading ability and magnocellular function in children. An investigation into Random Dot Kinematogram (RDK) parameter levels in Studies 1 and 2 found that an integration time threshold with a dot speed of 20• /s and a contrast of 4% accounted for the largest variance in reading ability. In Study 3, a comparison between RDK thresholds and the Frequency Doubling Illusion showed that both tests accounted for 8% of the variance in reading ability; however this was not significant after accounting for cognitive ability. Study 4 assessed fixation stability and RDK thresholds and found that neither accounted for signincant variance in reading ability. Since participants in Study 2 had completed 14 threshold trials compared to 2 in Study 3 and 4, it was concluded that an RDK measuring integration time employing a dot speed of 20◦ /s and a contrast of 4% and with extensive practice was the most sensitive measure. However the level of practice needed meant this could not be considered a "gold standard" test .
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Boon, Joyce Linda. "Stroke sequence, working memory and Chinese reading ability in Chinesechildren." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2010. http://hub.hku.hk/bib/B45150011.
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Murry, David D. "Reading ability vs. readability in a sex offender treatment program." Online version, 1999. http://www.uwstout.edu/lib/thesis/1999/1999murryd.pdf.
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Tsangari, Victoria. "An interactive software program to develop pianists' sight-reading ability." Diss., University of Iowa, 2010. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/3393.
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Westerveld, Marleen Frederike. "Examining the relationship between oral narrative ability and reading comprehension in children with mixed reading disability." Thesis, University of Canterbury. Communication Disorders, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10092/1389.
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Oral narrative ability has received increasing attention over the past three decades, and the importance of children's oral narrative skills to academic achievement has been well established. Children with reading disabilities are known to demonstrate difficulties in the ability to produce and comprehend oral narratives (Roth & Spekman, 1986; Snyder & Downey, 1991). However, the nature of the relationship between oral narrative ability and reading comprehension performance in children with reading disability is not clear. The experiments reported in this thesis aim to address this issue. The following questions are asked: 1) Do deficits in oral narrative ability contribute to reading comprehension difficulties? and 2) What is the likely direction of the relationship between aspects of oral narrative ability and reading comprehension performance in children with reading disabilities? Fourteen children (aged between 6;4 and 7;8 at the initial assessment) with mixed reading disability (MRD: i.e., children who demonstrate both word recognition and listening comprehension deficits) participated in the study. Their oral narrative skills were compared to those of their chronological age-matched peers with typical development (TD) and their reading-age-matched peers with typical development (RMTD). The study consisted of three phases: 1) A longitudinal phase in which the children's oral narrative performance was assessed on three occasions over a two-year period; 2) An intervention phase (using a nonequivalent pretest-posttest control group design) in which 10 children participated in an oral narrative intervention program that focused on enhancing children's story structure knowledge; and 3) A follow-up assessment phase conducted eight months post-intervention. Oral narratives were elicited in a personal narrative context and in a story retelling context. Oral narrative production ability was analysed at macrostructure (story quality) and microstructure (morpho-syntax and vocabulary) levels. Oral narrative comprehension was assessed in a fictional story context through questions relating to story structure elements. Reading comprehension performance was assessed using a standardised test of reading ability. The results from the longitudinal study showed that the children with MRD demonstrated inferior oral narrative production and oral narrative comprehension performance compared to their peers with typical reading development at each assessment occasion. When comparing the poor readers' performance to the RMTD group at the third assessment trial, the results suggested that the children with MRD demonstrated a specific deficit in oral narrative comprehension. In contrast, a pattern of delay was observed on the microstructure measures of oral narrative performance. The results from the intervention indicated significant treatment effects with large effect sizes for oral narrative comprehension performance. Despite this improvement in oral narrative comprehension, there was little change in oral narrative production ability, and transfer to reading comprehension was not evident. Although the follow-up assessment indicated sustained improvement in oral narrative comprehension for the children with MRD, accelerated reading comprehension progress was not evident. The findings from the longitudinal case study highlighted the benefits of oral narrative intervention for a child considered at high risk of continuing academic difficulties. This thesis provides evidence of the persistent oral narrative difficulties in children with MRD. The findings also provide support for the importance of narrative structure knowledge to these poor readers' oral narrative comprehension performance. The results demonstrate that oral narrative comprehension ability explains only a small amount of the variance in reading comprehension performance. Rather, the persistent word recognition difficulties of the children with MRD exert the biggest influence on their reading comprehension performance. These results are discussed in terms of current models of reading and language development. Implications for clinical practice are also addressed.
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Taylor, Jaimée. "Working memory and reading comprehension: The relationship between central executive functioning and discourse-level reading ability." Thesis, Taylor, Jaimée (2017) Working memory and reading comprehension: The relationship between central executive functioning and discourse-level reading ability. Honours thesis, Murdoch University, 2017. https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/40825/.
Full textAbstract:
Research has repeatedly demonstrated that a relationship exists between reading comprehension and working memory (WM). However, there are inconsistencies in the literature regarding which executive functions (EFs) of WM contribute to overall reading comprehension ability. This study attempted to address why these inconsistencies exist by investigating to what extent the ability to manipulate, integrate, and update information quickly and efficiently was related to adults’ overall reading comprehension. Fifty-one participants, aged between 18 and 56 years without any cognitive impairments, completed a standardised reading comprehension assessment and a novel computer-based task which assessed propositional-level and discourse-level reading comprehension, respectively. Additionally, participants completed a cognition battery which assessed WM, inhibitory and attentional control, attention, cognitive flexibility and episodic memory. The findings indicated that context (i.e., low, medium and high) had a significant effect on discourse-level reading comprehension ability. This was accompanied by a significant relationship between WM, its central EFs and adults’ propositional-level reading comprehension. Unexpectedly, WM and the EFs did not significantly account for individual differences in discourse-level ability comprehension performance. Moreover, inhibition and attention negatively predicted participants’ discourse-level reading comprehension ability. Sound understanding of the relationship between WM and its central EFs has important practical implications for developing training programs aiming to improve children and adult’s executive skills and academic performance.
Key words: working memory (WM), executive functions (EFs), situation model construction, adults, propositional-level reading comprehension, discourse-level reading comprehension.
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Castle, M. "A study of methods endeavouring to improve reading readiness with regard to sex differences and social deprevation." Thesis, University of Bath, 1988. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.234638.
Full text
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Chang, Shu-chieh, and 張淑婕. "The influences of Dialogic Reading and Flashcards Readingon Children’s Reading Ability and Interest." Thesis, 2013. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/39813771491485471002.
Full textAbstract:
碩士<br>國立臺南大學<br>幼兒教育學系碩士班<br>101<br>This study discusses the influence of "Dialogic Reading" and "Flashcards Reading" on
the reading ability and interest of children. The research method the study applies is
"pretest-posttest control group design". The object of study is 28 children of the top class in a
public kindergarten in Tainan City. They were divided randomly into the experimental group
and the control group. A week before the experiment, the children of these two groups
received the pretest of PPVT-R (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised) Form L,
Preliminary Graded Chinese Character Recognition Test, target words in sketchbook test, and
reading attitude test. The experiment lasted for ten weeks. A week later after the experiment,
the children of two groups received the posttest of the four tests given above and story
comprehension test in order to know the difference between the pretest and posttest of
vocabulary comprehension, story comprehension, characters recognition ability and reading
interest. One and a half months later, a tracking test of the five tests above was applied for the
difference of abilities listed above that the children in these two groups had and for whether
the test results possessed continued influences.
The data was collected and analyzed by means of ANCOVA, t-test. The study results
are as follows:
1. The flashcard group improved recognizing characters in sketchbooks, which was better
than the dialogic group and the influence continued.
2. The flashcard group improved recognizing Chinese characters better than the dialogic
group, but it had no continuous influence.
3. The dialogic group improved vocabulary comprehension better than the flashcard group
and the influence continued.
4. The dialogic group improved story comprehension ability better than the flashcard group
and the influence continued.
5. The dialogic group improved reading interest better than the flashcard group and the
influence continued.
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Leou, Yea-mei, and 柳雅梅. "Influence of Balanced Reading Instruction on Students’ Reading Ability and Reading Motivation." Thesis, 2005. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/74582787726923052248.
Full textAbstract:
博士<br>國立臺南大學<br>教育經營與管理研究所博士班<br>93<br>Abstract
This study was designed to find out the principles for designing a balanced
reading program for the elementary school students in Taiwan, and to test how this
balanced reading program influence on the students’ reading ability and reading
motivation. The participants were seventy-two fifth graders. Thirty-six students were in
the experimental group, including 18 boys and 18 girls, and 36 fifth- grade students in the
controlled group, including 18 boys and 18 girls. The experimental teaching lasted for
nine weeks. The reading ability in this study meant the ability of word recognition and
reading comprehension. The reading subtest and the spelling subtest of The Wide Range
Achievement Test, the sound subtest of the English Word Recognition and the meaning
subtest of the English Word Recognition were used to test the students’ word recognition
ability. The sentence comprehension subtest of the English Achievement Test was used
to evaluate the students’ comprehension ability. The Motivation for Reading
Questionnaire was used for reading motivation. Pretests and posttests were used before
and after the intervention. Ancova was used to analyze the data. Besides, questionnaires
of learning, questionnaires of reading, interviews and the teaching journals were used to
gather further information about the program.
From the review of literature, the consideration of the national education policy
and the practical teaching in the classrooms, the researcher suggested that five factors
should be taken into consideration when creating a balanced reading program. First, as
for environment, the classroom should be abundant with learning materials and posters.
There should be a reading corner for the kids. Second, as for the choosing of the reading
materials, connecting with the children’s life experience, predicative, fitting the kids’
language ability, having useful and attractive pictures, being interesting, having suitable
length and clear layout, being able to act as a play and being able to extend the school
learning were the principles. Third, as for the principles of phonics, the combinations
between the most common words announced by the Ministry of Education and Fry (2001)
common phonics rules were good choices. Fourth, as for the strategies of reading
comprehension, prediction, asking, looking for related clues, summary and review, and
ministering were strategies worthy of teaching.
The results showed that the experimental group scored significantly higher than
the controlled group in reading subtest, sound subtest, meaning subtest, comprehension
subtest, and reading motivation test after the intervention. Besides, the main findings
from the data of the questionnaires, interviews and the teaching journals were consistent
to the above statistic results. This study proved that a balanced reading instruction had
positive influences on students’ reading ability and reading motivation. Suggestions were
provided to the administrators and English teachers according to the research results.
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吳烈文. "To improve reading ability and teaching reading:a study between a teacher and three reading underachievers." Thesis, 2006. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/71116985882453236074.
Full textAbstract:
碩士<br>國立新竹教育大學<br>人資處輔導教學碩士班<br>95<br>This study aims to enhance underachievers’ reading ability through an action research conducted by a sixth-grade teacher in an elementary school. The subjects included the author and three reading low-achievers in class A, six grade in Hsin Hsin Elementary School. These three students went quite well with their peers; however, they had underachievement in terms of reading performance. Since the uniform teaching method in a large-sized classroom worked ineffectively to improve the students’ reading ability, the author decided to apply a three-in-one strategy, that is knowledge, action and thought, to improve their reading ability.
Initially, the teacher referred to related literature regarding reading theory, action research and underachievement, then the teacher refined and narrowed down the research focus by presenting the drafted project and counseling in person with experts and dialogue partners. As a result, with collected literature and counseling with experts, the author discovered two important factors for reading ability enhancement: one is teachers’ guidance for students to apply reading strategies; the other, worthy of note, is teachers’ demand and tolerance on students’ under-achieved reading performances.
These three underachievers, through the reading action research, performed even more actively in reading activities, were competent to discuss the questions regarding the reading texts, became more involved in reading assignment, and were able to share ideas with the teacher and the peers. In addition, the students started trying to read with reading strategies and methods. Moreover, the teacher found out the appropriate teaching approaches for reading low-achievers.
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Sung, She-Ping, and 宋詩蘋. "The Effects of Sustained Silent Reading on The Reading Motivation And Reading Ability." Thesis, 2015. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/63546462939241265038.
Full textAbstract:
碩士<br>華梵大學<br>工業工程與經營資訊學系碩士班<br>103<br>The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of sustained silent reading (SSR) on reading comprehension, reading attitude, and ability of word recognition of elementary school students in the 5th grade. Students from two classes participated in the experiments. One class, as the experimental group, was implemented SSR every day, while the other class, as the control group, received conventional teaching courses. 1200 minutes of reading experiments were conducted by 15 minutes daily, 5 days a week for 16 weeks. The results are summarized as follows:
1. SSR can effectively improve the students’ “reading motivation”, “ability of reading comprehension”, but not “ability of word recognition”.
2. The students’ gender and the intensity of internet usage do not have significant difference in “reading motivation”, “ability of reading comprehension”, and “ability of word recognition” after implementing SSR.
3. Students give positive comments on SSR.
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Su, Huei-Sian, and 蘇慧嫻. "Chinese Reading Ability and Mathematical Ability among Seventh Graders in Taiwan." Thesis, 2012. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/33024623373802315260.
Full textAbstract:
碩士<br>國立臺中教育大學<br>特殊教育學系碩士在職專班<br>100<br>The purposes of the study are to analyze the correlation between Chinese reading ability (character recognition and reading comprehension) and mathematical ability (procedural knowledge test and problem solving test) for the seventh graders in Taiwan, and to investigate the difference in mathematical ability between the students with different Chinese reading abilities. The participants of study were 129 seventh graders with 64 males and 65 females. The main findings of this research are:
(1) There is a significant difference between male and female students in character recognition, but there were no significant differences in reading comprehension, procedural knowledge test and problem solving test.
(2) The performance of students with different Chinese reading abilities showed significant differences in procedural knowledge and problem solving. By comparing group performance, the high level group performed better than the middle and low level groups, and the middle level group performed better than the low level group.
(3) There was a significantly positive correlation between Chinese reading ability (character recognition and reading comprehension) and mathematical ability (procedural knowledge and problem solving ) between all tests.
(4) For the part of procedural knowledge, a significant prediction was only found for character recognition after controlling the factors of age and intelligence of the seventh graders; for the part of problem solving, both character recognition and reading comprehension showed significant prediction with a higher effect of character recognition than reading comprehension, which showed character recognition has its own influence on problem solving.
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Huang, Lin-Hui, and 黃琳惠. "The Effects of Peer Instruction on Improving Reading Comprehension Ability for Elementary School Students with Low Reading Ability." Thesis, 2009. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/84938917759271742198.
Full textAbstract:
碩士<br>國立臺北教育大學<br>特殊教育學系碩士班<br>98<br>The fundamental of this research was to evaluate the enhance effectiveness of peer instruction for reading comprehension ability toward the elementary school students with low reading ability. The independent variable of this research was peer instruction which focused on seven important story grammar components including time, character, place, initial event, process, consequence, and thought. The dependent variables of this research were the abilities of oral reading fluency and story grammar.
The research adopted single subject research design with A-B design method and performed continuous ten week instruction on five low reading ability students.
Through chart display, and questionnaire analysis, the conclusions could be described as follows:
1. After the experimental instruction on five students with low reading ability, one student achieved the expected target standard, two students demonstrated improvement, and the other two students only demonstrated momentous improvement on the first two weeks, but the performance did not stable on the rest of eight weeks.
2. Students with low reading ability increased the frequency of using coherent elements in the story grammar expression as experiment processed. Some students with low reading ability decreased the frequency of using phonetic symbols or writing errata.
3. Students with low reading ability and parents expressed satisfaction for the peer instruction.
The results of this research offered some suggestion for future relevant research and teaching strategies for elementary students with low reading ability:
1. Students with medium and high reading abilities should be monitored at the same time.
2. Experimental instruction time should be extended.
3. Experimental materials should be added phonetic notations and modified properly
4. Instruction time should be chosen on early studies by oneself and noon break.
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Geier, B. Kelly. "MORPHOLOGICAL AWARENESS, READING ABILITY, AND THE READING OF MULTI-MORPHEMIC WORDS." Thesis, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1974/5567.
Full textAbstract:
This study examines the effects of morphological awareness and reading ability on the accuracy and speed of reading multi-morphemic words. Test of word reading ability and morphological awareness were given to 134 Grade 5 students. They also completed a test of their ability to read morphologically complex words, in which accuracy and response times were recorded. Two sets of response time scores were calculated – the first taking into account only the accurately pronounced words, and the second taking into account both the accurately and the inaccurately pronounced words. These words varied in surface frequency, base frequency, and transparency. Analysis of variances indicated that multi-morphemic word reading accuracy and speed were positively related to reading ability, morphological awareness, surface and base frequencies, and transparency. Significant interactions showed that (a) high base frequency increased reading accuracy and speed for words with low surface frequency, particularly for the less able students, and (b) the combination of high base frequency and transparency increased reading accuracy and speed for words with low surface frequency. Findings were similar for accuracy and both sets of response time scores. These results imply that morphological knowledge is involved in the reading of multi-morphemic words, suggesting that investigation of instruction that targets the morphological characteristics of words is warranted.<br>Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2010-04-19 18:50:46.661
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Lee, Chung-li, and 李中莉. "PROMOTING READING COMPREHENSION ABILITY AND VOCABULARY LEARNING THROUGH COLLABORATIVE STRATEGIC READING." Thesis, 2003. http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/74867727757856222370.
Full textAbstract:
碩士<br>國立台北師範學院<br>兒童英語教育研究所<br>91<br>English education in primary schools has been highly valued in recent years. However, the reading instruction has not been put on as much emphasis as the speaking and listening instructions. Since reading is the central means for independent learning especially for EFL learners, the study is intended to conduct a reading strategy instruction, which is called the Collaborative Strategic Reading, to promote primary school students’ reading proficiency and to understand how they apply reading strategies.
The Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR), which is proposed by J. K. Klingner and S. Vaughn in 1999, is found effective on enhancing reading comprehension ability, academic performance, and content learning on ESL students in the United States. CSR combines the principles of cooperative learning and reciprocal teaching. It is aimed to help students apply reading strategies through cooperative group discussion. In the CSR instructional context, students first learn reading strategies from their teacher and then apply the strategies through small, heterogeneous group discussion without their teacher’s directing. They cooperate and help each other dealing with the difficult words or concept in text. Besides, they record their discussion in their reading logs.
There were sixty-three fifth-grade students participating in this study. They were pretested and postested on the proficiency of word-naming, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. Students practiced CSR in the experimental group, and their conversation in cooperative group discussion was transcribed and analyzed three times. In the control group, students received the traditional teacher-directed reading instruction. All the subjects read seven storybooks and two worksheets in fourteen weeks in this study. After posttesting, a questionnaire was used to examine students’ attitudes towards CSR.
The findings of the study are summarized as the following:
(1) CSR promotes students’ reading comprehension ability effectively, however, it does not enhance students’ word-naming and vocabulary abilities effectively in this study.
(2) Students in the CSR context have progress in using reading strategies over time.
(3) CSR facilitates students’ positive reading attitudes.
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Proença, Jorge Daniel Leonardo. "Automatic assessment of reading ability of children." Doctoral thesis, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10316/83815.
Full textAbstract:
Tese no âmbito do doutoramento em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores, especialização em Computadores e Electrónica, apresentada à Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra.<br>The work detailed in this thesis proposes solutions to automatically evaluate the reading ability of children, targeted towards European Portuguese. Contributions were made towards the state of the art of reading assessment by using sentences and pseudowords, proposing sentence utterance segmentation strategies that consider disfluencies and by proposing multiple features both for mispronunciation classification and overall reading performance estimation.
Knowing how to read is one of the most important markers of a child's cognitive development. Teachers usually have to expend a large effort to properly evaluate a child's reading aloud performance on a 1-on-1 basis, manually taking notes for accuracy and time. A tool that records and automatically analyzes reading tasks could be an important complement for reading evaluation. The objectives of this work were to develop methods that support an automatic reading evaluation of children 6 to 10 years old. Providing an overall reading aloud level score can be useful to quickly get an appreciation of a child's ability and follow their evolution along time and to combine the information of several metrics that teachers take into account when evaluating a child.
A large European Portuguese database of children reading aloud was collected to have sufficient data to train acoustic models and to have a large number of examples of reading disfluencies. The reading tasks presented to children were carefully designed by selecting appropriate sentences and generating pseudowords, distributed throughout tasks according to a difficulty metric. Several types of disfluencies were identified, with the most common being mispronunciations, false-starts, repetitions and intra-word pauses. Consequently, these were the ones targeted for automatic detection.
Several strategies were developed to automatically detect reading disfluencies and get automatic annotation of utterances. All followed the same two-step basis: segmentation that detects extra content, and mispronunciation classification. First, segmentation is achieved by constrained decoding lattices based on the ideal pronunciation of the prompt text but allowing freedom of repetition and syllable-based false starts. The best approach uses syllables as units and allows optional silence between each syllable to address the problem of intra-word pauses. Decoding an utterance results in word candidate segments that will be classified as correctly pronounced or not. The best performing feature to classify mispronunciations was a log-likelihood ratio between the ideal pronunciation and a free-phone-loop filler model, done in a word-spotting manner. Additional features of likelihoods of individual phonemes and Levenshtein distances between correct pronunciation and recognized phonemes are combined in multi-feature models.
Elementary school teachers were asked to rate the overall reading level score of children as 0-5, resulting in a ground truth of reading score. Regression models to estimate these scores were trained based on performance features extracted from the automatic annotation, with separate features for the reading of sentences or pseudowords. Gaussian process regression models achieved the best results from automatic annotation, with results closely approaching the use of features extracted from manual annotation.
Two applications of the developed work were built: a demo and a prototype website. The demo application showcases the methodology applied to the children of the collected dataset. The prototype website is a platform for teachers where they can assign reading tasks to several students, tell children to read tasks using a microphone, and analyze the automatically given performance score and utterance annotations.<br>O trabalho detalhado nesta tese propõe soluções para automaticamente avaliar a capacidade de leitura de crianças, tendo como alvo o Português europeu. Foram feitas contribuições para o estado da arte de avaliação de leitura ao usar frases e pseudopalavras, ao propor estratégias de segmentação de locuções de frases que consideram disfluências e ao propor vários parâmetros quer para classificação de pronunciações incorretas como para estimação de capacidade de leitura geral.
Saber ler é um dos mais importantes marcadores do desenvolvimento cognitivo de uma criança. Os professores têm habitualmente de despender um grande esforço a avaliar decentemente a capacidade de leitura em voz alta de uma criança, um a um, manualmente tirando notas de exatidão e tempo. Uma ferramenta que grave e automaticamente analise tarefas de leitura poderá ser um importante complemento à avaliação de leitura. Os objetivos deste trabalho foram desenvolver métodos que suportem uma avaliação automática da leitura de crianças de 6 a 10 anos de idade. Fornecer um valor de nível geral de leitura em voz alta pode ser útil para rapidamente obter um apreciação da capacidade de uma criança e seguir a sua evolução ao longo do tempo e para combinar a informação de várias métricas que os professores têm em conta quando avaliam uma criança.
Uma grande base de dados de Português europeu de crianças a ler em voz alta foi adquirida para ter dados suficientes para treino de modelos acústicos e para ter um largo número de exemplos de disfluências da leitura. As tarefas de leitura apresentadas às crianças foram cuidadosamente construídas seleccionando frases apropriadas e gerando pseudopalavras, distribuídas ao longo das tarefas de acordo com uma métricas de dificuldade. Vários tipos de disfluências foram identificados, com os mais comuns sendo pronunciações incorretas, pré-correções, repetições e pausas intra-palavra. Consequentemente, estes foram o alvo de detecção automática.
Foram desenvolvidas várias estratégias para automaticamente detetar disfluências da leitura e obter anotação automática de locuções. Todas seguiram a mesma base de duas fases: segmentação que deteta conteúdo extra, e classificação de pronunciações incorretas. Primeiro, segmentação é conseguida por gramáticas de descodificação restritas baseadas na pronunciação ideal do texto mas permitindo liberdade de repetição e pré-correções baseadas em sílabas. O melhor método usa sílabas como unidades e permite silêncio opcional entre cada sílaba para responder ao problema de pausas intra-palavra. Descodificar uma locução resulta em segmentos candidatos de palavra que serão classificados como correta ou incorretamente pronunciados. O melhor parâmetro para classificar pronunciações incorretas foi uma razão de verosimilhança logarítmica entre a pronunciação ideal e um modelo de enchimento com todos os fones em paralelo, feita de uma forma semelhante a deteção de palavras. Parâmetros adicionais de verosimilhanças individuais de fonemas e de distâncias de Levenshtein entre pronunciação correta e fonemas reconhecidos foram combinados em modelos de múltiplos parâmetros.
Professores do 1º ciclo do ensino básico foram convidados a avaliar o nível geral de leitura de crianças em 0-5, resultando em valores de referência. Modelos de regressão que estimem estes valores foram treinados baseados em parâmetros extraídos da anotação automática, com parâmetros diferentes para a leitura de frases e de pseudopalavras. Modelos de regressão de processos Gaussianos obtiveram os melhores resultados com anotação automática, resultados que se aproximaram do uso de parâmetros extraídos da anotação manual.
Duas aplicações do trabalho desenvolvido foram construídas: uma demo e um website protótipo. A demo apresenta a metodologia desenvolvida aplicada às crianças da base de dados adquirida. O website protótipo é uma plataforma para professores onde estes podem atribuir tarefas de leitura a vários alunos, dizer às crianças para lerem tarefas usando um microfone, e analisar o nível de leitura automático e a anotação automática.