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Language abilities and progress in a direct instruction reading program for students with learning disabilities.
1Department of Special Educational Services/Instruction, Glassboro State College, New Jersey.
Journal of Learning Disabilities
|February 1, 1991
Summary
Direct instruction reading programs help many students with learning disabilities. This study found phonological skills aid word recognition and syntactic skills aid reading comprehension for these students.
Area of Science:
- Education
- Psychology
- Linguistics
Background:
- Direct instruction reading programs are widely used for students with learning disabilities.
- However, not all students achieve success with these methods.
- Individual student abilities may influence reading program outcomes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between language abilities and reading improvement in students with learning disabilities.
- To determine if phonological and syntactic skills predict reading gains in this population.
Main Methods:
- Longitudinal study over 2 years with 26 students (7-10 years old) with learning disabilities.
- Assessment of reading progress, phonological abilities, and syntactic abilities.
Main Results:
- Phonological ability was significantly related to progress in word attack skills.
- Syntactic ability was significantly related to improvement in reading comprehension skills.
Conclusions:
- Phonological and syntactic abilities are key factors in reading success for students with learning disabilities.
- Tailoring reading instruction to individual language strengths may enhance outcomes.