Vandana G. Kotapally
Grand Canyon University: SPE 557
04/25/2012
Abstract
Causes of dyslexia or reading disabilities have been hotly debated by researchers and educators. Knowledge regarding the causes of reading disabilities is important as they define the strategies that will used to help students with dyslexia learn. Dyslexia is caused by differences in the information processing patterns of learning disability students. Language and phonological skills have been found to be the main cause of reading problems. This paper presents a critique and summarizes a paper dealing with phonological skills and how they affect the ability to read. Besides this the paper will highlight the main findings of …show more content…
Melby-Lervåg, Lyster, & Hulme (2012) hypothesized three things. First that there will be correlation between student reading abilities and phonemic awareness, rime awareness and verbal short-term memory; second the strongest correlation will be between phonemic awareness and reading difficulties; third that after controlling the effects of rime awareness and verbal short-term memory, phonemic awareness would be the predictor that would have the most impact children’s reading skills. The results of the study supported all three hypotheses.
According to the analysis there was a significant correlation between phonemic awareness and child’s ability to read when compared with the same age matched children who did not have reading problems. The overall mean effect was -1.37 with a 95% confidence interval of -1.50, -1.23. Results also showed that children with reading difficulties performed 2.70 standard deviations below the students with no reading problems (Melby-Lervåg, Lyster, & Hulme, 2012).
On analyzing and comparing rime awareness and child’s ability to read with the same age matched children who did not have reading problems, the strength of correlation was significantly smaller that of phonemic awareness. The overall mean effect was -0.37 with a 95% confidence interval of -0.61, -0.12 (Melby-Lervåg, Lyster, & Hulme, 2012).
Lastly, analysis and comparison of verbal short-term memory and child’s ability to