Literacy Interventions

Question 1

What happens when we read a known word?

Answer 1

In the Dual Route Models of Reading, we would use the lexical route route of processing.
1) Letter identification of each letter
2) Access orthographic lexicon (visual word recognition through existing memories for written words)
3) Access any semantic representations of the word
4) Access the phonological lexicon (through memories for spoken words)
5) In the phoneme output, the sound is held in the phonological working memory and produced

Question 2

What happens when we read an unknown word?

Answer 2

Use the non-lexical route of processing:

Question 3

What is letter identification dyslexia?

Answer 3

When there is impaired letter identification. The child may know few letters, including their name, sound and ability to copy. In extreme form, produces non-readers.

Question 4

What is letter position dyslexia?

Answer 4

When there is an impairment in position coding of letters. There are letter order errors in:
- Reading aloud (e.g. cloud as could)
- Define written words (could as ‘makes rain’)
- Difficulty with word/non word decisions (brid is identified as a word).
Often associated with poor spelling.

Question 5

What is developmental surface dyslexia?

Answer 5

Impaired irregular word reading (e.g. sounding out come as comb, or word guessing yacht as yak). Due to impairment in (black) lexical route of reading, while (pink) non-lexical route is intact.

So more likely to sound words out, which doesn’t work for irregular words

Question 6

What is phonological dyslexia?

Answer 6

Difficulty with nonword reading due to impaired (pink) non-lexical route of reading (difficulty sounding out), while lexical route is intact. Words that are not known (ie don’t have an orthographic lexical entry) are difficult.

Non words are read as words (gop as gob) and word guessing (yacht as yeti) - over reliance on their orthographic lexicon/word knowledge.

Question 7

What is developmental mixed dyslexia?

Answer 7

When nonword and irregular word reading is impaired, due to impairments in both the lexical and non-lexical route of reading.

Question 8

What are poor comprehenders?

Answer 8

Reading is age-appropriate but lack understanding/comprehension, therefore do not understand what they have read. A spoken language difficulty that plays out in reading.

Associated with an impairment in semantics and phonological lexicon components of the lexical route of reading.

Question 9

What is poor phonological output?

Answer 9

Symptoms include:
- shorter memory spans
- difficulties in all aspects of spoken language (poor nonword repetition, nonword reading)
- difficulties with longer items (spoken and reading)
- sound substitutions, deletions, additions are common, with more mistakes on longer words.

Because phoneme output is at the end of the dual route model of reading, it effects everything in the model.

Question 10

How would you test for letter identification?

Answer 10

• Cross case matching: asking the child to select a particular letter either in their upper or lower case form. No norms but should score at ceiling, >2 mistakes is a red flag
• Cross case copying: show the child the upper case letter and ask them to produce it’s lower case letter, or vice versa.
• There might be indications on other tests too: check for letter substitutions and always administer a letter identification test when they can barely read words or non words

Question 11

How would you test for letter position coding?

Answer 11

• Reading anagram words (‘LetPos’ on motif with Australian norms). They see a list of words and complete an error analysis looking for letter position errors (slime as smile), word errors (slime as simmer) and non word errors (slime as slig)
• Don’t administer if lexical skills (CC2, irregular word) are in the lowest 15 %

Question 12

How would you test the lexical (black) route of processing?

Answer 12

For the entire route:
- CC2 (particularly irregular words) - AUS norms grades 1-6
- WJIII/WJIV/WRMT - grades 7 and up
- could consider asking the child to read faster as they can’t read slow enough to allow for sounding out, therefore placing more demand on the orthographic and phonological lexicon from the lexical route

For semantics and phonological lexicon
- Vocab test (e.g. ACE spoken naming)

Question 13

How would you test the non lexical route of processing?

Answer 13

For entire non lexical route:
- Nonword reading tests (CC2, TOWRE non words, WRMT, WIAT-III, WJ-III/IV)

When non word reading is impaired, we want to know why, so need further testing in:
- Letter to sound rules (Letter Sound Test or Diagnostic Nonword Reading Test)
- Blending (Non Word Blending from CTOPP)

Question 14

How would you test reading comprehension?

Answer 14

Complex due to format and general difficulty with testing comprehension.
Specific tests:
- Neale Analysis of Reading Ability (NARA)
- YARC
- WIAT-III reading comp

Relevant language skills (potentially SLP ref)
- Vocab (semantics > phonological lexicon)
- Grammar
- Listening comp
- Verbal WM

Question 15

A child who has poor text reading accuracy and text reading comprehension but intact understanding of spoken paragraphs (by the clinician) would be in which quadrant

Answer 15

In the top left quadrant (poor word recognition but good language comprehension) b/c they have problems with reading but can comprehend oral info, so reading was likely impacting on their written text comprehension

Question 16

A child who has intact text reading accuracy but poor text reading comprehension and poor understanding of spoken paragraphs (by the clinician) would be in which quadrant

Answer 16

In bottom right quadrant (good word recognition but poor language comp) b/c they read accurately but can’t understand spoken and written information

Question 17

A child who has poor text reading accuracy, poor text reading comprehension and poor understanding of spoken paragraphs (by the clinician) would be in which quadrant

Answer 17

In the bottom left (poor word recognition and poor language comp) because they struggle with word recognition and the language side of things

Question 18

How would you test phonological output?

Answer 18

Specific tests and error patterns
- nonword repetitions
- length effects (word reading, repetition) - digit span useful
- sound substitution, deletion, addition, transposition
- morphological errors

Question 19

What treatment is available for letter position coding?

Answer 19

• different modifications to text are applied (larger spaces between letters, symbols between letters that might be moving, colouring every letter in different colours)
• finger tracking while reading: better modification for the group compared to others. This helps to track place while reading

Question 20

What treatment is available for lexical processing difficulties? (Along the black route)

Answer 20

• sight word recognition (present words again and again to increase exposure for trained words)
• self teaching
• specific teaching
• text reading
• mispronunciation correction text reading

Question 21

What treatment is available for non lexical processing? (Pink route)

Answer 21

Explicit systematic phonics.
When the letter sounds are taught, and reading different graphemes in sentences and texts.

Question 22

What treatments are available for poor comprehension

Answer 22

• lots of different treatments available and dependent on the text
• But main idea is to teach vocab alongside deep engagement with the text (what is the text asking, clarification, summarising, question generation)