Conference Agenda

Rapid Automatized Naming, (RAN, a measure of the ability to name aloud objects, colours, digits or letters) and phonological awareness are two reading-related measures that are shown to predict early reading ability strongly and reliably (e.g., Moll et al., 2014; Caravolas et al., 2019). However, the relevance and predictive power of each individual measure is still under debate. This study focuses the influence of RAN on early reading ability, problematizing to what extent RAN contributes to assessments aiming to predict reading ability. The main aim, however, is to problematize how this knowledge is best to put into practice. Thus, when is RAN relevant to use as an indicator of reading ability and when are other indicators more relevant?

Because of the efforts being made to identify children, at an early stage, who are at risk of reading difficulties children are in school screened for their reading ability. But screening children is both time-consuming and costly, and therefore it must be well thought out what is being screened for, how to interpret results, but also how are the results to be used and implemented in the school's operations? Thus, given that children's time in school is limited, any activity that focuses on reading achievement must in one way or another be based on knowledge established to improve reading. Hence, the time it takes to screen children needs to be balanced against the time it takes from teaching.

In previous research, RAN is claimed to be a measure of phonological processing time and reflects how fast representations can be retrieved from long-term memory (Bowey et al., 2005; Torgesen, et al., 1997). Further it has been debated whether RAN and phonological awareness each contribute unique information to early reading, or if the measures will be merely two ways of measuring one ability, phonological processing. For example, Chiappe et al. (2002) found that most of the variance contributed by RAN to reading ability is shared with phonological awareness. Further, and in line with the understanding of RAN and phonological awareness being two sides of the same coin, it is claimed by Ziegler et al. (2010) that RAN will only become the dominant predictor when phonological awareness tasks are not challenging enough.

However, another view is that RAN and phonological awareness are two distinct measures predicting early reading ability (Torppa et al., 2013). In a cross-sectional study de Groot et al., (2015) compared reading disabled children with more skilled readers and found that for the reading disabled children the combination of RAN and phonological awareness showed the highest predictive values. When comparing the effects of phonological awareness and RAN on reading ability phonological awareness appears to be the best predictor of reading disability whilst RAN is indicated to be the best predictor of above-average to excellent reading ability (de Groot et al., 2015).

Other longitudinal studies show that the predictive power of RAN and phonological awareness on reading appears to change by age (e.g. Kirby at al., 2003; Vaessen & Blomert, 2010) and hypothesized by some researchers to be connected to the reading strategy used (Vaessen & Blomert, 2010; Rodriguez et al., 2015). Reading development is assumed to shift from a slow sequential phonological decoding to an automatic orthographic processing (Ehri, 2005).

In order to investigate the relevance of RAN in reading assessment, the present study measured RAN repeatedly among a group of children who were followed from kindergarten through their time in elementary school.

An abundance of research has established that phonological awareness skills are important prerequisites for early reading acquisition (for a review, see Melby-Lervåg et al., 2012). Early develop­ment of phonological awareness implies that a child moves from implicit to explicit control of the sound structure of language, and this explicit control is critical when a child learns to understand and handle the alphabetic principle (e.g., Caravolas et al., 2013; Lundberg et al., 2010). Accordingly, there has been a long tradition of research on phonological training to prevent failure to acquire reading skills. Early examples of such studies are Bradley and Bryant (1983) and Lundberg, Frost and Petersen (1988), and results from later training studies have been summarized in several meta-analyses (e.g., Bus & Van Ijzendoorn, 1999, National Early Literacy Panel, 2008). However, even though the results of the training studies show positive effects, Torgesen (2000) found that around two to six percent of the participants in phonological interventions could be defined as “treatment resisters”. Thus, some children do not grasp the idea of phonemes as discrete entities, and they do not seem to enhance their phonological skills to an acceptable level by the training.

Most phonological interventions have been carried out in combination with, or just before, formal reading instruction starts, and studies have typically investigated development over short periods (Kjeldsen et al., 2019). In the present study phonological awareness training was carried out when children were four and five years old (school starts at age 7 in Sweden). The intention was to begin the study at this early stage when children’s explicit awareness of the structure of speech starts to emerge (Wolff & Gustafsson, 2015; Dodd & Gillon, 2001). The training addressed different aspects of phonological awareness, gradually moving from games and exercises with morphemes and syllables to phonemes. Explicit training of phoneme/grapheme mapping (National Reading Panel, 2000) was later introduced when children were six years old, one year before formal reading instruction started. This training was given to all children regardless of whether they belonged to the experimental or control group. Thus, since everyone received the six-year-old training, the potential effects in this study are derived from the early training at ages 4 and 5.

General fluid intelligence (Gf) is a core concept in the field of intelligence. It is interpreted as the capacity to solve novel, complex problems. Gf is highly correlated with phonological awareness in 4-year-old children (Wolff & Gustafsson, 2015), and both phonology and Gf have been found to relate to early reading ability. de Jong & van der Leij (1999) found that when Gf was controlled for, the relation between phonology and reading decreased, and the direct effect of Gf on reading decreased over time. These findings support the hypothesis that the influence of Gf on early reading skills is mediated through the development of phonological awareness. Thus, we may expect that children with high Gf typically will have a more favorable development of phonological awareness skills. One important question here is if the phonological training will decrease or increase this putative influence.

The research questions are: 1) Does structured phonological awareness training starting at the age of 4 affect reading related skills ten years later in grade 8? and 2) Are there differential effects of phonological awareness training as a function of children’s cognitive abilities? The present study thus aims at extending on the rich knowledge of effects of preventive phonological interventions preceding reading instruction. As to our knowledge there are very few previous studies which investigate long-term effects of phonological awareness training during a ten-year period.

A high percentage of students have considerable reading deficits, not only in Germany, but also in other European countries (Betthäuser et al. 2023; Wallner-Paschon et al. 2017). Therefore, formative diagnostics are essential to record the current learning levels of students so that specific interventions can be shaped at an early stage. This discourse has been intensified in Germany as a result of the significant increase in heterogeneity at primary schools and the disconcerting learning deficits of a large number of primary school children after the COVID-19 pandemic (Stanat et al. 2022). As a result, the German Standing Scientific Commission of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Federal States recommends the early intensification of nationwide diagnostics and the "provision of scientifically based, quality-assured diagnostic instruments and related support instruments" as formative diagnostics to ensure basic competencies (Köller et al. 2022, p. 74). Additionally, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), is not only conducted through a computer-based assessment since 2016, but also has a focus point in digital forms of reading (Mullis & Martin 2019).

In the collaborative BMBF-funded project DaF-L (digital everyday integrated supportive diagnostic - reading in inclusive education) an adaptive, digital and competence-oriented reading screening with adapted reading packages, consisting of reading texts and reading exercises, is being developed, tested, standardized, and subsequently made available as OER on the online learning application Levumi for the third grade of primary schools in Germany. For the project partners of four German universities an essential component in the development and improvement of digital applications is the cooperation between practice and research. Interviews with experts will be conducted in order to advance the reading packages as well as Levumi. The goal is to ensure a direct transfer of research to practice by examining the ecological validity and usability of the instrument as well as the professional development of the partners in the schools with regard to this unique form of the adaptive approach. Ensuing this, the objective is to enable low-threshold, data-based, and effective reading support, to identify conditions for the success of everyday support-based diagnostics and to improve the conditions for inclusive education in primary schools.

The reading packages for promoting reading comprehension in inclusive classes contain reading texts on three ability levels and reading tasks tailored to them. The reading packages are intended to promote the reading skill reading fluently and the reading abilities reading comprehension and strategies for reading comprehension. The ability to read fluently implies that the students can read “quietly, aloud, automatically, accurately, meaningfully, and quickly (KMK 2020, p. 16).” The students have to read texts and solve reading exercises; therefore, they read both repeatedly (Mayer 2018) and a lot (Kruse et al. 2015), thus promoting reading fluency. In the case of reading comprehension, the students read texts that correspond to their ability level and understand the meaning. Skills involve students identifying textual information at the local level, either explicit or gleaned through simple inferencing. In doing so, they also pay attention to linguistic means to ensure the context of the text as well as link text information, draw conclusions, and construct an overall understanding using their previous knowledge (KMK 2020). In the case of possessing strategies for reading comprehension or reading strategies, the students know to use basic cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies after reading. They work with after-reading strategies such as central text statements (KMK 2020).

The global question of how students can benefit from digital reading packages and how the usability of the application can be improved through collaboration between educators and researchers will be explored.

The educational inclusion of children with chronic disorders – such as developmental and physical disabilities – is a well-studied area, across Europe and globally. The siblings of these children, however, are less studied, particularly in relation to their educational experiences and outcomes. Siblings of children with chronic disorders have divergent, and often adverse, life experiences. Some siblings may experience positive outcomes, such as increases in prosocial functioning (Orm et al., 2022). Overall, however, siblings are at risk for negative psychological effects including emotional and behavioural problems (Havill et al., 2019; Vermaes et al., 2012). Reduced psychological well-being, in turn, can affect siblings’ educational experiences, functioning, and outcomes (Gan et al., 2017).

Studies of siblings of children with chronic disorders (herein “siblings”) tend to utilise mainly parent and self-ratings on measures of psychosocial well-being (Hayden et al., 2019). While these perspectives are important, they offer limited insight into the functioning of siblings within a school environment, particularly in the case of parent-rated measures. Given the centrality of school to children’s daily lives and the importance of education outcomes to later life outcomes, it is essential to consider the perspectives of teachers on sibling well-being. The present study aims to address this gap by examining:

1) Teacher ratings for siblings on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ)

2) Agreement between teacher and parent ratings on the SDQ, and

3) Factors that may explain disagreement between raters.

Previous studies of child psychosocial functioning – generally, rather than specific to siblings of children with chronic disorders – have found low to moderate levels of agreement between teacher and parent ratings on the SDQ (Murray et al., 2021). This pattern is also found across different measures of child psychosocial functioning. Across these studies, teachers tend to report fewer problems than parents, particularly in the case of internalising problems. Rather than signalling poor reliability of measures, however, the discrepancy between teacher and parent ratings suggests that children’s behaviour is context and rater-specific. Teacher and parent ratings may be seen as complimentary pieces of a larger picture and understanding differences can facilitate better targeted interventions (De Los Reyes et al., 2015). A number of factors may explain a lack of interrater agreement on the SDQ and other measures of child psychosocial functioning. Factors of the home environment, for example, can influence the level of agreement between raters; family stress has been found to be associated with less agreement between teacher and parent ratings while positive parent-child relationship is associated with more agreement (Cheng et al., 2018).

Overall, little is known about the educational experiences of siblings of children with chronic disorders. Furthermore, the SDQ is widely used across European countries and globally. A better understanding of the conditions under which teacher – parent agreement tends to be higher and lower will help researchers and practitioners to interpret SDQ ratings and target solutions and support accordingly.