Reading Processes of University Students with Dyslexia – An Examination of the Relationship between Oral Reading and Reading Comprehension

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the quality of oral reading and how it relates to reading comprehension in students with dyslexia. A group of Danish university students with dyslexia (n = 16) and a comparison group of students with no history of reading problems (n = 16) were assessed on their oral reading performance when reading a complex text. Along with reading speed, we measured not only the number and quality of reading errors but also the extent and semantic nature of the self-corrections during reading. The reading comprehension was measured through aided text retellings. The results showed that, as a group, the dyslexics performed poorer on most measures, but there were notable within-group differences in the reading behaviours and little association between how well university students with dyslexia read aloud and comprehended the text. These findings suggest that many dyslexics in higher education tend to focus their attention on one subcomponent of the reading process, for example, decoding or comprehension, because engaging in both simultaneously may be too demanding for them. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Differences in the literacy skills of Danish dyslexic students in two types of higher education programmes

“…In a study of children without a history of literacy difficulties, an effect of morphological complexity on working memory efficiency was found (Cohen‐Mimran, Adwan‐Mansour, & Sapir, ), and our clinical experience indicates that morphological complexity also challenges Danish students with literacy difficulties. Moreover, several studies of reading comprehension show that text complexity challenges the cognitive reading processes (Daneman & Carpenter, ; Kendeou, Van Den Broek, Helder, & Karlsson, ; Kintsch, ; Pedersen et al, ). Clearly, further research is needed to determine if memory variables differentiate the two subgroups.…”

“…Moreover, several studies of reading comprehension show that text complexity challenges the cognitive reading processes (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980;Kendeou, Van Den Broek, Helder, & Karlsson, 2014;Kintsch, 1998;Pedersen et al, 2016). Clearly, further research is needed to determine if memory variables differentiate the two subgroups.…”

“…To our knowledge, few studies have examined how dyslexic students cope with syntactically complex texts, possibly due to the tendency of dyslexia research to focus on the word level. An exception is a recent study by Pedersen et al (2016), which found that university students with dyslexia had more difficulty with accuracy and fluency in oral reading of a complex text than their peers but had similar levels of comprehension. Interestingly, these results indicated little association between how well the participants with dyslexia read the text aloud and how well they understood the text.…”

“…This study focuses on students in higher education with learning challenges caused by literacy difficulties due to dyslexia. Such students are often termed “high‐functioning dyslexics” (e.g., Gallagher, Laxon, Armstrong, & Frith, ; Pedersen, Fusaroli, Lauridsen, & Parrila, ) because they have succeeded in being enrolled in educational institutions assumed to require good literacy skills, such as universities (e.g., Hatcher, Snowling, & Griffiths, ; Kirby, Silvestri, Allingham, Parrila, & La Fave, ). Studies of such students have shown, in line with the phonological deficit theory of dyslexia (Lyon, Shaywitz, & Shaywitz, ), that many high‐functioning dyslexic students experience persistent problems in phonological awareness (e.g., Gallagher et al, ; Hatcher et al, ; Parrila, Georgiou, & Corkett, ; Snowling, Nation, Moxham, Gallagher, & Frith, ), nonword reading (e.g., Re, Tressoldi, Cornoldi, & Lucangeli, ; Tops, Callens, Lammertyn, Van Hees, & Brysbaert, ), and spelling (e.g., Kemp, Parrila, & Kirby, ; Snowling et al, ; Tops, Callens, Van Cauwenberghe, Adriaens, & Brysbaert, ).…”

Prevalence of Developmental Dyslexia in Spanish University Students

“…Still, university students with a history of reading problems confess avoiding courses where they have to learn lots of new words [ 14 ] and, when confronted with information-gathering in a different language, they cope with the internet more easily than with textbooks [ 16 ]. In any case, attending to both decoding and comprehension in this group of students is difficult, a fact that may lead to a poorer performance in some measures [ 17 ]. There is also evidence of a deficit in the processing of sentences with a subordinate structure that takes a toll on working memory [ 18 , 19 ].…”