Reading Development and Difficulties

1 Introduction to the study of reading 1

What is reading? 2

The relationship between written and spoken language 4

How to study reading development and reading difficulties 14

Overview of the rest of this book 20

2 Skilled word reading 25

Word reading: Assessment and sources of variation 26

Models of skilled word recognition 36

3 The skilled comprehender 47

What do we forget and what do we remember? 48

Local and global coherence 52

Models of text representation 59

4 Learning to read words 67

Ways to read words 68

Skills and knowledge that aid word reading development 74

Phases of word reading development 81

What drives word reading development? 85

5 The development of reading comprehension 95

The relations between word reading, listening comprehension and reading comprehension 96

Skills and knowledge that support reading comprehension 99

Reading comprehension development 112

6 Developmental dyslexia 121

Developmental dyslexia: Definitions and characteristics 122

Theories of dyslexia 126

A look at subtypes: Are all dyslexic children the same or do different types of dyslexic exist? 134

Dyslexia across the lifespan: Precursors, compensation and consequences 140

7 Reading comprehension difficulties 147

What is poor reading comprehension? 148

Sources of discourse comprehension failure 153

Causes of discourse comprehension failure 164

The consequences of poor discourse comprehension 166

8 Instruction and intervention 171

Instruction and interventions for word reading 172

Instruction and interventions for reading comprehension 179

Support and instruction for reading development 185

9 The assessment of reading 191

Assessment matters 192

Word reading assessment: What, when and how? 196

The assessment of reading comprehension: What, when and how? 201

10 The Simple View of Reading: A framework for the study of reading development and reading difficulties 213

The Simple View of Reading: A brief overview 214

The Simple View of Reading and reading development 215

The Simple View of Reading and reading difficulties 218

The Simple View of Reading: An evaluation 219

Reading development and reading difficulties: Implications 220

Conclusions 221

Bibliography 223

Glossary 247

Index 253