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Children with specific reading-comprehension difficulties can read accurately, but they have poor comprehension. In a randomized controlled trial, we examined the efficacy of three interventions designed to improve such children's reading comprehension: text-comprehension (TC) training, oral-language (OL) training, and TC and OL training combined (COM). Children were assessed preintervention, midintervention, postintervention, and at an 11-month follow-up. All intervention groups made significant improvements in reading comprehension relative to an untreated control group. Although these gains were maintained at follow-up in the TC and COM groups, the OL group made greater gains than the other groups did between the end of the intervention and follow-up. The OL and COM groups also demonstrated significant improvements in expressive vocabulary compared with the control group, and this was a mediator of the improved reading comprehension of the OL and COM groups. We conclude that specific reading-comprehension difficulties reflect (at least partly) underlying oral-language weaknesses that can be effectively ameliorated by suitable teaching.

•This study investigates the lateralization of thalamocortical white matter connections in relation to reading abilities.•Significant microstructural differences in thalamocortical fiber tracts are observed between individuals with reading difficulties and controls.•Adults with a history of reading difficulties show reduced neural density in frontal and occipital thalamocortical connections.•Greater rightward lateralization of frontal-thalamic tracts is associated with poorer early reading performance in those with reading difficulties.•The findings suggest that early reading experiences have a long-term impact on the lateralization of thalamocortical connectivity. Previous research has shown that the thalamus is crucial in reading, with its function depending largely on its connections with the cortex. However, the relationship between the lateralization of thalamocortical connections and reading has not been well-explored. This study investigates the microstructure and its lateralization differences in thalamocortical white matter fiber tracts in individuals with varying reading abilities and explores their relationship with reading skills and early reading performances. The study involved 26 Mandarin-speaking adults with a history of reading difficulties and 35 typically developing Mandarin-speaking adults. Severity of reading difficulties were accessed via the Chinese Adult Reading History Questionnaire (C-ARHQ) self-reported by participants. Reading-related abilities including reading accuracy, phonological awareness, and rapid automatized naming were assessed. Neuroimaging data, including T1-weighted and diffusion-weighted images, were collected. Thalamocortical white matter fiber tracts were reconstructed using the constrained spherical deconvolution (CSD) model and grouped into six regions based on connections with bilateral brain areas. The Neurite Orientation Dispersion and Density Imaging (NODDI) model was employed to evaluate the microstructural properties of these tracts, calculating lateralization indices for the orientation dispersion index (ODI), neurite density index (NDI), and isotropic volume fraction (VISO). Results revealed that individuals with reading difficulties had significantly lower NDI values in the left and right frontal-thalamic and occipital-thalamic fiber tracts compared to good readers. Additionally, greater rightward lateralization of frontal-thalamic white matter fiber tracts was linked to poorer early reading performance in those with reading difficulties. Our study reveals atypical thalamocortical white matter connections in adults with a history of reading difficulties, and the lateralization of these connections is influenced by severity of early reading difficulties.

This article explores the learning barriers related to reading difficulties observed by Grade 7 teachers in their English First Additional Language (EFAL) classrooms. Utilising a qualitative research approach and case study design, the research gathered insights from twenty Grade 7 teachers at four mainstream primary schools in the Gauteng East District through purposive non-probability sampling. Data was collected through individual and focus group interviews, which were voice-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Thematic data analysis was applied to identify recurring patterns, with direct quotes from participants grouped into key themes. The study reveals that Grade 7 learners face significant challenges such as language difficulties, oral reading difficulties, comprehension difficulties, poor concentration, and lack of interest and motivation. The study recommends that teachers develop Individual Support Plans (ISPs) to address the specific needs of learners with reading difficulties. Additionally, Continuous Professional Teacher Development (CPTD) is essential to equip teachers with the tools to adapt their instructional strategies and foster more inclusive, supportive classroom environments. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by providing a deeper understanding of reading difficulties’ causes, prevalence, and impact. It offers practical insights for refining teaching practices, improving assessment methods, and informing educational policies to enhance literacy outcomes.

The current meta-analysis synthesized findings from profiling research on Chinese children with reading difficulties (RD). We reviewed a total of 81 studies published between 1964 and May 2015, representing a total of 9735 Chinese children. There are 982 effect sizes for the comparison between children with RD and agematched typically developing (A-TD) children and 152 effect sizes for the comparison between children with RD and reading-level-matched typically developing (R-TD) children on multiple linguistic and cognitive skills. Results showed that compared to A-TD children, children with RD have severe deficits in morphological awareness, orthographic knowledge, phonological awareness, rapid naming, working memory, and visual skills and moderate deficits in short-term memory and motor skills. Compared to R-TD children, children with RD only have moderate deficits in rapid naming and mild deficits in orthographic knowledge. Moderation analyses for the comparison between RD and A-TD children revealed that children with more severe RD show more severe deficits in morphological awareness, phonological awareness, rapid naming, and visual skills. However, neither location (Mainland vs. Hong Kong) nor type of reading screening (character recognition vs. character recognition combined with reading comprehension) emerged as a moderator of the deficit profiles. These findings indicate that Chinese children with RD have deficits on a wide range of cognitive and linguistic skills. Deficits in rapid naming and orthographic knowledge may be potential causal factors for RD in Chinese based on existing evidence. Implications for the diagnosis and instructions of Chinese children with RD were discussed.

In this longitudinal study, the word-level reading trajectories of 118 children were tracked alongside teachers’ reported concerns and types of support provided through Grades 1, 2 and 3. Results show a significant decline in composite scores relative to age norms over time, with children achieving significantly lower in phonemic decoding than word recognition at the subtest level. Five group trajectories were identified: children who achieved average or above average scores across all 3 years (n = 64), children who consistently bordered on average (n = 11), children who achieved below average in Grade 1 but who then achieved average or above in Grade 2 or Grade 3 (n = 7), children who achieved average or above in Grade 1 but then declined to below average in Grade 2 or Grade 3 (n = 10), and children who achieved below average across all 3 years (n = 26). Appropriately, teachers’ concerns were highest for students in the groups that improved, declined or remained persistently below average. However, analysis of the focus of teachers’ concerns and the supports they said were provided to the children in these three groups suggests that teachers are not always accurate in their interpretation of children’s presenting characteristics, resulting in the misalignment of support provision.

Reading difficulties have been associated with problems in psychological functioning, including challenges in both anxiety and self-efficacy. This study was designed to determine whether such psychological functioning problems are specific to the academic sphere or more global. First-year undergraduate students with and without a history of reading difficulties (n = 40 and 46, respectively) completed standardized questionnaires on general and academic anxiety, and social and academic self-efficacy. Students with a history of reading difficulties reported higher academic anxiety, but comparable general anxiety, relative to those with no such history. Students with a history of reading difficulties also reported lower academic self-efficacy, but comparable social self-efficacy, relative to those with no such history. These findings suggest that students with a history of reading difficulties, as compared to those without such history, experience academic-specific mental health symptoms involving heightened anxiety and low selfefficacy as they enter university. These results point to the need for focused and targeted assessments to be able to capture difficulties they experience with anxiety and selfefficacy and interventions to help them cope with these difficulties. More broadly, the findings have implications for how universities assess academic vulnerabilities and provide access to specific course accommodations.

With a focus on content-area reading, this study aimed to (a) understand the sources and prevalence of concurrent and specific difficulties in word-level skills, vocabulary, and knowledge among adolescent struggling readers (ASRs) and (b) explore the relations among reading skills, profiles, and reading comprehension. A dual-measure screening approach was used to classify a sample of 492 seventh- and eighth-graders. Among the subgroup of 225 ASRs, five distinct profiles were identified by latent profile analysis. The results confirmed the following: (a) the heterogeneity of reading difficulties in adolescents; (b) the universal prevalence of vocabulary difficulties across various language systems; and (c) the finding that fluency, rather than word accuracy, presents a more significant challenge at the word level in ASRs. Additionally, academic vocabulary knowledge and content-area knowledge independently predict content-area reading comprehension, even after accounting for general reading comprehension. This implies that preventive and remedial efforts for adolescent reading difficulties should prioritize and tailor crucial components of content-area reading.

Morphological processing is the use of morphological structure during word reading. This study investigated whether middle school students applied morphological structure automatically when reading words. In addition, this study asked whether students with word reading difficulties (WRD) applied morphological structure in a way that differed from proficient word readers. Participants were seventh- and eighth-grade students (n = 80). Students were divided into two reading ability groups: proficient word readers (n = 55) and students with word reading difficulties (n = 25). Four computer-administered experimental tasks measured automaticity in reading morphologically complex words and morphologically simple words. A backward masking measure assessed whether students were applying morphological structure automatically to support task accuracy. Students were significantly more accurate in masked performance with morphologically complex words than with morphologically simple words on an oral word reading task. Students with WRD benefitted more from morphological structure on this task than proficient readers did. Findings suggest that proficient word readers and students with WRD automatically apply morphological structure when reading words aloud. In addition, middle school students with WRD may rely more on morphological structure than their proficient peers. However, there may be differences in morphological processing based on the nature of word reading tasks.

Predicting the reading difficulty level of English texts is a critical process for second language education and assessment. Reading difficulty level is concerned with the problem of matching a reader’s proficiency and the appropriate text. The reading difficulty level or readability assessment is the process for predicting the reading grade level required from an input text or document, which corresponds to the reader and to the materials. Students in Jordan at their academic levels find obstacles in finding relevant readable data for any subject at their levels. This paper is intended to introduce a model that foretells the reading difficulty level of a given text in terms of a student's ability to read and understand English as a non-native English speaker in Jordanian schools. In this paper, Jordanian students were classified into four categories according to their knowledge of English. The prediction of the reading difficulty level is achieved by using a modern statistical model that is situated on the Bayes model. The model compares the given text with some standard predefined text that strongly reflects the ability to read and understand English text. The accuracy of the proposed model was tested using the hold-out method. The overall prediction accuracy was 75.9%.

An increasing number of students are entering university with reading difficulties—whether they be diagnosed or self-reported. Research demonstrates that university students who self-report a history of reading difficulties (HRD) have lower academic achievement and higher anxiety about academic performance as compared to peers without this history (NRD). Here we study other aspects of HRD students’ university experiences, focusing on alcohol consumption. Specifically, we investigated the drinking motives and personality characteristics likely to increase risk of hazardous alcohol consumption among HRD vs. NRD undergraduates. We identified 42 HRD and 54 NRD participants based on responses to a reading history questionnaire. Participants completed questionnaires assessing hazardous drinking, drinking motives, and alcohol-risk personality traits. Both groups reported similarly high levels of hazardous drinking. HRD students reported drinking more to conform with peers, and less to enhance positive moods, than NRD students. HRD students also scored higher in the alcohol personality risk of impulsivity. Our results support a unique pattern of motives and personality risks among HRD students, a pattern that likely puts them at increased risk for sustained hazardous drinking. Clinical implications for preventing problem drinking among HRD undergraduates are considered.