Differential Diagnosis of Common Learning Disabilities

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

Supekar K, et al. Cognitive tutoring induces widespread neuroplasticity and remediates brain function in children with mathematical learning disabilities. Nature Communications. 2015;**6**:8453

[54] Misciagna S, Iuvone L, Mariotti P, Silveri MC. Verbal short-term memory and cerebellum: Evidence from a patient with congenital cerebellar vermis hypoplasia. Neurocase. 2009:1-6

[55] Alvarez TA, Fiez JA. Current perspectives on the cerebellum and reading development. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. 2018;**92**:55-66

[56] Misciagna S. Cerebellar

[57] Nicolson RI, Fawcett AJ,

contribution to cognitive, emotional and behavioral functions in children with cerebellar abnormalities. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology. 2011;**53**(12):1075-1076

Dean P. Developmental dyslexia: The cerebellar deficit hypothesis. Trends in Neurosciences. 2001;**24**:508-511

**40**

**43**

**Chapter 4**

**Abstract**

remediation

**1. Introduction**

residual spelling problems.

Foundation Year

SATs showed 30% uplift 3 years later.

*Diane Montgomery*

Identifying and Remediating

Dyslexia in Kindergarten and the

Dyslexia is a learning disability found across the ability range. It is an unexpected failure to learn to read and spell despite conventional classroom instruction. It is usually identified at about 7 years of age or beyond when the dyslexic fails to learn to read. The incidence varies in different countries in different languages and with teaching methods. This research presents a new method for the identification of dyslexia by the Reception or Kindergarten teacher as part of everyday teaching. The method uses a child's freeform writing and a checklist that identifies a critical borderline point that must be reached if the child is to become literate. In order to overcome any difficulty, a specific intervention was identified and a training technique was introduced in a Reception Year cohort (N = 175 children). It was based upon previous research that found dyslexia was caused by a unique deficit that prevented them from developing early phonological awareness in the normal course of learning. The intervention strategy also enabled disadvantaged learners to catch up with more advantaged peers and close the 11-month learning gap found in the national statistics. Their Key stage 1 school

**Keywords:** dyslexia, disadvantage, kindergarten, reception year, intervention,

Dyslexia is an unexpected difficulty in learning to read and spell in relation to age and ability by the methods normally used in classrooms. In the modern era it has become a serious problem for large numbers of people as education has extended and demanded they become literate. Dyslexia is sometimes accompanied by and made worse by handwriting difficulties (dysgraphia), and whilst most dyslexics do eventually learn to read when given specialist tuition as adults, they still have

Because English is an opaque not a transparent language system, there are larger numbers of dyslexics in countries where English is the home language. Transparent languages such as Italian, Turkish and Spanish have a one-to-one correspondence between the sounds of the language (phonemes) and its written symbols (graphemes), and they are said to be 'regular' in this respect. English on the other hand has only a 40% phonemic regularity, and the rest is derived from its history with other languages mainly Norse, Anglo-Saxon, Greek, Latin and Norman French.

#### **Chapter 4**

## Identifying and Remediating Dyslexia in Kindergarten and the Foundation Year

*Diane Montgomery*

#### **Abstract**

Dyslexia is a learning disability found across the ability range. It is an unexpected failure to learn to read and spell despite conventional classroom instruction. It is usually identified at about 7 years of age or beyond when the dyslexic fails to learn to read. The incidence varies in different countries in different languages and with teaching methods. This research presents a new method for the identification of dyslexia by the Reception or Kindergarten teacher as part of everyday teaching. The method uses a child's freeform writing and a checklist that identifies a critical borderline point that must be reached if the child is to become literate. In order to overcome any difficulty, a specific intervention was identified and a training technique was introduced in a Reception Year cohort (N = 175 children). It was based upon previous research that found dyslexia was caused by a unique deficit that prevented them from developing early phonological awareness in the normal course of learning. The intervention strategy also enabled disadvantaged learners to catch up with more advantaged peers and close the 11-month learning gap found in the national statistics. Their Key stage 1 school SATs showed 30% uplift 3 years later.

**Keywords:** dyslexia, disadvantage, kindergarten, reception year, intervention, remediation

#### **1. Introduction**

Dyslexia is an unexpected difficulty in learning to read and spell in relation to age and ability by the methods normally used in classrooms. In the modern era it has become a serious problem for large numbers of people as education has extended and demanded they become literate. Dyslexia is sometimes accompanied by and made worse by handwriting difficulties (dysgraphia), and whilst most dyslexics do eventually learn to read when given specialist tuition as adults, they still have residual spelling problems.

Because English is an opaque not a transparent language system, there are larger numbers of dyslexics in countries where English is the home language. Transparent languages such as Italian, Turkish and Spanish have a one-to-one correspondence between the sounds of the language (phonemes) and its written symbols (graphemes), and they are said to be 'regular' in this respect. English on the other hand has only a 40% phonemic regularity, and the rest is derived from its history with other languages mainly Norse, Anglo-Saxon, Greek, Latin and Norman French.

To accommodate this knowledge, 15 basic words and the rules that govern them can reveal how to spell 20,000 English words correctly [1]. But it is first of all an understanding of the alphabetic principle and how it is used that is crucial. It is this, with which Reception and Kindergarten learners have to cope.

Arabic, a Semitic language, with 33 phonemes is also a transparent language [2] and has been widely adapted to various other languages such as Urdu, Farsi and Kurdish. It was the Phoenicians in their Semitic language who were thought to have invented the alphabetic system to facilitate and record their trading negotiations [3]. This alphabetic principle is thought to have been invented just once about 2700 years ago and could probably only have occurred in the Semitic language because it was consonantal and did not have vowels; they were imported later by the Greeks. As will be explained it is unlikely that a dyslexic could have invented it.

The incidence of dyslexia in the UK, according to the British Dyslexia Association [4], is 10% of which 4% are severe cases. In some disadvantaged groups, the incidence can be as large as 19% [5]. It was also found that there were hidden populations of dyslexics who had learned to read but still had severe spelling problems especially with new and technical vocabulary. These amounted to one-third of cohorts in the disadvantaged areas. The result is that the poor spellers and writers underachieve at school and then at university. Their talents may lie hidden for many years. There is also a group that has learned to read often self-taught but have dyslexic spelling problems, and this has been termed 'dysorthographia'. Research and practice with this range of dyslexics over four decades formed the basis for the present studies.

#### **2. Background theory and research**

The research of Chall [6, 7] demonstrated that if teachers initially employed a purely visual system of reading teaching (paired associate memorising) called 'Look and Say', 4% of the learners became dyslexic. If however they were taught from the outset by a purely phonic system, the dyslexia rate was about 1–1.5% ([8]; SED (Scottish Education Department) The Education of Pupils with Learning Difficulties in Primary and Secondary Schools. A progress Report by HMI Edinburgh: HMSO 1978; [9, 10]). Over time UK Governments' encouragement to use 'mixed methods' and then 'Phonics First' [11] have met with limited success.

Over the same period research into the psychological processes involved in becoming literate, and literacy teaching have followed a similar path. The emphasis is placed on learning to read, and reading development has dominated both practice and research, whilst spelling was marginalised until recently. There have however been threads that can be traced showing that spelling is more important to learning to read than has previously been considered by many researchers and would repay more detailed investigation.

For example, although dyslexia research on a vast scale has centred upon the reading difficulties, both Chomsky [12] and Clay [13] found that children's first impulse was to write not read. When asked to write a message or story, the children picked up a pen and made 'marks on paper' and 'read' it back. When asked to read a storybook, they said they could not do so because they had not yet been taught to. It was when marks on paper such as these began to be studied that a range of levels of marks were observed. These went from scribbles and lines to letters and words carrying a decipherable message although not quite with traditional spelling. Occasionally there were cases of 5-year-olds entering school or Kindergarten who had learned to read and write self-taught, and they were not necessarily those with the highest of IQs [14].

**45**

AA tests [1, 19, 20].

*Identifying and Remediating Dyslexia in Kindergarten and the Foundation Year*

Examples such as the writing of Faye above were collected after she had spent 1 month in the Reception class. The teachers said the children could not read or write free-form; although some could copy write, none could read as they had only just begun to teach them. The teachers were astonished at what some of the children already knew about writing. The error patterns may give a significant profile of a child's knowledge about the alphabetic system that has been picked up incidentally in a word-filled world and classroom. Disadvantaged learners would be disadvantaged in this respect as their parents might not share books and reading with them or give them pens and pencils to hold and make drawings. Once in school they could

**Figure 2** shows a dyslexic's lack of sound-symbol knowledge after a year and a half in school. He uses letters from his name (before condition), but his message is not readable. He shows some knowledge of word structure and leaves spaces between his 'words'. He has not been systematically taught phonics. However after 6 x 20 minute lessons on the dyslexia programme Teaching Reading Through Spelling

*'I went to my nannys and I went hma anB hta my pna anB I sat up Lt anB Wto tave'.*

*'I went to my nanny's and I went home and had my dinner and I sat up late and* 

He has 'cracked the alphabetic code' although as yet he does not know all the sounds and their symbols. Some whole words from daily copy writing are now 'patched in'. The school did not permit joined up writing until the children were in Year 3! The rest of the pupils in Steven's class had learned to read and write to varying degrees, and even he had had extra individual reading coaching sessions, but after all this he had made no progress. Fortunately for him his teacher wanted to try the TRTS system, and after six sessions he had made significant progress at last—he

The success of the TRTS sessions was because it used a multisensory-articulatory-phonological-training (MAPT) system, whereas traditional phonics systems use just multisensory phonics training, that is they combine writing the grapheme with saying its sound. MAPT focuses the attention on the 'feel' of the phoneme in the mouth as it is said and written. This means that the phoneme and grapheme that are regarded as abstract perceptual units [16] are linked by a concrete articulatory cue. These are most clear for the consonants, the vowels are more open mouthed with different placing, and it is noticeable that in the literacy acquisition phase, beginners identify and mainly write the consonants. As they progress they map more correct spelling versions onto this structure [17], and this can be seen in both the **Figures 1** and **2** examples above. As beginners try to spell, they can often be seen mouthing the words as they do so presumably to recall the links. As early as 1932, Monroe [18] had pointed out the importance for early readers and writers of

The reason for introducing an articulation awareness (AA) training element was derived from earlier research in which it was found that in cohorts of dyslexics going through a specialist remedial teaching centre, an AA deficit was evident. When this was put to an experimental test, the following results were obtained: **Table 1** shows that spelling age matched controls and dyslexics performed well on phoneme segmentation tasks but differed significantly (p 0.01) on articulation awareness test items. Dyslexics on the waiting list to enter the remedial centre who were age matched as near as possible performed significantly poorly on both PS and

articulating, subvocalising and mouthing the sounds of the letters.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90808*

be expected to catch up, but what about dyslexics?

(TRTS) [15], his new message is readable.

*watched TV'.*

had 'cracked the alphabetic code'.

*'My little sister is in bed because she is having her tonsils out'.*

*Identifying and Remediating Dyslexia in Kindergarten and the Foundation Year DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90808*

Examples such as the writing of Faye above were collected after she had spent 1 month in the Reception class. The teachers said the children could not read or write free-form; although some could copy write, none could read as they had only just begun to teach them. The teachers were astonished at what some of the children already knew about writing. The error patterns may give a significant profile of a child's knowledge about the alphabetic system that has been picked up incidentally in a word-filled world and classroom. Disadvantaged learners would be disadvantaged in this respect as their parents might not share books and reading with them or give them pens and pencils to hold and make drawings. Once in school they could be expected to catch up, but what about dyslexics?

**Figure 2** shows a dyslexic's lack of sound-symbol knowledge after a year and a half in school. He uses letters from his name (before condition), but his message is not readable. He shows some knowledge of word structure and leaves spaces between his 'words'. He has not been systematically taught phonics. However after 6 x 20 minute lessons on the dyslexia programme Teaching Reading Through Spelling (TRTS) [15], his new message is readable.

*'I went to my nannys and I went hma anB hta my pna anB I sat up Lt anB Wto tave'.*

*'I went to my nanny's and I went home and had my dinner and I sat up late and watched TV'.*

He has 'cracked the alphabetic code' although as yet he does not know all the sounds and their symbols. Some whole words from daily copy writing are now 'patched in'. The school did not permit joined up writing until the children were in Year 3! The rest of the pupils in Steven's class had learned to read and write to varying degrees, and even he had had extra individual reading coaching sessions, but after all this he had made no progress. Fortunately for him his teacher wanted to try the TRTS system, and after six sessions he had made significant progress at last—he had 'cracked the alphabetic code'.

The success of the TRTS sessions was because it used a multisensory-articulatory-phonological-training (MAPT) system, whereas traditional phonics systems use just multisensory phonics training, that is they combine writing the grapheme with saying its sound. MAPT focuses the attention on the 'feel' of the phoneme in the mouth as it is said and written. This means that the phoneme and grapheme that are regarded as abstract perceptual units [16] are linked by a concrete articulatory cue. These are most clear for the consonants, the vowels are more open mouthed with different placing, and it is noticeable that in the literacy acquisition phase, beginners identify and mainly write the consonants. As they progress they map more correct spelling versions onto this structure [17], and this can be seen in both the **Figures 1** and **2** examples above. As beginners try to spell, they can often be seen mouthing the words as they do so presumably to recall the links. As early as 1932, Monroe [18] had pointed out the importance for early readers and writers of articulating, subvocalising and mouthing the sounds of the letters.

The reason for introducing an articulation awareness (AA) training element was derived from earlier research in which it was found that in cohorts of dyslexics going through a specialist remedial teaching centre, an AA deficit was evident. When this was put to an experimental test, the following results were obtained:

**Table 1** shows that spelling age matched controls and dyslexics performed well on phoneme segmentation tasks but differed significantly (p 0.01) on articulation awareness test items. Dyslexics on the waiting list to enter the remedial centre who were age matched as near as possible performed significantly poorly on both PS and AA tests [1, 19, 20].

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

with which Reception and Kindergarten learners have to cope.

**2. Background theory and research**

more detailed investigation.

To accommodate this knowledge, 15 basic words and the rules that govern them can reveal how to spell 20,000 English words correctly [1]. But it is first of all an understanding of the alphabetic principle and how it is used that is crucial. It is this,

[4], is 10% of which 4% are severe cases. In some disadvantaged groups, the incidence can be as large as 19% [5]. It was also found that there were hidden populations of dyslexics who had learned to read but still had severe spelling problems especially with new and technical vocabulary. These amounted to one-third of cohorts in the disadvantaged areas. The result is that the poor spellers and writers underachieve at school and then at university. Their talents may lie hidden for many years. There is also a group that has learned to read often self-taught but have dyslexic spelling problems, and this has been termed 'dysorthographia'. Research and practice with this range of dyslexics over four decades formed the basis for the present studies.

The research of Chall [6, 7] demonstrated that if teachers initially employed a purely visual system of reading teaching (paired associate memorising) called 'Look and Say', 4% of the learners became dyslexic. If however they were taught from the outset by a purely phonic system, the dyslexia rate was about 1–1.5% ([8]; SED (Scottish Education Department) The Education of Pupils with Learning Difficulties in Primary and Secondary Schools. A progress Report by HMI Edinburgh: HMSO 1978; [9, 10]). Over time UK Governments' encouragement to use 'mixed methods' and then 'Phonics First' [11] have met with limited success. Over the same period research into the psychological processes involved in becoming literate, and literacy teaching have followed a similar path. The emphasis is placed on learning to read, and reading development has dominated both practice and research, whilst spelling was marginalised until recently. There have however been threads that can be traced showing that spelling is more important to learning to read than has previously been considered by many researchers and would repay

For example, although dyslexia research on a vast scale has centred upon the reading difficulties, both Chomsky [12] and Clay [13] found that children's first impulse was to write not read. When asked to write a message or story, the children picked up a pen and made 'marks on paper' and 'read' it back. When asked to read a storybook, they said they could not do so because they had not yet been taught to. It was when marks on paper such as these began to be studied that a range of levels of marks were observed. These went from scribbles and lines to letters and words carrying a decipherable message although not quite with traditional spelling. Occasionally there were cases of 5-year-olds entering school or Kindergarten who had learned to read and write self-taught, and they were not necessarily those with the highest of IQs [14].

*'My little sister is in bed because she is having her tonsils out'.*

Arabic, a Semitic language, with 33 phonemes is also a transparent language [2] and has been widely adapted to various other languages such as Urdu, Farsi and Kurdish. It was the Phoenicians in their Semitic language who were thought to have invented the alphabetic system to facilitate and record their trading negotiations [3]. This alphabetic principle is thought to have been invented just once about 2700 years ago and could probably only have occurred in the Semitic language because it was consonantal and did not have vowels; they were imported later by the Greeks. As will be explained it is unlikely that a dyslexic could have invented it. The incidence of dyslexia in the UK, according to the British Dyslexia Association

**44**

**Figure 1.** *Faye: 5 years 1 month.*

**47**

**Figure 3.**

**Table 1.**

*Identifying and Remediating Dyslexia in Kindergarten and the Foundation Year*

second piece of writing after he writes some well-practised words.

*Key: PS, phoneme segmentation (sing minus 's' gives 'ing', etc.). A 15-item test.*

*Mean scores on phoneme segmentation (PS) and articulation awareness (AA).*

*AA, articulation awareness. Test of 10 items.*

*To show the four-way multisensory VAK links.*

Dyslexia is currently regarded in the majority of cases as a verbal processing difficulty with particular problems in the area of phonological processing [21–24]. It is the problem that at least 90 per cent of dyslexics appear to present. On the basis of the research in **Table 1**, it was hypothesised that the phonological processing deficits might be caused by an underlying articulation awareness problem that prevented or delayed the learning of symbol-sound associations especially during implicit learning processes. It would mean that attention to a four-way system of VAKs principles should be followed rather than the three-way multisensory system used by most remedial teachers that omitted the kinaesthetic aspects of speech (**Figure 3**).

Reading and spelling development in dyslexics was analysed by Frith [25] as a process moving through three stages from logographic, to alphabetic and to orthographic based on the errors they made. She divided each stage into two further steps in which sometimes reading and sometimes spelling were the pacemakers. She explained that dyslexic children typically have difficulties moving from an early phase of acquisition in which reading is visually based (logographic) on the alphabetic phase when children are able to use letter-sound associations for both reading and spelling. This can be seen in the writing of Steven in **Figure 2**. In the 'before' condition, he can be seen to be stuck in the orthographic phase. With the specific MAPT training technique used in the early part of the TRTS programme, he makes the articulatory connections and can begin to use them to generate new words and enters the alphabetic phase. His developing skills in this respect can be seen in the

At a later stage, some dyslexics fail to move from the alphabetic phase to the orthographic phase where reading and spelling were thought by Frith to be automatic and considered to be independent of sound. This condition is seen in many

Controls 84 8.61 8.02 11.94 7.75 110.03 7.94 Dyslexics on TRTS 114 7.95 7.62 10.27 4.31 110.43 12.90 Dyslexics waiting 30 6.71 6.0 4.13 5.87 112.67 8.97

**Nos Reading Spelling PS Artic Aw IQ Chron** 

**Age Age Age (15) (10)**

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90808*

**Figure 2.** *Steven' writing aged 6.5 years in the 'Look and Say' era.*

#### *Identifying and Remediating Dyslexia in Kindergarten and the Foundation Year DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90808*

Dyslexia is currently regarded in the majority of cases as a verbal processing difficulty with particular problems in the area of phonological processing [21–24]. It is the problem that at least 90 per cent of dyslexics appear to present. On the basis of the research in **Table 1**, it was hypothesised that the phonological processing deficits might be caused by an underlying articulation awareness problem that prevented or delayed the learning of symbol-sound associations especially during implicit learning processes. It would mean that attention to a four-way system of VAKs principles should be followed rather than the three-way multisensory system used by most remedial teachers that omitted the kinaesthetic aspects of speech (**Figure 3**).

Reading and spelling development in dyslexics was analysed by Frith [25] as a process moving through three stages from logographic, to alphabetic and to orthographic based on the errors they made. She divided each stage into two further steps in which sometimes reading and sometimes spelling were the pacemakers. She explained that dyslexic children typically have difficulties moving from an early phase of acquisition in which reading is visually based (logographic) on the alphabetic phase when children are able to use letter-sound associations for both reading and spelling. This can be seen in the writing of Steven in **Figure 2**. In the 'before' condition, he can be seen to be stuck in the orthographic phase. With the specific MAPT training technique used in the early part of the TRTS programme, he makes the articulatory connections and can begin to use them to generate new words and enters the alphabetic phase. His developing skills in this respect can be seen in the second piece of writing after he writes some well-practised words.

At a later stage, some dyslexics fail to move from the alphabetic phase to the orthographic phase where reading and spelling were thought by Frith to be automatic and considered to be independent of sound. This condition is seen in many


*Key: PS, phoneme segmentation (sing minus 's' gives 'ing', etc.). A 15-item test. AA, articulation awareness. Test of 10 items.*

#### **Table 1.**

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

**46**

**Figure 2.**

*Steven' writing aged 6.5 years in the 'Look and Say' era.*

**Figure 1.**

*Faye: 5 years 1 month.*

*Mean scores on phoneme segmentation (PS) and articulation awareness (AA).*

**Figure 3.** *To show the four-way multisensory VAK links.*

adult dyslexics. Traditionally dyslexia has been identified in the alphabetic phase after a long delayed start when they are at least 2 years below the literacy level of peers. This level is not consistent with their age and ability. Various forms of intervention 'in class' then 'one-to-one additional support' may have been given and still have failed to bring them at least up to grade level. They are three-time failures by this time and often confused and upset. Even then an official diagnosis and funding support for specialist tuition might only be obtained just before entry to secondary school. Even so the remedial provision may not be adequate so although the dyslexic may begin to develop phonological awareness and start reading, he or she may never catch up with peers. To catch up means that they must make a 2-year literacy progress in each year of the specialist programme [23]. A meta-analysis of programme outcomes showing which are successful may be found in Montgomery [5, 26].

When dyslexia is identified in the early school years, remedial teachers report that it is easier to remediate. An extensive survey of 10,000 cases by Goldberg and Shiffman [27] had established this although they found that residual spelling errors remained.

Thus far a system to identify and remediate dyslexia in the early years by targeting sound-symbol correspondence development in the Logographic phase had not been developed. The Logographic phase is the literacy acquisition stage, the task of the Reception (Foundation Year) or Kindergarten learner. Sound-symbol correspondence is important for decoding unknown words during reading and for encoding for spelling, and this is why there was an emphasis in the United Kingdom on 'Phonics first' [11] and in the Early Years Foundation Stage guidelines [28] in the presence of a 'Look and Say' ethos.

This research however was pointing to a new direction for dyslexia investigation and remediation, and this was the role and meaning of children's early marks on paper in the logographic phase.

#### **3. The research on early marks on paper**

Normal spellers according to Gentry [29] also go through a logographic phase, but he found that there are two steps in it. The first step was pre-communicative in which marks and scribble were made as children 'wrote' their stories. This was followed by a prephonetic step in which there were invented or creative spellings in which a single letter or 'phone' or several letters might represent a word. Surprisingly research with dyslexics by Liberman [30], Bryant and Bradley [31] and Bourassa and Treiman [32] found the same characteristics, but there was a failure to move into the prephonetic stage. This was detectible not in their reading but in their attempts to write [1, 10]. Once the literacy journey had begun although several years later the reading and spelling errors of the dyslexics did not differ significantly from those of normal writers [19, 32].

In literacy learning, we have a situation in which normal readers and spellers learn sound-symbol correspondence implicitly or when specifically taught in Reception and some even arrive with that knowledge, and dyslexics who do not. Surely their problem must be detectable at an early stage as they fail to move into the prephonetic stage? This was the basic research question.

Previous research had found such a system was necessary for dyslexics because they appeared to have an articulation awareness deficit [1, 19]. This was potentially an observable sign of the neurological problem found in the 'pick up' systems by James and Engelhardt [33]. Their research showed during fMRI scanning that when preliterate 5-year-olds traced, printed or typed letters and shapes and then were shown images of these stimuli, a previously discovered 'reading circuit' in the brain

**49**

*Identifying and Remediating Dyslexia in Kindergarten and the Foundation Year*

'phone' barrier. After this has been done, the whole process speeds up.

was activated during letter perception. However this only occurred after handwriting not after tracing or copying that are frequently used in early years education. Their conclusion was that handwriting supported symbol-sound knowledge

development in normal subjects. It was a connection made implicitly during contact with print. It suggests that it is a process that occurs normally during literacy teaching by 'Look and Say' methods and can be facilitated by systematic phonics systems leading to lower incidences of dyslexia. It is also the reason why multisensory phonogram training has been incorporated into the more successful remediation regimes. In dyslexics there appears to be a disruption in the neurological system so that very specific and often repetitive training is needed initially to overcome the

Geschwind [34] identified dissociation in dyslexia in the left angular gyrus. This is where sounds and symbols would be connected (by articulatory feel/movements), but in dyslexics this connection appears to be broken. It therefore needs to be restored by overtraining, or other areas of the brain have to be taught to take over the 'pickup' function. This is most possible in the youngest brains. Using in-air tracing of the letters then writing them free-form on the paper, the Fernald [35] method, and using MAPT and cursive or joined writing, based upon practices in the specialist dyslexia, alphabetic-phonic-syllabic-linguistic (APSL) programmes were

In 2012 four primary schools were recruited to take part in a pilot project. Each school had one to three Foundation (Reception year) classes, eight classes in all (N = 175). The children were just 5 years old and a few were 'rising fives'. Their eight teachers were asked to collect one piece of copy writing and one piece of completely unaided (free-form) writing after the children had been 1 month in the school. The month was to allow them to settle into the school routines. The two writing samples were to be written on separate days using the materials they were now used to using in their class. For example, most would be telling their 'news' and then copy writing it. Some teachers would give them lines to write on, others would not and all the subjects would be using pencils. The free-form writing would be less common, and so the teachers' learning managers were the intermediaries who would ensure the

The teachers were told they would receive a report on the progress of each child

As can be seen, the children in the advantaged areas entered school with better writing skills than those in the less advantaged areas. This is not an unexpected result. In research for the Sutton Trust, Jerrim [36] found that children from disadvantaged backgrounds by the end of the Reception year were 5 months behind peers in reading development. It was significant that once they fell behind, they remained behind and failed to catch up later, and they were already consigned to underachieve by 6 years old. The tendency has been for teachers to regard a lack of writing skills in these early years as non-problematic [37] because the children will 'catch up' given more time to mature and activities to develop the necessary skills.

The free-form writing scores were marked on a 10-point rating scale for 'spelling'. The spelling scale was established by scrutinising all 175 scripts in the F1 cohort and placing them in a rank order from random marks and scribble through to more or less correct spelling. A similar process was used to develop a handwriting

from the marks they had made on the two pieces of work and also what might be done to help them progress. The first results were collected in October, and a second set of free-form writing was collected in March 2013 in the following year to check on any progress that had been made by the children. The reports were sent to schools in January and late May (2013). Schools A and B were in the disadvantaged

areas and schools C and D in the advantaged areas (**Table 2**).

However the research indicates that this is most unlikely.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90808*

part of the intervention system.

rules were kept.

#### *Identifying and Remediating Dyslexia in Kindergarten and the Foundation Year DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90808*

was activated during letter perception. However this only occurred after handwriting not after tracing or copying that are frequently used in early years education. Their conclusion was that handwriting supported symbol-sound knowledge development in normal subjects. It was a connection made implicitly during contact with print. It suggests that it is a process that occurs normally during literacy teaching by 'Look and Say' methods and can be facilitated by systematic phonics systems leading to lower incidences of dyslexia. It is also the reason why multisensory phonogram training has been incorporated into the more successful remediation regimes. In dyslexics there appears to be a disruption in the neurological system so that very specific and often repetitive training is needed initially to overcome the 'phone' barrier. After this has been done, the whole process speeds up.

Geschwind [34] identified dissociation in dyslexia in the left angular gyrus. This is where sounds and symbols would be connected (by articulatory feel/movements), but in dyslexics this connection appears to be broken. It therefore needs to be restored by overtraining, or other areas of the brain have to be taught to take over the 'pickup' function. This is most possible in the youngest brains. Using in-air tracing of the letters then writing them free-form on the paper, the Fernald [35] method, and using MAPT and cursive or joined writing, based upon practices in the specialist dyslexia, alphabetic-phonic-syllabic-linguistic (APSL) programmes were part of the intervention system.

In 2012 four primary schools were recruited to take part in a pilot project. Each school had one to three Foundation (Reception year) classes, eight classes in all (N = 175). The children were just 5 years old and a few were 'rising fives'. Their eight teachers were asked to collect one piece of copy writing and one piece of completely unaided (free-form) writing after the children had been 1 month in the school. The month was to allow them to settle into the school routines. The two writing samples were to be written on separate days using the materials they were now used to using in their class. For example, most would be telling their 'news' and then copy writing it. Some teachers would give them lines to write on, others would not and all the subjects would be using pencils. The free-form writing would be less common, and so the teachers' learning managers were the intermediaries who would ensure the rules were kept.

The teachers were told they would receive a report on the progress of each child from the marks they had made on the two pieces of work and also what might be done to help them progress. The first results were collected in October, and a second set of free-form writing was collected in March 2013 in the following year to check on any progress that had been made by the children. The reports were sent to schools in January and late May (2013). Schools A and B were in the disadvantaged areas and schools C and D in the advantaged areas (**Table 2**).

As can be seen, the children in the advantaged areas entered school with better writing skills than those in the less advantaged areas. This is not an unexpected result. In research for the Sutton Trust, Jerrim [36] found that children from disadvantaged backgrounds by the end of the Reception year were 5 months behind peers in reading development. It was significant that once they fell behind, they remained behind and failed to catch up later, and they were already consigned to underachieve by 6 years old. The tendency has been for teachers to regard a lack of writing skills in these early years as non-problematic [37] because the children will 'catch up' given more time to mature and activities to develop the necessary skills. However the research indicates that this is most unlikely.

The free-form writing scores were marked on a 10-point rating scale for 'spelling'. The spelling scale was established by scrutinising all 175 scripts in the F1 cohort and placing them in a rank order from random marks and scribble through to more or less correct spelling. A similar process was used to develop a handwriting

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

adult dyslexics. Traditionally dyslexia has been identified in the alphabetic phase after a long delayed start when they are at least 2 years below the literacy level of peers. This level is not consistent with their age and ability. Various forms of intervention 'in class' then 'one-to-one additional support' may have been given and still have failed to bring them at least up to grade level. They are three-time failures by this time and often confused and upset. Even then an official diagnosis and funding support for specialist tuition might only be obtained just before entry to secondary school. Even so the remedial provision may not be adequate so although the dyslexic may begin to develop phonological awareness and start reading, he or she may never catch up with peers. To catch up means that they must make a 2-year literacy progress in each year of the specialist programme [23]. A meta-analysis of programme outcomes showing which are successful may be found in Montgomery [5, 26]. When dyslexia is identified in the early school years, remedial teachers report that it is easier to remediate. An extensive survey of 10,000 cases by Goldberg and Shiffman [27] had established this although they found that residual spelling errors

Thus far a system to identify and remediate dyslexia in the early years by targeting sound-symbol correspondence development in the Logographic phase had not been developed. The Logographic phase is the literacy acquisition stage, the task of the Reception (Foundation Year) or Kindergarten learner. Sound-symbol correspondence is important for decoding unknown words during reading and for encoding for spelling, and this is why there was an emphasis in the United Kingdom on 'Phonics first' [11] and in the Early Years Foundation Stage guidelines [28] in the

This research however was pointing to a new direction for dyslexia investigation and remediation, and this was the role and meaning of children's early marks on

Normal spellers according to Gentry [29] also go through a logographic phase, but he found that there are two steps in it. The first step was pre-communicative in which marks and scribble were made as children 'wrote' their stories. This was followed by a prephonetic step in which there were invented or creative spellings in which a single letter or 'phone' or several letters might represent a word. Surprisingly research with dyslexics by Liberman [30], Bryant and Bradley [31] and Bourassa and Treiman [32] found the same characteristics, but there was a failure to move into the prephonetic stage. This was detectible not in their reading but in their attempts to write [1, 10]. Once the literacy journey had begun although several years later the reading and spelling errors of the dyslexics did not differ signifi-

In literacy learning, we have a situation in which normal readers and spellers learn sound-symbol correspondence implicitly or when specifically taught in Reception and some even arrive with that knowledge, and dyslexics who do not. Surely their problem must be detectable at an early stage as they fail to move into

Previous research had found such a system was necessary for dyslexics because they appeared to have an articulation awareness deficit [1, 19]. This was potentially an observable sign of the neurological problem found in the 'pick up' systems by James and Engelhardt [33]. Their research showed during fMRI scanning that when preliterate 5-year-olds traced, printed or typed letters and shapes and then were shown images of these stimuli, a previously discovered 'reading circuit' in the brain

**48**

remained.

presence of a 'Look and Say' ethos.

**3. The research on early marks on paper**

cantly from those of normal writers [19, 32].

the prephonetic stage? This was the basic research question.

paper in the logographic phase.


#### *Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

#### **Table 2.**

*Results from the pre- and post-test free-form writing task.*

checklist, but clinical items were included [5, 14]. The strategy was to identify the statement that most typifies the writing sample and award that 'score' or rank. A 'score' of 5 was pivotal in that it identified those children who had just 'cracked the alphabetic code'. This is best seen in their attempts to make words using 'skeletal phonics or phones' such as 'wt' for 'went', 'ws' for 'was', 'goig' for 'going' and 'se' for 'she' or single letter sounds to represent a word 'w' for 'was'. Phonetics would be represented by 'kwiz' for 'quiz', 'buk' for 'book', 'apl', 'nite', 'marster', 'berd', 'butiful' and so on.

Correct spelling of common words such as 'I', 'the', 'and' and 'my' did not count as phonic achievement as they are so commonly used in copy writing they can often be recalled visually rather than phonetically. The reports focused upon the explicit teaching of sounds by first feeling the consonants in the mouth and mouthing them and feeling them as they wrote the grapheme—MAPT.

#### **3.1 Ranks for free-form spelling**


**51**

**Figure 4.**

*Millie. I went to nanny's: Scores 4.*

*Identifying and Remediating Dyslexia in Kindergarten and the Foundation Year*

8. Skeletal phonics, phonetics, some words, meaning apparent.

10. More correct spelling, skeletal phonics, meaning clear.

11. Mainly correct spelling, legible, systematic word spaces.

teaching of M in her name and 'i' and 't' should help her begin.

In March 2013 Bethan's emergent writing scores 8:

9. Some correct words, phonics, phonetics, meaning mostly clear.

In October 2012 Millie's script in **Figure 4** is firmly written but with some conventional letter forms, but there is no sign that she is using them as phones as yet. She is on the borderline for cracking the alphabetic code; some direct MAPT

In October 2012 James's script on entry to Reception *'I took grandad to the lidrary'* scores 9 for spelling. The spelling is almost correct, the meaning is clear, but word spaces are not well defined yet. In comparison with Millie's script, his shows some coordination difficulties. For example, the script is faint, there is variation in pressure and 'wobble and shake' on the letter strokes. The letter bodies vary in size, and some letters are 'drawn' rather made in monoline, e.g. 'g' and 'y'. He scored 7 on the

'At Easter time we get chocolate'. This is a very good phonetic and phonic representation of her message and some word spaces this time. Good skill development. However she is not forming some of her letters efficiently so will need some direct teaching of how to make, for example, 'a' 'd' 'g' 't' 'h' with one continuous line

Twenty spelling scripts were selected from the whole pack and were used as training items to teach a naïve assessor how to use the scale so that an interobserver reliability coefficient of the instrument could be calculated. After 30 minutes training using the spelling scale on the 20 illustrative scripts, the naïve assessor was given all 111 scripts from schools A, B and C to assign a rank out of 10. The coefficient of agreement with the experimenter was +0.81. It was +0.93 when a small number of differences of one scale point were exempted. When the experimenter remarked the scripts after a delay of 1 month, the coefficient of agreement between assessments was +0.98. This showed that the categories were stable, and later a sample of experienced Reception teachers at two conferences were able to use them

Girls consistently outperformed boys in each of the schools and classrooms.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90808*

Handwriting checklist.

instead of two.

**3.2 Interobserver reliability**

effectively and found the scale useful.

*'at esd tighm weeget cheoklurt'.*

7. Some phonic skeletons, word bits and phones, some meaning.

*Identifying and Remediating Dyslexia in Kindergarten and the Foundation Year DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90808*

8. Skeletal phonics, phonetics, some words, meaning apparent.

9. Some correct words, phonics, phonetics, meaning mostly clear.

10. More correct spelling, skeletal phonics, meaning clear.

11. Mainly correct spelling, legible, systematic word spaces.

In October 2012 Millie's script in **Figure 4** is firmly written but with some conventional letter forms, but there is no sign that she is using them as phones as yet. She is on the borderline for cracking the alphabetic code; some direct MAPT teaching of M in her name and 'i' and 't' should help her begin.

In October 2012 James's script on entry to Reception *'I took grandad to the lidrary'* scores 9 for spelling. The spelling is almost correct, the meaning is clear, but word spaces are not well defined yet. In comparison with Millie's script, his shows some coordination difficulties. For example, the script is faint, there is variation in pressure and 'wobble and shake' on the letter strokes. The letter bodies vary in size, and some letters are 'drawn' rather made in monoline, e.g. 'g' and 'y'. He scored 7 on the Handwriting checklist.

In March 2013 Bethan's emergent writing scores 8:

#### *'at esd tighm weeget cheoklurt'.*

'At Easter time we get chocolate'. This is a very good phonetic and phonic representation of her message and some word spaces this time. Good skill development. However she is not forming some of her letters efficiently so will need some direct teaching of how to make, for example, 'a' 'd' 'g' 't' 'h' with one continuous line instead of two.

#### **3.2 Interobserver reliability**

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

A1 17 2.33 7.12 3 + 2 A2 18 2.44 4.3 11+ B1 21 3.24 6.13 4 + 2 C1 28 6.11 6.76 0 C2 27 5.37 6.1 5 + 3 Totals 111 4.29 5.32 23 + 7

**writing 1**

**Free writing 2** **Nos. 'at risk'**

**Class Nos. Free** 

D1 21 3.57 D2 22 3.5 D3 21 4.05 Totals 64 3.71

**Free writing F1 = October 2012 sample: N = 175 (2 absentees)**

checklist, but clinical items were included [5, 14]. The strategy was to identify the statement that most typifies the writing sample and award that 'score' or rank. A 'score' of 5 was pivotal in that it identified those children who had just 'cracked the alphabetic code'. This is best seen in their attempts to make words using 'skeletal phonics or phones' such as 'wt' for 'went', 'ws' for 'was', 'goig' for 'going' and 'se' for 'she' or single letter sounds to represent a word 'w' for 'was'. Phonetics would be represented by 'kwiz' for 'quiz', 'buk' for 'book', 'apl', 'nite', 'marster', 'berd', 'butiful'

Correct spelling of common words such as 'I', 'the', 'and' and 'my' did not count as phonic achievement as they are so commonly used in copy writing they can often be recalled visually rather than phonetically. The reports focused upon the explicit teaching of sounds by first feeling the consonants in the mouth and mouthing them

and feeling them as they wrote the grapheme—MAPT.

3. Marks, mandalas roundels, occasional letters, possibly in lines.

6. Word forms, letters, phone(s) evident (the critical achievement).

7. Some phonic skeletons, word bits and phones, some meaning.

**3.1 Ranks for free-form spelling**

Borderline nos.: 23 = scored 4 **Private school, initial results (F1)**

This school left the project before task F2

*Results from the pre- and post-test free-form writing task.*

**Free writing F2 =March 2013**

5. Letters, possible phones.

2. Scribble, marks in some order.

4. Some letter shapes and letters, in a line.

1. Random marks.

**50**

and so on.

**Table 2.**

Twenty spelling scripts were selected from the whole pack and were used as training items to teach a naïve assessor how to use the scale so that an interobserver reliability coefficient of the instrument could be calculated. After 30 minutes training using the spelling scale on the 20 illustrative scripts, the naïve assessor was given all 111 scripts from schools A, B and C to assign a rank out of 10. The coefficient of agreement with the experimenter was +0.81. It was +0.93 when a small number of differences of one scale point were exempted. When the experimenter remarked the scripts after a delay of 1 month, the coefficient of agreement between assessments was +0.98. This showed that the categories were stable, and later a sample of experienced Reception teachers at two conferences were able to use them effectively and found the scale useful.

Girls consistently outperformed boys in each of the schools and classrooms.

**Figure 4.** *Millie. I went to nanny's: Scores 4.*


#### **Table 3.**

*Initial socio-economic advantages in spelling scores.*

The scores in **Table 3** show that school C children consistently obtained higher scores than the other two schools in the same local area and confirmed the disadvantages associated with being poor that were found for reading by Jerrim [36].

In **Table 3**, the ratio of 'at risk' boys to girls was 1.4–1 and not the standard 4–1 [4]. This was 27% of the cohort after 5 months in school that had not broken the 'phone' barrier. By the end of a further term in Reception, it would be likely that others would do this leaving about 20% at risk on entry to Year 1. The whole one third however would be unlikely to catch up with peers throughout their school careers according to Jerrim [36] in the Sutton Trust Research. These three schools were the feeder schools to a local state secondary school with a comprehensive entry.

In a Year 7 writing research project with this school [38], 18.6% of the cohort had spelling difficulties that put them in the 'dyslexia zone', and one third had poor spelling. This meant that they were failing the HMCI [39] criterion making more than 5 misspellings per 100 words. Although these researches were crosssectional rather than longitudinal, the failing group sizes were remarkably similar, e.g. approximately 20% in the dyslexic zone and one third of the cohorts in the disadvantaged group at Reception and in Year 7. The dyslexic zone at the secondary school stage may seem large, but it included those who are often called 'hidden' dyslexics with spelling but not reading problems (dysorthographics).

#### **4. Diagnostic and remediation interventions in the research**

Data on 'early marks' on paper had been collected over a number of years on visits to Reception classes for teaching supervision, appraisal and reading research. As a result a pilot study in a London school was set up in 1997–1998. The school was in 'special measures' and requested appraisal help. It was found that the reading teaching method was entirely 'Look and Say' and the disadvantaged backgrounds from which the children came offered little literacy support. In order to redress the balance, a programme was written for them introducing MAPT, and a teaching progression developed from the remedial TRTS [15] system. This was based on the Hickey Multisensory Language Programme [40] that was in itself an anglicised version of the Gllingham and Stillman [41] programme—the 'Red Book' edition.

This specialist programme would teach MAPT and word building from the outset and cursive writing. The programme was called *Developmental Spelling* [20]. The pilot study was carried out in the school, which was already teaching cursive writing. The school SATs results for 1997 and then 1998 after using the programme intervention gave the following results (**Table 4**).

The maths scores show the potential of the children and some good teaching, whereas the literacy scores show a need for some serious intervention. Although the MAPT programme was devoted to spelling and achieved approximately 30% uplift, it can also be seen to transfer to reading and give reading support with 10% uplift.

**53**

*Identifying and Remediating Dyslexia in Kindergarten and the Foundation Year*

not to be able to give the 2-year uplift that was required [1, 26].

Remedial programmes that did not give sustained attention to spelling were found

Reading 46% 56% Spelling 16% 44% Writing 57% 58% Maths 83% 85%

**1997 1998**

In the interim a series of government initiatives took place such as the National Literacy Strategy (NLS, 1998) that failed and then Phonics First [11], which seemed not to have the impact that had been expected. As a result any independent research intervention in schools was not possible in that period except for some research projects by our MA students in independent schools. Their casework with dyslexics identified as falling behind in Reception even after the structured support found that they usually had both dysgraphia and dyslexia—more complex needs. In their cases daily individual tuition using the reading and spelling packs from Hickey MLC or TRTS for the first five letters brought the pupil up to the level of peers [42]. Other pupils with less severe difficulties were found to be able to move forward with the Developmental

Spelling programme alone and their normal class reading teaching methods.

Free writing of news as in the above examples, sometimes called 'free-form', 'emergent' writing or 'creative spelling' [10] has the advantage over reading in that the evidence it provides is concrete and records the child's developing knowledge. Although handwriting has been given little attention in English education in recent years [43], it also appears to play a more important role in reading development than has hitherto been understood as found in research with preliterate children by

They found that the initial duplication process mattered a great deal. When children had drawn a letter freehand, they exhibited increased activity in three areas of the brain that were activated in adults when they read and write. These were the left fusiform gyrus, the inferior frontal gyrus and the posterior parietal cortex. It showed that handwriting supports sound-symbol knowledge development and provides another reason for using the MAPT training technique during the early learning of letters and their sounds. Solity [44] found that children only needed to learn a handful of sound-symbol associations to start them on their literacy learning. This is why it is essential to give them the training on /i/t/p/n/s/ because they

A writing component in dyslexia remediation is also endorsed by studies that showed spelling acquisition was greater when accompanied by writing activities as opposed to reading alone [45, 46]. Remediation programmes such as the Hickey Multisensory Language Course (HMLC) failed to give a 2-year uplift in each year when the spelling pack work and dictations were omitted [47]. In relation to later achievement, Berninger [48] found that the two best predictors of good composition in the later years were speed in writing the letters of the alphabet and coding

The present research had begun in 2012 when state schoolteachers seemed to become ready again to try new literacy initiatives. In this research having established the nature of the spelling/writing difficulties in the 175 scripts, a rank order of spelling skills was developed. Each script was analysed for the level of spelling skill in relation to the scale as well as handwriting competence. A scale point of 5 was

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90808*

**Table 4.**

*SATs results for the FLane school.*

James and Engelhardt [33].

can be used to build 25 words.

them (writing the symbols for the letter sounds).


*Identifying and Remediating Dyslexia in Kindergarten and the Foundation Year DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90808*

#### **Table 4.**

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

The scores in **Table 3** show that school C children consistently obtained higher scores than the other two schools in the same local area and confirmed the disadvantages associated with being poor that were found for reading by Jerrim [36]. In **Table 3**, the ratio of 'at risk' boys to girls was 1.4–1 and not the standard 4–1 [4]. This was 27% of the cohort after 5 months in school that had not broken the 'phone' barrier. By the end of a further term in Reception, it would be likely that others would do this leaving about 20% at risk on entry to Year 1. The whole one third however would be unlikely to catch up with peers throughout their school careers according to Jerrim [36] in the Sutton Trust Research. These three schools were the

A + B social housing 2.38 3.03 56 C owner occupier 4.52 6.81 55 D private school 3.34 4.06 64

**Boys Girls N**

3.51 4.41 175

feeder schools to a local state secondary school with a comprehensive entry.

dyslexics with spelling but not reading problems (dysorthographics).

**4. Diagnostic and remediation interventions in the research**

Data on 'early marks' on paper had been collected over a number of years on visits to Reception classes for teaching supervision, appraisal and reading research. As a result a pilot study in a London school was set up in 1997–1998. The school was in 'special measures' and requested appraisal help. It was found that the reading teaching method was entirely 'Look and Say' and the disadvantaged backgrounds from which the children came offered little literacy support. In order to redress the balance, a programme was written for them introducing MAPT, and a teaching progression developed from the remedial TRTS [15] system. This was based on the Hickey Multisensory Language Programme [40] that was in itself an anglicised version of the Gllingham and Stillman [41] programme—the 'Red Book'

This specialist programme would teach MAPT and word building from the outset and cursive writing. The programme was called *Developmental Spelling* [20]. The pilot study was carried out in the school, which was already teaching cursive writing. The school SATs results for 1997 and then 1998 after using the programme

The maths scores show the potential of the children and some good teaching, whereas the literacy scores show a need for some serious intervention. Although the MAPT programme was devoted to spelling and achieved approximately 30% uplift, it can also be seen to transfer to reading and give reading support with 10% uplift.

intervention gave the following results (**Table 4**).

In a Year 7 writing research project with this school [38], 18.6% of the cohort had spelling difficulties that put them in the 'dyslexia zone', and one third had poor spelling. This meant that they were failing the HMCI [39] criterion making more than 5 misspellings per 100 words. Although these researches were crosssectional rather than longitudinal, the failing group sizes were remarkably similar, e.g. approximately 20% in the dyslexic zone and one third of the cohorts in the disadvantaged group at Reception and in Year 7. The dyslexic zone at the secondary school stage may seem large, but it included those who are often called 'hidden'

**52**

edition.

**Table 3.**

*Initial socio-economic advantages in spelling scores.*

*SATs results for the FLane school.*

Remedial programmes that did not give sustained attention to spelling were found not to be able to give the 2-year uplift that was required [1, 26].

In the interim a series of government initiatives took place such as the National Literacy Strategy (NLS, 1998) that failed and then Phonics First [11], which seemed not to have the impact that had been expected. As a result any independent research intervention in schools was not possible in that period except for some research projects by our MA students in independent schools. Their casework with dyslexics identified as falling behind in Reception even after the structured support found that they usually had both dysgraphia and dyslexia—more complex needs. In their cases daily individual tuition using the reading and spelling packs from Hickey MLC or TRTS for the first five letters brought the pupil up to the level of peers [42]. Other pupils with less severe difficulties were found to be able to move forward with the Developmental Spelling programme alone and their normal class reading teaching methods.

Free writing of news as in the above examples, sometimes called 'free-form', 'emergent' writing or 'creative spelling' [10] has the advantage over reading in that the evidence it provides is concrete and records the child's developing knowledge. Although handwriting has been given little attention in English education in recent years [43], it also appears to play a more important role in reading development than has hitherto been understood as found in research with preliterate children by James and Engelhardt [33].

They found that the initial duplication process mattered a great deal. When children had drawn a letter freehand, they exhibited increased activity in three areas of the brain that were activated in adults when they read and write. These were the left fusiform gyrus, the inferior frontal gyrus and the posterior parietal cortex. It showed that handwriting supports sound-symbol knowledge development and provides another reason for using the MAPT training technique during the early learning of letters and their sounds. Solity [44] found that children only needed to learn a handful of sound-symbol associations to start them on their literacy learning. This is why it is essential to give them the training on /i/t/p/n/s/ because they can be used to build 25 words.

A writing component in dyslexia remediation is also endorsed by studies that showed spelling acquisition was greater when accompanied by writing activities as opposed to reading alone [45, 46]. Remediation programmes such as the Hickey Multisensory Language Course (HMLC) failed to give a 2-year uplift in each year when the spelling pack work and dictations were omitted [47]. In relation to later achievement, Berninger [48] found that the two best predictors of good composition in the later years were speed in writing the letters of the alphabet and coding them (writing the symbols for the letter sounds).

The present research had begun in 2012 when state schoolteachers seemed to become ready again to try new literacy initiatives. In this research having established the nature of the spelling/writing difficulties in the 175 scripts, a rank order of spelling skills was developed. Each script was analysed for the level of spelling skill in relation to the scale as well as handwriting competence. A scale point of 5 was

identified as critical in that it showed that the child had correctly just linked a sound with its symbol and used it in writing, and it was termed a 'phone' to distinguish it. It showed that a child had just begun to 'crack the alphabetic code' [49]. If this was the case, then profiles of dyslexic development showed that he or she was unlikely to become dyslexic. What was also found to be critical in dyslexics' progress was to build words, and this needed to be done from the outset of the programmes.

This new research offered an opportunity to test the effectiveness of the interventions using MAPT and word building with Reception (Foundation) Year and Year 1 children. In this cohort of over 100 children from a coastal area in England, it would be predicted that 10 of them would become dyslexic and at least 4 of them would have severe dyslexia and would not be able to write legible, readable messages by the time they were 7 years old, the traditional time when they might be identified. In this area it had been found that one third of their feeder secondary school pupils had significant difficulties with spelling and 18.6% were in the dyslexic category making more than 10 different errors per 100 words [38].

The eight teachers were sent a copy the *Developmental Spelling Handbook* as well as the reports on each of their pupils as for Hana and Freddie below. They contained a diagnosis of motor and spelling skill with suggestions on how the skills could be improved. The 111 reports were sent to the schools' learning managers in February 2013, late May 2013 and again in December 2014. The teachers could choose whether or not to implement any of the ideas, and some seemed more proactive than others in this respect especially the teacher of class A1. The results are shown in **Table 2**. The teachers in Year 1 could also choose to follow up on the programme based on the reports the results follow.

#### **5. The follow-up study 2014**

Two years later, in September 2014, the three State schools left in the project provided another sample of their pupil's writing on entry into Year 2. This time it was a 10-minute free writing 'test' on a favourite topic of the child's choice. They were given a few minutes to think and plan what they would write. Two schools A and C now responded (N = 93 pairs of scripts). There were 4 Year 2 classes altogether, 2 classes with 35 subjects from School A and 58 subjects from School C who had participated in the original Reception year study. The hypothesis was that if the teachers had been influenced by the reports and implemented some of the suggestions, instead of there being 10 dyslexics per 100 subjects, there might be just 1 or 2 per 100 subjects. Example profiles of two typical sets of reports are shown below for Georgia and Freddie.

Georgia: October 2012 copy writing (5): Copies all the words, good-sized writing cannot fit it all in quite. Uses capital A's and reverses form of 'y's. Brofeo for 'brother' indicates use of a phone so may have more in her repertoire if this can be explored. May just have cracked the code although emergent writing does not show this. Has two of the letters in her name 'G' and 'A' and some letter-like forms.

Emergent writing (3): Makes letters 'e' and 'o' as letter shapes. Has not 'cracked the code' here yet. Suggests focus upon teaching the two easy letters and their sounds and names such as 'i' and 't' and shows how words can be built using them, adding 'e' and 'o' soon to help with writing her name.

Emergent writing b. March 2013 (9): 'I think it is kuld in spias'. The meaning is very clear. There are word spaces, and she is using whole word knowledge plus good phonic skills. This suggests she has a good visual memory as well as phonic ability. Good clear writing of a reasonable size, suggest encourage joining now.

October 2014 Year 2 free writing: Georgia wrote 112 words 11.2 w.p.m. above average for the year group and made 7 misspellings 6.25%. No coordination difficulties noted.

**55**

**Table 5.**

*Identifying and Remediating Dyslexia in Kindergarten and the Foundation Year*

Freddie: October 2012 copy writing (1): Traces over the yellow letters with variation in pressure and some wobble. Nearly manages to copy 'I went', but it deteriorates to a very shaky and faint 'w' and an 'e' upside down followed by 't' then 't' in 'to' and ends there (I went to the hospital). Shows coordination difficulties, so will need strengthening, rhythm and pattern training to support the writing skill. Emergent writing a (2): Makes one or two very large letters (F) and letter shapes in a line. Has not 'cracked the code' but did appear to understand the writing task. March 2013 emergent writing b. (2–3): He makes some very large letter shapes (half a page long) that include 'i', 'F' and possibly 'n'. The marks are shaky but clear and in a line showing some development of motor skill and writing knowledge. However coordination difficulties are still apparent, and he needs some direct teaching to help him develop some basic phonic knowledge beginning with 'onsets'

His message is 'Daddy, granddad, Nana, mummy, Keith, Joshy, Benben, Leo – we all went on a holiday and took a picnic'. There is a sense of desperation here in that his message is long, coherent and interesting, but his writing skills do not match it. This mismatch makes him a candidate for dyslexia if he cannot 'crack the code'

Coordination difficulties noted in (a) and (b). Writing speed is significantly below average for this age group. It should be seven to eight words per minute. Spelling is in the dyslexic range but mainly likely to be because of the delays caused

Ninety-three matched pairs of scripts were identified and analysed. The overall

Mean writing speeds of students in schools were found to be 1 word more than their chronological age [5, 50]. The results in **Table 5** show that the disadvantaged groups were writing more slowly than the mean for their age group and the advantaged groups were writing faster. This is one more reason why the disadvantaged

To test the predictive value of the spelling scale, the scores were added together

**Nos. w.p.m. Sp errors Sp err %**

**Means Means**

for F1 and F2 emergent writing and tested against the spelling error scores of the same pupils in Year 2, as well as their words per minute; the Spearman's rho

School A1 18 5.57 13.41 22.4% School A2 17 5.66 14.34 25.7% Totals 35 5.61 13.88 24.0% School C1 33 7.93 14.61 18.26% School C2 25 7.76 9.28 12.67% Totals 58 7.86 12.31 15.47%

October 2014: Year 2: Wrote 52 words, 5.2 w.p.m., and made 14

totals for the two schools on entry to Year 2 are as follows:

groups will be prone to underachieve in school and university [48].

• Mean writing speed was 6.91 words per minute

• Mean spelling error rate was 12.9 per script

*Writing speed and spelling results from year 2 (N = 93).*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90808*

in reading and 'I spy' games.

misspellings—25.93%.

by his coordination difficulties.

soon. Try articulatory phonics with onsets.

#### *Identifying and Remediating Dyslexia in Kindergarten and the Foundation Year DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90808*

Freddie: October 2012 copy writing (1): Traces over the yellow letters with variation in pressure and some wobble. Nearly manages to copy 'I went', but it deteriorates to a very shaky and faint 'w' and an 'e' upside down followed by 't' then 't' in 'to' and ends there (I went to the hospital). Shows coordination difficulties, so will need strengthening, rhythm and pattern training to support the writing skill.

Emergent writing a (2): Makes one or two very large letters (F) and letter shapes in a line. Has not 'cracked the code' but did appear to understand the writing task.

March 2013 emergent writing b. (2–3): He makes some very large letter shapes (half a page long) that include 'i', 'F' and possibly 'n'. The marks are shaky but clear and in a line showing some development of motor skill and writing knowledge. However coordination difficulties are still apparent, and he needs some direct teaching to help him develop some basic phonic knowledge beginning with 'onsets' in reading and 'I spy' games.

His message is 'Daddy, granddad, Nana, mummy, Keith, Joshy, Benben, Leo – we all went on a holiday and took a picnic'. There is a sense of desperation here in that his message is long, coherent and interesting, but his writing skills do not match it. This mismatch makes him a candidate for dyslexia if he cannot 'crack the code' soon. Try articulatory phonics with onsets.

October 2014: Year 2: Wrote 52 words, 5.2 w.p.m., and made 14 misspellings—25.93%.

Coordination difficulties noted in (a) and (b). Writing speed is significantly below average for this age group. It should be seven to eight words per minute. Spelling is in the dyslexic range but mainly likely to be because of the delays caused by his coordination difficulties.

Ninety-three matched pairs of scripts were identified and analysed. The overall totals for the two schools on entry to Year 2 are as follows:


Mean writing speeds of students in schools were found to be 1 word more than their chronological age [5, 50]. The results in **Table 5** show that the disadvantaged groups were writing more slowly than the mean for their age group and the advantaged groups were writing faster. This is one more reason why the disadvantaged groups will be prone to underachieve in school and university [48].

To test the predictive value of the spelling scale, the scores were added together for F1 and F2 emergent writing and tested against the spelling error scores of the same pupils in Year 2, as well as their words per minute; the Spearman's rho


#### **Table 5.**

*Writing speed and spelling results from year 2 (N = 93).*

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

identified as critical in that it showed that the child had correctly just linked a sound with its symbol and used it in writing, and it was termed a 'phone' to distinguish it. It showed that a child had just begun to 'crack the alphabetic code' [49]. If this was the case, then profiles of dyslexic development showed that he or she was unlikely to become dyslexic. What was also found to be critical in dyslexics' progress was to build words, and this needed to be done from the outset of the programmes.

This new research offered an opportunity to test the effectiveness of the interventions using MAPT and word building with Reception (Foundation) Year and Year 1 children. In this cohort of over 100 children from a coastal area in England, it would be predicted that 10 of them would become dyslexic and at least 4 of them would have severe dyslexia and would not be able to write legible, readable messages by the time they were 7 years old, the traditional time when they might be identified. In this area it had been found that one third of their feeder secondary school pupils had significant difficulties with spelling and 18.6% were in the dyslexic category making more than 10 different errors per 100 words [38].

The eight teachers were sent a copy the *Developmental Spelling Handbook* as well as the reports on each of their pupils as for Hana and Freddie below. They contained a diagnosis of motor and spelling skill with suggestions on how the skills could be improved. The 111 reports were sent to the schools' learning managers in February 2013, late May 2013 and again in December 2014. The teachers could choose whether or not to implement any of the ideas, and some seemed more proactive than others in this respect especially the teacher of class A1. The results are shown in **Table 2**. The teachers in Year 1 could also choose to follow up on the programme

Two years later, in September 2014, the three State schools left in the project provided another sample of their pupil's writing on entry into Year 2. This time it was a 10-minute free writing 'test' on a favourite topic of the child's choice. They were given a few minutes to think and plan what they would write. Two schools A and C now responded (N = 93 pairs of scripts). There were 4 Year 2 classes altogether, 2 classes with 35 subjects from School A and 58 subjects from School C who had participated in the original Reception year study. The hypothesis was that if the teachers had been influenced by the reports and implemented some of the suggestions, instead of there being 10 dyslexics per 100 subjects, there might be just 1 or 2 per 100 subjects. Example

profiles of two typical sets of reports are shown below for Georgia and Freddie.

two of the letters in her name 'G' and 'A' and some letter-like forms.

Good clear writing of a reasonable size, suggest encourage joining now.

adding 'e' and 'o' soon to help with writing her name.

Georgia: October 2012 copy writing (5): Copies all the words, good-sized writing cannot fit it all in quite. Uses capital A's and reverses form of 'y's. Brofeo for 'brother' indicates use of a phone so may have more in her repertoire if this can be explored. May just have cracked the code although emergent writing does not show this. Has

Emergent writing (3): Makes letters 'e' and 'o' as letter shapes. Has not 'cracked

Emergent writing b. March 2013 (9): 'I think it is kuld in spias'. The meaning is very clear. There are word spaces, and she is using whole word knowledge plus good phonic skills. This suggests she has a good visual memory as well as phonic ability.

October 2014 Year 2 free writing: Georgia wrote 112 words 11.2 w.p.m. above average for the year group and made 7 misspellings 6.25%. No coordination difficulties noted.

the code' here yet. Suggests focus upon teaching the two easy letters and their sounds and names such as 'i' and 't' and shows how words can be built using them,

based on the reports the results follow.

**5. The follow-up study 2014**

**54**

correlations were significant at the p < 0.01 level for free-form writing and spelling (+0.58) and (+0.51) accounting for 29 and 25% of the variance. The correlations between words per minute and early spelling skills were not significant except for Class C2 (+0.48). This suggested an approach to teaching writing that valued correct spelling over encouraging developmental spelling. Or it was possibly an idea held by the children that it was more important to get things right than to learn from error. This may well be a disadvantaging approach in years to come in problem solving contexts. It may also be a consequence of lower social status rearing techniques as well as teacher attitude.

At the end of Year 2, the schools taking part in the Writing Research Project were entered for the national SATs, and the results are shown in **Table 6**. In 2015 the 2014 SATs results from the three local schools were collected from the Government Website.

The percentages are of children reaching Level 2 at Key stage 1 in the three schools. The project children in all three schools showed significant improvements in their results compared with the three previous years. The literacy improvements in the low socio-economic status schools (SES) A and B were in the region of 30% and 10% in the already high scores of the advantaged school C. It suggests that the teachers in these schools had implemented some of the techniques and this had benefited the children through the end of the Reception year and into Year 1. SATs results of other schools in the area did not show significant uplifts such as these.

After 19 months the main factors affecting the cohort's achievements were residual coordination difficulties, legibility and orthographic spelling problems. The analysis of the scripts also revealed some factors about the current teaching methods in the schools. It showed that 'Phonics First' and synthetic phonics were not much in evidence. Guided letter formation and the use of lines to write on would be prominent in a list of advisory points as well as removing tracing and copying from the schools' agenda. Of all the scripts from the Year 2 classes, only one was the least decipherable and contained the most primitive spelling. It is typical of spelling seen in the scripts of older or recovering dyslexics entering the alphabetic phase.

In this cohort it was expected that at least 10% would show dyslexic spelling difficulties by the time they reached Year 3 and at least one would be a non-reader and writer like Steven in **Figure 2** above, but this has not proven to be the case, and it is proposed that it was the early attention to 'phones' and word building that helped prevent this. However there was one boy who had handwriting and spelling problems in the alphabetic dyslexic phase.

He wrote at a speed of 4.9 words per minute, which is significantly slower than for the Year 2 age group as a whole (e.g. 7–8 w.p.m.). The script was faint and variable in pressure indicating coordination difficulties. His spelling showed he had cracked the alphabetic code later than other pupils and was just beginning to use it to communicate his ideas. He needed systematic direct teaching of word building using the basic sounds i/t/p/n/s and following the rest of the Developmental Programme.


**57**

**Figure 6.**

*Examples of the range of skills on entry to reception.*

*Identifying and Remediating Dyslexia in Kindergarten and the Foundation Year*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90808*

*James. I took granddad to the library: Scores 9.*

**Figure 5.**

#### **Table 6.**

*Key stage 1 SATs results for the three project schools.*

*Identifying and Remediating Dyslexia in Kindergarten and the Foundation Year DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90808*

**Figure 5.** *James. I took granddad to the library: Scores 9.*

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

niques as well as teacher attitude.

problems in the alphabetic dyslexic phase.

*Key stage 1 SATs results for the three project schools.*

correlations were significant at the p < 0.01 level for free-form writing and spelling (+0.58) and (+0.51) accounting for 29 and 25% of the variance. The correlations between words per minute and early spelling skills were not significant except for Class C2 (+0.48). This suggested an approach to teaching writing that valued correct spelling over encouraging developmental spelling. Or it was possibly an idea held by the children that it was more important to get things right than to learn from error. This may well be a disadvantaging approach in years to come in problem solving contexts. It may also be a consequence of lower social status rearing tech-

At the end of Year 2, the schools taking part in the Writing Research Project were entered for the national SATs, and the results are shown in **Table 6**. In 2015 the 2014 SATs results from the three local schools were collected from the Government Website. The percentages are of children reaching Level 2 at Key stage 1 in the three schools. The project children in all three schools showed significant improvements in their results compared with the three previous years. The literacy improvements in the low socio-economic status schools (SES) A and B were in the region of 30% and 10% in the already high scores of the advantaged school C. It suggests that the teachers in these schools had implemented some of the techniques and this had benefited the children through the end of the Reception year and into Year 1. SATs results of other schools in the area did not show significant uplifts such as these. After 19 months the main factors affecting the cohort's achievements were residual coordination difficulties, legibility and orthographic spelling problems. The analysis of the scripts also revealed some factors about the current teaching methods in the schools. It showed that 'Phonics First' and synthetic phonics were not much in evidence. Guided letter formation and the use of lines to write on would be prominent in a list of advisory points as well as removing tracing and copying from the schools' agenda. Of all the scripts from the Year 2 classes, only one was the least decipherable and contained the most primitive spelling. It is typical of spelling seen

in the scripts of older or recovering dyslexics entering the alphabetic phase.

In this cohort it was expected that at least 10% would show dyslexic spelling difficulties by the time they reached Year 3 and at least one would be a non-reader and writer like Steven in **Figure 2** above, but this has not proven to be the case, and it is proposed that it was the early attention to 'phones' and word building that helped prevent this. However there was one boy who had handwriting and spelling

He wrote at a speed of 4.9 words per minute, which is significantly slower than for the Year 2 age group as a whole (e.g. 7–8 w.p.m.). The script was faint and variable in pressure indicating coordination difficulties. His spelling showed he had cracked the alphabetic code later than other pupils and was just beginning to use it to communicate his ideas. He needed systematic direct teaching of word building using the basic sounds i/t/p/n/s and following the rest of the Developmental

**2011 2012 2013 2014 2014**

School A 35% 47% 48% 78% 85% 80% 66% School B 37% 37% 50% 66% 76% 78% 46% School C 77% 87% 88% 96% 95% 98% 96%

**Reading Writing Maths**

**56**

**Table 6.**

Programme.

**Figure 6.** *Examples of the range of skills on entry to reception.*

Since these pilot studies were completed, funded research in other countries has emerged that supports the underlying principles. For example, Suggate et al. [51] tested 144 German preschoolers (kindergartners) age 6.1 years before reading instruction took place. They were tested on a wide range of cognitive and skills items including fine motor skills (FMS); graphomotor skill, a Greek letter copying task; and writing—they wrote their names and were read 7 letter names to write, and literacy was tested.

They found that the best predictor of decoding (reading) was the ability to copy letters. The study showed that children who could write not only could read better but that early reading went hand in hand with writing. In an earlier study [52], writing letters was shown to be more effective in literacy acquisition than pointing at letters, confirming that implicit transfer from reading to spelling is lower than from spelling to reading.

Ehri's [17] research showed that when there is a basic phonetic structure, children begin to map correct spellings onto this, and this can be seen happening in various scripts in **Figures 4**–**6**. It shows how important reading is to spelling and writing is to reading and that it is unwise to use only one teaching method especially in the early stages. The 'Phonics First' approach when teachers might try to teach all the sounds before they teach word building or rush pupils on over the phonics ground before they have broken the code is to disadvantage them. Equally delaying the use of Look and Say for reading can also be disadvantageous.

#### **6. Conclusion**

In this research how to identify dyslexia in young children a few weeks after their entry to school was shown. It involved discovering if they had understood and could use the alphabetic principle and then giving specific training to those who had not. Pilot studies had shown that this could be effective, and the results in this study confirmed this. Later school SATs showed that the schools in the disadvantaged areas had undergone an uplift of 30% in literacy over previous years as a result of the intervention. In literacy learning pupils will proceed at different rates and steps, and stages will become blurred. It makes research into literacy acquisition through the single lens of reading impossible for resolving the dyslexia problem. What cannot be ignored is the role of implicit learning in literacy [53, 54] and for teachers to take account of this when children arrive at school in order to build upon the knowledge. The free-form writing task enabled this to take place.

The design and use of a spelling rating scale enabled the targeting of teachers' attention to developing 'phones' for use by particular children in both reading and writing. The use of 'phones' or lack of 'phones' in the children's scripts enabled the teachers to intervene and promote them. The intervention strategy was MAPT to overcome any barrier that might be preventing some of the children from easily acquiring alphabetic knowledge. The strategy also identified the severe dyslexic who should have been put on a specialist programme, preferably in the last term in Reception.

The reason that this study is significant is that not only does it identify the literacy of dyslexic and disadvantaged children but that it shows an intervention that can help them overcome their problems. What needs to be investigated thereafter is that if freed from the deficit at an early stage, their literacy can develop normally as teens and adults.

What is now needed is funded research that can train teachers in the technique. This would involve a 2-hour training workshop and then the implementation

**59**

**Author details**

Diane Montgomery

Middlesex University, London, UK

provided the original work is properly cited.

\*Address all correspondence to: dmont507@aol.com

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

*Identifying and Remediating Dyslexia in Kindergarten and the Foundation Year*

help overcome the most common learning disability—dyslexia.

monitored and the children followed through the elementary school years to evaluate the system in a large replication study. It is expected that this could be extremely cost-effective in human and financial terms both in the short and long term and

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90808*

*Identifying and Remediating Dyslexia in Kindergarten and the Foundation Year DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90808*

monitored and the children followed through the elementary school years to evaluate the system in a large replication study. It is expected that this could be extremely cost-effective in human and financial terms both in the short and long term and help overcome the most common learning disability—dyslexia.

#### **Author details**

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

and literacy was tested.

from spelling to reading.

**6. Conclusion**

this to take place.

Reception.

teens and adults.

Since these pilot studies were completed, funded research in other countries has emerged that supports the underlying principles. For example, Suggate et al. [51] tested 144 German preschoolers (kindergartners) age 6.1 years before reading instruction took place. They were tested on a wide range of cognitive and skills items including fine motor skills (FMS); graphomotor skill, a Greek letter copying task; and writing—they wrote their names and were read 7 letter names to write,

They found that the best predictor of decoding (reading) was the ability to copy letters. The study showed that children who could write not only could read better but that early reading went hand in hand with writing. In an earlier study [52], writing letters was shown to be more effective in literacy acquisition than pointing at letters, confirming that implicit transfer from reading to spelling is lower than

Ehri's [17] research showed that when there is a basic phonetic structure, children begin to map correct spellings onto this, and this can be seen happening in various scripts in **Figures 4**–**6**. It shows how important reading is to spelling and writing is to reading and that it is unwise to use only one teaching method especially in the early stages. The 'Phonics First' approach when teachers might try to teach all the sounds before they teach word building or rush pupils on over the phonics ground before they have broken the code is to disadvantage them. Equally delaying

In this research how to identify dyslexia in young children a few weeks after their entry to school was shown. It involved discovering if they had understood and could use the alphabetic principle and then giving specific training to those who had not. Pilot studies had shown that this could be effective, and the results in this study confirmed this. Later school SATs showed that the schools in the disadvantaged areas had undergone an uplift of 30% in literacy over previous years as a result of the intervention. In literacy learning pupils will proceed at different rates and steps, and stages will become blurred. It makes research into literacy acquisition through the single lens of reading impossible for resolving the dyslexia problem. What cannot be ignored is the role of implicit learning in literacy [53, 54] and for teachers to take account of this when children arrive at school in order to build upon the knowledge. The free-form writing task enabled

The design and use of a spelling rating scale enabled the targeting of teachers' attention to developing 'phones' for use by particular children in both reading and writing. The use of 'phones' or lack of 'phones' in the children's scripts enabled the teachers to intervene and promote them. The intervention strategy was MAPT to overcome any barrier that might be preventing some of the children from easily acquiring alphabetic knowledge. The strategy also identified the severe dyslexic who should have been put on a specialist programme, preferably in the last term in

The reason that this study is significant is that not only does it identify the literacy of dyslexic and disadvantaged children but that it shows an intervention that can help them overcome their problems. What needs to be investigated thereafter is that if freed from the deficit at an early stage, their literacy can develop normally as

What is now needed is funded research that can train teachers in the technique.

This would involve a 2-hour training workshop and then the implementation

the use of Look and Say for reading can also be disadvantageous.

**58**

Diane Montgomery Middlesex University, London, UK

\*Address all correspondence to: dmont507@aol.com

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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[34] Geschwind N. Specialisations of the human brain. Scientific American. 1979;**231**(3):156-167

[35] Fernald GM. Remedial Techniques in Basic School Subjects. New York: McGraw-Hill; 1943

[36] Jerrim J. The Reading Gap. Millbank, London: The Sutton Trust; 2013

[37] Whitehead MR. Language and Literacy in the Early Years. 3rd ed. London: Sage; 2004

[38] Montgomery D. Cohort analysis of writing in year 7 after 2, 4, and 7 years of the National Literacy Strategy. Support for Learning. 2008;**23**(1):3-11

[39] HMCI. The Annual Report of the Chief Inspector for Schools in England. London: The Stationery Office; 2001

[40] Augur J, Briggs S, editors. The Hickey Multisensory Language Course. 2nd ed. London: Whurr/Wiley-Blackwell; 1991

[41] Gllingham AM, Stillman BU. Remedial Training for Children with Specific Disability in Reading, Spelling and Penmanship. Bath: Basic Books; 1956

[42] Vallence C. An investigation into the design of a multisensory reading, spelling and handwriting curriculum in a small independent primary school [MA SpLD thesis]. London: Middlesex University; 2008

[43] Medwell J, Strand S, Wray D. What should we assess in primary writing? Handwriting Today. 2008;**7**:23-28

[44] Solity J. Systematic Synthetic Phonics. A Possible Cause of Pupils' Literacy Difficulties. Lecture 11th International Conference of the BDA; April; Telford, UK, 2018

[45] Bosse M-L, Chaves N, Valdois S. Lexical orthography acquisition: Is handwriting better than spelling aloud? Frontiers in Psychology. 2014;**5**. DOI: 10.3389/ fpsyg.2014.00056

**60**

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

[13] Clay MM. What Did I Write? The Beginnings of Reading Development.

[14] Montgomery D. Identifying and remediating dyslexia in the reception year. A new possibility? Support for

London: Heinemann; 1975

Learning. 2017b;**31**(1):69-80

[15] Cowdery LL, McMahon J, Monrgomery D, Morse P,

TRTS Publishing; 1994

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Prince-Bruce M. Teaching Reading through Spelling. Vol. 2B. Wrexham:

[16] Ehri L, Frith U, editors. Cognitive Processes in Spelling. Chichester: Wiley;

[17] Ehri LC. Acquisition of sightword reading, spelling memory and vocabulary learning. The role of orthographic mapping. In: Keynote Lecture 11th International Conference of the BDA; April; Telford, UK. 2018

[18] Monroe M. Children Who cannot Read. Chicago: Chicago University

[19] Montgomery D. Spelling: Remedial Strategies. London: Cassell; 1997a

[20] Montgomery D. Developmental Spelling Handbook Maldon: Learning Difficulties Research Project. 1997b. Available from: www.ldrp.org.uk

[21] Brown GDA, Ellis NC, editors. Handbook of Spelling: Theory, Practice and Intervention. Chichester: Wiley; 1994

[22] Snowling MJ. Dyslexia. 2nd ed.

[23] Vellutino FR. Dyslexia: Theory and Research. London: MIT Press; 1979

Snowling M, Scanlon D. Specific reading disability (dyslexia) what have we

Oxford: Blackwell; 2000

[24] Vellutino FR, Fletcher J,

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[2] Al-Hroub A. Types of Developmental

[3] Gelb IJ. A Study of Writing. 2nd ed. London: University of Chicago Press;

[4] BDA. 2019. Available from: www. bda-dyslexia.org.uk. [Accessed: 28

[5] Montgomery D. Dyslexia-Friendly Approaches to Reading, Spelling and Handwriting: A Toolkit for Teachers.

[6] Chall J. Learning to Read: The Great Debate. New York: McGraw-Hill; 1967

Development. New York: McGraw-Hill;

[8] Clark MM. Reading Difficulties in Schools. Harmondsworth: Penguin;

[9] Ferreiro E, Teberosky A. Literacy before Schooling. Exeter NH:

[10] Read C. Children's Creative Spelling. London: Routledge and Kegan-Paul;

[11] Rose J. Rose Review. Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading: Final Report. London: DfES;

[12] Chomsky C. Write first, read later. Childhood Education.

1971;**47**(6):296-299

London: Routledge; 2017a

[7] Chall J. Stages in Reading

[46] Ouellette G, Beers A. A not-sosimple view of reading: How oral vocabulary and visual-word recognition complicate the story. Reading and Writing. 2010;**23**(2):189-208. DOI: 10.1007/s11145-008-9159-1

[47] Ridehalgh N. A comparison of remediation programmes and an analysis of their effectiveness in a sample of pupils diagnosed as dyslexic' [MA SpLD Dissertation]. London: Middlesex University; 1999

[48] Berninger VW. Writing problems in developmental dyslexia. Underrecognised and under-treated. Journal of School Psychology. 2008;**46**:1-21

[49] Montgomery D. Teaching prereading through training in pattern recognition. The Reading Teacher. 1977;**30**(6):216-225

[50] Allcock P. The importance of handwriting skills in key stage 3 and GCSE examinations of more able pupils. Educating Abled Children. 2001;**5**(1):23-25

[51] Suggate S, Pufke E, Stoeger H. 'Do fine motor skills contribute to early reading development?' Journal of Research in Reading. 2016b Vol. 00, No. 00, 1-19 DOI:10.1111/1467-9817.12081

[52] Suggate S, Pufke E, Stoeger H. The effect of fine and grapho-motor skill demands on preschoolers' decoding skill. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 2016a;**141**:34-48

[53] van Daal V. A longitudinal study of self-teaching in learning to read and spell. In: Keynote Lecture 11th International Conference of the BDA; Telford, UK; 12-14 April 2018

**63**

**Chapter 5**

**Abstract**

Chinese

*and Jocelyn Ching-Yan Kwok*

The Heterogeneity of

Reading-Related Difficulties in

The present chapter reviews cognitive-linguistic skills which are associated with various reading-related difficulties in Chinese. Research findings have showed that rapid naming and orthographic deficits are the unique marker deficits of Chinese developmental dyslexia. However, studies have indicated overlapping and dissociative deficits in dyslexia and spelling difficulties. Findings on dissociation between word reading and spelling difficulties suggest that weaknesses in orthographic processing may specifically cause difficulties in Chinese word spelling. Deficits in rapid naming are more associated with word reading fluency than reading accuracy. Beyond word level processing, there are children who encounter difficulties in reading comprehension even with adequate decoding skills. This group of specific poor comprehenders was found to be weak in some discourse-level skills, like comprehension monitoring and inferencing. Knowledge of these findings will inform us about effective identification of and intervention for children with difficulties in

*Connie Suk-Han Ho, Edmond Hong-Kei Cheung* 

one or a combination of several reading-related difficulties in Chinese.

**Keywords:** cognitive-linguistic profile, dyslexia, spelling difficulties,

At least 10% of individuals may encounter disorders in oral and/or written languages, and this may hamper their long-term learning, social and psychological well-being. Since reading and writing are language-based activities, impairments on reading and writing may be rooted in some language difficulties. According to the Simple View of Reading [1, 2], decoding and language comprehension are the two core components of reading comprehension with empirical support in alphabetic (see Florit and Cain's meta-analysis study [3]) and non-alphabetic writing systems like Chinese (e.g., [4, 5]). This framework is also useful for classifying various types of reading difficulties. Dyslexic children are often found mainly to have decoding problems, while poor comprehenders have difficulties in language comprehension (e.g., [6, 7]). There appears to be differential impairments in decoding and comprehension skills in different poor reader groups (e.g., [8, 9]). The present chapter will discuss the heterogeneity of reading-related difficulties in word reading, spelling,

reading comprehension difficulties, Chinese

and reading comprehension among Chinese readers.

**1. Introduction**

[54] NLS. The National Literacy Strategy. London: NLS; 1998

#### **Chapter 5**

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

[46] Ouellette G, Beers A. A not-sosimple view of reading: How oral vocabulary and visual-word recognition complicate the story. Reading and Writing. 2010;**23**(2):189-208. DOI:

[47] Ridehalgh N. A comparison of remediation programmes and an analysis of their effectiveness in a sample of pupils diagnosed as dyslexic' [MA SpLD Dissertation]. London: Middlesex University; 1999

[48] Berninger VW. Writing problems in developmental dyslexia. Underrecognised and under-treated. Journal of School Psychology. 2008;**46**:1-21

[49] Montgomery D. Teaching prereading through training in pattern recognition. The Reading Teacher.

[50] Allcock P. The importance of handwriting skills in key stage 3 and GCSE examinations of more able pupils. Educating Abled Children.

[51] Suggate S, Pufke E, Stoeger H. 'Do fine motor skills contribute to early reading development?' Journal of Research in Reading. 2016b Vol. 00, No. 00, 1-19 DOI:10.1111/1467-9817.12081

[52] Suggate S, Pufke E, Stoeger H. The effect of fine and grapho-motor skill demands on preschoolers' decoding skill. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 2016a;**141**:34-48

[53] van Daal V. A longitudinal study of self-teaching in learning to read and spell. In: Keynote Lecture 11th International Conference of the BDA;

Telford, UK; 12-14 April 2018

[54] NLS. The National Literacy Strategy. London: NLS; 1998

1977;**30**(6):216-225

2001;**5**(1):23-25

10.1007/s11145-008-9159-1

**62**

## The Heterogeneity of Reading-Related Difficulties in Chinese

*Connie Suk-Han Ho, Edmond Hong-Kei Cheung and Jocelyn Ching-Yan Kwok*

#### **Abstract**

The present chapter reviews cognitive-linguistic skills which are associated with various reading-related difficulties in Chinese. Research findings have showed that rapid naming and orthographic deficits are the unique marker deficits of Chinese developmental dyslexia. However, studies have indicated overlapping and dissociative deficits in dyslexia and spelling difficulties. Findings on dissociation between word reading and spelling difficulties suggest that weaknesses in orthographic processing may specifically cause difficulties in Chinese word spelling. Deficits in rapid naming are more associated with word reading fluency than reading accuracy. Beyond word level processing, there are children who encounter difficulties in reading comprehension even with adequate decoding skills. This group of specific poor comprehenders was found to be weak in some discourse-level skills, like comprehension monitoring and inferencing. Knowledge of these findings will inform us about effective identification of and intervention for children with difficulties in one or a combination of several reading-related difficulties in Chinese.

**Keywords:** cognitive-linguistic profile, dyslexia, spelling difficulties, reading comprehension difficulties, Chinese

#### **1. Introduction**

At least 10% of individuals may encounter disorders in oral and/or written languages, and this may hamper their long-term learning, social and psychological well-being. Since reading and writing are language-based activities, impairments on reading and writing may be rooted in some language difficulties. According to the Simple View of Reading [1, 2], decoding and language comprehension are the two core components of reading comprehension with empirical support in alphabetic (see Florit and Cain's meta-analysis study [3]) and non-alphabetic writing systems like Chinese (e.g., [4, 5]). This framework is also useful for classifying various types of reading difficulties. Dyslexic children are often found mainly to have decoding problems, while poor comprehenders have difficulties in language comprehension (e.g., [6, 7]). There appears to be differential impairments in decoding and comprehension skills in different poor reader groups (e.g., [8, 9]). The present chapter will discuss the heterogeneity of reading-related difficulties in word reading, spelling, and reading comprehension among Chinese readers.

#### **2. Cognitive profiles of reading and spelling difficulties in Chinese**

#### **2.1 Developmental dyslexia: decoding difficulties in Chinese**

About a century ago, developmental dyslexia (DD) was called "word blindness," which suggested that for some unknown reasons individuals having this disorder could not recognize words efficiently like people having blindness. Generally speaking, around 3–5% of the school population in a Western country has DD, a severe and persistent difficulty in reading and spelling, which is not a result of any apparent intrinsic or extrinsic causes. Research findings have informed us that DD is a specific genetic language-based disorder and at-risk children may have difficulties learning the spoken language before they formally learn to read. Although there are geneticbasis and neurological differences in DD, our discussion in the present chapter will mainly focus on the cognitive functioning of individuals with reading difficulties.

For people with DD reading an alphabetic writing system, their major cognitive deficits appear to be phonologically based. When reading an opaque language like English, DD readers tend to have weak phonological awareness particularly at phonemic level and in reading nonwords [10–12]. On the other hand, DD readers of more transparent alphabetic systems like Spanish and German, deficit in rapid naming of familiar visual stimuli, instead of phonological awareness, has been found to be a core cognitive deficit (e.g., [12–14]). One possible reason is that with highly regular grapheme-phoneme conversion rules, reading these transparent writing systems does not require strong sensitivity in phonemes as in opaque systems. However, fluent and automatic name retrieval is especially important for reading transparent scripts, especially in reading long words.

There has been an early belief that DD is only a problem for people who speak a Western language (e.g., English, German, and Italian). Early surveys reported a very low incidence of DD among Asian populations (e.g., [15–17]). However, current research findings inform us that children who speak an Asian language (e.g., Chinese, Korean, and Japanese) also have difficulties in reading (e.g., [18–20]). Since Chinese is the major non-alphabetic language with the largest reader population in the world, we would like to understand whether people with DD in Chinese show a cognitive profile different from those reading other alphabetic languages. Before we discuss the cognitive profile of Chinese DD, we will first give a brief account of the Chinese writing system below.

The Chinese writing system is famous for its visually complex orthography. The basic graphic unit in Chinese is a character, and characters are made up of different strokes. In terms of visual complexity, the average number of strokes of 2000 commonly used Chinese characters is 11.2 for the traditional script used in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and 9.0 for the simplified script used in mainland China [21]. Strokes are combined to form stroke-patterns (also called radicals) which may give meaning or sound cues to a character. There are a large number of orthographic units (about 200 semantic radicals and 800 phonetic radicals in Chinese characters [22]) as well as different degrees of positional, semantic, and phonological regularities for these orthographic units.

In terms of phonological structure, Chinese language is special for its monosyllabic nature and its presence of lexical tones, unlike alphabetic languages which are most often multi-syllabic and non-tonal. Each Chinese character is pronounced as a syllable with a fixed grouping of onset, rhyme, and tone. Each Chinese character also represents a morpheme and a much greater proportion of words in Chinese are formed by compounding (e.g., "foot-ball," "basket-ball," "hand-ball," etc.) than in European languages like English. The Chinese writing system is therefore visualorthographically complex, and more meaning-based than sound-based.

**65**

*The Heterogeneity of Reading-Related Difficulties in Chinese*

According to the "triangle" model of word reading [23], reading words primarily involves the computation of three types of codes: orthographic, phonological, and semantic. Therefore, orthographic skills, phonological awareness, phonological retrieval, and morphological awareness have been found to be important for word reading both in Chinese and in English [24–28]. It is reasonable to expect that having deficits in these cognitive areas may lead to DD. With the specific characteristics of the Chinese writing system, we would like to identify the cognitive markers

So what constitutes a unique marker deficit for DD? We consider that the marker deficits have to be present only in DD but not in other learning or developmental disorders, for example, specific language impairment or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), etc. There may be some common cognitive deficits shared among associated disorders but cognitive deficits unique to DD may better inform

Given the orthographic complexity and salience of word compounding morphology in Chinese, orthographic deficits and morphological deficits are expected to be potential candidates of cognitive markers of Chinese DD. Ho and her colleagues have reported that an orthographic deficit and a rapid naming deficit are the major reading-related cognitive deficits in Chinese DD [29, 30]. They have suggested that Chinese dyslexic children show problems in learning orthographic regularities and developing stable and strong orthographic representations that allow rapid retrieval. Although orthographic difficulty may also be found in some English children with dyslexia, this difficulty is more dominant among Chinese dyslexic individuals.

Other studies have shown that morphological awareness is an important predictor of reading success and failure in Chinese (e.g., [31, 32]). For instance, morphological awareness was found to contribute significantly and uniquely to Chinese character reading in kindergarten and grade 2 children, even after controlling for the effects of age, phonological awareness, speeded naming, and vocabulary [27]. Chinese dyslexic children were also found to perform significantly less well than age controls in morpheme production and judgment [32]. Morphological awareness appears to be more important in learning to read Chinese than in learning to read

To address the issue of unique marker deficits in Chinese DD, we may look into studies which compare the cognitive profile of DD with other learning or developmental disorders. However, this issue was not well examined in past studies. Among the few relevant studies, Ho and her colleagues compared some reading-related cognitive skills in children with different learning or developmental disorders, namely DD, ADHD, developmental coordination disorder (DCD), and borderline intelligence (BI) [33]. They reported that the DD-only group was most impaired in orthographic processing and rapid naming than all other pure groups. They suggested that these two cognitive deficits were unique marker deficits for Chinese DD. Another study compared some cognitive skills of Chinese first graders with DD, specific language impairments (SLI), and DD + SLI [34]. They reported that orthographic skills and rapid naming were associated with dyslexia; phonological memory and morphological awareness were associated with SLI; and phonological awareness was associated with both. In other studies of lexical tone awareness, both children with DD [35] and children with SLI [36] were found to be weak in tone discrimination and production (a unique phonological feature of the Chinese language). Findings of these studies together appear to show that orthographic deficit and rapid naming deficit are unique marker deficits of DD in Chinese, but

Morphological awareness is first developed in oral language when a child begins to pay attention to how some meaning units (morphemes) can be combined to form

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90937*

which may cause DD in Chinese.

us about etiology of the disorder.

alphabetic languages [31].

morphological or phonological deficit is probably not.

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

**2. Cognitive profiles of reading and spelling difficulties in Chinese**

About a century ago, developmental dyslexia (DD) was called "word blindness," which suggested that for some unknown reasons individuals having this disorder could not recognize words efficiently like people having blindness. Generally speaking, around 3–5% of the school population in a Western country has DD, a severe and persistent difficulty in reading and spelling, which is not a result of any apparent intrinsic or extrinsic causes. Research findings have informed us that DD is a specific genetic language-based disorder and at-risk children may have difficulties learning the spoken language before they formally learn to read. Although there are geneticbasis and neurological differences in DD, our discussion in the present chapter will mainly focus on the cognitive functioning of individuals with reading difficulties. For people with DD reading an alphabetic writing system, their major cognitive deficits appear to be phonologically based. When reading an opaque language like English, DD readers tend to have weak phonological awareness particularly at phonemic level and in reading nonwords [10–12]. On the other hand, DD readers of more transparent alphabetic systems like Spanish and German, deficit in rapid naming of familiar visual stimuli, instead of phonological awareness, has been found to be a core cognitive deficit (e.g., [12–14]). One possible reason is that with highly regular grapheme-phoneme conversion rules, reading these transparent writing systems does not require strong sensitivity in phonemes as in opaque systems. However, fluent and automatic name retrieval is especially important for

**2.1 Developmental dyslexia: decoding difficulties in Chinese**

reading transparent scripts, especially in reading long words.

account of the Chinese writing system below.

There has been an early belief that DD is only a problem for people who speak a Western language (e.g., English, German, and Italian). Early surveys reported a very low incidence of DD among Asian populations (e.g., [15–17]). However, current research findings inform us that children who speak an Asian language (e.g., Chinese, Korean, and Japanese) also have difficulties in reading (e.g., [18–20]). Since Chinese is the major non-alphabetic language with the largest reader population in the world, we would like to understand whether people with DD in Chinese show a cognitive profile different from those reading other alphabetic languages. Before we discuss the cognitive profile of Chinese DD, we will first give a brief

The Chinese writing system is famous for its visually complex orthography. The basic graphic unit in Chinese is a character, and characters are made up of different strokes. In terms of visual complexity, the average number of strokes of 2000 commonly used Chinese characters is 11.2 for the traditional script used in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and 9.0 for the simplified script used in mainland China [21]. Strokes are combined to form stroke-patterns (also called radicals) which may give meaning or sound cues to a character. There are a large number of orthographic units (about 200 semantic radicals and 800 phonetic radicals in Chinese characters [22]) as well as different degrees of positional, semantic, and phonological regularities for these

In terms of phonological structure, Chinese language is special for its monosyllabic nature and its presence of lexical tones, unlike alphabetic languages which are most often multi-syllabic and non-tonal. Each Chinese character is pronounced as a syllable with a fixed grouping of onset, rhyme, and tone. Each Chinese character also represents a morpheme and a much greater proportion of words in Chinese are formed by compounding (e.g., "foot-ball," "basket-ball," "hand-ball," etc.) than in European languages like English. The Chinese writing system is therefore visual-

orthographically complex, and more meaning-based than sound-based.

**64**

orthographic units.

According to the "triangle" model of word reading [23], reading words primarily involves the computation of three types of codes: orthographic, phonological, and semantic. Therefore, orthographic skills, phonological awareness, phonological retrieval, and morphological awareness have been found to be important for word reading both in Chinese and in English [24–28]. It is reasonable to expect that having deficits in these cognitive areas may lead to DD. With the specific characteristics of the Chinese writing system, we would like to identify the cognitive markers which may cause DD in Chinese.

So what constitutes a unique marker deficit for DD? We consider that the marker deficits have to be present only in DD but not in other learning or developmental disorders, for example, specific language impairment or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), etc. There may be some common cognitive deficits shared among associated disorders but cognitive deficits unique to DD may better inform us about etiology of the disorder.

Given the orthographic complexity and salience of word compounding morphology in Chinese, orthographic deficits and morphological deficits are expected to be potential candidates of cognitive markers of Chinese DD. Ho and her colleagues have reported that an orthographic deficit and a rapid naming deficit are the major reading-related cognitive deficits in Chinese DD [29, 30]. They have suggested that Chinese dyslexic children show problems in learning orthographic regularities and developing stable and strong orthographic representations that allow rapid retrieval. Although orthographic difficulty may also be found in some English children with dyslexia, this difficulty is more dominant among Chinese dyslexic individuals.

Other studies have shown that morphological awareness is an important predictor of reading success and failure in Chinese (e.g., [31, 32]). For instance, morphological awareness was found to contribute significantly and uniquely to Chinese character reading in kindergarten and grade 2 children, even after controlling for the effects of age, phonological awareness, speeded naming, and vocabulary [27]. Chinese dyslexic children were also found to perform significantly less well than age controls in morpheme production and judgment [32]. Morphological awareness appears to be more important in learning to read Chinese than in learning to read alphabetic languages [31].

To address the issue of unique marker deficits in Chinese DD, we may look into studies which compare the cognitive profile of DD with other learning or developmental disorders. However, this issue was not well examined in past studies. Among the few relevant studies, Ho and her colleagues compared some reading-related cognitive skills in children with different learning or developmental disorders, namely DD, ADHD, developmental coordination disorder (DCD), and borderline intelligence (BI) [33]. They reported that the DD-only group was most impaired in orthographic processing and rapid naming than all other pure groups. They suggested that these two cognitive deficits were unique marker deficits for Chinese DD.

Another study compared some cognitive skills of Chinese first graders with DD, specific language impairments (SLI), and DD + SLI [34]. They reported that orthographic skills and rapid naming were associated with dyslexia; phonological memory and morphological awareness were associated with SLI; and phonological awareness was associated with both. In other studies of lexical tone awareness, both children with DD [35] and children with SLI [36] were found to be weak in tone discrimination and production (a unique phonological feature of the Chinese language). Findings of these studies together appear to show that orthographic deficit and rapid naming deficit are unique marker deficits of DD in Chinese, but morphological or phonological deficit is probably not.

Morphological awareness is first developed in oral language when a child begins to pay attention to how some meaning units (morphemes) can be combined to form different words. Like other oral language skills, morphological awareness may affect development of word reading. However, morphological deficit may be rooted in some language impairments, for example, SLI, instead of a unique cognitive deficit of DD in Chinese. Therefore, difficulty in learning and remembering complicated orthographic patterns and automatic retrieval of arbitrary script-sound associations appear to be unique marker deficits in Chinese DD. This matches well with the characteristics of the Chinese writing system. Since studies on this topic is scarce, more future studies are required to validate this tentative conclusion.

#### **2.2 Dissociation between reading and spelling difficulties in Chinese**

Apart from exploring the various marker deficits of DD in Chinese, investigation of manifestations of other reading-related difficulties in Chinese also enhance our understanding of literacy acquisition and difficulties in Chinese. While DD is defined as decoding difficulties (i.e., word reading difficulties), it has an entangled relationship with "encoding" difficulties (i.e., difficulties in spelling). In both research and practice, the concept of "dyslexia" is often conveniently conceptualized as difficulties in both reading and spelling (e.g., [37–39]). Although reading and spelling are highly associated skills, the observed developmental asynchrony of the two skills indicates that they could be non-parallel processes with two partially independent systems [40]. Studies on the dissociation of reading and spelling difficulties have attempted to identify differences between the two systems and provide us with a more comprehensive understanding of reading-related difficulties.

Research has shown that some children experience reading difficulties without having spelling difficulties [41] or vice versa [42]. The prevalence of such dissociated difficulties varies across languages. For Finnish, an orthographically transparent language, it is estimated that 3% of the children have both reading and spelling difficulties (RSD), 1.8% of the children have reading difficulties only (RD), and 2.1% of them have spelling difficulties only (SD). The estimated prevalence rates of RSD, RD, and SD observed in Finnish children are comparable among each other [43]. In contrast, in a study of French users, a relatively less transparent orthography, Fayol et al. [44] have identified a much lower prevalence of RD and SD (both around 4%) as compared with the estimated prevalence of RSD (17.6%). Mixed results were found in studies on languages with high grapheme-to-phoneme consistency (forward regularity) and low phoneme-to-grapheme consistency (backward regularity). Reading is argued to be easier than spelling in these languages because of such asymmetry between forward and backward regularity [45]. As expected, Manolitsis and Georgiou [46] found more SD (8.1%) than RD (5.1%) in their sample of native Greek-speaking children. However, the estimated prevalence rates of SD and RD were comparable in Moll and Landerl's [47] study (SD: 7%; RD: 6.4%) and Wimmer and Mayringer's [41] study (SD: 3.4–5.1%; RD: 4.3–6.4%) with native German-speaking children. Both Greek and German are considered to a high forward regularity (Greek: 95.1%; German: 84%; English as a comparison: 70%) and a relatively lower backward regularity (Greek: 80.3%; German: 47%; English as a comparison: 28%) [41, 46]. Although a larger discrepancy is observed between forward and backward regularity in German, a smaller difference has found between the estimated prevalence rates of SD and RD in German-speaking samples. Such observation does not fully support the hypothesis of Manolitsis and Georgiou [46] that difference in forward and backward regularity has a direct relationship with the resulting prevalence of dissociated difficulties. While the effect of orthographic depth on reading and spelling dissociation is inconclusive, it is evident that much lesser is known about orthographically opaque languages. Under a strict definition, Chinese is not considered as an "opaque orthography" because Chinese is not

**67**

*The Heterogeneity of Reading-Related Difficulties in Chinese*

alphabetic [48]. However, similar to an opaque orthography, Chinese has a very low sound-to-symbol correspondence compared with other languages [49]. The examination of reading and spelling dissociation phenomenon in Chinese complements

The estimated prevalence rates of RSD, RD, and SD among Chinese primary school children are 9.2, 7, and 6.6%, respectively, according to a recent study with a representative sample of Hong Kong grade 4 to grade 6 children [50]. The RSD group was found to perform significantly worse than an age-matched control group of normally achieving children in all the cognitive-linguistic skills measured in the study, including rapid naming speed, phonological memory, morphological awareness, and orthographic skills. All three groups with difficulties were found to perform worse in linguistic comprehension (syntactic skills and discourse skills)

The SD group only fell behind the control group in orthographic skills and no significant differences were observed between the two groups on other domains of cognitive-linguistic skills. The SD group also performed the worst on orthographic skills among all four groups in the study. Consistent with past findings, this result supports the essential role of orthographic processing in spelling and impairments in developing efficient orthographic skills and quality orthographic representation may lead to SD. Frith [42] has observed that English-speaking children with SD have a habitual inattentiveness toward words. She has proposed that such inattentiveness may lead to inefficient processing of orthographic information and resulting in an incomplete mental representation of orthographic information, which may be sufficient for reading but not for spelling. Holmes and Quinn [51] have also reported converging evidence indicating inefficient processing of orthographic information in English-speaking individuals with SD. Cheung [52] has replicated Frith's [42] experiment and has found support for both the inefficient orthographic processing hypothesis and the habitual inattentiveness hypothesis in Chinesespeaking children. Consistent with findings from Cheung [50], the SD group in Cheung's [52] study showed no deficits in rapid naming speed or phonological memory. The reported distinctive pattern of deficits of SD highlights a possible independent spelling system in Chinese, which calls for a need for further research

The RD only group was found to have difficulties in morphological awareness, phonological memory, and a mild inadequacy in orthographic processing, but not in rapid naming speed [50]. Naming speed deficit is a unique marker deficit for DD in Chinese, it is also consistently found to be present in RD for alphabetic readers [41, 43, 44, 53]. The absence of naming speed deficit in the RD group of Cheung [50] study could partially be explained by differences in measures used in defining the groups. A reading accuracy measure was employed to assess children's reading ability in Cheung's [50] study while the studies on alphabetic readers mentioned earlier used reading fluency measures with/without the addition of reading accuracy measures to assess reading skills of participants because reading accuracy measures are often found to be insensitive in languages with high grapheme-tophoneme consistency [47]. DD in studies of Chinese is often defined with measures

Cheung's [50] study has also reported another analysis using a combined score of reading accuracy and reading fluency for measuring reading ability. The resulting SD group and the RSD group were found to demonstrate similar characteristics for using reading accuracy score only as the definition. In contrast, the new RD group was found to be slower in naming speed and weaker in morphological awareness when compared with the control group, and the difficulties in phonological memory were no longer observed. The presence of naming speed deficit in the new

on reading accuracy, reading fluency, and spelling (e.g., [29, 30]).

our understanding of literacy acquisition and difficulties across languages.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90937*

when compared with the control group.

on spelling development and difficulties.

#### *The Heterogeneity of Reading-Related Difficulties in Chinese DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90937*

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

future studies are required to validate this tentative conclusion.

**2.2 Dissociation between reading and spelling difficulties in Chinese**

different words. Like other oral language skills, morphological awareness may affect development of word reading. However, morphological deficit may be rooted in some language impairments, for example, SLI, instead of a unique cognitive deficit of DD in Chinese. Therefore, difficulty in learning and remembering complicated orthographic patterns and automatic retrieval of arbitrary script-sound associations appear to be unique marker deficits in Chinese DD. This matches well with the characteristics of the Chinese writing system. Since studies on this topic is scarce, more

Apart from exploring the various marker deficits of DD in Chinese, investigation of manifestations of other reading-related difficulties in Chinese also enhance our understanding of literacy acquisition and difficulties in Chinese. While DD is defined as decoding difficulties (i.e., word reading difficulties), it has an entangled relationship with "encoding" difficulties (i.e., difficulties in spelling). In both research and practice, the concept of "dyslexia" is often conveniently conceptualized as difficulties in both reading and spelling (e.g., [37–39]). Although reading and spelling are highly associated skills, the observed developmental asynchrony of the two skills indicates that they could be non-parallel processes with two partially independent systems [40]. Studies on the dissociation of reading and spelling difficulties have attempted to identify differences between the two systems and provide us with a more comprehensive understanding of reading-related difficulties.

Research has shown that some children experience reading difficulties without having spelling difficulties [41] or vice versa [42]. The prevalence of such dissociated difficulties varies across languages. For Finnish, an orthographically transparent language, it is estimated that 3% of the children have both reading and spelling difficulties (RSD), 1.8% of the children have reading difficulties only (RD), and 2.1% of them have spelling difficulties only (SD). The estimated prevalence rates of RSD, RD, and SD observed in Finnish children are comparable among each other [43]. In contrast, in a study of French users, a relatively less transparent orthography, Fayol et al. [44] have identified a much lower prevalence of RD and SD (both around 4%) as compared with the estimated prevalence of RSD (17.6%). Mixed results were found in studies on languages with high grapheme-to-phoneme consistency (forward regularity) and low phoneme-to-grapheme consistency (backward regularity). Reading is argued to be easier than spelling in these languages because of such asymmetry between forward and backward regularity [45]. As expected, Manolitsis and Georgiou [46] found more SD (8.1%) than RD (5.1%) in their sample of native Greek-speaking children. However, the estimated prevalence rates of SD and RD were comparable in Moll and Landerl's [47] study (SD: 7%; RD: 6.4%) and Wimmer and Mayringer's [41] study (SD: 3.4–5.1%; RD: 4.3–6.4%) with native German-speaking children. Both Greek and German are considered to a high forward regularity (Greek: 95.1%; German: 84%; English as a comparison: 70%) and a relatively lower backward regularity (Greek: 80.3%; German: 47%; English as a comparison: 28%) [41, 46]. Although a larger discrepancy is observed between forward and backward regularity in German, a smaller difference has found

between the estimated prevalence rates of SD and RD in German-speaking samples. Such observation does not fully support the hypothesis of Manolitsis and Georgiou [46] that difference in forward and backward regularity has a direct relationship with the resulting prevalence of dissociated difficulties. While the effect of orthographic depth on reading and spelling dissociation is inconclusive, it is evident that much lesser is known about orthographically opaque languages. Under a strict definition, Chinese is not considered as an "opaque orthography" because Chinese is not

**66**

alphabetic [48]. However, similar to an opaque orthography, Chinese has a very low sound-to-symbol correspondence compared with other languages [49]. The examination of reading and spelling dissociation phenomenon in Chinese complements our understanding of literacy acquisition and difficulties across languages.

The estimated prevalence rates of RSD, RD, and SD among Chinese primary school children are 9.2, 7, and 6.6%, respectively, according to a recent study with a representative sample of Hong Kong grade 4 to grade 6 children [50]. The RSD group was found to perform significantly worse than an age-matched control group of normally achieving children in all the cognitive-linguistic skills measured in the study, including rapid naming speed, phonological memory, morphological awareness, and orthographic skills. All three groups with difficulties were found to perform worse in linguistic comprehension (syntactic skills and discourse skills) when compared with the control group.

The SD group only fell behind the control group in orthographic skills and no significant differences were observed between the two groups on other domains of cognitive-linguistic skills. The SD group also performed the worst on orthographic skills among all four groups in the study. Consistent with past findings, this result supports the essential role of orthographic processing in spelling and impairments in developing efficient orthographic skills and quality orthographic representation may lead to SD. Frith [42] has observed that English-speaking children with SD have a habitual inattentiveness toward words. She has proposed that such inattentiveness may lead to inefficient processing of orthographic information and resulting in an incomplete mental representation of orthographic information, which may be sufficient for reading but not for spelling. Holmes and Quinn [51] have also reported converging evidence indicating inefficient processing of orthographic information in English-speaking individuals with SD. Cheung [52] has replicated Frith's [42] experiment and has found support for both the inefficient orthographic processing hypothesis and the habitual inattentiveness hypothesis in Chinesespeaking children. Consistent with findings from Cheung [50], the SD group in Cheung's [52] study showed no deficits in rapid naming speed or phonological memory. The reported distinctive pattern of deficits of SD highlights a possible independent spelling system in Chinese, which calls for a need for further research on spelling development and difficulties.

The RD only group was found to have difficulties in morphological awareness, phonological memory, and a mild inadequacy in orthographic processing, but not in rapid naming speed [50]. Naming speed deficit is a unique marker deficit for DD in Chinese, it is also consistently found to be present in RD for alphabetic readers [41, 43, 44, 53]. The absence of naming speed deficit in the RD group of Cheung [50] study could partially be explained by differences in measures used in defining the groups. A reading accuracy measure was employed to assess children's reading ability in Cheung's [50] study while the studies on alphabetic readers mentioned earlier used reading fluency measures with/without the addition of reading accuracy measures to assess reading skills of participants because reading accuracy measures are often found to be insensitive in languages with high grapheme-tophoneme consistency [47]. DD in studies of Chinese is often defined with measures on reading accuracy, reading fluency, and spelling (e.g., [29, 30]).

Cheung's [50] study has also reported another analysis using a combined score of reading accuracy and reading fluency for measuring reading ability. The resulting SD group and the RSD group were found to demonstrate similar characteristics for using reading accuracy score only as the definition. In contrast, the new RD group was found to be slower in naming speed and weaker in morphological awareness when compared with the control group, and the difficulties in phonological memory were no longer observed. The presence of naming speed deficit in the new RD group but not in the original RD group of this study supports past findings of a stronger association of naming speed with reading fluency but a weaker association with reading accuracy in both alphabetic languages [54] and Chinese [55]. However, it is noteworthy that the participants in Cheung's [50] study are senior graders. Rapid naming, reflecting both paired-associate learning ability and automatic retrieval, may be more associated with word reading accuracy in Chinese junior graders, and with word reading fluency in senior graders.

Conversely, phonological memory deficit was presence in the RD group categorized with reading accuracy measure but not the RD group identified with a combined reading score. Phonological memory is considered to be particularly important in Chinese literacy acquisition because of the emphasis of paired-associate learning in learning Chinese characters [30]. Chinese has a much lower grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence and a much larger pool of distinct graphemes to learn when compared with alphabetic orthographies [49]. Therefore, efficient storage of phonological information would be crucial for learning to read Chinese as the phonological cues from grapheme are relatively ineffective and more associations are needed to be learnt. In Cheung's [52] study on reading and spelling dissociation, he showed that phonological memory has a unique contribution to reading accuracy but not to spelling. These results suggest a unique role of phonological memory on the development of accurate word recognition in Chinese but may play a lesser role in reading fluency and spelling accuracy.

Under both reading assessment conditions of Cheung and colleagues' study, morphological awareness deficit was only found in the RD group and the RSD group but not in the SD group [50]. Morphological awareness was considered to be one of the core cognitive constructs that predict both reading and spelling abilities in Chinese [32, 56]. The absence of morphological awareness deficit in the SD group diverges from our current understanding of the relationship between morphological awareness and spelling development in Chinese. Such a discrepancy indicates a need for further research on the topic.

The distinctiveness between the cognitive profile of RD and SD in Chinese supports the hypothesis of two partially independent systems for reading and spelling. Although there may be some degree of overlap, somewhat different cognitivelinguistic skills are required in acquiring and developing the skills in reading and spelling Chinese words. The non-coinciding profile of deficits of RD and SD reveals the relative importance of morphological awareness and phonological memory on reading and orthographic processing on spelling in Chinese. Naming speed deficit appears to be more associated with word reading fluency than reading accuracy in Chinese. Findings of dissociation studies have enlightened us about the specific roles of some cognitive-linguistic skills on reading and spelling. These conclusions, however, are tentative and further research is required.

#### **2.3 Reading comprehension difficulties in Chinese**

Beyond the decoding level, some children experience difficulties in comprehending text. Decoding and reading comprehension processes are inter-related to some extent. Decoding and language comprehension are two important components of reading comprehension as specified by the Simple View of Reading. A number of studies showed that reading comprehension difficulties of children could be attributed to problems in lower order processing, such as word recognition accuracy and speed of word processing although the underlying cognitive processes could be different regarding the types of script of different languages (e.g., [5, 57–59]). In particular, word recognition is more dependent on phonological skill in English than in Chinese as Chinese exhibits a relatively lower word-to-sound correspondence as mentioned earlier [60, 61].

**69**

*The Heterogeneity of Reading-Related Difficulties in Chinese*

acquired is linked to decoding proficiency [68].

alphabetic languages or Chinese.

Apart from decoding skill, research in alphabetic languages stressed the importance of language comprehension, defined as "the ability to comprehend spoken language" ([62], p. 369), in reading comprehension. Syntactic awareness, discourse skills, and vocabulary knowledge are the major oral language skills that consistently found to affect reading comprehension even after controlling for word recognition (e.g., [63, 64]). For example, Mokhtari and Thompson [65] examined the relationship of syntactic awareness and reading comprehension performance of fifth graders and found that children's understanding of grammatical structure directly related to reading comprehension performance with a *r* = 0.70 correlation. Another study done by Griffin et al. [66] indicated that oral discourse skills of preschoolers is a significant predictor of reading comprehension performance in later years. In addition to syntactic and discourse skills, vocabulary knowledge is also associated considerably with reading comprehension [67, 68]. Ouellette [68] found that depth of vocabulary knowledge significantly predicted reading comprehension of fourth graders. Furthermore, the amount of receptive and expressive vocabularies a child

Research regarding reading comprehension in Chinese suggested that language comprehension skills important for reading comprehension in alphabetic language systems are equally important for Chinese [5, 59, 69]. A model of reading comprehension in Chinese was constructed by Yeung and colleagues [5] through examining the contribution of several reading-related and language comprehension skills, including rapid naming, morphological awareness, verbal working memory, syntactic skills, and discourse skills, to Chinese reading comprehension. Results showed that syntactic and discourse skills predicted Chinese reading comprehension similar to that in alphabetic languages. However, discourse skills measured orally through story-telling and picture arrangement was not as predictive as discourse skills assessed in written format to reading comprehension [5]. One possible reason suggested by the authors was that oral Cantonese and written Chinese were less consistent than many alphabetic languages [5]. Other than syntactic and discourse skills, oral vocabulary was also found to significantly predict reading comprehension of Chinese children. For instance, Chik et al. [69] found that oral vocabulary was a strong predictor of Chinese reading comprehension for children in junior grades although its contribution reduced from senior grades onwards. Altogether, these studies suggested reading comprehension difficulty is not only limited to decoding of scripts but is also highly related to individuals' language comprehension skills no matter in

Despite the clear links between decoding, language comprehension and reading comprehension, recent research suggested that reading comprehension difficulties could not be merely explained by the decoding efficiency and oral language skills. In fact, researchers found that some children demonstrated adequate decoding skills but still experience difficulties in reading (e.g., [9, 58, 70, 71]). Such word reading and comprehension dissociation have been recently referred to as specific reading comprehension difficulties (S-RCD). In a review done by Landi and Ryherd [72], adolescents with S-RCD displayed weakness in oral language specifically in vocabulary and grammatical processing. Spencer and Wagner [62] conducted a metaanalysis to further investigate the language comprehension skills of children aged 4–12 with reading comprehension difficulties as compared with typical readers. The sample was a mixture of alphabetic and non-alphabetic language speakers with a majority of the data involved English speakers. The results revealed that although the language comprehension skills of children with S-RCD were relatively weak, such weakness could not fully account for the reading comprehension problems, which was found to be more severe than the language comprehension problems [62].

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90937*

#### *The Heterogeneity of Reading-Related Difficulties in Chinese DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90937*

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

graders, and with word reading fluency in senior graders.

need for further research on the topic.

however, are tentative and further research is required.

**2.3 Reading comprehension difficulties in Chinese**

correspondence as mentioned earlier [60, 61].

RD group but not in the original RD group of this study supports past findings of a stronger association of naming speed with reading fluency but a weaker association with reading accuracy in both alphabetic languages [54] and Chinese [55]. However, it is noteworthy that the participants in Cheung's [50] study are senior graders. Rapid naming, reflecting both paired-associate learning ability and automatic retrieval, may be more associated with word reading accuracy in Chinese junior

Conversely, phonological memory deficit was presence in the RD group categorized with reading accuracy measure but not the RD group identified with a combined reading score. Phonological memory is considered to be particularly important in Chinese literacy acquisition because of the emphasis of paired-associate learning in learning Chinese characters [30]. Chinese has a much lower grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence and a much larger pool of distinct graphemes to learn when compared with alphabetic orthographies [49]. Therefore, efficient storage of phonological information would be crucial for learning to read Chinese as the phonological cues from grapheme are relatively ineffective and more associations are needed to be learnt. In Cheung's [52] study on reading and spelling dissociation, he showed that phonological memory has a unique contribution to reading accuracy but not to spelling. These results suggest a unique role of phonological memory on the development of accurate word recognition in Chinese but may play a lesser role in reading fluency and spelling accuracy. Under both reading assessment conditions of Cheung and colleagues' study, morphological awareness deficit was only found in the RD group and the RSD group but not in the SD group [50]. Morphological awareness was considered to be one of the core cognitive constructs that predict both reading and spelling abilities in Chinese [32, 56]. The absence of morphological awareness deficit in the SD group diverges from our current understanding of the relationship between morphological awareness and spelling development in Chinese. Such a discrepancy indicates a

The distinctiveness between the cognitive profile of RD and SD in Chinese supports the hypothesis of two partially independent systems for reading and spelling. Although there may be some degree of overlap, somewhat different cognitivelinguistic skills are required in acquiring and developing the skills in reading and spelling Chinese words. The non-coinciding profile of deficits of RD and SD reveals the relative importance of morphological awareness and phonological memory on reading and orthographic processing on spelling in Chinese. Naming speed deficit appears to be more associated with word reading fluency than reading accuracy in Chinese. Findings of dissociation studies have enlightened us about the specific roles of some cognitive-linguistic skills on reading and spelling. These conclusions,

Beyond the decoding level, some children experience difficulties in comprehending text. Decoding and reading comprehension processes are inter-related to some extent. Decoding and language comprehension are two important components of reading comprehension as specified by the Simple View of Reading. A number of studies showed that reading comprehension difficulties of children could be attributed to problems in lower order processing, such as word recognition accuracy and speed of word processing although the underlying cognitive processes could be different regarding the types of script of different languages (e.g., [5, 57–59]). In particular, word recognition is more dependent on phonological skill in English than in Chinese as Chinese exhibits a relatively lower word-to-sound

**68**

Apart from decoding skill, research in alphabetic languages stressed the importance of language comprehension, defined as "the ability to comprehend spoken language" ([62], p. 369), in reading comprehension. Syntactic awareness, discourse skills, and vocabulary knowledge are the major oral language skills that consistently found to affect reading comprehension even after controlling for word recognition (e.g., [63, 64]). For example, Mokhtari and Thompson [65] examined the relationship of syntactic awareness and reading comprehension performance of fifth graders and found that children's understanding of grammatical structure directly related to reading comprehension performance with a *r* = 0.70 correlation. Another study done by Griffin et al. [66] indicated that oral discourse skills of preschoolers is a significant predictor of reading comprehension performance in later years. In addition to syntactic and discourse skills, vocabulary knowledge is also associated considerably with reading comprehension [67, 68]. Ouellette [68] found that depth of vocabulary knowledge significantly predicted reading comprehension of fourth graders. Furthermore, the amount of receptive and expressive vocabularies a child acquired is linked to decoding proficiency [68].

Research regarding reading comprehension in Chinese suggested that language comprehension skills important for reading comprehension in alphabetic language systems are equally important for Chinese [5, 59, 69]. A model of reading comprehension in Chinese was constructed by Yeung and colleagues [5] through examining the contribution of several reading-related and language comprehension skills, including rapid naming, morphological awareness, verbal working memory, syntactic skills, and discourse skills, to Chinese reading comprehension. Results showed that syntactic and discourse skills predicted Chinese reading comprehension similar to that in alphabetic languages. However, discourse skills measured orally through story-telling and picture arrangement was not as predictive as discourse skills assessed in written format to reading comprehension [5]. One possible reason suggested by the authors was that oral Cantonese and written Chinese were less consistent than many alphabetic languages [5]. Other than syntactic and discourse skills, oral vocabulary was also found to significantly predict reading comprehension of Chinese children. For instance, Chik et al. [69] found that oral vocabulary was a strong predictor of Chinese reading comprehension for children in junior grades although its contribution reduced from senior grades onwards. Altogether, these studies suggested reading comprehension difficulty is not only limited to decoding of scripts but is also highly related to individuals' language comprehension skills no matter in alphabetic languages or Chinese.

Despite the clear links between decoding, language comprehension and reading comprehension, recent research suggested that reading comprehension difficulties could not be merely explained by the decoding efficiency and oral language skills. In fact, researchers found that some children demonstrated adequate decoding skills but still experience difficulties in reading (e.g., [9, 58, 70, 71]). Such word reading and comprehension dissociation have been recently referred to as specific reading comprehension difficulties (S-RCD). In a review done by Landi and Ryherd [72], adolescents with S-RCD displayed weakness in oral language specifically in vocabulary and grammatical processing. Spencer and Wagner [62] conducted a metaanalysis to further investigate the language comprehension skills of children aged 4–12 with reading comprehension difficulties as compared with typical readers. The sample was a mixture of alphabetic and non-alphabetic language speakers with a majority of the data involved English speakers. The results revealed that although the language comprehension skills of children with S-RCD were relatively weak, such weakness could not fully account for the reading comprehension problems, which was found to be more severe than the language comprehension problems [62]. Thus, the specific reading comprehension problems might involve skills beyond the scope of the Simple View of Reading.

Another branch of research investigated the contribution of higher order language skills to reading comprehension which is not theorized in the Simple View of Reading, such as the processing of prosodic information, comprehension monitoring, and inference-making (e.g., [73–79]). For instance, reading comprehension could be impaired if individuals fail to recognize appropriate prosodic features and construct meaningful oral expression [80]. Among the many contributors, comprehension monitoring—an individual's ability to "evaluate his/her understanding of information" [78]—stands out to be uniquely associated with S-RCD. Children with S-RCD was found to be less sensitive to inconsistency and ambiguity in texts than typical readers that they were less able to identify unreasonable information embedded in a passage [73]. Furthermore, they did not display typical slowing in eye movement when encountered ambiguous words in passages as found by an eye-tracking study done by van der Schoot and colleagues [81]. Although some researchers found that individuals with S-RCD exhibit weak inferencing skill—the ability to integrate sentence meaning and make logical deduction—other researchers argued that the inference failure of S-RCD may be more related to the automaticity in integrating information and language comprehension weakness than a deficit in inferencing ability [72, 82]. Thus, the contribution of inferencing skills to S-RCD is yet to be explored.

One important issue to note is that research specifically focused on S-RCD in Chinese is relatively scarce. Zhang et al. [59] attempted to search for the early precursors of reading comprehension difficulties in Chinese children and found that poor comprehenders did not necessarily exhibit word reading deficits, especially later in the development. Thus, they concluded that similar to previous findings on alphabetic language, S-RCD might be present in Chinese but further exploration is needed given some major differences between Chinese and alphabetic languages, such as route of semantic access and processing of grammatical information [59].

To conclude this section, reading comprehension difficulties are multifaceted and heterogeneous in nature. The difference in the manifestations of reading comprehension difficulties could be traced to multiple distinct roots, from word decoding, oral language to higher order language processing, such as comprehension monitoring. Yet, the heterogeneity of reading comprehension difficulties in Chinese remains to be explored in the future.

#### **3. Conclusions**

We have reviewed in this chapter the causes and patterns of reading, spelling, and comprehension difficulties in Chinese are heterogeneous. Various research findings together have suggested that rapid naming and orthographic deficits are the unique marker deficits of DD in Chinese. Since DD has been defined by impairments in word reading accuracy, reading fluency, and spelling in Chinese, research on the dissociation between word reading and spelling difficulties has enlightened us about the specific mechanism of word reading and spelling development. Research findings so far suggest that weaknesses in orthographic processing, including inattentiveness to word details, inefficient orthographic processing, and incomplete mental representation of orthographic information, may specifically cause difficulties in word spelling in Chinese. Deficits in automatic name retrieval appear to be more associated with word reading fluency than reading accuracy in Chinese. This is especially true for senior graders who may have learned a basic set of written characters and are beginning to develop automaticity in retrieving the

**71**

*The Heterogeneity of Reading-Related Difficulties in Chinese*

characters for higher level processing, like understanding syntactic relationships and text comprehension. Inefficient word decoding and weak oral language skills (e.g., morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, syntactic skills, and discourse skills) have been found to contribute to difficulties in text comprehension. However, some discourse-level skills may contribute to reading comprehension in addition to these two components of the Simple View of Reading. We believe that knowledge about the specific associated cognitive-linguistic skills for word reading, spelling, and text comprehension will inform us how to effectively identify children early with various reading-related difficulties and design timely and appropriate

Preparation of this book chapter was supported by the Eugene Chuang Professorship in Developmental and Educational Psychology of the University of Hong Kong, General Research Fund (#17614517), and the Collaborative Research Fund (C4054-17W) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Research

Connie Suk-Han Ho\*, Edmond Hong-Kei Cheung and Jocelyn Ching-Yan Kwok

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

\*Address all correspondence to: shhoc@hku.hk

provided the original work is properly cited.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90937*

intervention for each specific group.

**Acknowledgements**

Grants Council.

**Author details**

*The Heterogeneity of Reading-Related Difficulties in Chinese DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90937*

characters for higher level processing, like understanding syntactic relationships and text comprehension. Inefficient word decoding and weak oral language skills (e.g., morphological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, syntactic skills, and discourse skills) have been found to contribute to difficulties in text comprehension. However, some discourse-level skills may contribute to reading comprehension in addition to these two components of the Simple View of Reading. We believe that knowledge about the specific associated cognitive-linguistic skills for word reading, spelling, and text comprehension will inform us how to effectively identify children early with various reading-related difficulties and design timely and appropriate intervention for each specific group.

#### **Acknowledgements**

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

scope of the Simple View of Reading.

S-RCD is yet to be explored.

**3. Conclusions**

Chinese remains to be explored in the future.

Thus, the specific reading comprehension problems might involve skills beyond the

One important issue to note is that research specifically focused on S-RCD in Chinese is relatively scarce. Zhang et al. [59] attempted to search for the early precursors of reading comprehension difficulties in Chinese children and found that poor comprehenders did not necessarily exhibit word reading deficits, especially later in the development. Thus, they concluded that similar to previous findings on alphabetic language, S-RCD might be present in Chinese but further exploration is needed given some major differences between Chinese and alphabetic languages, such as route of semantic access and processing of grammatical information [59]. To conclude this section, reading comprehension difficulties are multifaceted and heterogeneous in nature. The difference in the manifestations of reading comprehension difficulties could be traced to multiple distinct roots, from word decoding, oral language to higher order language processing, such as comprehension monitoring. Yet, the heterogeneity of reading comprehension difficulties in

We have reviewed in this chapter the causes and patterns of reading, spelling, and comprehension difficulties in Chinese are heterogeneous. Various research findings together have suggested that rapid naming and orthographic deficits are the unique marker deficits of DD in Chinese. Since DD has been defined by impairments in word reading accuracy, reading fluency, and spelling in Chinese, research on the dissociation between word reading and spelling difficulties has enlightened us about the specific mechanism of word reading and spelling development. Research findings so far suggest that weaknesses in orthographic processing, including inattentiveness to word details, inefficient orthographic processing, and incomplete mental representation of orthographic information, may specifically cause difficulties in word spelling in Chinese. Deficits in automatic name retrieval appear to be more associated with word reading fluency than reading accuracy in Chinese. This is especially true for senior graders who may have learned a basic set of written characters and are beginning to develop automaticity in retrieving the

Another branch of research investigated the contribution of higher order language skills to reading comprehension which is not theorized in the Simple View of Reading, such as the processing of prosodic information, comprehension monitoring, and inference-making (e.g., [73–79]). For instance, reading comprehension could be impaired if individuals fail to recognize appropriate prosodic features and construct meaningful oral expression [80]. Among the many contributors, comprehension monitoring—an individual's ability to "evaluate his/her understanding of information" [78]—stands out to be uniquely associated with S-RCD. Children with S-RCD was found to be less sensitive to inconsistency and ambiguity in texts than typical readers that they were less able to identify unreasonable information embedded in a passage [73]. Furthermore, they did not display typical slowing in eye movement when encountered ambiguous words in passages as found by an eye-tracking study done by van der Schoot and colleagues [81]. Although some researchers found that individuals with S-RCD exhibit weak inferencing skill—the ability to integrate sentence meaning and make logical deduction—other researchers argued that the inference failure of S-RCD may be more related to the automaticity in integrating information and language comprehension weakness than a deficit in inferencing ability [72, 82]. Thus, the contribution of inferencing skills to

**70**

Preparation of this book chapter was supported by the Eugene Chuang Professorship in Developmental and Educational Psychology of the University of Hong Kong, General Research Fund (#17614517), and the Collaborative Research Fund (C4054-17W) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Research Grants Council.

#### **Author details**

Connie Suk-Han Ho\*, Edmond Hong-Kei Cheung and Jocelyn Ching-Yan Kwok The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

\*Address all correspondence to: shhoc@hku.hk

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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[56] Tong X et al. Morphological awareness, orthographic knowledge,

understanding early Chinese literacy acquisition. Scientific Studies of Reading. 2009;**13**(5):426-452

[57] Chen H-C. How do readers of Chinese process words during reading for comprehension. In: Wang J,

Inhoff AW, Chen H-C, editors. Reading Chinese Script: A Cognitive Analysis. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum; 1999. pp. 261-274

[58] Nation K, Snowling MJ. Semantic processing and the development of word-recognition skills: Evidence from children with reading comprehension difficulties. Journal of Memory and Language. 1998;**39**(1):85-101

[59] Zhang J et al. Longitudinal correlates of reading comprehension

children. Reading and Writing.

[60] Catts HW, Adlof SM, Weismer SE.

comprehenders: A case for the simple view of reading. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research.

[61] Nation K, Snowling MJ. Beyond phonological skills: Broader language skills contribute to the development of reading. Journal of Research in Reading.

[62] Spencer M, Wagner RK. The comprehension problems of children

difficulties in Chinese

Language deficits in poor

2014;**27**(3):481-501

2006;**49**(2):278-293

2004;**27**(4):342-356

and spelling errors: Keys to

2009;**13**(6):508-534

*The Heterogeneity of Reading-Related Difficulties in Chinese DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90937*

5: What underlies their relationship? Scientific Studies of Reading. 2009;**13**(6):508-534

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

[46] Manolitsis G, Georgiou GK. The cognitive profiles of poor readers/ good spellers and good readers/poor spellers in a consistent orthography: A retrospective analysis. Preschool and Primary Education. 2015;**3**(2):103

[47] Moll K, Landerl K. Double dissociation between reading and spelling deficits. Scientific Studies of

Reading. 2009;**13**(5):359-382

Holland; 1992. pp. 67-84

pp. 329-355

[48] Katz L, Frost R. The reading process is different for different orthographies: The orthographic depth hypothesis. In: Frost R, Katz L, editors. Advances in Psychology. Amsterdam, North-

[49] Fok A, Bellugi U. The acquisition of visual spatial script. In: Kao HSR, van Galen GP, Hoosain R, editors. Advances in Psychology. North-Holland; 1986.

[50] Cheung EH-K, Ho CS-H, Chan D, Chung KK, Tsang SM, Lee SH, et al. Prevalence of isolated reading and spelling difficulties in Chinese:

Differential demand of lexical route in reading and spelling. In preparation

[51] Holmes VM, Quinn L. Unexpectedly

[52] Cheung EH-k. The Heterogeneity of Reading and Writing Difficulties.

poor spelling and phonologicalprocessing skill. Scientific Studies of

Reading. 2009;**13**(4):295-317

Pokfulam, Hong Kong, SAR: Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong; 2018

[53] Bar-Kochva I, Amiel M. The relations between reading and spelling:

An examination of subtypes of reading disability. Annals of Dyslexia.

[54] Georgiou GK, Parrila R, Kirby JR. RAN components and reading development from grade 3 to grade

2016;**66**(2):219-234

chromosome 15. American Journal of Human Genetics. 1998;**63**(1):279-282

[39] Gori S, Facoetti A. How the visual aspects can be crucial in reading acquisition: The intriguing case of crowding and developmental dyslexia. Journal of Vision. 2015;**15**(1):8-8

[40] Cossu G, Gugliotta M, Marshall JC. Acquisition of reading and written spelling in a transparent orthography: Two non parallel processes? Reading

[41] Wimmer H, Mayringer H. Dysfluent reading in the absence of spelling difficulties: A specific disability in regular orthographies. Journal of Educational Psychology.

and Writing. 1995;**7**(1):9-22

[42] Frith U. Unexpected spelling problems. Group. 1980;**83**:495-515

[43] Torppa M et al. The precursors of double dissociation between reading and spelling in a transparent orthography. Annals of Dyslexia.

[44] Fayol M, Zorman M, Lété B. Associations and dissociations in reading and spelling French: Unexpectedly poor and good spellers.

British Journal of Educational Psychology. 2009;**2**(6):63-75

[45] Bosman AMT, Van Orden GC. Why spelling is more difficult than reading. In: Perfetti CA, Rieben L, Fayol M, editors. Learning to Spell: Research, Theory, and Practice across Languages. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; 1997. pp. 173-194

2002;**94**(2):272-277

2017;**67**(1):42-62

[38] Kalindi SC et al. Beyond phonological and morphological processing: Pure copying as a marker of dyslexia in Chinese but not poor reading of English. Annals of Dyslexia.

2015;**65**(2):53-68

**74**

[55] Xue J et al. The stability of literacyrelated cognitive contributions to Chinese character naming and reading fluency. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research. 2013;**42**(5):433-450

[56] Tong X et al. Morphological awareness, orthographic knowledge, and spelling errors: Keys to understanding early Chinese literacy acquisition. Scientific Studies of Reading. 2009;**13**(5):426-452

[57] Chen H-C. How do readers of Chinese process words during reading for comprehension. In: Wang J, Inhoff AW, Chen H-C, editors. Reading Chinese Script: A Cognitive Analysis. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum; 1999. pp. 261-274

[58] Nation K, Snowling MJ. Semantic processing and the development of word-recognition skills: Evidence from children with reading comprehension difficulties. Journal of Memory and Language. 1998;**39**(1):85-101

[59] Zhang J et al. Longitudinal correlates of reading comprehension difficulties in Chinese children. Reading and Writing. 2014;**27**(3):481-501

[60] Catts HW, Adlof SM, Weismer SE. Language deficits in poor comprehenders: A case for the simple view of reading. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. 2006;**49**(2):278-293

[61] Nation K, Snowling MJ. Beyond phonological skills: Broader language skills contribute to the development of reading. Journal of Research in Reading. 2004;**27**(4):342-356

[62] Spencer M, Wagner RK. The comprehension problems of children with poor reading comprehension despite adequate decoding: A metaanalysis. Review of Educational Research. 2018;**88**(3):366-400

[63] Gaux C, Gombert JE. Implicit and explicit syntactic knowledge and reading in pre-adolescents. British Journal of Developmental Psychology. 1999;**17**(2):169-188

[64] Kendeou P et al. Predicting reading comprehension in early elementary school: The independent contributions of oral language and decoding skills. Journal of Educational Psychology. 2009;**101**(4):765-778

[65] Mokhtari K, Thompson HB. How problems of reading fluency and comprehension are related to difficulties in syntactic awareness skills among fifth graders. Reading Research and Instruction. 2006;**46**(1):73-94

[66] Griffin TM et al. Oral discourse in the preschool years and later literacy skills. First Language. 2004;**24**(2):123-147

[67] Lervåg A, Aukrust VG. Vocabulary knowledge is a critical determinant of the difference in reading comprehension growth between first and second language learners. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 2010;**51**(5):612-620

[68] Ouellette GP. What's meaning got to do with it: The role of vocabulary in word reading and reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology. 2006;**98**(3):554-566

[69] Chik PP-m et al. Contribution of discourse and morphosyntax skills to reading comprehension in Chinese dyslexic and typically developing children. Annals of Dyslexia. 2012;**62**(1):1-18

[70] Keenan JM et al. Issues in identifying poor comprehenders. L'Année Psychologique. 2014;**114**(4):753-777

[71] Rønberg LF, Petersen DK. It matters whether reading comprehension is conceptualised as rate or accuracy. Journal of Research in Reading. 2016;**39**(2):209-228

[72] Landi N, Ryherd K. Understanding specific reading comprehension deficit: A review. Lang & Ling Compass. 2017;**11**(2):e12234

[73] Cain K, Oakhill JV. Profiles of children with specific reading comprehension difficulties. British Journal of Educational Psychology. 2006;**76**(4):683-696

[74] Cain K et al. Comprehension skill, inference-making ability, and their relation to knowledge. Memory and Cognition. 2001;**29**(6):850-859

[75] Groen MA, Veenendaal NJ, Verhoeven L. The role of prosody in reading comprehension: Evidence from poor comprehenders. Journal of Research in Reading. 2019;**42**(1):37-57

[76] Han F. Comprehension monitoring in Chinese reading among Chinese adolescent readers. Theory and Practice in Language Studies. 2017;**7**(4):241-247

[77] Ho CS-H, Fong CY-C, Zheng MO. Contributions of vocabulary and discourse-level skills to reading comprehension among Chinese elementary school children. Applied PsychoLinguistics. 2019;**40**(2):323-349

[78] Oakhill JV, Hartt J, Samols D. Levels of comprehension monitoring and working memory in good and poor comprehenders. Reading and Writing. 2005;**18**(7):657-686

[79] Oakhill JV, Cain K. Children's difficulties in text comprehension: Assessing causal issues. The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. 2000;**5**(1):51-59

[80] Whalley K, Hansen J. The role of prosodic sensitivity in children's reading development. Journal of Research in Reading. 2006;**29**(3):288-303

[81] van der Schoot M et al. Lexical ambiguity resolution in good and poor comprehenders: An eye fixation and self-paced reading study in primary school children. Journal of Educational Psychology. 2009;**101**(1):21-36

[82] Cain K, Oakhill JV. Inference making ability and its relation to comprehension failure in young children. Reading and Writing. 1999;**11**(5):489-503

**77**

**Chapter 6**

**Abstract**

ways of thinking

**1. Introduction**

5–6% of all children [2].

Learning

Students with Mathematics

Learning Disabilities and Their

This chapter presents the result of research on ways of thinking of students with mathematics learning disabilities in fraction learning. We conducted a class of fraction learning with Lesh translation model. From the class discussion, interview, and students' work, we then explore the students' ways of thinking when they learn fraction. In the class, students with mathematics learning disabilities perform two mental acts with corresponding ways of thinking and ways of understanding; those are interpreting and problem-solving. We find some interesting findings and they are: (1) students know the common denominator method in the addition of fractions; however, they incorrectly apply the method; (2) students use the common denominator approach (for fraction addition) in the multiplication of fraction; and (3) in the

division of fraction, students mistakenly apply the invert multiply algorithm.

**Keywords:** students with mathematics learning disabilities, fraction learning,

We may have heard the case of a student having difficulty in mathematics, but the student does not experience obstacles in other subjects in school. After further observation, it turns out that the IQ of the student was at an average level even above average. For cases like this, the student can be suspected of having dyscalculic symptoms or mathematics learning disabilities (MLD). Based on the results of the study, the number of people with MLD according to Strauss is 5–8% of school-age children [1], while according to Adler, the number of people with dyscalculia is

Research on dyscalculia is still ongoing. Researchers, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States continue to conduct studies to study dyscalculia in greater depth. Therefore, the understanding and understanding of dyscalculia will continue to develop. The following are some of the dyscalculia definitions issued by both formal institutions and individual researchers. Definition of dyscalculia issued by the National Center for Learning Disabilities is as follows: dyscalculia is a term related to learning difficulties in mathematics. Although learning barriers differ from person to person, the general characteristics are as follows: difficulty in

Ways of Thinking in Fraction

*Suprih Widodo and Trisno Ikhwanudin*

#### **Chapter 6**

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

Assessing causal issues. The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education.

[80] Whalley K, Hansen J. The role of prosodic sensitivity in children's reading development. Journal of Research in Reading. 2006;**29**(3):288-303

[81] van der Schoot M et al. Lexical ambiguity resolution in good and poor comprehenders: An eye fixation and self-paced reading study in primary school children. Journal of Educational

Psychology. 2009;**101**(1):21-36

1999;**11**(5):489-503

[82] Cain K, Oakhill JV. Inference making ability and its relation to comprehension failure in young children. Reading and Writing.

2000;**5**(1):51-59

[70] Keenan JM et al. Issues in identifying poor comprehenders.

[71] Rønberg LF, Petersen DK. It matters whether reading comprehension is conceptualised as rate or accuracy. Journal of Research in Reading.

[72] Landi N, Ryherd K. Understanding specific reading comprehension deficit: A review. Lang & Ling Compass.

[74] Cain K et al. Comprehension skill, inference-making ability, and their relation to knowledge. Memory and Cognition. 2001;**29**(6):850-859

[76] Han F. Comprehension monitoring in Chinese reading among Chinese adolescent readers. Theory and Practice in Language Studies. 2017;**7**(4):241-247

[77] Ho CS-H, Fong CY-C, Zheng MO. Contributions of vocabulary and discourse-level skills to reading comprehension among Chinese elementary school children. Applied PsychoLinguistics. 2019;**40**(2):323-349

[78] Oakhill JV, Hartt J, Samols D. Levels of comprehension monitoring and working memory in good and poor comprehenders. Reading and Writing.

[79] Oakhill JV, Cain K. Children's difficulties in text comprehension:

[73] Cain K, Oakhill JV. Profiles of children with specific reading comprehension difficulties. British Journal of Educational Psychology.

[75] Groen MA, Veenendaal NJ, Verhoeven L. The role of prosody in reading comprehension: Evidence from poor comprehenders. Journal of Research in Reading. 2019;**42**(1):37-57

L'Année Psychologique. 2014;**114**(4):753-777

2016;**39**(2):209-228

2017;**11**(2):e12234

2006;**76**(4):683-696

**76**

2005;**18**(7):657-686

## Students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities and Their Ways of Thinking in Fraction Learning

*Suprih Widodo and Trisno Ikhwanudin*

### **Abstract**

This chapter presents the result of research on ways of thinking of students with mathematics learning disabilities in fraction learning. We conducted a class of fraction learning with Lesh translation model. From the class discussion, interview, and students' work, we then explore the students' ways of thinking when they learn fraction. In the class, students with mathematics learning disabilities perform two mental acts with corresponding ways of thinking and ways of understanding; those are interpreting and problem-solving. We find some interesting findings and they are: (1) students know the common denominator method in the addition of fractions; however, they incorrectly apply the method; (2) students use the common denominator approach (for fraction addition) in the multiplication of fraction; and (3) in the division of fraction, students mistakenly apply the invert multiply algorithm.

**Keywords:** students with mathematics learning disabilities, fraction learning, ways of thinking

#### **1. Introduction**

We may have heard the case of a student having difficulty in mathematics, but the student does not experience obstacles in other subjects in school. After further observation, it turns out that the IQ of the student was at an average level even above average. For cases like this, the student can be suspected of having dyscalculic symptoms or mathematics learning disabilities (MLD). Based on the results of the study, the number of people with MLD according to Strauss is 5–8% of school-age children [1], while according to Adler, the number of people with dyscalculia is 5–6% of all children [2].

Research on dyscalculia is still ongoing. Researchers, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States continue to conduct studies to study dyscalculia in greater depth. Therefore, the understanding and understanding of dyscalculia will continue to develop. The following are some of the dyscalculia definitions issued by both formal institutions and individual researchers. Definition of dyscalculia issued by the National Center for Learning Disabilities is as follows: dyscalculia is a term related to learning difficulties in mathematics. Although learning barriers differ from person to person, the general characteristics are as follows: difficulty in numerating, learning numbers, and doing mathematical calculations; difficulty in measurement, showing time, counting money, and estimating the number; problematic in mathematical intelligence and problem-solving strategies [3].

In general, dyscalculia is an umbrella term used for various difficulties in learning mathematics, such as developmental dyscalculia, mathematical difficulties, difficulty learning numerical concepts, and difficulties about learning number concepts.

There are many studies that discuss MLD students, with a different research focus: first, the research that focuses on the identification or criteria of MLD students; second, the research that focuses on how MLD students think in learning mathematics; and third, the research that focuses on finding solutions to learning mathematics in MLD students. The detailed of the research focus is as follows:

#### **1.1 Research that focuses on the identification or criteria of MLD students**

The study of the identification and criteria of MLD students has been carried out by several researchers, including the following: Geary described dyscalculia as a numerical and arithmetic difficulty caused by brain injury; he uses this term to describe a population of 5–8% of school-age children who have a cognitive disorder that affects their ability to learn concepts or procedures in one or more areas of mathematics [4].

Next the opinions of several experts about the criteria of MLD students will be described:


The researchers identified students with MLD using standardized test results, for example, the Woodcock-Johnson Test of Achievement and the Wide Range Achievement Test, by looking at students who were below the 20th or 25th percentile [9]. Lewis further tightens the criteria for identifying MLD students, which combines the following three criteria:


In identifying students with MLD, Lewis [9] suggests that if researchers use self-developed identification instruments, it is also necessary to include the results of standardized measuring instruments as a comparison. The next suggestion is

**79**

*Students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities and Their Ways of Thinking in Fraction…*

to apply a cutoff under the 10th percentile; observing longitudinal data showing that learning difficulties in mathematics are long-standing, and researchers must distinguish the difficulty of learning mathematics is the result of cognitive or noncognitive factors. To do this it is recommended to conduct a demographic analysis of the respondents, for example, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and mother tongue. This can also be done with qualitative methods, such as interviews, questionnaires, observation of students, parents, and teachers, to find out the factors that lead to

**1.2 Research that focuses on MLD students' way of thinking in learning** 

examining students' understanding of the quantity of fractions [12].

been carried out by several researchers, including the following:

this program in representing the problem stories they are dealing with.

Finally, Tian, Jing, and Siegler, state that the use of an optimal number line model can help MLD students understand fraction size and calculation [18]. In this chapter, we focus on students' ways of thinking in fractions learning. It is needed as an essential first step toward effective instructional methods. We use the theory of mental act, ways of thinking, and ways of understanding from

examples, heuristic strategies, and use real problem [15].

The study of how MLD students think in learning mathematics has been carried

Lewis states that students with MLD have a different mindset in understanding fractions, she looked at students with MLD does not mean they have deficiencies in understanding the concept of fractions, but there are differences in the way of thinking in understanding fractions [11]. Then Lewis states that students with MLD experience obstacles in learning fractions, especially on the topic of fraction comparison, both fraction comparisons with the same denominator, as well as in fractions comparisons involving fractions of half; in this study Lewis suggested

Hunt et al. [13] state that MLD students have obstacles in mastering the concept of fractions by learning part-whole models. Newton et al. [14] state that the main error pattern in understanding fractions in MLD students is the use of traditional

The study of alternative mathematical learning solutions for MLD students has

Shin and Bryant state that good fraction teaching by MLD students must involve the following 5 aspects: real objects and visual representations such as pictures and number lines, explicit and systematic learning, various time frames and sets of

Mazzocco et al. state that visual models can be used as alternatives when helping MLD students understand fractions [16]. Gersten et al. [17] state that in assisting MLD students, practitioners are expected to take the following steps: (a) teach students with diverse teaching examples; (b) directing students to say the thoughts and solutions of a problem; (c) teach students to visualize math problems that they face; (d) teach students with diverse/heuristic strategies; (e) the teacher prepares a partner/discussion partner for MLD students; (f) teach MLD students with explicit instructions; (g) the teacher prepares the correct variety and sequence of examples; Shin and Bryant [15] state that the use of a computer program, Fun Fraction, can help MLD students solve problem-solving in the form of stories. Virtual manipulation in Fun Fraction helps problem-solving skills because students are assisted by

**1.3 Research that focuses on finding solutions for MLD students in learning** 

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89307*

the low mathematical achievement of students.

out by several researchers, including the following:

**mathematics**

algorithms that are wrong.

**mathematics**

*Students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities and Their Ways of Thinking in Fraction… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89307*

to apply a cutoff under the 10th percentile; observing longitudinal data showing that learning difficulties in mathematics are long-standing, and researchers must distinguish the difficulty of learning mathematics is the result of cognitive or noncognitive factors. To do this it is recommended to conduct a demographic analysis of the respondents, for example, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and mother tongue. This can also be done with qualitative methods, such as interviews, questionnaires, observation of students, parents, and teachers, to find out the factors that lead to the low mathematical achievement of students.

#### **1.2 Research that focuses on MLD students' way of thinking in learning mathematics**

The study of how MLD students think in learning mathematics has been carried out by several researchers, including the following:

Lewis states that students with MLD have a different mindset in understanding fractions, she looked at students with MLD does not mean they have deficiencies in understanding the concept of fractions, but there are differences in the way of thinking in understanding fractions [11]. Then Lewis states that students with MLD experience obstacles in learning fractions, especially on the topic of fraction comparison, both fraction comparisons with the same denominator, as well as in fractions comparisons involving fractions of half; in this study Lewis suggested examining students' understanding of the quantity of fractions [12].

Hunt et al. [13] state that MLD students have obstacles in mastering the concept of fractions by learning part-whole models. Newton et al. [14] state that the main error pattern in understanding fractions in MLD students is the use of traditional algorithms that are wrong.

#### **1.3 Research that focuses on finding solutions for MLD students in learning mathematics**

The study of alternative mathematical learning solutions for MLD students has been carried out by several researchers, including the following:

Shin and Bryant state that good fraction teaching by MLD students must involve the following 5 aspects: real objects and visual representations such as pictures and number lines, explicit and systematic learning, various time frames and sets of examples, heuristic strategies, and use real problem [15].

Mazzocco et al. state that visual models can be used as alternatives when helping MLD students understand fractions [16]. Gersten et al. [17] state that in assisting MLD students, practitioners are expected to take the following steps: (a) teach students with diverse teaching examples; (b) directing students to say the thoughts and solutions of a problem; (c) teach students to visualize math problems that they face; (d) teach students with diverse/heuristic strategies; (e) the teacher prepares a partner/discussion partner for MLD students; (f) teach MLD students with explicit instructions; (g) the teacher prepares the correct variety and sequence of examples;

Shin and Bryant [15] state that the use of a computer program, Fun Fraction, can help MLD students solve problem-solving in the form of stories. Virtual manipulation in Fun Fraction helps problem-solving skills because students are assisted by this program in representing the problem stories they are dealing with.

Finally, Tian, Jing, and Siegler, state that the use of an optimal number line model can help MLD students understand fraction size and calculation [18].

In this chapter, we focus on students' ways of thinking in fractions learning. It is needed as an essential first step toward effective instructional methods. We use the theory of mental act, ways of thinking, and ways of understanding from

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

lematic in mathematical intelligence and problem-solving strategies [3].

**1.1 Research that focuses on the identification or criteria of MLD students**

The study of the identification and criteria of MLD students has been carried out by several researchers, including the following: Geary described dyscalculia as a numerical and arithmetic difficulty caused by brain injury; he uses this term to describe a population of 5–8% of school-age children who have a cognitive disorder that affects their ability to learn concepts or procedures in one or more areas of mathematics [4].

Next the opinions of several experts about the criteria of MLD students will be

• students with an average IQ whose standardized test scores are below the 20th

• slower and often make mistakes in processing the representation of numbers, for example, the symbol number "3" and the equivalent of the non-symbol

• wrong in solving numbers problems that are very easy, for example, 4 × 5 = 20 [8].

The researchers identified students with MLD using standardized test results, for example, the Woodcock-Johnson Test of Achievement and the Wide Range Achievement Test, by looking at students who were below the 20th or 25th percentile [9]. Lewis further tightens the criteria for identifying MLD students, which

• students score below 25th percentile on standardized mathematics tests;

• the results of observations and interviews revealed that there was no influence of environmental or social factors on students**'** inability in mathematics; and

• after being given treatment, the effect of the treatment on increasing mathematical ability is very less. To find this out, Lewis made a comparison with a

In identifying students with MLD, Lewis [9] suggests that if researchers use self-developed identification instruments, it is also necessary to include the results of standardized measuring instruments as a comparison. The next suggestion is

control class whose members were not MLD students [10].

• make mistakes in comparing and estimating numbers [6];

• wrong in doing arithmetic calculations [7]; and

numerating, learning numbers, and doing mathematical calculations; difficulty in measurement, showing time, counting money, and estimating the number; prob-

In general, dyscalculia is an umbrella term used for various difficulties in learning mathematics, such as developmental dyscalculia, mathematical difficulties, difficulty learning numerical concepts, and difficulties about learning number concepts. There are many studies that discuss MLD students, with a different research focus: first, the research that focuses on the identification or criteria of MLD students; second, the research that focuses on how MLD students think in learning mathematics; and third, the research that focuses on finding solutions to learning mathematics in MLD students. The detailed of the research focus is as follows:

**78**

described:

or 25th percentile [4];

combines the following three criteria:

"◆◆◆" [5];

Harel. Furthermore, we also analyze the error pattern of MLD students when they learn fractions. The results of this study are expected to add to the discourse of educational scholarship, especially on the teaching and learning mathematics in an inclusive setting for students with MLD.

#### **2. Fraction learning**

Fractional topics include material in mathematics that is difficult to explain. This is because fraction is one of the topics in mathematics that requires high-level and complex thinking. Definition of fractions according to Clarke et al. [19]:

"Fractions are symbolic-shaped expressions that represent the quotient of two numbers \_ *a b* (where b is not equal to zero). So all rational numbers expressed in terms \_ *a b* are fractions, but rational numbers 1.45 are not fractions. Rasonals 1.45 can be called a fraction if written \_145 <sup>100</sup>. So that all rational numbers can be written as fractions, but there are some important fractions that are not rational numbers, for example: \_ *a* or \_ *a* " (p. 15).

*b b* In many classes, fractions are taught only in a procedural way. The teacher usually teaches fractions by applying the method of equalizing the denominator, by calculating the Least Common Multiples (LCM). On the other hand, according to Hiebert and Wearne [20], with this procedural method, students will only gain procedural understanding or syntax thinking. Students will not understand the relationship between fractions, in other words, students' conceptual understanding (semantic thinking) will be weak.

How can students gain a conceptual understanding of fractional material? Riccomini suggests two teaching strategies for better fraction learning; the two strategies are learning fractions by using number lines and the use of diverse representations [21]. The use of number lines and paper folding as representations is also suggested by Wyberg et al. [22].

Several other research results also support the use of diverse representations. Dey and Dey suggest the use of geometry representations; addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division operations can be represented geometrically [23]. Furthermore, Clark and Roche suggest the use of games in fraction learning; the game is done like a monopoly game using a kind of broken board, dice, and involves all students in the class [24].

The use of image representation is suggested by de Castro [25]. The same representation, using colored art drawings was suggested by Scaptura et al. [26]. Fractional learning using technology was suggested by Mendiburo and Hasselbring; they also prove that teaching fractions with technology are as effective as teaching fractions that use physical manipulation [27].

Other researchers, Lesh, Posh, and Behr stated that students gain a better understanding when they can identify and model mathematical concepts through various representations [28]. Furthermore, the Principle and Standards for School Mathematics suggest that students represent their mathematical ideas so that mathematical ideas make sense according to students [29]. One learning model that offers the use of diverse representations is the Lesh Translation Model.

#### **3. Lesh translation model**

Lesh Translational Model states that basic mathematical ideas can be represented in 5 ways: real (manipulative) objects, images, real-world contexts, verbal symbols, and written symbols. This model is illustrated by the following **Figure 1**:

**81**

classes (\_ **3***n*

**Figure 1.**

*Lesh translation model [30].*

*Students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities and Their Ways of Thinking in Fraction…*

Lesh Translational Model emphasizes interactions within and between representations. The arrows between one representation and another represent the intermodal translation, while the arrows in one mode represent the translation in the mode itself. This model suggests that a good understanding of mathematical ideas requires experience from various modes (ways) and the experience of making connections between and within these modes of representation. A translation requires interpretation of ideas that differ from one mode to another. This activity

According to Harel [31], human reasoning involves many mental actions such as interpreting, guessing, concluding, proving, explaining, compiling, generalizing, applying, predicting, classifying, searching and solving problems. He states that way of understanding is a certain cognitive product of mental actions carried out by

**3**

**4n** where n is a non-zero integer) and naive Ways of Understanding, such as

**3**

depending on the context, and if judged by an observer, can be considered right or

might be able to produce sophisticated Ways of Understanding such as equivalent

Ways of Thinking is a cognitive characteristic of the Mental Act. The cognitive characteristics of the Mental Act are inferred from observations of Ways of Understanding (cognitive products of mental actions). For example, a teacher who follows students' mathematical behavior might conclude that students' interpretations of mathematical symbols are inflexible, there are absolutely no quantitative views, or for example, students' interpretations of symbols are flexible and connected with other concepts. Another example, the teacher can conclude that students' proof of mathematical statements is based on empirical evidence, or

**3**

**<sup>4</sup>**, one can interpret (one mental

**<sup>4</sup> <sup>+</sup>** \_**<sup>1</sup> <sup>4</sup> <sup>+</sup>** \_**<sup>1</sup>**

**<sup>4</sup>** as "3 objects out

**<sup>4</sup>**." Others

**<sup>4</sup>**. The resulting interpretation is one's

\_

**<sup>4</sup>**. This way of understanding can be different

with its intellectual relations activity reflects dynamic learning.

wrong. For example, in a context one can interpret the symbol **<sup>3</sup>**

of 4 objects," and another person can interpret as "repeated sums: \_**<sup>1</sup>**

an individual. For example, after seeing the symbol \_

action) to produce meaning for the symbol \_

Ways of Understanding of the symbol \_

"two numbers with a bar between them."

based on deductive reasoning [31].

**4. Mental act, ways of thinking, and ways of understanding**

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89307*

*Students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities and Their Ways of Thinking in Fraction… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89307*

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

inclusive setting for students with MLD.

**2. Fraction learning**

*a b*

> *a b* or \_ *a b*

be called a fraction if written \_145

(semantic thinking) will be weak.

suggested by Wyberg et al. [22].

all students in the class [24].

**3. Lesh translation model**

fractions that use physical manipulation [27].

" (p. 15).

numbers \_

example: \_

terms \_ *a b*

Harel. Furthermore, we also analyze the error pattern of MLD students when they learn fractions. The results of this study are expected to add to the discourse of educational scholarship, especially on the teaching and learning mathematics in an

Fractional topics include material in mathematics that is difficult to explain. This is because fraction is one of the topics in mathematics that requires high-level and complex thinking. Definition of fractions according to Clarke et al. [19]:

"Fractions are symbolic-shaped expressions that represent the quotient of two

fractions, but there are some important fractions that are not rational numbers, for

In many classes, fractions are taught only in a procedural way. The teacher usually teaches fractions by applying the method of equalizing the denominator, by calculating the Least Common Multiples (LCM). On the other hand, according to Hiebert and Wearne [20], with this procedural method, students will only gain procedural understanding or syntax thinking. Students will not understand the relationship between fractions, in other words, students' conceptual understanding

How can students gain a conceptual understanding of fractional material? Riccomini suggests two teaching strategies for better fraction learning; the two strategies are learning fractions by using number lines and the use of diverse representations [21]. The use of number lines and paper folding as representations is also

Several other research results also support the use of diverse representations. Dey and Dey suggest the use of geometry representations; addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division operations can be represented geometrically [23]. Furthermore, Clark and Roche suggest the use of games in fraction learning; the game is done like a monopoly game using a kind of broken board, dice, and involves

The use of image representation is suggested by de Castro [25]. The same representation, using colored art drawings was suggested by Scaptura et al. [26]. Fractional learning using technology was suggested by Mendiburo and Hasselbring; they also prove that teaching fractions with technology are as effective as teaching

Other researchers, Lesh, Posh, and Behr stated that students gain a better understanding when they can identify and model mathematical concepts through various representations [28]. Furthermore, the Principle and Standards for School Mathematics suggest that students represent their mathematical ideas so that mathematical ideas make sense according to students [29]. One learning model that

Lesh Translational Model states that basic mathematical ideas can be represented in 5 ways: real (manipulative) objects, images, real-world contexts, verbal symbols, and written symbols. This model is illustrated by the following **Figure 1**:

offers the use of diverse representations is the Lesh Translation Model.

(where b is not equal to zero). So all rational numbers expressed in

are fractions, but rational numbers 1.45 are not fractions. Rasonals 1.45 can

<sup>100</sup>. So that all rational numbers can be written as

**80**

Lesh Translational Model emphasizes interactions within and between representations. The arrows between one representation and another represent the intermodal translation, while the arrows in one mode represent the translation in the mode itself. This model suggests that a good understanding of mathematical ideas requires experience from various modes (ways) and the experience of making connections between and within these modes of representation. A translation requires interpretation of ideas that differ from one mode to another. This activity with its intellectual relations activity reflects dynamic learning.

#### **4. Mental act, ways of thinking, and ways of understanding**

According to Harel [31], human reasoning involves many mental actions such as interpreting, guessing, concluding, proving, explaining, compiling, generalizing, applying, predicting, classifying, searching and solving problems. He states that way of understanding is a certain cognitive product of mental actions carried out by an individual. For example, after seeing the symbol \_ **3 <sup>4</sup>**, one can interpret (one mental action) to produce meaning for the symbol \_ **3 <sup>4</sup>**. The resulting interpretation is one's Ways of Understanding of the symbol \_ **3 <sup>4</sup>**. This way of understanding can be different depending on the context, and if judged by an observer, can be considered right or wrong. For example, in a context one can interpret the symbol **<sup>3</sup>** \_ **<sup>4</sup>** as "3 objects out of 4 objects," and another person can interpret as "repeated sums: \_**<sup>1</sup> <sup>4</sup> <sup>+</sup>** \_**<sup>1</sup> <sup>4</sup> <sup>+</sup>** \_**<sup>1</sup> <sup>4</sup>**." Others might be able to produce sophisticated Ways of Understanding such as equivalent classes (\_ **3***n* **4n** where n is a non-zero integer) and naive Ways of Understanding, such as "two numbers with a bar between them."

Ways of Thinking is a cognitive characteristic of the Mental Act. The cognitive characteristics of the Mental Act are inferred from observations of Ways of Understanding (cognitive products of mental actions). For example, a teacher who follows students' mathematical behavior might conclude that students' interpretations of mathematical symbols are inflexible, there are absolutely no quantitative views, or for example, students' interpretations of symbols are flexible and connected with other concepts. Another example, the teacher can conclude that students' proof of mathematical statements is based on empirical evidence, or based on deductive reasoning [31].

#### **5. Mental act, ways of thinking, and ways of understanding of MLD student**

Here are the results of the data analysis from three students with MLD; we found mental acts, ways of understanding, and ways of thinking as follows:

#### **5.1 Problem solving**

Here is one example of student work that used mental act problem-solving (**Figure 2**).

In **Figure 2**, the student solves a problem: a tailor receives \_2 3 m of white cloth with floral motifs to make a handkerchief. Each handkerchief requires \_1 6 m of fabric. How many handkerchiefs can be made?. To solve this problem, the student wrote: \_2 3 : \_1 6 = \_2 3 × \_ 6 1 = 4 handkerchiefs. To answer this word problem, the student performs mental act problem-solving by modeling mathematical word problem into fraction division operation. Then he solves the problem of dividing the fraction using the invert multiple algorithm method [32].

A problem-solving approach is a cognitive characteristic of mental act problemsolving. From the results of the analysis of the answers, it was found that 8 students did the problem-solving approach. In the answers above, it appears that students understand the questions and answer them using a problem-solving approach, in the form of an invert multiple algorithm (IMA) strategy in fraction division operations.

The solution is a cognitive product of mental act problem-solving. From the results of the analysis of answers, obtained student answers are examples of the way of understanding solution.

#### **5.2 Interpreting**

The second identifiable mental act of MLD students is interpreting. The example of student work is as follows (**Figure 3**).

In **Figure 3**, the student is asked to describe fractions \_1 2 and \_2 5 in two different ways. Students have been able to interpret \_1 2 with two different interpretation, which is the rectangle and triangle picture. In the rectangle picture which is divided into two parts; one part is shaded and the other part is not shaded. In the triangle picture which is divided into two parts; one part is shaded and the other part is not shaded.


#### **Figure 2.** *Mental act problem-solving of MLD student.*


**83**

**Figure 4.**

*operation.*

\_1 3 + \_1 3 = \_2 3 .

**Table 1.**

*Students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities and Their Ways of Thinking in Fraction…*

There is something interesting in the triangle picture, students divide the triangle in the centerline, with a horizontal triangle position. Next, students interpret \_2

Problem-solving Solution Problem-solving approach: invert multiply algorithm Interpreting Interpretation Multiple interpretations (as pictures of the square,

rectangle, etc.)

pictures of parallelograms and squares, each of which is divided into five parts; two

Diverse interpretation of mathematical symbols is a cognitive characteristic of mental act interpreting (way of thinking). From the analysis of MLD student test result data, it was found that he made a fractional interpretation in the form of images, namely rectangular and circular images, as shown above. Interpretation is a cognitive product of mental act interpreting. From the results of the analysis of MLD student answers, it is an embodiment of the way of understanding interpret-

**6.1 Students know the common denominator method in the addition of fractions;** 

The pattern of mistakes of the three students is wrong in applying the denomi-

In the questions, participants are asked to solve two fraction addition questions.

question aims to reveal students' understanding of the fraction addition operation with the same denominator. For this problem, students give the correct answer:

In the second problem (part b), students are asked to solve questions \_1

problem aims to reveal students' understanding of the sum of fractions with dif-

already know the procedure to do the denominator in the addition operation of

*Example of an error pattern in applying the denominator equalization procedure to the fraction addition* 

ing, namely interpretation. The students' interpretation of the fractions \_1

**6. The error pattern of MLD students in fractions learning**

Some patterns of errors made by MLD students are as follows:

nator equalization procedure. Here is a picture showing this (**Figure 4**).

In the first problem (part a), students are asked to solve questions \_1

ferent denominators. In this problem, students give answers: \_1

picture of a rectangle, triangle, parallelogram, and square, as shown above.

5 with

2 and \_2 5 is a

3 + \_1 3

3 + \_1 2 = \_1 6 + \_1 6 = \_2 6

= …. This

3 + \_1 2 = …. This

. Learners

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89307*

**Mental act Way of understanding Way of thinking**

parts are shaded and the other is not shaded.

*The mental act, way of understanding, and way of thinking.*

We summarize these findings in **Table 1**.

**however, they incorrectly apply the method**

**Figure 3.** *Mental act interpreting of MLD student.*

*Students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities and Their Ways of Thinking in Fraction… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89307*


#### **Table 1.**

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

**5. Mental act, ways of thinking, and ways of understanding of MLD** 

Here is one example of student work that used mental act problem-solving

many handkerchiefs can be made?. To solve this problem, the student wrote: \_2

 = 4 handkerchiefs. To answer this word problem, the student performs mental act problem-solving by modeling mathematical word problem into fraction division operation. Then he solves the problem of dividing the fraction using the invert

A problem-solving approach is a cognitive characteristic of mental act problemsolving. From the results of the analysis of the answers, it was found that 8 students did the problem-solving approach. In the answers above, it appears that students understand the questions and answer them using a problem-solving approach, in the form of an invert multiple algorithm (IMA) strategy in fraction division

The solution is a cognitive product of mental act problem-solving. From the results of the analysis of answers, obtained student answers are examples of the way

The second identifiable mental act of MLD students is interpreting. The example

2

is the rectangle and triangle picture. In the rectangle picture which is divided into two parts; one part is shaded and the other part is not shaded. In the triangle picture which is divided into two parts; one part is shaded and the other part is not shaded.

2 and \_2 5

with two different interpretation, which

mental acts, ways of understanding, and ways of thinking as follows:

In **Figure 2**, the student solves a problem: a tailor receives \_2

floral motifs to make a handkerchief. Each handkerchief requires \_1

Here are the results of the data analysis from three students with MLD; we found

3

6

m of white cloth with

in two different

m of fabric. How

3 : \_1 6 =

**82**

**Figure 3.**

**Figure 2.**

**student**

(**Figure 2**).

operations.

**5.2 Interpreting**

\_2 3 × \_ 6 1

**5.1 Problem solving**

multiple algorithm method [32].

of understanding solution.

of student work is as follows (**Figure 3**).

ways. Students have been able to interpret \_1

In **Figure 3**, the student is asked to describe fractions \_1

*Mental act interpreting of MLD student.*

*Mental act problem-solving of MLD student.*

*The mental act, way of understanding, and way of thinking.*

There is something interesting in the triangle picture, students divide the triangle in the centerline, with a horizontal triangle position. Next, students interpret \_2 5 with pictures of parallelograms and squares, each of which is divided into five parts; two parts are shaded and the other is not shaded.

Diverse interpretation of mathematical symbols is a cognitive characteristic of mental act interpreting (way of thinking). From the analysis of MLD student test result data, it was found that he made a fractional interpretation in the form of images, namely rectangular and circular images, as shown above. Interpretation is a cognitive product of mental act interpreting. From the results of the analysis of MLD student answers, it is an embodiment of the way of understanding interpreting, namely interpretation. The students' interpretation of the fractions \_1 2 and \_2 5 is a picture of a rectangle, triangle, parallelogram, and square, as shown above.

We summarize these findings in **Table 1**.

#### **6. The error pattern of MLD students in fractions learning**

Some patterns of errors made by MLD students are as follows:

#### **6.1 Students know the common denominator method in the addition of fractions; however, they incorrectly apply the method**

The pattern of mistakes of the three students is wrong in applying the denominator equalization procedure. Here is a picture showing this (**Figure 4**).

In the questions, participants are asked to solve two fraction addition questions. In the first problem (part a), students are asked to solve questions \_1 3 + \_1 3 = …. This question aims to reveal students' understanding of the fraction addition operation with the same denominator. For this problem, students give the correct answer: \_1 3 + \_1 3 = \_2 3 .

In the second problem (part b), students are asked to solve questions \_1 3 + \_1 2 = …. This problem aims to reveal students' understanding of the sum of fractions with different denominators. In this problem, students give answers: \_1 3 + \_1 2 = \_1 6 + \_1 6 = \_2 6 . Learners already know the procedure to do the denominator in the addition operation of

#### **Figure 4.**

*Example of an error pattern in applying the denominator equalization procedure to the fraction addition operation.*

#### **Figure 5.**

*Example of error pattern applying the denominator equalization procedure to multiplication operations.*

fractions. So when he sees the question \_1 3 + \_1 2 = …, he performs the denominator equalization procedure by changing 3 to 6 in the first term and changing 2 to 6 in the second term. However, students do not make numerator changes. So, participants already know the denominator equalization procedure, but do not make adjustments to the numerator. In other words, students mistakenly understand the denominator equalization procedure in fraction addition operations.

#### **6.2 Students use the common denominator approach (for fraction addition) in the multiplication of fraction**

The second error pattern is very interesting, namely, students apply the denominator equalization procedure in multiplication operations. Here is a picture showing this (**Figure 5**).

In the problem, students are asked to solve questions \_ 4 5 × \_1 3 = ….This problem aims to reveal students' understanding of fraction multiplication. In this problem, students give answers: \_ 4 5 × \_1 3 = \_12 15 × \_5 15= \_ 60 15 ÷ 5 = \_ 4 3 = 1 \_1 3 . There is an interesting thing, students apply the denominator equalization procedure (supposed to be the sum operation) on the fraction multiplication operation. So when he saw the problem \_ 4 5 × \_1 3 = …, he did the procedure of equating the denominator in the first syllable by changing 5 to 15 and in the second syllable changing 3 to 15. There were other interesting things done by students. He only did the multiplication, namely: \_12 15 × \_5 15= \_ 60 15 . He then divides \_ 60 15 by 5 to produce \_ 4 3 fractions. The interesting thing is that students apply the denominator equalization procedure in fraction multiplication operations.

#### **6.3 In the division of fraction, students mistakenly apply the invert multiply algorithm**

The third error pattern is very interesting, namely, students turn the first syllable in a fraction division operation. Here is a picture showing this (**Figure 6**):

In the second problem (part b), students are asked to solve questions \_ 9 4 ÷ \_ 3 5 = …. This question aims to reveal students' understanding of fraction distribution operations. In this problem, students seem to already know the procedure of division

**85**

problems [33].

*Students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities and Their Ways of Thinking in Fraction…*

operations on fractions. But there is an interesting thing, students use the method of multiplying with the inverse (invert multiply algorithm), but what is reversed is not the second term, but the first term. Consider the following illustration of

MLD students solve fractions problem procedurally, they apply common denominator approach, drawing a picture, direct multiplied strategy, and invert multiply algorithm in solving fractions problems. They cannot practice the other strategies like using a benchmark or residual which demands the ability to infer and explain. Therefore, we conclude MLD students only perform two mental acts, which are problem-solving and interpreting. They could not develop other mental

Some interesting findings when MLD students solve fractions problem are: (1) they know the procedure of common denominator approach in fraction addition operation, however, they mistakenly apply the procedure; (2) in multiplication and divisions operation, they are familiar with the procedure, however, they mistakenly apply the procedure. The two finding is in line with Newton et al. research, they revealed that the main pattern of error in fraction understanding on MLD students is the use of traditional false algorithms [14]. These findings also in accordance with the research of Mazzocco et al., which show that the difficulties in fraction learning are still felt by MLD students until they are in grade 8 [16]. Other researchers also had the same research result, which stated that MLD students make a mistake in

Another previous research explained that students with MLD have a different ways of thinking in understanding fractions. Lewis considered that the MLD students did not mean to have a lack of understanding of fractions; however, they had different ways of thinking in understanding fractions [11]. We find that MLD students have different ways of thinking in understanding fractions addition operation; they differently understand the common denominator approach, they do not

The other research findings deduced that adolescent MLD students are experiencing difficulties in fraction comparison subjects, either fractions comparisons with the same denominator or in fractions comparisons involving a half fraction [12]. Lewis suggested to investigating younger MLD students as the subject. We involved younger students with MLD in our research, a similar result is found, that is MLD students have difficulties in solving fractions comparison

In our finding, partitioning activities, which are beneficial for regular students, but not necessarily helpful to MLD students; this may happen because MLD students do not follow a developmental pattern like their regular peers. In accordance with our findings, Lewis explained that partitioning activity was probably the root of understanding the quantity of fractions in regular students; MLD students may

According to Brousseau, the appearance of learning obstacle in mathematics can

be caused by three obstacles, namely ontogenic obstacle (mental learning readiness), didactical obstacle (obstacle from teacher instruction or teaching material), and epistemological obstacle (students' knowledge which has limited application context) [34]. In the context of Brousseau theory, the three error patterns of the MLD students in fractions learning is prone to the type of epistemological obstacle,

multiply the numerator by the same number with the denominator.

15 . So that the answers obtained are reversed, the answer

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89307*

9 4 ÷ \_ 3 5 = \_ 4 9 × \_ 3 5 = \_ 4

acts like explaining or inferring.

performing arithmetic calculations [7].

not follow this pattern of development [10].

, students get \_4

15 .

student answers: \_

4

should be \_15

**7. Discussion**

**Figure 6.** *Example of the first syllable error pattern in a fraction division operation.*

*Students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities and Their Ways of Thinking in Fraction… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89307*

operations on fractions. But there is an interesting thing, students use the method of multiplying with the inverse (invert multiply algorithm), but what is reversed is not the second term, but the first term. Consider the following illustration of student answers: \_ 9 4 ÷ \_ 3 5 = \_ 4 9 × \_ 3 5 = \_ 4 15 . So that the answers obtained are reversed, the answer should be \_15 4 , students get \_4 15 .

#### **7. Discussion**

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

3 + \_1 2

*Example of error pattern applying the denominator equalization procedure to multiplication operations.*

denominator equalization procedure in fraction addition operations.

In the problem, students are asked to solve questions \_

4 5 × \_1 3 = \_12 15 × \_5 15= \_ 60 15 ÷ 5 = \_ 4 3 = 1 \_1 3

15 . He then divides \_

*Example of the first syllable error pattern in a fraction division operation.*

equalization procedure by changing 3 to 6 in the first term and changing 2 to 6 in the second term. However, students do not make numerator changes. So, participants already know the denominator equalization procedure, but do not make adjustments to the numerator. In other words, students mistakenly understand the

**6.2 Students use the common denominator approach (for fraction addition) in** 

The second error pattern is very interesting, namely, students apply the denominator equalization procedure in multiplication operations. Here is a picture

aims to reveal students' understanding of fraction multiplication. In this prob-

= …, he did the procedure of equating the denominator in the first

4 3

15 by 5 to produce \_

students apply the denominator equalization procedure (supposed to be the sum operation) on the fraction multiplication operation. So when he saw the

syllable by changing 5 to 15 and in the second syllable changing 3 to 15. There were other interesting things done by students. He only did the multiplication,

thing is that students apply the denominator equalization procedure in fraction

**6.3 In the division of fraction, students mistakenly apply the invert multiply** 

The third error pattern is very interesting, namely, students turn the first syllable in a fraction division operation. Here is a picture showing this (**Figure 6**): In the second problem (part b), students are asked to solve questions \_

This question aims to reveal students' understanding of fraction distribution operations. In this problem, students seem to already know the procedure of division

60

= …, he performs the denominator

4 5 × \_1 3

= ….This problem

. There is an interesting thing,

fractions. The interesting

9 4 ÷ \_ 3 5 = ….

fractions. So when he sees the question \_1

**the multiplication of fraction**

showing this (**Figure 5**).

15 × \_5 15= \_ 60

**algorithm**

multiplication operations.

problem \_ 4 5 × \_1 3

**Figure 5.**

namely: \_12

lem, students give answers: \_

**84**

**Figure 6.**

MLD students solve fractions problem procedurally, they apply common denominator approach, drawing a picture, direct multiplied strategy, and invert multiply algorithm in solving fractions problems. They cannot practice the other strategies like using a benchmark or residual which demands the ability to infer and explain. Therefore, we conclude MLD students only perform two mental acts, which are problem-solving and interpreting. They could not develop other mental acts like explaining or inferring.

Some interesting findings when MLD students solve fractions problem are: (1) they know the procedure of common denominator approach in fraction addition operation, however, they mistakenly apply the procedure; (2) in multiplication and divisions operation, they are familiar with the procedure, however, they mistakenly apply the procedure. The two finding is in line with Newton et al. research, they revealed that the main pattern of error in fraction understanding on MLD students is the use of traditional false algorithms [14]. These findings also in accordance with the research of Mazzocco et al., which show that the difficulties in fraction learning are still felt by MLD students until they are in grade 8 [16]. Other researchers also had the same research result, which stated that MLD students make a mistake in performing arithmetic calculations [7].

Another previous research explained that students with MLD have a different ways of thinking in understanding fractions. Lewis considered that the MLD students did not mean to have a lack of understanding of fractions; however, they had different ways of thinking in understanding fractions [11]. We find that MLD students have different ways of thinking in understanding fractions addition operation; they differently understand the common denominator approach, they do not multiply the numerator by the same number with the denominator.

The other research findings deduced that adolescent MLD students are experiencing difficulties in fraction comparison subjects, either fractions comparisons with the same denominator or in fractions comparisons involving a half fraction [12]. Lewis suggested to investigating younger MLD students as the subject. We involved younger students with MLD in our research, a similar result is found, that is MLD students have difficulties in solving fractions comparison problems [33].

In our finding, partitioning activities, which are beneficial for regular students, but not necessarily helpful to MLD students; this may happen because MLD students do not follow a developmental pattern like their regular peers. In accordance with our findings, Lewis explained that partitioning activity was probably the root of understanding the quantity of fractions in regular students; MLD students may not follow this pattern of development [10].

According to Brousseau, the appearance of learning obstacle in mathematics can be caused by three obstacles, namely ontogenic obstacle (mental learning readiness), didactical obstacle (obstacle from teacher instruction or teaching material), and epistemological obstacle (students' knowledge which has limited application context) [34]. In the context of Brousseau theory, the three error patterns of the MLD students in fractions learning is prone to the type of epistemological obstacle,

that is MLD students already know fractions concept, however, they have limited application context to the other fractions problems [35].

#### **8. Conclusion**

We found only two mental acts with corresponding WoU and WoT, namely problem-solving and interpreting. On the analysis of MLD students, it was found an interesting thing in the mental act problem solving, i.e., the student knew the common denominator approach in the operation of fraction addition, but the practice is still wrong. The same thing is also found in multiplication and division operation. Surprisingly, students use the common denominator approach in the fraction multiplication. In the division of fraction, students mistakenly apply the invert multiply algorithm.

The results of this study can be used by the teachers as a guideline when teaching fractions to students. Future research is recommended to analyze the error patterns of MLD students with other topics in mathematics, such as geometry.

#### **Author details**

Suprih Widodo1 \* and Trisno Ikhwanudin2,3

1 Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (Indonesia University of Education), Indonesia

2 Postgraduate Program, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (Indonesia University of Education), Indonesia

3 PPPPTK TK dan PLB (Special Teacher Development Center), Indonesia

\*Address all correspondence to: supri@upi.edu

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**87**

*Students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities and Their Ways of Thinking in Fraction…*

Research in Mathematics Education.

[10] Lewis KE. Beyond error patterns: A sociocultural view of fraction comparison errors in students with mathematical learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly.

[11] Lewis KE. Difference not deficit: Reconceptualising mathematics learning disabilities. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education.

[13] Hunt JH et al. Initial understandings

[14] Newton et al. An examination of the ways that students with learning disabilities solve fraction computation problems. The Elementary School

[15] Shin M, Bryant DP. Improving the fraction word problem solving of students with mathematics learning disabilities: Interactive computer application. Remedial and Special Education. 2016;**38**(2):76-86

[16] Mazzocco M et al. Limited

knowledge of fraction representations differentiates middle school students with mathematics learning disability (dyscalculia) versus low mathematics achievement. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 2013;**115**(2):371-387

of fraction concepts evidenced by students with mathematical learning disabilities and difficulties: A framework. Learning Disability

Quarterly. 2016;**13**(1):1-13

Journal. 2014;**115**(1):1-21

[12] Lewis KE. Understanding mathematical learning disabilities as developmental difference: A finegrained analysis of one student's partitioning strategies for fractions. Journal of Education and Development.

2016;**47**(4):338-371

2016b;**1**(14):1-14

2014;**45**(3)

2016;**39**(4):812-857

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89307*

[1] Strauss V. Trying to figure out why math is so hard for some, theories abound: Genetics, gender, how It's taught. The Washington Post. 2003;**2003**

[2] Adler B. What Is Dyscalculia. Cognitive

[4] Geary DC. Mathematics and learning

[5] Piazza M, Facoetti A, Trussardi AN, Berteletti I, Conte S, Lucangeli D, et al. Developmental trajectory of number acuity reveals a severe impairment in developmental dyscalculia. Cognition.

[6] Mazzocco MMM, Feigenson L, Halberda J. Impaired acuity of the approximate number system underlies mathematical learning disability (dyscalculia). Child Development.

Byrd-Craven J, DeSota MC. Strategy choices in simple and complex addition: Contributions of working memory and counting knowledge for children with mathematical disability. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

[8] Mazzocco MMM, Devlin KT, McKenney SJ. Is it a fact? Timed arithmetic performance of children with mathematical learning disabilities (MLD) varies as a function of how MLD is defined. Developmental Neuropsychology. 2008;**33**:318-344

[9] Lewis KE, Fisher MB. Taking stock of 40 years of research on mathematical learning disability: Methodological issues and future directions. Journal for

Center in Sweden: Sweden; 2001

[3] National Center for Learning Disabilities. The State of Learning Disabilities. New York: NCLD; 2014

disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities. 2004;**37**(1):4-15

2010;**116**:33-41

2011;**82**:1224-1237

2004;**88**:121-151

[7] Geary DC, Hoard MK,

**References**

*Students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities and Their Ways of Thinking in Fraction… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89307*

#### **References**

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

application context to the other fractions problems [35].

**8. Conclusion**

invert multiply algorithm.

**Author details**

Suprih Widodo1

Education), Indonesia

that is MLD students already know fractions concept, however, they have limited

We found only two mental acts with corresponding WoU and WoT, namely problem-solving and interpreting. On the analysis of MLD students, it was found an interesting thing in the mental act problem solving, i.e., the student knew the common denominator approach in the operation of fraction addition, but the practice is still wrong. The same thing is also found in multiplication and division operation. Surprisingly, students use the common denominator approach in the fraction multiplication. In the division of fraction, students mistakenly apply the

The results of this study can be used by the teachers as a guideline when teaching fractions to students. Future research is recommended to analyze the error patterns

of MLD students with other topics in mathematics, such as geometry.

\* and Trisno Ikhwanudin2,3

\*Address all correspondence to: supri@upi.edu

provided the original work is properly cited.

1 Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (Indonesia University of Education), Indonesia

2 Postgraduate Program, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (Indonesia University of

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

3 PPPPTK TK dan PLB (Special Teacher Development Center), Indonesia

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[1] Strauss V. Trying to figure out why math is so hard for some, theories abound: Genetics, gender, how It's taught. The Washington Post. 2003;**2003**

[2] Adler B. What Is Dyscalculia. Cognitive Center in Sweden: Sweden; 2001

[3] National Center for Learning Disabilities. The State of Learning Disabilities. New York: NCLD; 2014

[4] Geary DC. Mathematics and learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities. 2004;**37**(1):4-15

[5] Piazza M, Facoetti A, Trussardi AN, Berteletti I, Conte S, Lucangeli D, et al. Developmental trajectory of number acuity reveals a severe impairment in developmental dyscalculia. Cognition. 2010;**116**:33-41

[6] Mazzocco MMM, Feigenson L, Halberda J. Impaired acuity of the approximate number system underlies mathematical learning disability (dyscalculia). Child Development. 2011;**82**:1224-1237

[7] Geary DC, Hoard MK, Byrd-Craven J, DeSota MC. Strategy choices in simple and complex addition: Contributions of working memory and counting knowledge for children with mathematical disability. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 2004;**88**:121-151

[8] Mazzocco MMM, Devlin KT, McKenney SJ. Is it a fact? Timed arithmetic performance of children with mathematical learning disabilities (MLD) varies as a function of how MLD is defined. Developmental Neuropsychology. 2008;**33**:318-344

[9] Lewis KE, Fisher MB. Taking stock of 40 years of research on mathematical learning disability: Methodological issues and future directions. Journal for

Research in Mathematics Education. 2016;**47**(4):338-371

[10] Lewis KE. Beyond error patterns: A sociocultural view of fraction comparison errors in students with mathematical learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly. 2016b;**1**(14):1-14

[11] Lewis KE. Difference not deficit: Reconceptualising mathematics learning disabilities. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education. 2014;**45**(3)

[12] Lewis KE. Understanding mathematical learning disabilities as developmental difference: A finegrained analysis of one student's partitioning strategies for fractions. Journal of Education and Development. 2016;**39**(4):812-857

[13] Hunt JH et al. Initial understandings of fraction concepts evidenced by students with mathematical learning disabilities and difficulties: A framework. Learning Disability Quarterly. 2016;**13**(1):1-13

[14] Newton et al. An examination of the ways that students with learning disabilities solve fraction computation problems. The Elementary School Journal. 2014;**115**(1):1-21

[15] Shin M, Bryant DP. Improving the fraction word problem solving of students with mathematics learning disabilities: Interactive computer application. Remedial and Special Education. 2016;**38**(2):76-86

[16] Mazzocco M et al. Limited knowledge of fraction representations differentiates middle school students with mathematics learning disability (dyscalculia) versus low mathematics achievement. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 2013;**115**(2):371-387 [17] Gersten R, Chard D, Jayanthi M, Baker S, Morphy P, Flojo J. Mathematics Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities or Difficulty Learning Mathematics: Asynthesis of the Intervention Research. Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction; 2008

[18] Tian J, Siegler RS. Fractions learning in children with mathematics difficulties. Journal of Learning Disabilities. 2016;**50**(6):614-620

[19] Clarke C, Fisher W, Marks R, Ross S, Zbiek RS. Developing Essential Understanding of Rational Numbers for Teaching Mathematics in Grades 3-5. Reston, VA: NCTM; 2010

[20] Hiebert J, Wearne D. Procedures over concepts: The acquisition of decimal number knowledge. In: Hiebert DJ, editor. Conceptual and Procedural Knowledge: The Case of Mathematics. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; 1986. pp. 199-223

[21] Riccomini PJ. Core Issues of Math: Number Sense and Fraction. Kansas MTSS Symposium. 2010. Available from: www.kansasmtss.org/2010Symposium/ Riccomini\_Number\_Sense\_and\_Fractions

[22] Wyberg T, Whitney SR, Cramer KA, Monson DS, Leavitt S. Unfolding fraction multiplication: Helps students understand an important algorithm by using a piece of paper and a number line. Mathematics Teaching in The Middle School. 2012;**17**(5):289-293

[23] Dey K, Dey R. Teaching arithmetic of fractions using geometry. Journal of Mathematics Education. 2010;**3**(2):170-182

[24] Clarke D, Roche A. The power of a single game to address a range of important ideas in fraction learning. In: The Australasian Mathematical Psychology Conference 2010, Australia. p. 2010

[25] de Castro BV. Cognitive models: The missing link to learning fraction multiplication and division. Asia Pacific Education Review. 2008;**9**(2):101-112

[26] Scaptura C, Suh J, Mahaffey G. Masterpieces to mathematics: Using art to teaching fraction, decimal, and percent equivalents. Mathematics Teaching in The Middle School. 2007;**13**(1):24-28

[27] Mendiburo M., Hasselbring T. Technology's Impact on Fraction Learning: An Experimental Comparison of Virtual and Physical Manipulative. SREE Conference Abstract Template; 2011

[28] Lesh R, Post T, Behr M. Representations and translations among representations in mathematics learning and problem solving. Problem of representation in the teaching and learning of mathematics. In: Javier C, editor. Hillsdale. NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; 1987. pp. 33-40

[29] National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. Reston, VA: NCTM; 2000

[30] Cramer K. Using a translation model for curriculum development and classroom instruction. In: Lesh R, Doerr H, editors. Beyond Constructivism: Models and Modeling Perspectives on Mathematics Problem Solving, Learning, and Teaching. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; 2003. pp. 449-464

[31] Harel G. What is mathematics? A pedagogical answer to a philosophical question. In: Gold B, Simons RA, editors. Proof and Other Dilemmas: Mathematics and Philosophy. Washington, DC: MAA; 2008. pp. 265-290

[32] Zembat IO. An alternative route to teaching fraction division: Abstraction of common denominator

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algorithm. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education.

[33] Ikhwanudin T, Suryadi D. How students with mathematics learning disabilities understands fraction: A case from the Indonesian inclusive school. International Journal of Instruction. 2018;**11**(3):309-326. DOI: 10.12973/

[34] Brousseau G. Theory of Didactical Situations in Mathematics. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers; 2002

[35] Ikhwanudin T, Prabawanto S, Wahyudin. The error pattern of students with mathematics learning disabilities in the inclusive school on fractions learning. International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research. 2019;**18**(3):75-95. DOI:

2015;**7**(3):399-422

iji.2018.11322a

10.26803/ijlter.18.3.5

*Students with Mathematics Learning Disabilities and Their Ways of Thinking in Fraction… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89307*

algorithm. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education. 2015;**7**(3):399-422

*Learning Disabilities - Neurological Bases, Clinical Features and Strategies of Intervention*

[25] de Castro BV. Cognitive models: The missing link to learning fraction multiplication and division. Asia Pacific Education Review. 2008;**9**(2):101-112

[26] Scaptura C, Suh J, Mahaffey G. Masterpieces to mathematics: Using art to teaching fraction, decimal, and percent equivalents. Mathematics Teaching in The Middle School.

[27] Mendiburo M., Hasselbring T.

[28] Lesh R, Post T, Behr M.

Associates; 1987. pp. 33-40

NCTM; 2000

pp. 265-290

representations in mathematics

Technology's Impact on Fraction Learning: An Experimental Comparison of Virtual and Physical Manipulative. SREE Conference Abstract Template; 2011

Representations and translations among

learning and problem solving. Problem of representation in the teaching and learning of mathematics. In: Javier C, editor. Hillsdale. NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum

[29] National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. Reston, VA:

[30] Cramer K. Using a translation model for curriculum development and classroom instruction. In: Lesh R, Doerr H, editors. Beyond Constructivism: Models and Modeling Perspectives on Mathematics Problem Solving, Learning, and Teaching. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; 2003. pp. 449-464

[31] Harel G. What is mathematics? A pedagogical answer to a philosophical question. In: Gold B, Simons RA, editors. Proof and Other Dilemmas: Mathematics and Philosophy. Washington, DC: MAA; 2008.

[32] Zembat IO. An alternative route to teaching fraction division: Abstraction of common denominator

2007;**13**(1):24-28

[17] Gersten R, Chard D, Jayanthi M, Baker S, Morphy P, Flojo J. Mathematics Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities or Difficulty Learning Mathematics: Asynthesis of the

Intervention Research. Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on

[18] Tian J, Siegler RS. Fractions learning in children with mathematics difficulties. Journal of Learning Disabilities. 2016;**50**(6):614-620

[19] Clarke C, Fisher W, Marks R, Ross S, Zbiek RS. Developing Essential Understanding of Rational Numbers for Teaching Mathematics in Grades 3-5.

[20] Hiebert J, Wearne D. Procedures over concepts: The acquisition of decimal number knowledge. In: Hiebert DJ, editor. Conceptual and Procedural Knowledge: The Case of Mathematics. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; 1986. pp. 199-223

[21] Riccomini PJ. Core Issues of Math: Number Sense and Fraction. Kansas MTSS Symposium. 2010. Available from: www.kansasmtss.org/2010Symposium/ Riccomini\_Number\_Sense\_and\_Fractions

[22] Wyberg T, Whitney SR, Cramer KA,

[23] Dey K, Dey R. Teaching arithmetic

[24] Clarke D, Roche A. The power of a single game to address a range of important ideas in fraction learning. In: The Australasian Mathematical Psychology Conference 2010, Australia.

of fractions using geometry. Journal of Mathematics Education.

2010;**3**(2):170-182

Monson DS, Leavitt S. Unfolding fraction multiplication: Helps students understand an important algorithm by using a piece of paper and a number line. Mathematics Teaching in The Middle School. 2012;**17**(5):289-293

Reston, VA: NCTM; 2010

Instruction; 2008

**88**

p. 2010

[33] Ikhwanudin T, Suryadi D. How students with mathematics learning disabilities understands fraction: A case from the Indonesian inclusive school. International Journal of Instruction. 2018;**11**(3):309-326. DOI: 10.12973/ iji.2018.11322a

[34] Brousseau G. Theory of Didactical Situations in Mathematics. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers; 2002

[35] Ikhwanudin T, Prabawanto S, Wahyudin. The error pattern of students with mathematics learning disabilities in the inclusive school on fractions learning. International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research. 2019;**18**(3):75-95. DOI: 10.26803/ijlter.18.3.5

**91**

Section 3

Learning Disabilities

Comorbid with

Behavioral, Developmental

Disorders and Autism

### Section 3
