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What counts as progress in developing adults’ reading
skills?
Sue PartridgeSPEC Ltd.and founder of
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The background to my research
30 years involvement in adult literacy 20 years experience in adult dyslexia
diagnosis and support A mission to help teachers increase the
range of strategies they use to support adults’ reading in a more effective way
The final stages of a doctorate in education with the Open University
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My research questions Q1. What counts as an improvement in reading skills for adults?
Q2. What are the practical and ethical issues in measuring improvements in reading skills ?
Q3. How far do Kruidenier’s (2002) 4 components of reading (alphabetic, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension), elucidate the characteristics of adults’ reading skills and the improvements they can make ?
Q4. How far do individual differences impact on an adult reader’s capability to improve?
Q5. What are the features of good support for adults’ reading skills that most influence their improvement and how?
Kruidenier, J. (2002) Research-based principles for adult basic education reading instruction, Portsmouth,
NH, National Institute for Literacy.
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Methodology
Mixed methodology case study with qualitative and quantitative analysis
Assess-intervene-reassess format with 10 adult learners in the main study
Co-researchers included skilled practitioners in the FE and AE sector
Learners ranged in skill levels from E1 to undergraduate level
Individual differences encompassed age, gender, ethnicity, dyslexic/non-dyslexic, educational history
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Interesting features
Assessment methodology Length of intervention Range of intervention tools Practical and ethical considerations Levels of detail – small sample size, but
richness of information
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Progress measures
Dependent variables: changes in speed, accuracy, comprehension, performance on WRAT 4 word recognition
Tutor and learner evaluations Detailed observations of what was
happening Reflections on policy and practice in the
sector
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Reading speed
Is faster better?
5/10 learners in my
study slowed down Three learners who slowed down
increased their reading accuracy score
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Reading accuracy
It depends on the level of the text and the text type...
Getting the right level of
readability in the text used for
assessment can have as much
of an influence as any gain in
skills Not quite a significant group
improvement (p= 0.18)
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WRAT 4 word recognition
What counts as a significant change? The group improvement came close to being
statistically significant (p= 0.07) Yet none of the 10 learners in my study
made an improvement in score that could be considered significant above and beyond test error.
A typical confidence interval spans 12 or 13 standard points (for 90% confidence).
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Reading comprehension
How do we measure this in a useful, reliable and valid way?
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Reading vocabulary
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The benefits of making vocabulary development a separate process prior to reading text
But no easy way to
measure progress
Vocabulary development
D
ictio
na
ry
Lexi
con
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Profile analysis
Individual differences The power of observation and problem
solving to elucidate progress
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Dissemination and next steps
www.unravellingreading.org.uk Finalise the Ed D thesis A book to publicise some different
strategies for supporting adults’ reading skills
See also:
www.dyslexiapositive.org.uk
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