Promoting Reading Skills in a Computer-Based Training Program

The best guarantee to become a fast and accurate reader is to read a lot. According to Reitsma (1988), practice in reading is needed to refine and extend knowledge of letter-sound correspondences and to increase familiarity with printed words so that they can be identified quickly and without phonemic decoding. Stanovich (1990) goes even a step further, arguing that reading comprehension, general knowledge, vocabulary, and syntactic knowledge all develop through reading. Although a majority of children seem to acquire basic reading skills with some facility in the course of the first school years, some children find the task very difficult. According to Stanovich (1990), there are developmental changes in to what extent the reading deficits display cognitive specificity. The performance of reading-disabled children is characterised by a relatively high degree of specificity upon entering school with the specificity being located in the phonological domain. But the specificity eventually breaks down, in part because of the consequences of reading failure. Motivational and emotional side effects enter the picture. When the reading is halting and when comprehension — the ultimate goal of reading — is disturbed by uncertainty and insecurity, then children tend to lose their interest in reading and spend less time on it (see Allington 1977, 1980, 1984; Gambrell, Wilson, & Gant 1981; Juel 1988). Hence, it is important to ask: Is it possible to get poor readers to read more? What kind of practice is most beneficial for a slowly progressing reader?