A Study On The Characteristics And Interventions Of Orthographic Awareness In Chinese Primary Students With Dyslexia

Dyslexia is one of the specific learning disabilities.Children with Dyslexia have difficulty in accurate and fluent word reading,as well as in spelling.The deficit in orthographic awareness is one of the most dominant impairments in Chinese children with dyslexia,which is characterized by lagging behind their peers in understanding the functional positions of radicals and using radicals to construct Chinese characters.Previous studies have revealed that orthographic awareness can make contributions to future word reading.Therefore,the development of orthographic awareness in Chinese children with dyslexia should be actively addressed.However,there is still a lack of standardized orthographic awareness assessment tools in China,and studies that aim to improve the orthographic awareness of Chinese children with dyslexia are still very limited.Therefore,this study aims to develop an assessment tool for orthographic awareness and to assess the orthographic awareness of elementary school students at different reading levels,and analyze the characteristics of orthographic awareness of Chinese elementary school students with dyslexia.Based on this,a multiple-component intervention package based on the characteristics of orthographic awareness was designed.To test the effectiveness of the multiple-component intervention package and expand the intervention method of orthographic awareness of Chinese primary school students with dyslexia,the intervention effect of the intervention package on orthographic awareness and related reading ability(vocabulary,rapid automatic naming,and reading fluency)of students with dyslexia was further explored through the intervention experiment.Study 1: The development of the Chinese orthographic awareness tool for elementary school students.Based on the characteristics of literacy development of elementary school students,a Chinese orthographic awareness assessment was developed based on previous studies.The test was divided into three parts: awareness of character configuration,the positional constraints of radicals,and the functional constraints of radicals.The two sets of parallel tests have suitable difficulty and discrimination.The internal consistency reliability of the test(1)and test(2)were0.78 and 0.79,respectively.The reliability of the two sets of tests was 0.90,and they were tested to have good structural and expert validity.It indicates that the Chinese Orthographic Awareness Test developed in this study is suitable for assessing the orthographic awareness of elementary school students.Study 2: Analysis of the characteristics of orthographic awareness in Chinese primary students with dyslexia.A total of 219 elementary school students in grades 3participated in the study.First of all,the Reading Ability Test,Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices,and Conners Teacher Rating Scale were used to select three groups of students in third grade: the dyslexia group,the ordinary reading group,and the excellent reading group;then,the Chinese Orthographic Awareness Test were distributed in grade 3;finally,by analyzing the data,we compared the level of orthographic awareness among three groups,to test whether there are differences in the development of orthographic awareness among students at different reading levels and to reveal the characteristics of orthographic awareness.The analysis of the study results revealed that there were significant differences in orthographic awareness among students of different reading levels in third grade,with the dyslexia group having significantly lower scores on awareness of character configuration and the functional constraints of radicals tasks than the excellent reading group.This indicates that there are inconsistencies in the development of orthographic awareness among students at different reading levels,especially the awareness of character configuration and the functional constraints of radicals.Study 3: An experimental intervention study to test the effectiveness of the multiple-component intervention package based on the characteristics of orthographic awareness.Firstly,a multiple-component intervention package based on the characteristics of orthographic awareness in students with dyslexia was designed.Secondly,based on the screening criteria,12 students with dyslexia were screened out in the third grade.The 12 students with dyslexia were divided into experimental and control groups based on ability matching.A multiple-component intervention package based on the characteristics of orthographic awareness was used as the independent variable,and orthographic awareness,vocabulary,rapid automatic naming,and reading fluency were used as the dependent variable,and 25 lessons were given to the students in the experimental group.The results revealed that the multiple-component intervention package not only had a good effect on orthographic awareness of students with dyslexia,but also effectively promoted their reading skills,especially the vocabulary and oral reading fluency.Based on the findings,the following suggestions are proposed: first,pay attention to the development of orthographic awareness among elementary school students with dyslexia;second,continue to explore effective interventions for improving the orthographic awareness of students;and third,establish and improve the teaching resources database of orthographic awareness.