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Enhancing Decoding Efficiency in Poor Readers via a Word Identification Game
Author(s) -
Gorp Karly,
Segers Eliane,
Verhoeven Ludo
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
reading research quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.162
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1936-2722
pISSN - 0034-0553
DOI - 10.1002/rrq.156
Subject(s) - psychology , context (archaeology) , reading (process) , categorization , consonant , vowel , cognitive psychology , linguistics , computer science , speech recognition , artificial intelligence , philosophy , biology , paleontology
The effects of a word identification game aimed at enhancing decoding efficiency in poor readers were tested. Following a pretest–posttest–retention design with a waiting control group, 62 poor‐reading Dutch second graders received a five‐hour tablet intervention across a period of five weeks. During the intervention, participants practiced reading words and pseudowords while doing semantic categorization and lexical decision exercises in a gaming context. Prior to, directly after, and five weeks following the intervention, word‐decoding efficiency was assessed using a standardized read‐aloud test consisting of six lists of untrained words and pseudowords with three levels of difficulty: consonant‐vowel‐consonant items, consonant cluster items, and disyllabic items. Significant increases as a result of the brief gaming intervention were found for decoding efficiency on all six word lists. The game, which included repetition, immediate corrective feedback, and a semantics task, elicited transfer and retention effects.