Computer-based assessment of reading ability and subtypes of readers with reading comprehension difficulties: a study in French children from G2 to G9

Vocabulary and reading comprehension: what are the links in 7- to 10 year-old children?

The aims of the present study are: (1) to examine the contribution that vocabulary makes to reading comprehension in the Simple View of Reading model in French-speaking children aged from 7 to 10 years based on the use of an index of efficiency (i.e., speed-accuracy index); and (2) to investigate the extent to which the contribution of vocabulary to reading comprehension might change according to children's school grade level. Measures of vocabulary depth, word reading (i.e., three levels of word representations, namely orthography, phonology, semantics), listening, and reading comprehension were collected using computer-based assessments in children from Grades 2 to 5 (N = 237). We examined the contribution of vocabulary in two contrasted groups: a younger group consisting of children from Grades 2-3 and an older group with children from Grades 4-5. A confirmatory factor analysis revealed that vocabulary is a factor separate from word reading, listening and reading comprehension. Moreover, the results from a structural equation modeling analysis showed that word reading and listening comprehension fully mediated the relation between vocabulary and reading comprehension. Consequently, vocabulary had an indirect effect via word reading on reading comprehension in both groups. Finally, word reading had a greater effect on reading comprehension than listening comprehension in both groups. The results suggest that word reading plays a central role in reading comprehension and is underpinned by the influence of vocabulary. We discuss the results in the light of the lexical quality hypotheses taken together with reading comprehension.

How the Psychology of Education Contributes to Research With a Social Impact on the Education of Students With Special Needs: The Case of Successful Educational Actions

One current challenge in the psychology of education is identifying the teaching strategies and learning contexts that best contribute to the learning of all students, especially those whose individual characteristics make their learning process more difficult, as is the case for students with special needs. One main theory in the psychology of education is the sociocultural approach to learning, which highlights the key role of interaction in children's learning. In the case of students with disabilities, this interactive understanding of learning is aligned with a social model of disability, which looks beyond individual students' limitations or potentialities and focuses on contextual aspects that can enhance their learning experience and results. In recent years, the interactive view of learning based on this theory has led to the development of educational actions, such as interactive groups and dialogic literary gatherings, that have improved the learning results of diverse children, including those with disabilities. The aim of this paper is to analyze the social impact achieved by a line of research that has explored the benefits of such successful educational actions for the education of students with special needs. National and European research projects based on the communicative methodology of research have been conducted. This methodology entails drawing on egalitarian dialogue with the end-users of research - including teachers, students with and without disabilities, students' relatives and other community members - to allow an intersubjective creation of knowledge that enables a deeper and more accurate understanding of the studied reality and its transformative potential. This line of research first allowed the identification of the benefits of interactive learning environments for students with disabilities educated in mainstream schools; later, it allowed the spreading of these actions to a greater number of mainstream schools; and more recently, it made it possible to transfer these actions to special schools and use these actions to create shared learning spaces between mainstream and special schools. The improvement of the educational opportunities for a greater number and greater diversity of students with special needs evidences the social impact of research based on key contributions of the psychology of education.