Loyola Marymount University students have added to our understanding of why some children have a difficult time learning to read. Their findings were presented at the 10th Stanford Undergraduate Psychology Conference, May 21-22, in Palo Alto, Calif.
“More research is needed, but our students have taken an important step,” says Judith Foy, professor of psychology at LMU and sponsor of the projects. “Also, taking part in a high-profile forum has been important for the students,” Foy added. “They had to answer challenging questions from peers and other researchers during the symposium.” Fast and accurate reading requires children to acquire and automate several subskills,including the ability to separate language into its component parts. These parts include speech sounds, called phonemes, and parts of words that add meaning like –ed and pre-, called morphemes. These are the essential building blocks of post-elementary school grammar and reading comprehension. Brent Cannons and Karina Muro found that common assumptions about middle schoolers’ ability to break down language into its component parts by the sixth grade were not supported by their data. The sixth-grade students in their study, “Phonology and Morphology in Childhood Reading Ability,” showed impaired phonemic abilities, in addition to morphemic problems. Cannons and Muros’ findings suggest that reading interventions for middle school children should focus on building skills that children should typically acquire in the early elementary school years. A second group of LMU undergraduates presented research linking classroom behavior problems and memory skills. The project, “Correlation Between Working Memory Performance and Classroom Behavior,” by Allison McFarland, Yvette Aranas, Tyonna Adams, Yuki Sei and Muro, found that teacher-reported behavior problems in children, during the first weeks of kindergarten, were linked with poor working-memory skills – the ability to retain information long enough to act on it. Their project suggests that early intervention and strategies to address working-memory deficiencies could help improve classroom behavior. And by finding a remedy for working-memory difficulties, kindergartners may acquire the skills necessary for improved academic achievement. The Stanford Undergraduate Psychology Conference was founded by students in 2001 to provide a forum for their research and receive peer and professional reviews. |