Avaliação do reconhecimento de palavras em alunos com e sem dificuldades de aprendizagem da leitura

Abstract

Reading is a complex activity that is developed based on spoken language. To begin with, children learn to read, and then reading becomes an essential tool for the acquisition of knowledge. The purpose of reading is to understand the meaning of what is read. To understand the meaning of what is read it is crucial that word recognition becomes automatic. The evaluation of reading performance should include the evaluation of word recognition. However, in Portugal, there was no validated evidence that would allow this evaluation. This essay aims to contribute to the validation of Word Reading Test (WRT), in order this fill this gap. The present study aims to: (1) compare the performance of students with or without learning disabilities in the acquisition of reading abilities, in the W RT considering the overall resuts and characteristics of psycholinguistics words; (2) to verify if the WRT allows to establish the difference between students with or without learning disabilities in the acquisition of reading abilities; (3) to verify whether there are differences in patterns of reading errors among students with or without reading disabilities. The version of WRT used in this study is composed by 142 words, shown isolated. These words where selected based on criteria of frequency, length, regularity and syllable structure. It was applied to 87 students of 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade, from schools located in Portugal, of witch 44 had learning disabilities in the acquisition of reading abilities. The results show that WRT allows differentiating students who presented difficulties from those with no reading disabilities. The analysis of reading errors revealed the existence of statistically significant differences in the types of reading errors committed by students who formed the study sample. All students with reading disabilities presented difficulties in identifying written words.

Date of Award	2014
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Fernanda Leopoldina Viana (Supervisor) & Maria Iolanda Ferreira da Silva Ribeiro (Co-Supervisor)