English Word Reading Profiles of Chinese Dyslexic Students

This study explored the English word reading profiles of Chinese dyslexic and typically developing children in Hong Kong. A mixed methods design was employed to compare the English word reading abilities, phonological processing, word reading strategies, home environment, and goal orientations of the two groups. Four students with Chinese dyslexia and five typically developing students enrolled in grades four to six in Hong Kong elementary schools completed a battery of standardized tests measuring phonological awareness, phonological memory, rapid naming, reading fluency as well as word and nonword reading. They also completed a demographic questionnaire and a goal orientation questionnaire. Finally, they participated in a read-aloud activity and an interview regarding their experiences of learning English. Mann-Whitney tests showed that the dyslexic children performed significantly lower than the typically developing children on phonological memory, rapid letter naming, some aspects of phonological awareness, reading fluency and word reading. Integrative text and miscue analyses also showed that typically developing children generally made use of a wider variety of strategies in reading more effectively as compared to the dyslexic children. These findings largely corroborate those found in research with monolingual English children. This suggests that the English word reading difficulties Chinese students encounter are mostly attributable to the presence of dyslexia and not to difficulties with the orthography of the English languagePh.D