What makes a successful reader?
In 2024 we started another large-scale longitudinal study called “Understanding Reading Success”. Reading outcomes vary widely for children and it is important to understand which language and cognitive factors are predictive of later reading progress and reading success.
The main aims of this study are to:
- Determine how children’s reading skills develop in middle childhood (in Key Stage 2)
- Identify which language and cognitive factors enable children to become successful readers.
What will we do in this study?
We are conducting a two–year longitudinal study following 350 children in middle childhood (8-9 yrs followed through until 10-11 yrs). We have successfully recruited 133 deaf and 217 hearing children. All children were between 8 and 9 years old at the start of the study and we assess them every twelve months on a range of language, cognitive and reading skills. We see almost all the children at their school.
We’re focusing on middle childhood and reading comprehension as these areas have received less attention in previous research. We are investigating a range of potential predictive factors including vocabulary (English or BSL), morphological skills (knowledge of word structure), phonology (understanding the sounds of spoken language), language comprehension in English or BSL, speechreading (lipreading), and executive functions (mental processes including working memory, inhibition and cognitive flexibility).
As part of this study, we are continuing to see some of our existing longitudinal cohort of children who we have been following since preschool. This will allow us to follow up the children through to the end of primary school and map out their language and reading trajectories over the school years!
Why is this study important?
We’re very excited about the potential of this project as it will create a groundbreaking dataset which will transform current knowledge about how deaf and hearing children read and which language and cognitive factors are predictive of good reading progress.
RECRUITMENT HAS NOW ENDED
We have now finished recruitment for this study, and we are thrilled to have recruited 350 children in total! We are busy scoring and analysing our data from the first year of the study. The study will not finish until 2027 but we hope to share initial findings shortly!
Please watch our video for more information about the study in BSL – (recruitment has now ended)
The project is being run by Dr Fiona Kyle, Dr Kate Rowley, Dr Katie Mason, Prof Ros Herman, and Prof Nikki Botting with funding from the ESRC
The Ladder Lab 