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Aleph to Taf Conference, December 2009
- Lecture Summaries
In December 2009, Nitzan Israel and "Yesod" Publishing held a conference for Nitzan's Learning Disabilities Evaluators. The conference dealt with two main subjects: Up-to-date findings in the field of reading development and core criterion for evaluations in math. The responses from the conference were very positive.
A Developmental Model for Describing Reading Acquisition in Hebrew
- by Emliah Bar On
In the last decade, there is noticeable a widespread perception that in addition to phonological processes, which were the focus of most of the attention until now, there are additional linguistic processes involved in reading, such as morphological processes for example. Similarly, it is becoming increasingly recognized that the understanding of reading processes in every language requires in-depth recognition of the unique characteristics of the specific language and its system of written representation (Perfetti, 2003, Share, 2008).
The Hebrew writing system, as in Arabic, is unique in such that it includes two versions: writing with vowels and writing without vowels. Hebrew speakers learn to read with vowels, and already by the end of the third year they are fluent in reading text without vowels. From this stage and onward, written text without vowels is the normally given option for them. Reading text without vowels presents two challenges: The first, completing missing phonological information that is missing in a new word without vowels. For example, only those who know the French ball game, petanque, whose name has been borrowed in Hebrew, will succeed to decipher the series of letter PTNK (פטנק) in its correct form. The second challenge in reading text without vowels is solving the meaning of homographic words (words who look the same but have different meanings). For example, the headline "The army went out of Gaza "הצבא יצא מעזה". It's difficult to know if headline is speaking about an event that happened in the past or one which will happen in the future (יצא is a verb that can refer to the past or future tense). This lecture will present a developmental model that describes the process of acquiring reading skills in Hebrew.
The model was developed on the basis of research findings from a study that included 171 participants from seven age groups: the beginning of 2nd grade until the end, 3rd, 4th, 7th, and 11th grades, and a group of adults. Five new tests were designed with the goal of testing the linguistic processes involved in dealing with the two challenges in reading Hebrew without vowels. They also checked reading vocally words without vowels in different contexts, meaningless words and homographic words alone and in context.
From the study findings it's possible to learn about the central role of morphological, structural identification in completing phonologic information lacking in a word. This ability develops significantly and dramatically throughout 2nd grade. In 4th grade, significant progress begins in the ability to rely on context for solving morphologic problems. This process reaches the optimal level in 7th grade. Reading acquisition doesn't end at this stage, but it continues in more adult stages. It is reflected in the processes of regulation and flexibility and in the ability to decipher complicated, linguistic structures. The study findings and the developmental model that was constructed from them add knowledge about the processes of acquiring Hebrew and they are likely to contribute considerably in developing educational, evaluation, and treatment programs in this field.
Perfetti,C.A.2003. The universal grammar of reading. Scientific Studiesof Reading, 7, 3 - 24
Share, D.L. 2008. On the anglocentricities of current reading research and practice: The perils of ovverliance on an "outlier" ortography. Psychological Bulletin, 134 (4), 584 - 615.
Core Criteria for Mathematics Evaluation -
What's Evaluated and How?
-Lecture Summary, Dr. Miriam Ben Yehuda
This lecture will focus on the main skills, which should be exhibited and the areas of difficulty that should be assessed during the evaluation in mathematics. An evaluation model, "ECHaD (One)- Evchun (Evaluation) Cheshbon (Mathematics) Didactic will be presented. It serves as the integrated evaluation model for the evaluation set of the same name. The model is based on a few theoretical approaches: the cognitive approach, the dynamic approach, and the communicative approach. It shows how it is possible to integrate them in an evaluation for children who are struggling in math.
Tasks in the area of mathematical skills content are evaluated, for example: the concept of the number and calculating and solving world problems. The issue of context between numerical understanding and calculation will be discussed. The tasks that will be presented allow finding and identifying the areas of difficulty of the participant in the field of mathematical content and propose hypotheses concerning the processes of processing cognitive information, (for example: conception of amount and series, memory, and language skills such as: naming, accessing, and more) connect to them knowledge of strategies and use of thinking skills, for example: comparison, inference, sorting, generalizing, simplifying, analogy, and bridging between the concrete and abstract; learning methods in mathematics and use of self-evaluation system in conversation, and emotional-social aspects in the context of learning mathematics, for example: self-concept as a student of mathematics and self-confidence.
Examination of these parameters will be done by means of tasks designed for the child's age with the option for movement below or above the age, according to his functioning at the time of the evaluation and by means of processes of requested mediation.
Development of Proper and Poor Language at School Age: A Linguistic Picture of Two Socio-Economic Statuses
- Lecture Summary, Dr. Miriam Ben Yehuda
Studies show that children with learning disabilities and children from a low socio-economic background demonstrate already from a young age poor linguistic and reading abilities. The question can be asked, what is the nature of these difficulties and is there a connection between them?
This lecture will present up-to-date findings from a developmental study that deals with learning processes and the representation of a dictionary of keywords in Hebrew (names, titles, verbs). There are four populations in the study: children and adolescents whose linguistic development is normal - average-high, and low socio-economic levels- and their peers with language/learning disabilities, also from the two different socio-economic statuses.
The findings testify that environmental-social factors, just as cognitive-internal factors, have an immense and deciding influence on the ability to present linguistic information. This influence doesn't decrease with the years, but even increases, and is apparent not only in a poor and narrow repertoire of words and structures, but also in less coherent and varied linguistic categories. In the worst case, the innate disability is joined with environmental conditions that don't promote literacy and then the damage in the linguistic abilities is double-fold.
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