The Effect of Early Reading Failure on Acquisition of Knowledge Among Students with Learning Disabilities

Abstract

Children with learning disabilities who are handicapped in reading cannot decode the printed word quickly and easily. As a result, word recognition processes drain attentional capacity that might otherwise be allocated to comprehension processes. Comprehension is complicated further by a secondary effect of the basic decoding problem—failure to acquire the information and vocabulary that is normally gained through reading experiences. Because of a limited knowledge base, the learning disabled (LD) student may be unable to demonstrate the higher level thinking abilities involved in reading comprehension despite normal intelligence. In this paper, the ramifications of early reading failure are considered within Chall's (1983) five-stage model of reading development.