The Role of Phonological Decoding on the Reading Skills of Beginning Readers With Reading Disabilities in a Highly Transparent Orthography

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the role of phonological decoding on the reading skills of Turkish beginning readers with reading disabilities. Participants were 80 second graders with and without reading disabilities educated in general education classes at public elementary schools in Ankara, Turkey. In the assessment process, to test the participants’ phonological decoding skills, we used a pseudoword decoding paradigm, and to determine reading fluency and comprehension skills reading texts were used. Data were collected in individual sessions and analyzed by running a series of GLM analyses of variance and Pearson correlation analyses. Findings showed the reading fluency and comprehension performances of participants varied depending on their phonological decoding processing level and thus suggested phonological decoding is one of the most important indicators of reading fluency and comprehension in a highly transparent language, Turkish. The acquisition of adequate reading comprehension seems to be modified by particularities of phonological decoding.