Learning to read in the early elementary school years is part of the usual experience of young learners, but for children with reading difficulty, literacy skills are not achieved in the typical way. It has often been assumed that core reading difficulties involve language alone.
However, problems in learning to read for a large proportion of these children can go beyond basic language and naming skills. Sensory processes related to vision also seem to be atypical in a sizeable number of children with reading difficulty. Brain mechanisms involved with vision such as motion detection, visual attention, visual working memory, and visual information processing are related to phonological awareness and naming speed.
Our program of research is designed to shed light on the roles that visual processes play in reading success and failure, and to examine how the relationships between visual and phonological components in early literacy change with improved reading skill. To study this, we use many different methodologies including behavioural games, eye-tracking, and neuroimaging techniques (EEG).
Our end goal is to better understand those children who are struggling with learning to read, and create interventions to help them. We hope you can help!
Early Years Reading Lab undergraduate Honours students Terra Anderstedt, Meisha Monsigneur, and James Teschuk recently completed their honours thesis projects. Excellent work!
Welcome to Adiam Negash, who will be starting her master's in School Psychology in September, and to Deric Marcoux, our newest Master's thesis student.
Welcome also to Raveena Gill and Jessica Shapiro, research assistants, who will be working with children in schools for our longitudinal study on sensory and language sampling in early reading.
Congratulations to Katharine Zinger for graduating with her School Psychology M.A.!
Congratulations to Adiam and Deric for winning a CGS-M award. Excellent work!