Enhancing reading skills and reading self-concept of children with reading difficulties : adopting a dual approach intervention

This article describes the need for, and the structure and contents of, a reading program to help support primary school children disadvantaged by reading difficulties. The innovative psychosocial reading intervention, Reading for Life (R4L), has been designed to offer new solutions for strengthening reading interventions by combining cutting-edge advances in self-concept interventions along with reading skills training. The program, delivered by trained and supported volunteers, lasts for 15 weeks. It uses a novel dual approach which aims to improve students' reading skills and simultaneously enhance their reading-related self-concepts. R4L was designed to capitalise on theories from reading and self-concept research to produce an effective reading intervention that takes into account both cognitive and psychosocial factors. Reading activities, based on best-practice research, form the basis of the intervention, as children with reading difficulties learn core skills for literacy. Phonological awareness, a strong predictor of future reading success, and sight word identification, an important skill to reduce cognitive load when reading comprise two large components of the program. Metacognitive strategy training during supported reading activities is also included, by providing the children with a bookmark containing reading strategies. Throughout these activities, attributional retraining and performance feedback are utilised to develop children's reading self-concept, specifically their perceptions of their abilities and feelings about those abilities. This article demonstrates how such a dual approach to enhancing reading skills and reading self-concept can be operationalised. [Author abstract, ed]