Rationale for the Study

Importance of Early Identification and Intervention

 Unfortunately, children who perform poorly in reading in first and second grades

have a tendency to continue experiencing difficulties throughout their schooling

(Blachman, 2000). A large number of studies revealed that early reading failure seriously

affects future reading ability. For example, Francis, Shaywitz, Stuebing, Shaywitz, and

Fletcher (1996) found that approximately 75% of the children who had difficulties in

reading in the third grade would still be struggling with reading at the end of high school.

As these children grow, they face increasing obstacles to reading development (Torgesen

& Burgess, 1998). As a result, the importance of early identification and intervention on

reading has been recognized among reading researchers. A review study estimates that

the number of children who are typically identified as poor readers and served through

either special education or compensatory education programs could be reduced by up to

70% through early identification and prevention (Lyon et al., 2001). Effective prevention

efforts, however, depend on the effective early identification of students with reading

difficulties. Hence, there is a vital need to identify key indicators of RD for young

children to reduce the impact of reading difficulties and prevent the problems in the

earliest stage.

Ongoing Debate

 As a consequence, much research has been conducted in order to identify the major

factors associated with reading disabilities. Overall, there are two parallel perspectives on

this issue. A foremost source of debate among researchers is whether reading difficulties

are the result of one or more than one type of processing problem. To date, many

researchers argue strongly that most reading difficulties are a result of verbal/linguistic