Áp dụng ứng dụng bổ sung immersive reader vào việc cải thiện những bất cập trong việc học tập ngôn ngữ của những sinh viên mắc chứng khó đọc

The research tries to serve two purposes: (1) list out the number of firstyear students who stand a high chance of having dyslexia; (2) test the effectiveness of using Immersive Reader on improving Reading Fluency of those students. In order to achieve those two objectives, a combination of qualitative and quantitative research have been used. Specifically, a questionnaire adapted from an informal dyslexia screening has been used to find out the number of students who stand a high chance of being dyslexic. Besides, interviews and tests were also utilized in order to find out the effectiveness of the technological addin tool. After the research, it was found out that there were four students who possessed items with high indicators of dyslexia. The results showed that using Immersive Reader to practice reading increased the accuracy and automaticity of word decoding which led to the improvement of reading fluency. Besides, it was also proved that Immersive Reader enhanced the user’s experience with reading.

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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

APPLYING AN ADD-IN “IMMERSIVE READER”

TO OVERCOME DIFFICULTIES FOR

LANGUAGE LEANERS SUFFERING FROM

DYSLEXIA

Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Hải Hà, MA

Student: Lê Khánh Huyền Course: QH2015.F1.E2

HÀ NỘI – 2019

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ

KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

ÁP DỤNG ỨNG DỤNG BỔ SUNG “IMMERSIVE READER” VÀO VIỆC CẢI THIỆN NHỮNG BẤT CẬP TRONG VIỆC HỌC TẬP NGÔN NGỮ CỦA NHỮNG

Signature of Approval:

_

Date:

Acceptance

I hereby state that I: Lê Khánh Huyền, QH2015.F1.E2, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, Honors Program accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper

Signature

Date

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Acknowledgement

Personally, this research is the first product that I have ever had to carry out almost every part by myself However, I cannot accomplish it without the considerable support

of many people who I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to:

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my dedicated, thoughtful and energetic supervisor, Mrs Nguyen Thi Hai Ha who inspires

me to turn an idea into reality, shows infinite patience which pulls me back whenever I

am about to give up Without her instruction and encouragement, I cannot be here today

Secondly, I would like to thank all the first-year students in ULIS who had spent time filling in the questionnaire Especially, I would like to thank Thao for being a source of information for me to write this research

Thirdly, I want to thank all my friends who stand beside and support me whenever

my mood swings I would particularly like to thank Brooky, the most dedicated boyfriend ever, for helping me sending out the questionnaires and acting as a guardian for all these months of doing research Beside, I would like to thank another good friend

of mine, Hai, for debating with me and helping to reorganize all the ideas before the thesis defense day

Finally, I am forever indebt to my family as they always make sure that the only thing I should worry about is finishing this research and climbing up my career ladder

Abstract

The research tries to serve two purposes: (1) list out the number of first-year students who stand a high chance of having dyslexia; (2) test the effectiveness of using Immersive Reader on improving Reading Fluency of those students

In order to achieve those two objectives, a combination of qualitative and quantitative research have been used Specifically, a questionnaire adapted from an informal dyslexia screening has been used to find out the number of students who stand

a high chance of being dyslexic Besides, interviews and tests were also utilized in order

to find out the effectiveness of the technological add-in tool

After the research, it was found out that there were four students who possessed items with high indicators of dyslexia The results showed that using Immersive Reader

to practice reading increased the accuracy and automaticity of word decoding which led

to the improvement of reading fluency Besides, it was also proved that Immersive Reader enhanced the user’s experience with reading

List of abbreviation

ACT Australian Capital Territory Government

ADD Attention Deficit Disorder

BDA British Dyslexia Association

EDA European Dyslexia Association

EY Ernst & Young Global Limited

IDA International Dyslexia Association

List of tables

Table 1: Twelve dyslexia-sensitive items

Table 2: Levels of Performance for Word Decoding Accuracy

Tabe 3: Four qualified students

Table 4 & 5: Pre-test and post-test results

Table 6: Uncorrected words read by the participant

List of figures

Fig 1: Relationship among Decoding skills – Reading Fluency – Reading Comprehension

Fig 2: Immersive Reader icon

Fig 3: OneNote interface

Fig 4: Word interface

Fig 5: Edge Browser interface with Immersive Reader

Fig 6: Outlook on the Web interface

Fig 7: Office Lens interface

Fig 8: Features and proven benefits of Immersive Reader

Fig 9: Immersive Reader – Theme Color feature

Fig 10: Immersive Reader – Syllables feature

Fig 11: Immersive Reader – Line Focus feature

Fig 12: Immersive Reader – Picture Dictionary feature

Fig 13: Immersive Reader – Read Aloud feature

Fig 14: The distribution of students’ answers on 20 symptoms of dyslexia

TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE

4.1.1 The number of students who stand a high chance of having dyslexia 32

4.1.2 The specific case which may have dyslexia 33

4.1.3 The application of Immersive Reader in reading English 37

4.1.4 Changes in reading results and experience with reading 39

In terms of disabilities, it is helpful to acknowledge that there are visible and invisible disabilities Visible disabilities, like Autism, Down syndrome and Paralysis can be recognized through either facial expressions, involuntary body shaking or the inability to move like an average individual In contrast, invisible or hidden disabilities, like ADD or ADHD, are not immediately apparent to the naked eyes (Invisible Vs

research problem of this thesis, is dyslexia Deriving from Greek prefix “dys”, meaning

“difficulty” and the root-word “lexis”, meaning “word or language”, dyslexia can be translated as “difficulties with words” (Catts & Kamhi, 2005) Throughout the history of research on this learning difficulties, the debate over which one can be used as a universal definition is ongoing In general, dyslexia is a language-based learning

disability which results in people having difficulties with specific language skills like spelling, writing or pronouncing words, particularly reading (Reid, 1995 as cited by Guardiola, 2001) People suffering from this disability usually have to deal with descriptions like “stupid”, “thick” or “lazy” from people around, who have a negative perception of dyslexia due to limited understanding of it (Miles, 1996; Humphrey, 2002; as cited by Konstantina, 2010) Despite what most people believe, many reports have proved that dyslexic people have a different yet unique brain, thus an exceptional perspectives of objects and events around A research carried out by EY1 in association with Made by Dyslexia2 proves that dyslexic individuals can perform “strong”, “very strong” or “exceptional” at many skills which meets the demand of the world of work for balance in skills and abilities In fact, many dyslexic people are among the greatest minds of the world namely the Picasso, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill or Steven Spielberg

Statistically, 5-10% of the world population are diagnosed with dyslexia In America, according to the International Dyslexia Associatio, 15-20% of the population having dyslexia In Vietnam, the report, presented by Psychology department of Children Hospital No 1 in Ho Chi Minh city, showed that dyslexic children count for 70 – 80% of children with disabilities coming to the hospital (Pham Ngoc Thanh 2007,

2010 as cited by Nguyen Thi Ly Kha, n.d) Besides, many cases where young students who cannot catch up with the class academic level can be explained by their having dyslexia (Nguyen Thi Ly Khoa, n.d) Apart from that, there is no official report in Vietnam as well as an exact number of dyslexic people in general or students in specific

1 EY is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which

is a separate legal entity.

2 Made by dyslexia is a global charity led by successful dyslexic individuals Their mission is to help the world properly understand, value and support dyslexia They also aims at every dyslexic being discovered and enabled to flourish

In order to support people with dyslexia, many methods have been invented throughout the history, one of which is the Orton-Gillingham method It uses the multisensory approach to help learners enhance the connection between letters and their sounds, leading to better overall comprehension (Brain Balance, n.d.) Along with the development of Industry 4.0 and its impact on education, many helpful digital tools have been created to help young dyslexic students namely Text-to-speech, Audiobooks, digital TTS books or Optical Character Recognition (OCR) (Understood Team, n.d.) Another great tool, created by Microsoft for people of all ages and of all levels, is Immersive Reader It is equipped with all the necessary features amending for any skills that a dyslexic brain lack, aiming directly at helping those students with reading fluency and reading comprehension Despite its great potential, the number of studies on the effectiveness of Immersive Reader is quite humble

Although a significant number of researches have been conducted, the primary subjects are mostly children and young learners Another subject which also needs to be given more attention to is students in Higher Education (HE) Especially in the context

of the researcher’s university, ULIS, where the application of digital devices on teaching and learning receives a lot of attention from researchers, the number of articles which aims at dyslexic college students is insignificant However, students of these levels also needs a lot of support as they are expected to read a considerable amount of materials, the skills they struggle the most, independently (Konstantina, 2010) Although some students manage to make it out of college themselves, some are inhibited from reaching their full potential and some are deprived of academic development

Acknowledging the great potential of dyslexic students, the small number of research articles on those in HE and on the effective add-in tool Immersive Reader , this thesis focuses on researching about the effectiveness of applying Immersive Reader in helping students coping with dyslexia in HE

1.2 Objectives

This study aims at two objectives: (1) To identify the number of dyslexic students

in their first year at ULIS and (2) to assess the effectiveness of Immersive Reader on the improvement of students’ reading fluency Based on the findings, the research is hoped

to raise people’s awareness of dyslexia and a potential digital device which provides support to dyslexic students or any students who have difficulties with reading

1.3 Scope

Regarding the participants, this research only focuses on English students who are

in their first year at ULIS In terms of research subject, the effectiveness of the Immersive Reader is testified based on two results: (1) the test results of two components of Reading Fluency (Accuracy and Automaticity) and (2) the changes in participants’ personal experience towards reading (what is the participants’ attitudes towards reading before and after using Immersive Reader)

1.4 Method

This study combines two research methodologies namely quantitative and qualitative in order to answer two important questions:

- What is the number of first-year students at the University of Languages

and International Studies (ULIS) suffering from Dyslexia?

- What is the effectiveness of Immersive Reader on improving Reading

Fluency and users’ experience towards reading?

Accordingly, three data collection methods are chosen namely survey questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and pre- and post- reading tests This choice

is given after careful consideration of many characteristics of the research like the time contraints, research participants and so on

1.5 Organization

This research comprises five chapters which are Introduction, Literature Review, Data analysis and Conclusion Each part plays a different role, yet the ultimate goal of which is to find the answers to the two research questions

The first chapter, Introduction, provides readers with information about background of the research, objectives, scope, overall description of methods and an overview of the the research structure

The second chapter, Literature Review, provides readers with background knowledge of dyslexia, previous research into dyslexic students in HE, information about the add-in tool Immersive Reader and the research gap regarding this specific research topic

The third chapter, Methodology, describes in deails the research approach chosen for the study, the samplings method, participants, data collection and data analysis procedure

The forth chapter, Data Analysis, presents the interesting information collected throughout the research, summary of major findings and the researcher’s comments on common patterns

The fifth chapter, Conclusion, summarizes the major findings, draws out the final conclusion, acknowledges the research limitations and presents suggestions for further studies

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Dyslexia

2.1.1 History

The first time that dyslexia appeared in the scientific literature was in the first finding in language problems (acquired aphasia), of which the symptoms were described as suffering from a loss of reading ability The first case of the loss of reading ability was published by a physician named John Schmidt in 1676 (as cited by Konstantina, 2010) The first reference of the term “dyslexia” was made by physician R Berlin of Stuttgart from Germany and used to describe the case of an adult with acquired dyslexia (loss of reading ability due to brain lesion) Short afterwards, in 1877,

Dr A Kussmaul used the term “word blindness” for an adult aphasic patient who had lost his reading ability (Konstantina, 2010) In 1887, Charcot suggested another term

“Alexia” which is described as a form of verbal amnesia, which the patient loses the memory of the conventional meaning of graphic symbols (Critchley, 1964 as cited in Guardiola, 2001) In 1896, Pringle Morgan gave introduction to the academic and medical world the first case of developmental dyslexia or Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD) (Beaton, 2005 cited in Konstantina, 2010) It was the case of a 14-year-old boy named Percy Percy was bright and intelligent, but he could not read even though an extensive and persistent training was provided to support his reading At the time, Pringle Morgan used the term ‘congenital word-blindness’ to describe the boy’s difficulty (Beaton, 2004:3 as cited in Konstantina, 2010) Among many terms presented above, “dyslexia” is more common with people with this learning difficulties and their families (European Dyslexia Association/EDA, 2009) while professionals and scientists prefer to employ the term SpLD for the researching purpose (Riddick, 1996)

2.1.2 Definition

“Attempting to define dyslexia can be one of the thorniest problems related to the study of this condition”, said Hynd and Cohen (1983 cited in Tonnessen, cited in

Konstantina, 2010) In fact, Konstantina mentioned that 43 definitions were published

by Hammil in 1990 and 10 different definitions were publicized by the British Dyslexia Association (BDA, 2009) throughout the years The existence of these definitions can

be explained by the professionals’ different ways of employing definitions in order to suit their assessment procedures, instruments as well as criteria to identify samples Moreover, describing dyslexia is still of major difficulty because it has a great number

of different aspects and concerns so many and yet indispensable disciplines (Miles,

1995 as cited in Konstantina)

In order to choose an appropriate definition of dyslexia for this research, two criteria are put into consideration: the types of dyslexia and the styles of giving definition Firstly, there are two types of dyslexia namely acquired dyslexia and developmental dyslexia Acquired dyslexia which results from neurological damage like

a stroke or brain trauma, causes a person to lose one’s normally developed skills It can happen to anyone at any stage of an individual’s life Developmental dyslexia, on the other hand, refers to a failure in ‘normal’ development” or in “the original acquisition (Vinegrad, 1992: 20, as cited in Konstantina, 2010) Due to the time constraints and human resources, this research is going to focus solely on the developmental type Secondly, there are three styles of definitions have been used throughout the years: definition using “exclusionary criteria”, “discrepancy definitions”, and “descriptive definitions” Considering the pedagogical purposes of this research, the descriptive definitions has been chosen To be more specific, this kind of definition It is useful for teachers or professionals involved in education as they can base on different characteristics and manifestations of the learning disability, which are provided in the definition, to monitor the progress of learners (Konstantina, 2010) In conclusion, a definition which suits two criteria above is the one from IDA (2002):

‘Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurological in origin It is characterized

by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of

language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede the growth of vocabulary and

background knowledge’

2.1.3 Characteristics

Based on the IDA definition, the three most obvious characteristics of a dyslexic are: difficulties with recognizing, spelling and decoding written words correctly Having problems with decoding skills prevents an individual from reading words on page fluently enough to understand their meanings (Kelly, 2015)

In order to understand the description, the researcher has consulted Arkansas Dyslexia Resource Guide (2017) for an in-depth explanation It is said that the difficulties that dyslexic people experience are due to a deficit in the phonological components of language, which originates from the difference in the areas of the brain that process language According to Department of Education and Training of ACT (Australian Capital Territory Government) in 2014, the phonological processing includes three areas of functioning: Phonological Awareness, Phonological Memory and Rapid Automatised Naming Students who are weak at at least one of these three areas stand a chance of having literacy-learning difficulties To be specific, Phonological Awareness, is the ability to “attend to the sounds and oral language patterns within words” Difficulties with Phonological Awareness make it difficult for dyslexic children to:

- Find and create rhyming words

- Break words into syllables

- Identify phonemes

- Isolate, delete and substitute phonemes within words

(ACT, 2014)

Consequently, the later stage of their phonological processes, which relates to

“accurate and efficient phoneme identification and manipulation”, is seriously affected (ACT, 2014) Older dyslexic children are unable to make a correlation between phonemes and phonics, or spoken sounds and syllables of written words They struggle with blending phonemes to read as well as segmenting them to write Blending process involves listening to a string of phonemes and combining them to form a recognizable word while segmenting one involves breaking that word into sounds by tapping out or counting the syllables The second component, Phonological Memory, is the ability to

“hold on to speech-based information in short-term memory” (ACT, 2014) People having troubles with Phonological Memory usually forget parts of the words and/or confuse the sounds and sequence of sounds Consequently, they cannot remember or repeat words of expected length and complexity for their age The last component, Rapid Automised Naming, is the ability to quickly identify common stimuli like letters, numbers and so on Having difficulty with this area are individuals who have poor skills

in retrieving words from their long term memory (ACT, 2014)

As a result, dyslexic individuals have problems with accurate and/or fluent word recognition, correct spelling and decoding abilities The inability to decode words in print accurately and automatically (decode with only limited attention resources) affects reading fluency directly and reading comprehension consequently (Rasinki, 2004) According to Rasinski (2004), reading fluency plays a role of a bridge connecting two major components of reading namely word decoding and comprehension:

Figure 1: Relationship among Decoding skills –

Reading Fluency – Reading Comprehension

On the one hand, reading fluency connects with word decoding through accuracy and automaticity On the other hand, it connects with comprehension through prosody

or expressive interpretation This relationship of different components of reading explains why dyslexic students had difficulty in reading fluency and consequently reading comprehension Struggling with reading makes dyslexic students lose interest in reading and their confidence with this skill Another consequence is that students tend to avoid reading and their decreasing exposure to reading material will lead to the lack of background knowledge and vocabulary As a result, they grow out of skills that contribute to fluency and fall further behind comparing to their classmates (Pikulski & Chard 2005) Despite their struggles, reading still plays an important role at school and especially university where students have to do a lot of independent reading Therefore,

it is of neccessity to find a solution which can enhance one’s deficits in phonological processing as well as his/her experiences toward reading

2.2 Dyslexic students in HE

2.2.1 Statistics

In his own research, Konstantina said that there was no assurance of the exact number of students with dyslexia HESA once reported that 2.8% of students applying for a degree during 2006/7 were dyslexics while that proportion was only 0.7% back in 1996/7 It means that either the number of dyslexic students at HE has increased or the number of people being open about their own difference has increased However, according to Hederson (1999 as cited in Konstantina, 2010), the actual number of undergraduate disabled students is higher than the one reported One of the reason is that some students do puplicize their condition because they consider dyslexia their own problems and reject being labeled publicly as disabled (Richardson & Wydell, 2003 as cited in Konstantina, 2010) Another reason is that there are students dropping out of

their course to sign in for another, which means that whether they are dyslexic or not cannot be recorded Above all, it is confirmed a dyslexia support tutor, that the number

of students who are identified as dyslexics do increase every year (Konstantina, 2010) However, whether this increase is because there are more students having dyslexia or more people feel comfortable to admit their difference is unclear (Konstantina, 2010)

In Vietnam, as mentioned above, there is hardly any research about people with special needs in reading in general as well as students in HE with dyslexia in specific This scarcity has made necessary the searches for the statistics about dyslexic people

2.2.2 Difficulties faced by dyslexic students in HE

University, a semi-directed education system, is a totally different education system and atmosphere (Westwood, 2000 as cited in Konstantina, 2010) The usual workload at university is way much heavier compared to their previous schoolwork Students always have to rush to keep up with colleagues and study for assignments, deadlines, and exams (Gilroy, 1990 as cited in Konstantina, 2010) If an individual wants to succeed, one has to be self-determined, self-disciplined and self-motivated to study without lecturer’s constant instructions Another factor which makes students’ lives even more stressful is the necessity of taking care of their private lives independently Despite one’s wish, students have to confront their disabilities and deal with all the tasks that non-dyslexic students do (Borland & James, 1999 as cited in Konstantina, 2010) It cannot be denied that university is an unexplored and unfamiliar way of life which embarks a journey However, it can be a nightmare to students with learning difficulties (LD) as it threatens their established motivational drive, need for order, compensatory skills and social relationships (Cohn, 1998, as cited in Heinman & Precel, 2003:248 as cited in Konstantina, 2010)

Many students still struggle and hope for immediate support Carla, a dyslexic

HE student, shares that she feels very stressful because she has to read in-depth and understand too much information in a very short space of time This skill, according to

Riddick et al., 1995 as cited in Konstantina, 2010), may take people with dyslexia ten times more to master than normal people According to Konstantina (2010), university life can be challenging for these students but with appropriate support, they can overcome barriers and dyslexic graduates can be an asset for the growing economy because of their unique skills and special abilities

To many struggling students, teachers can be of great help and support in terms

of self-esteem, one of the problems faced by dyslexic students This is caused by other people labeling them as “stupid” and “thick”, which puts a detrimental effect on university students’ perception of themselves Riddick (1996) found out that students with dyslexia who have a poor self-concept, peer relationships, and lack self-confidence usually use negative adjectives like frustrated, depressed, embarrassed and so on to describe themselves In that case, teachers can play a great role in helping students coping with low self-esteem by having a better understanding, establishing good relationships with those students and giving them encouragement and praise Although teachers have a great effect on these students, they are not entirely to be blamed if students still struggle with difficulties Due to the crowded classroom, huge amount of workload and limited resources, it would be impossible for teachers to pay attention to every special cases in the class Besides, students in HE are required to work independently and come up with a solution for their own problems without the help of the teachers

Another problem faced by dyslexic students is unsuited learning style Learning style is the type of strategy used when an individual’s cognitive style is applied to a learning situation (Mortimore, 2003:7) An example of this problem is Michael, a case which was investigated in Morgan & Klein’s research in 2002 He did not feel the conventional methods provided by the university of any assistance in improving his skills and wanted to be taught more practical and relevant skills and with a different approach Similar to Michael, many dyslexic students also want to study what is relevant to their obligations and strengths and to be encouraged to find their own

learning style which can be adapted to their needs (Morgan & Klein, 2002 as cited in Konstantina, 2010) Exley (2003) proved that the recognition and application of preferred learning styles would boost dyslexia students’ performance and attainment (as cited in Konstantina, 2010) Luckily, there are various tools which can be employed to identify suitable learning styles An approach which has been proved to be beneficial for students with dyslexia and is still being applied by many organizations is multisensory teaching (Scott, 2004 as cited in Konstantina, 2010) It engages many senses like visual, auditory, kinesthetic and tactile in the process of learning (Wikipedia, 2019) On the other hand, many controversies arise around whether it worths it to put these criteria in consideration, concerning its validity and reliability of the teaching instruments Despite that, it cannot be denied that creative methods which focus on the strengths of learners are always favorable and more beneficial than the conventional ones which focus on overcoming weaknesses

Lastly but most importantly, the insufficiency of the number and the high cost of formal assessments with trained and experienced specialists prevent those students from seeking for help earlier and finding better opportunities for their A research done by Riddick & Sterling in 2002 (as cited in Konstantina, 2010) showed that up to 49% of the students increased their self-esteem after the dyslexia assessment In terms of the cost of the screening, according to Singleton et al ( as cited in Konstantina, 2010), it ranges from 150 pounds to 300 pounds if the assessments are carried out by professionals outside the institutions Without proper and early identification, students who are unaware of their learning difficulties can easily believe the negative comments of other people and lose trust in themselves Secondly, they cannot find the most suitable learning style or receive suitable support to cope with the right problems Besides, they might waste time on an inappropriate major which requires what they cannot serve Luckily, many people manage to have the assessment and the majority of them feel elated and wish they haven been assessed earlier to avoid all the sufferings during the earlier school period That is to say, early idenfitication is of great importantce despite

its high price However, before having any formal assessment, it is of use to carry out an informal screener first to initially identify whether one is experiencing with dyslexia or not

In Vietnam, many researchers have conducted research on creating a series of exercises to support young students with dyslexia However, the number of articles aiming at dyslexic students in HE is rare Therefore, the researcher hopes that this article can draw attention of other researchers into this research matter

2.3 Immersive Reader

2.3.1 Introduction

Immersive Reader is a free tool added in many products of

Microsoft and it was created from the 2015 Microsoft hackathon

project It is now used by more than 13 million people around the

world and available in 40 languages

2.3.2 Purpose

Immersive Reader tends to help improve Reading Fluency,

boost the reader’s confidence and provide text-decoding solutions –

the most important features to the reader with dyslexia (Ward & Ward 2018) At first, Immersive Reader just focused on helping students with dyslexia but, it has been innovated with more features which help any readers who are struggling with reading in general

2.3.3 Accessibility

Immersive Reader is available in many platforms:

Figure 2:

Immersive Reader icon

- OneNote Online

- OneNote Universal App

- OneNote Desktop as a free add-in

2.3.4 Financial and social benefits

Students with dyslexia usually have to enroll in a costly program in order to acquire training for their problems One of the very common methods is to hire an Orton

Figure 6

Figure 7

Gillingham3 tutor (who has been trained to help students with dyslexia) and it costs quite amount of money, despite its appropriateness In contrast, Immersive Reader can

be considered a cost-effective solution for students with dyslexia as it is added in Microsoft’s products like Word which is used by almost everyone in the world Another benefit of using Immersive Reader is that students do not feel much pressure of being different when using the same tool but with integrated support

Figure 8: Features and proven benefits of Immersive Reader

Immersive Reader has four main features namely Text options, Parts of Speech, Reading preferences and Voice Options

The first feature, Text options, gives users the ability to change the text size, increase space, choose an easy-to-read font and alter background color Firstly, users can add space between letters, words, and lines of text by using Spacing feature It has been proved that 50% fewer reading errors are found when spaces are provided in the text to address the “visual crowding” problems (Zorzi et al., 2012) It has also been proved that 27% increase has been witnessed in reading speed when the length of the lines is shorter than normal (Matthew et al., 2013) These two benefits above contribute greatly to the progress of students in reading fluency

The second feature, Parts of Speech, has the Labelling mode that can identifies and highlights verbs, nouns and adjectives with different colors Besides, the Learning Tools for OneNote can also identify subordinate clauses and mark them using visualization (Shapiro, 2016) In addition, Syllables feature grants users the abilities to break words into smaller syllables All of theses features are proved to improve both phonics and spelling skills and help students gain 10% of reading comprehension (Tai, Yang, Reder, Hayes, & Sheedy, n.d.)

Figure 9: Theme Color feature

The third feature, Reading Preferences, includes Line Focus, Picture Dictionary and Translate options Line focus allows users to choose from one to three lines to appear on the screen so that they can entirely focus on and save their limited attentional resources for use in comprehension (Rasinski, 2004)

Picture Dictionary can be considered one of the best add-in tool for users When users do not understand a word in the text, they just need to point at it and a picture will show up as a visual definition This feature, along with spoken dictionary, provide students with dyslexia a chance to engage their visual and auditory senses in learning which helps them memorize and understand the text a lot better

Figure 10: Syllables feature

Figure 11: Line Focus feature

The fourth feature, Read Aloud, highlights words as they are read out loud It is proved by Floyd and Judge (2012) to improve decoding skills significantly Besides, users can manipulate settings like the pace of dictation and the reading voice, which is proved to make them feel the ownership their learning (McKnight, 1996)

Figure 12: Picture Dictionary feature

Figure 13: Read Aloud feature

Another undeniable benefit of Immersive Reader is that users can use it in a personalized way that meets their needs This is substantially beneficial for students in

HE as they have to work independently on a huge workload of reading materials

2.4 Previous studies

One research article was designed by RTI International4 to evaluate the usefulness of Microsoft Learning Tools, of which the primary feature is the Immersive Reader Participants of this research include eight teachers teaching grade 4, 6 to 12 and struggling students One of the research results proved that Immersive Reader enabled students to participate alongside with their classmates and work with reading materials

of which the difficulty level was beyond their reading skills (McKnight, 1996)

Although Microsoft designed the Immersive Reader based on the techniques which had been proven to be beneficial to reading and stated that it would be useful to people of different ages and abilities (Microsoft Learning Tools, n.d.), there are not many research articles conducted on its effectiveness on other participants beside young learners or learners receiving support from teachers Although students in HE are expected to work by themselves, students with learning difficulties, especially first-year students, still need a lot of outer suppport or supporting tools to help them cope with a new education system Therefore, the researcher decides to aim the test of Immersive at first-year students in HE or ULIS students in specific

4 RTI International (Research Triangle Institute International) is an independent, nonprofit research institute dedicated to improving the human condition

of Immersive Reader on enhancing Reading Fluency of dyslexic students Besides, the researcher also wants to see if this add-in tool affect the users’ experiences towards reading or not and in which way

In order to successfully answer two questions above, a mixed-method evaluation is required According to USAID (2010), mixed-method evaluation is a combination of two or more techniques or methods in order to collect target data to answer one or more evaluation questions It also refers to the application of both quantitative and qualitative approach to the process of collecting and analyzing findings and developing conclusions

in response to the evaluation questions

This mixture benefits the researcher in many ways Firstly, data collected from one method can help interpret findings from the analysis of data collected from another method (USAID, 2010) Secondly, combining different methods provides the researcher with higher chances of revealing other key issues which are important to the data analysis process and the final findings (USAID, 2010)

There are several ways of combining quantitative and qualitative methods like

“parallel combinations”, “sequential combinations” and so on Considering the requirements and the purposes of the study, a sequential combination is chosen as a method for this research The sequential analytical method is a chronological analysis of two or more data sets where the results of the analysis from the first data set are used to inform the analysis of the second data set (USAID, 2010) The type of analysis conducted on the second data set is dependent on the outcome of the first data set

3.2 Participants

The target subjects of this research can be seen in the research questions: all year students studying in the English division In the beginning, the researcher wished

first-to conduct the research on five classes of each language division However, as dyslexia

is experienced differently with different languages, it is beyond the researchers’ capability and available time to carry out research with such a large spectrum Therefore, the scope is narrowed down to ULIS students who study languages using Latin script, including English, German and French However, if only five classes are chosen from each division, the sample size is not large enough to make any generalization Besides, as the purpose of the study is to find out the exact number of first-year students with dyslexia at the university, the samples are narrowed down to only English division, of which the estimated number of students is 390 However, the real number of questionnaires collected is only 319 The reason for the preference of English to the other two languages is that the researcher majors in English and finds it possible to examine the results herself

3.3 Samplings

In this research, criterion sampling is chosen to determine suitable participants Criterion sampling is used when quantitative techniques precede the use of qualitative techniques (Sandelowski, 2000) Cases will be chosen because they typify the average score, which, in other words, is a kind of typical case sampling (Patton, 1990, p.182-183

as cited in Sandelowski, 2000) When carrying out this way of sampling, the researcher expects to collect more data from the chosen participants using another instrument for the purpose of complementarity: to find out more about what makes a case typical or in other words, why they score the way they do (Sandelowski, 2000)

Accordingly, the questionnaires are handed out in the first phase and the participants are chosen based on their scores to enter the interview in the second phase Without the first phase, the latter cannot take place

3.4 Data collection

Applying sequential mixed methods in data collection process means collecting data in an iterative process whereby the data collected in one phase contribute to the data collected in the next (David, 2007) It helps the researcher select participants who best provide the required data and generate findings by verifying and augmenting study results from members of the defined population (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007, as cited

in David, 2007) By utilizing statistical methods, the researcher can determine which data from the quantitative input can be augmented in the next phase (David 2007)

3.4.1 Instruments

Using instruments is to fulfill the purpose of development which is to guide purposeful sampling (Sandelowski, 2000) The results collected using these instruments can direct the researcher more precisely to the kinds of participants one may wish to

recruit and the nature of information one wants to obtain from them Instrument scores can be used initially to create a basis for sampling in the follow-up qualitative study

3.4.1.1 Questionnaire

3.4.1.1.1 First questionnaire

The survey questionnaire design is adapted from the dyslexia screening for adults created by Dr Michael Vinegrad in 1994 His purpose of creating a cheap (or free) screening for a large population of adults, including first-year students in further or higher education (Turner, 1999) The original screening contains 20 yes-no questions:

1 Do you find difficulty in telling left from right?

2 Is map reading, or finding your way to a strange place confusing?

3 Do you dislike reading aloud?

4 Do you take longer than you should to read a page of a book?

5 Do you find it difficult to remember the sense of what you have read?

6 Do you dislike reading long books?

7 Is your spelling poor?

8 Is your writing difficult to read?

9 Do you get confused if you have to speak in public?

10 Do you find it difficult to take messages on the telephone and pass them on correctly?

11 When you have to say a very long word do you find it difficult to get all the sounds into the right order?

12 Do you find it more difficult to do sums in your head without using your fingers

or paper?

13 When using the telephone, do you get the numbers mixed up when you dial?

14 Do you find it difficult to say in order the months of the year forwards in a fluent manner?

15 Do you find it difficult to say the order of the months backward?

16 Do you mix up dates and times and miss appointments?

17 When writing cheques, do you frequently find yourself making mistakes?

18 Do you find forms difficult and confusing?

19 Do you mix up bus numbers like 95 and 59?

20 When you were at school, did you find it hard to learn your multiplication tables?

To identify the number of items that best discriminate between dyslexic and non-dyslexic individuals, the screening was given to 679 adults whose ages range from 18 to 68 and the proportion of men and women was proximately equal After this research, 12 items are found to be a high indicator of dyslexia (the order also represents the level of importance):

Order Item Order Item

of Dr Rosse Cooper in 2015 on updating, trialing and modifying the old version of dyslexia screening) Besides, the questionnaire is translated into Vietnamese to make sure that every student understands the questions correctly

Although it is said that the students are likely to have dyslexia if they tick “yes” for more than nine out of 20 overall questions, it is still “too large a fraction to allow a reasonable chance of intervention” (Vinegrad, 1994) Vinegrad suggested further selection based on those 12 items: participants who have positive responses to more than nine questions overall and six or more dyslexia-sensitive questions hold a high chance of being dyslexic The criterion sampling in this research is based on this 2-layer selection

Table 1: Twelve dyslexia-sensitive

items

3.4.1.1.2 Second questionnaire

Another survey questionnaire is designed with questions about participants’ experience with Immersive Reader and toward reading activity and sent to the qualified participants, who have the expected survey results and successfully attend the interview, one month after it During that time period, the participants are encouraged to use Immersive Reader to read any texts in print The usage of survey at this point saves time for both the researcher and the participants Besides, it also provides the participants with an opportunity to consider the answers carefully

3.4.1.2 Interview

After the selection at the end of the first phase, at most five qualified participants should be chosen to join a semi-structured interview, of which the schedule is:

- Part 1: Clarification of some basic background information

- Part 2: Clarification of the answers given in the survey (some pop-up questions about reading may appear to gain an insight about the participants’ possible reading struggles)

- Part 3: Introduction of Immersive Reader and students’ own experience

The purpose of this interview is to clarify the participants’ decisions behind all the

“yes” ticked in their questionnaires: In what situation do they experience a specific symptom?; How do they experience that symptom?; etc

3.4.1.3 Tests

Two tests which are a pre-test and a post-test are respectively carried out at the end

of the interview and one month later The goal of this test is to check the reading accuracy and automaticity level of the participants before and after using Immersive Reader The reason for choosing these two components as the subjects of the tests is that they are two out of three components contributing to reading fluency

First, decoding accuracy, which affects reading accuracy, is the ability to decode words correctly in text Accuracy is determined by reader’s percentage of correct words

in a period of time Adapted from several informal reading inventories (IRIs), there are several levels of wording decoding accuracy:

or parents Finally, readers belonging to the Frustration Level (below 90%) finds it struggling to read texts of the same difficulty level with the assessment test, even with assistance (Rasinski, 2004)

Second, reading automaticity is the ability to decode words with minimal use of attentional resources With the assumption that word recognition automaticity reflects fast reading, reading rate measurement is chosen to determine one’s level of automaticity An approach of testing, which is valid and time efficient, called Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) is chosen for this research It was developed by Stanley Deno (1985) of the University of Minnesota and was also known as Oral Reading Fluency (ORF) assessment A CBM/ ORF assessment only takes 60 seconds, during which the teacher can note the uncorrected errors and count the total number of correct words (WCPM) Since the assessment is quick, it can be repeated at one sitting and the median score should be noted and compared with performance norms (Rasinski, 2004)

Table 2: Levels of Performance for Word Decoding Accuracy

To be specific, the researcher chooses six 250-word paragraphs at B1 level from the book Practice Exam Paper 1 – For Revised Cambridge FCE Examination by Virginia Evans as first-year students are expected to reach this level of English proficiency The researcher makes use of them in two different times (three paragraphs for the pre-test and the other three for the post-test), types them into a Word file and send to the participants They are asked to read aloud each paragraph in one minute at normal speed Their reading are tape-recorded Any uncorrected errors like mispronunciations, substitutions, reversals, omissions are marked and noted down by the researcher for later analysis

However, since the performance norms of students using English as a Second Lanuage (ESL) is hard to be found, the researcher decides to take the average reading automaticity results of two different tests and compares them for the difference

3.4.2 Procedure

The research is carried out in several phases:

The first phase is to hand out and collect survey data At first, the questionnaire was designed online and emailed to all the monitors of twenty first-year English classes

of ULIS However, just a few monitors responded and the survey response rate was also really low – only 54 responses were collected Then, the researcher decided to hand the questionnaires directly to all the students 20 monitors were contacted in advance by phones to ask for permission and the class information Although the initial intention was to collect answers from every student of English division, the researcher soon had

to accept the smaller number as a few classes either denied joining the research or could not be contacted Besides, there were quite many students who were either busy, absent

or unwilling to do the survey, which affected the expected number of participants As a result, 319 questionnaires have been collected and analyzed Luckily, no questionnaire had to be eliminated