• Jean ECALLE & Annie MAGNAN (Lyon 2 / Université de Lyon)
    The benefits of digital training for the reduction of reading difficulties
    2015, Vol.XX-2, pp. 35-50

    We aim to present the development and the validation of two software programmes: one to train children in decoding and word recognition and the other one for comprehension. They are based on recent theoretical hypotheses, one stipulating that syllable are important units for reading words in French and the other one underlining that reading comprehension is underpinned by literal processing and two inferential processing, coherence inferences and knowledge-based inferences. These two software programmes were tested with several groups of children and adolescents with reading difficulties, some were poor decoders, others poor comprehenders and others poor decoders and poor comprehenders.


  • Jean ECALLE (Lyon 2)
    L'évaluation de la lecture et des compétences associées
    (Assessment of reading and related skills)
    2010, Vol. XV-1, pp. 105-120

    Reading assessment should be completed with cognitive skills (memory and rapid automatized naming) and linguistic skills (particularly phonological domain) related to reading and learning to read. This review aims to present the importance of assessing in general and the two aspects of reading assessment in terms of screening and diagnosis. For screening and more precisely to detect children at-risk of failure in learning to read, tests of language development and phonological skills are presented. For a diagnosis in reading, we distinguish pencil-paper tests and computer-based tests. For a complete diagnosis, tests in written word recognition and in reading comprehension are presented with their limits. We conclude that assessment should be closely related to interventions as prevention or remediation.