The two-day symposium included eight research presentations by our international guests and local BetterReading researchers, followed by extensive discussion.
The symposium was opened on Wednesday, June 3rd, by the director of the BetterReading project, Thanassi Protopapas (UiO), with a presentation on the shifting nature of word reading efficiency.
Subsequently, Karin Landerl (University of Graz) talked about dysfluent word reading and rapid naming in German, followed by Kathy Rastle (Royal Holloway University) who spoke about reading fluency in low- and middle-income country contexts. The final talk of the day, by Mads Poulsen (University of Copenhagen), concerned syntactic comprehension and speed-accuracy trade-offs.
In the second day of the symposium, Friday, June 5th, Minna Torppa (University of Jyväskylä) discussed risk, promotive, and protective factors for reading fluency. Subsequently, Elise de Bree (University of Amsterdam) spoke about DLD and literacy, followed by Melanie Kuhn (Purdue University), who focused on text factors in repeated-reading and wide-reading interventions for reading fluency.
The final presentation and discussion of the symposium was led by the designer of the BetterReading intervention, Vassiliki Diamanti (UiO), who presented the effects of repeated reading on various reading measures and on reading eye movements.
We are grateful to all symposium participants for very interesting presentations and exciting, thought-provoking discussions at the forefront of scientific research!
