Remediating Reading Difficulty: A Cognitive Processing Approach

Reading difficulty is a major drawback for school going children as reading is a very important aspect of academics. The present study is an attempt to understand the efficacy of PASS (Planning, Attention, Simultaneous and Successive) Model based remedial intervention, which is purely a cognitive processing approach in reading difficulty. The review of literature suggest  while the simultaneous and successive processing measures could differentiate the good readers from the poor ones, the former group showed their superiority in terms of attention and planning  when the task features  was complex.  It was also found that there was a huge improvement in word decoding, phonological awareness, rapid naming, reading, and cognitive ability, where cognitive enhancement programmes was used. As per the   PASS model of intelligence, reading was found to be a strong determinant of successive processing, particularly at earlier grades, while reading comprehension depends primarily on simultaneous processing. Attention and Planning are found to be necessary for all levels of reading. The PASS Reading Enhancement Programme (PREP) is one of the interventions which has emerged from PASS theory of intelligence, helps remediate the word decoding and reading comprehension skills of children by improving the underlying cognitive processes. The efficacy of PREP has been proved not only in case of children who are the native speakers of English language, but also in those for whom English is the Second Language (ESL children.