nts enrolled in special schools for children with learning disabilities. The subjects of the Easton et al. study were 8-10 year old students in a mainstream primary school and attending a language support facility. Given the thrust for mainstreaming students with special learning needs in the United States, the majority of students in the two studies would likely have been placed in regular elementary school classrooms here. As Easton et al. point out, "The breadth of strategies encompassed and the groupwork format in which [their efficacy study] took place may be of particular relevance to heavily time-pressured mainstream environments" (Easton et al., 1997, p. 127).
The Aarnoutse et al. study focused on two categories of reading problems in children in special elementary school populations. The first category is children with severe decoding problems but with normal language skills. Although these children have difficulties with written language they have few problems comprehending language in spoken form. The second category is children with decoding problems in combination with difficulty comprehending the spoken language. These children are generally slow
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