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About 40% of the population have reading problems severe enough to hinder their enjoyment of reading. These problems are generally not developmental and do not diminish over time; without appropriate interventions they continue into adulthood. Because the percentage is so large, an arbitrary cutoff point of 20% was selected for the purpose of labeling children as disabled in basic reading skills. The difference between a child who has a learning disability in reading and a child who is simply a poor reader is only a difference in the severity of the problem. The most reliable indicator of a reading difficulty is an inability to decode single words. Research suggests that the best way to determine if this inability is "unexpected" is to compare the performance of a child with that of other children his or her age and/or compare reading ability to academic performance in other domains (e.g., listening comprehension, verbal expression, mathematics, written expression). The definition suggests that traditional methods for identifying a reading difficulty, such as looking for an IQ-achievement discrepancy, are not as reliable. Phonological processing is the primary ability area where children with reading difficulties differ from other children. It does not seem to matter whether the children have an IQ-achievement discrepancy in reading or not. Phonological processing encompasses at least three different components. Each component and a sample assessment are described in Table 2. Table 2. Three important components of phonological processing and sample assessments. Of these three major
phonological processing skills, phonological awareness appears
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