TECHNICAL SHEET

PROLEC-R. Evaluation of reading processes, revised.

Fernando Cuetos, Blanca Rodríguez, Elvira Ruano, and David Arribas (2007)

APPLICATION: Individual

SCOPE OF APPLICATION: From 6 to 12 years of age (1st to 6th grade of Primary Education)

Variable, between 20 minutes with 5th and 6th grade students

primary and 40 with those from 1st to 4th.

PURPOSE: Evaluation of reading processes through 9 main indices, 10

secondary and 5 normal skill indices.

BAREMATION: Cut-off points to diagnose the presence of mild difficulty (D) or

severe (DD) in the processes represented by the main indices and the precision ones
secondary, to determine the reading speed (from very slow to very fast) in the
secondary speed indices and the reading level (low, medium, or high) in subjects with
a normal reading ability.

MATERIAL: Manual, stimulus notebook, and annotation notebook.

Objective of Prolec:

The aim of this test is to diagnose the difficulties in learning

reading. However, it is not limited to certifying the existence of possible difficulties, of
reading, also shows which cognitive processes are responsible for those
difficulties, that is to say, which components of the reading system are the ones that fail in
each child and prevents them from becoming good readers.

Structure:

The battery consists of nine tasks that aim to explore the main
Reading processes range from the most basic to the most complex. There are two
tests for each of the processes involved in reading, except for the
semantic processes that have three tasks.

1. Name or sound of the letters equal-different, is intended for processes

initials of letter identification, something basic but fundamental to be able to
to read.
2. Reading of words and reading of pseudowords are intended for the
lexical processes or visual word recognition processes. It is at this lexical level

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 where the main differences between good readers and
called dyslexic children.
3. Grammatical structures and punctuation marks aim to evaluate the
syntactic processes.
4. Sentence comprehension, text comprehension, and oral comprehension, aimed at
higher processes or semantic processes are where the
main differences between normal readers and hyperlexic children.

In all tests, data is collected, such as the number of correct answers and time.
invested in completing the task. Relevant data, since the best readers are
those who perform the task with great precision and in the shortest time possible, to the
bad readers who make many mistakes or take a long time to complete the
task.

Test description:

IDENTIFICATION OF LETTERS.

1. Name or sound of letter: the objective of this task is to check if the child
knows all the letters and their pronunciation. It also provides information
about the degree of automaticity in the recognition and mastery of letters
(transformation of letters into sounds).
On a sheet, 23 letters are presented. The first three are three vowels and
they serve as training to ensure that the child understands the task, therefore
They are not scored. The other 20 include the vowel 'u' and all the consonants.
except for 'h' because it is silent, and 'k' and 'w' because they are used very infrequently in the
Spanish. The task consists of the child naming each letter or its sound. The
scores vary, 0 minimum - 20 maximum. In addition to accuracy, points are awarded for
time in seconds it takes to complete the task.
2. Same-different: the objective of this task is to know if the child is capable of
segment and identify the letters that make up each word that you have to read
or, on the contrary, performs a logographic reading. To do this, pairs are presented to it.
of words and pseudowords that are the same or different because one of them is changed.
letters. There are 20 pairs of stimuli, half are the same and the other half are different.
The score is given as in the previous test, it ranges from 0 to 20. The time of
Execution is also important because it shows how difficult this task is.
A low score indicates that the child is reading logographically, which
it means that he is in a pre-reading phase in which he does not identify the letters
but recognizes the word by its global shape. It can also indicate
attention problems, since to check if the two words are the same
To be different, it is necessary to make the comparison letter by letter, and in this process it is
easy to get distracted.

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LEXICAL PROCESSES

3. Word reading: the recognition and reading of words is possibly

the key process of reading and where the greatest differences occur between
the good and the bad readers. Even many of the difficulties in the
reading comprehension occurs in this stage of word recognition,
since when the child takes a long time and reads the words with difficulty,
the compression processes are affected.
For this task, 20 words have been selected, 20 high-frequency words and
20 in decline. The length of the words varies between 5 and 8 letters (2 and 3 syllables).
As in the previous tests, the score is obtained from the accuracy.
between 0 and 40, and the reading time.
4. Reading pseudowords: indicate the reader's ability to pronounce
new or unknown words. The mechanisms involved in reading of
pseudowords are different from those used with familiar words, so
It is important to know all the processes of reading functions.
For the construction of this test, 40 pseudowords were created.
simply changing one or two letters in each term of the list of words from
the previous task. Both lists therefore share very common characteristics
similar, since they have the same length and even the same structure
syllabic, but in one case they are familiar words and in the other they are
pseudowords. This similarity allows for comparing the child's performance in the two
tasks and see the effect of lexicality. A good reading of the words that
pseudowords indicate a lexical reading. If the child makes many mistakes
In the reading of the pseudowords, it is evident that it is not good.
acquired the phoneme-grapheme conversion rules. Additionally, if in terms
absolute (direct score) the level of execution and precision is similar in
both lists, that means the child is reading from the sublexical route,
surely because it still does not have orthographic representation of the words
frequent.

GRAMMATICAL PROCESSES

5. Grammatical structures: the purpose of this task is to verify the ability to

the readers to perform syntactic processing of sentences with
different grammatical structures. It consists of 16 items (plus one essay item),
each of them consisting of four drawings and a sentence. One of the drawings
the sentence corresponds (for example: "The police officer is being chased by a " }
thief" there is a drawing of a thief chasing a police officer) and the other three are
distractors: in one, the roles of subject and object are reversed (it can be seen in the drawing)
a police officer chasing a thief) and the other two are semantic distractors
(a police officer chasing a clown and a clown chasing a thief). The

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 the child's task is to read the sentence and indicate which of the four images it refers to
the phrase corresponds.
6. Punctuation marks: the aim of this test is to assess knowledge and
the use that the reader has of punctuation marks. For this, they are asked to read
out loud a short story in which the main signs appear
punctuation (the child has to read respecting those signs). Specifically, it
they score 11 signs that correspond to the reading intonation of 4 points, 2
commas, 3 question marks and 2 exclamation marks.

SEMANTIC PROCESSES

7. Sentence comprehension: the objective of this test is to verify the

the reader's ability to extract meanings from different sentences. The child
You have to read each sentence and respond to the demands that each one expresses.
The total number of sentences is 16; the first three ask him to place orders.
simple ones ("tap three times on the table"), the next three to make some
very simple drawings ("draw a tree with three apples"). The next three
that he makes some touch-ups on some drawings that are presented to him ('add a
"Hat to the clown"), the next three indicate among three drawings the one that is
the soldier is taller than
the Indian”), and the last four are locative sentences in which they have to
point out, among four, the drawing that corresponds to the sentence ('the blue ball is')
about the red box)
8. Text comprehension: the goal is to check if the reader is able to extract
the message that appears in the text and to integrate it into their knowledge. The
A way to measure that capacity is through questions related to the text.
that the child should try to respond.
In this test, four texts are used, two of narrative type and two of type
expository. Two of them (one narrative and the other expository) are short texts.
(around 90 words) and the other two long (above 130)
words). The contents of the text are unknown so that they do not influence the
previous knowledge of children. In each text, there are four questions for the
that the scores of this test range from 0 to 16 points. All the
questions are inferential in nature, about issues that are not explicitly
described in the text. This way it prevents answering the questions
in a memorized way without true understanding.
9. Listening comprehension: at the end of the test there are another two texts, both of type
expository, in which oral comprehension is measured. In this case, the texts are not
the child has to read, otherwise the evaluator reads it aloud to them and to
He continues to ask the questions, so the child just has to listen.
and respond. The fact that the two texts have very similar structures and sizes

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 similar to expository texts written allows comparing the execution of the
children in both tasks and thus find out if the comprehension problems that
Can the child show specific reading skills or does it affect comprehension?
general. If a child shows a low score in both types of text their
problems are of general understanding, and in this case it is advisable to apply
some intelligence test in order to compare their cognitive abilities
they are within normality. But if a significant advantage is structured from the
oral comprehension about written comprehension (a small advantage comes into play)
normal, since the examiner will always read with better intonation and in a
more precise than the examined ones), is that there are specific problems for the
reading, probably in one of the lower processes such as those of
grapheme-phoneme, naming speed or in punctuation marks.

Introduction to primary and secondary indices:

From the application of the described tests, various results can be obtained.
information regarding the child's reading level. The scores obtained in
this review has been divided into two types: main indices and indices
secondary.

The main indices are the most important and fastest source of information to
What the professional must attend to in order to interpret the child's reading behavior.
indicators can be nuanced by secondary indices, which
they delve into the interpretation of the results.

THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

Reading is a very complex activity that involves many processes.

cognitive processes in a completely synchronized manner. If any of these processes do not function
correctly, it is due to a brain injury that has damaged them (acquired dyslexias) or
because they have not been acquired (developmental dyslexias and reading delays) they
they produce alterations in reading.

Two main types of processes can be distinguished in reading comprehension:

decryption or decoding processes (transformation of written words into
sounds (reading aloud) or sounds (reading quietly) and the processes of
comprehension (extraction of the message from the written text).

We must distinguish between difficulties at the word reading level and difficulties at the level
of comprehension. There are children whose disorder is located in decoding since their
reading both isolated words and texts is very slow and laborious and they make
many mistakes, however if those texts are read by another person they understand them

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perfectly. The most extreme cases are those referred to as dyslexic, due to their
specific incapacity with reading, despite having good intelligence and a
favorable social and family characteristics. There are other children whose disorder is
localizes at a level of comprehension, as he/she reads correctly, at a good pace and without errors in
the lists of words and texts, but they understand very little of what they read. The most cases
The extremes of this disorder are called hyperlexic. There is a third group of
disorders when they fail at both levels, that is, children who have difficulties in
read aloud and they also understand very little of what they read.

But these are not the only reading disorders that can be found, as in
Decoding involves several processes, and the same happens in understanding.
On the other hand, the origin of the difficulties may be different, even when they affect
to the same process. For a time, the difficulties of the
dyslexics to phonological problems, that is, to difficulties in acquiring good
representations of phonemes and words. In recent years it has been seen that in
In some cases of dyslexia, the problems are not of a phonological nature, but are due to
its slow processing speed, in the sense that they are not only slower in
read words, but also in naming drawings, numbers, colors or any other
visual stimulus, which is why this deficit was noted as a second cause of the
reading disorders. Based on this data, Bowers and Wolf distinguish three types of
dyslexics: dyslexics as a consequence of a phonological deficit, dyslexics as
consequence of slow processing speed and double deficit dyslexics
(problems of both types) the latter have greater reading difficulties and
understanding.

The evaluation must be exhaustive in order to locate the origin of the deficit.
checking the operation of each of the system's component processes
reader, in order to determine in each case where the difficulties lie.

General model of operation of the reading system with its main processes
components:

The first activity we undertake when reading is perceptual-visual.

consists of fixing the letters in our fovea so that this information reaches the area
visual of the brain where it is processed and analyzed. Our eyes remain still.
about a piece of paper written for 200 milliseconds with the aim of extracting all
the information of that word. And then they make a small jump, called
saccadic movement that places it over the following piece of text so that they can perform
a new fixation.

There are four main processes involved in reading.

it can cause alterations, these are:

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 1. LETTER IDENTIFICATION: An absolutely necessary first step to
being able to read a written text is to identify the letters that make up the words.
When for some reason we cannot identify the letters of the words no
we can read. During the learning of reading, children have to form
representations in their memory of all the letters, both lowercase and
the uppercase letters and even the different types of writing. Generally the
vowels are easier to remember, followed by consonants more
Family members, the greatest difficulties usually arise with the least letters.
frequent and also those that share many visual traits.

It is essential to ensure that the child knows all the letters of the alphabet and that
in addition, it recognizes them quickly and without hesitation, both when they are presented
isolated as if forming part of the words.

2. LEXICAL PROCESSES OR WORD RECOGNITION: Recognize

a word means to decipher the meaning that that group of letters represents.

Most authors agree that there are two procedures

different ways to recognize and read words: one is through the lexical route connecting the
orthographic form of the word with the internal representation of that word and its
meaning. The other procedure is through the sublexical route, transforming each
letter or grapheme in its corresponding sound or phoneme and articulating those phonemes. A
starting from phonemes, meaning is reached through oral language, identifying the
phonemes and recognizing the word, just as happens when we hear that word.

Ultimately, the lexical route is faster and more direct to reach the meaning, although
it requires more processes when it comes to reading aloud. On the contrary, the way
sublexica needs more circumlocution to reach the meaning by having to make use of the
processes of oral language.

Both routes are complementary and used in varying degrees during reading. Thus,
when we encounter an unknown word, such as the name of a village
(for example Linariegas) the only possible way to read it is by transforming each
grapheme in its corresponding phoneme. On the contrary, when we read words
foreign words commonly used in Spanish (e.g.: 'HOLLYWOOD') we can only
pronounce them correctly through lexical means recovering their global pronunciation.
Likewise, when we read homophonic words (hello and wave) we can only
distinguish them by their spelling, that is, by the lexical route. The only requirement for
Reading a word through the sublexical route is knowing how to pronounce each letter. Regarding
The lexical route's requirement for being able to read a word is having seen it enough times.
sometimes in order to have a formed internal representation of that word.

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In addition to the type of word, there are other factors that determine the use of one route or another.
and the characteristics of the reader is another of them.

Children in the early school years mainly use the sublexical route.
Later, as they form orthographic representations of the
words as a consequence of seeing them written over and over again, are being used more and more
more the lexical way.

For the same reason that there are differences in the use of lexical and sublexical pathways in
In addition to age function, there are also differences depending on reading skill.

A third factor that influences the use of one path or another is the type of words that the
the subject has to read. When it comes to high-frequency words, it becomes a
greater use of the lexical route since the representations of those words are very
accessible. On the other hand, if it is about low-frequency words, the process is more operational.
sublexica.

A fourth factor is the type of reading to be done, and thus, in reading aloud the way
Sublexica has a greater weight, while silent reading and comprehension are more
the lexical route is quick since it is only necessary to get to the meaning without the need for
recover the pronunciation.

IN GENERAL, the most informative task to know which way is being used is that of
the reading aloud of isolated words, collecting the response latencies and the
types of errors. Through the times, it can be deduced which procedure is
Using the reader, a quick reading indicates that the lexical route is functioning.
while a slow reading, which noticeably increases when it comes to words
Long, indicates a use of the sublexical route. The important thing is to make a good selection.
from the stimuli presented to the reader.

To evaluate the lexical route, it's advisable to use words of different frequencies, since
higher frequency higher probability of having an internal representation and more
easy and quickly will be read. In contrast, for the evaluation of the sublexical route the
the most informative task is the reading of pseudowords (invented words) that
adjust to the rules of Spanish, since without orthographic representations only
they can be read through the application of grapheme transformation rules or
phonemes.

3. SYNTACTIC PROCESSES; To understand the role of words in the sentence

We have a series of syntactic processing strategies.

The strategy consists of successively applying the subject-action-object functions.

to the noun-verb-noun sequences. In this way, to the sentence, "the wolf
"I attack the dog" assigns the first noun the role of subject and the second one the role of object.

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object of the action expressed by the verb. This strategy is in fact so common that
when the roles in this sequence change, either because the sentence is in
passive form 'the dog was attacked by the wolf' greatly increases the difficulties
of processing. With these sentences that do not follow the canonical order, the children
they make many more interpretation mistakes.

Another important aid is punctuation marks, in oral language the

syntactic processing largely relies on prosodic features that
they produce the speaker, intonation, pauses, etc. In written language the way of
representing prosodic traits are the punctuation marks. Since a reader who
If you do not respect the punctuation marks, you will not be able to determine the syntactic roles of the
words and consequently, will not understand anything of what he reads.

Therefore, at least two aspects of syntactic processing, the interpretation of

punctuation marks and the processing of sentences with different structures
Grammatical aspects must be part of the evaluation battery.

4. SEMANTIC PROCESSES: Only when the information has been integrated in the
memory and becomes part of the reader's knowledge can be said
that the process of understanding has ended. It can be said that the processes
semantics are formed by three subprocesses, responsible for extracting the
meaning of the text, those responsible for integrating that meaning into memory and
those responsible for the constructive or inferential aspect.

EXTRACTION OF MEANING: the extraction of meaning is carried out

based on syntactic structures and basically consist of assigning
the roles of the agent of the action, object of the action, place where
the action takes place, time, etc. It is about answering the questions
basics, WHO DID, WHAT, TO WHOM, WHERE AND WHEN. The
the structure obtained from this process is independent of the shape
syntactic structure it was built from. Thus, the message 'a thief attacked the
"police" could have been constructed from sentences with structures
as different as "the police officer was attacked by a thief" "the officer was..."
"I attack a thief." This is the reason why once the sentence is read, the
The superficial form is forgotten and only the meaning or structure is maintained.
semantics.
INTEGRATION IN MEMORY: The sentences we read do not
they appear isolated but are part of a context in which
the action unfolds and gives meaning to the sentence.
Isolated phrases last little in our memory because they do not integrate into
our knowledge and why previous information is not activated. Sometimes the
children have to understand small texts that really do not integrate into the

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information stored in your memory, because they do not activate or do not have
related knowledge, and as a consequence they forget that information.
very soon. When, in addition to extracting the meaning of a text, it is integrated into the
memory, the recollection of that meaning lasts much longer.

INFERENTIAL PROCESSES:
The stored information should serve to enrich our knowledge and
to develop our thinking and not to passively increase the quantity
of stored information. A good reader does not limit their activity to the mere
passive reception of information but makes deductions about it
information and even adds information that is not explicitly mentioned
In the text. To begin with, you need to make a series of small inferences.
about the material he reads, so when we read the sentence "Juan was chopping the firewood"
for her grandmother" although it is not explicitly stated, we have to deduce
that Juan was using a tool probably made or saw to cut the
firewood. In addition, there are other higher-order inferences that are more difficult to grasp.
but also necessary for a complete understanding.
Inferential processes are not independent of the rest of the processes of
understanding but interact with them. They are already necessary in the process of
extraction of meaning, since many times the parts of the text are
disconnected and meaning can only be extracted after carrying out the
necessary inferences for its connection. The processes are also necessary.
inferential processes in the information integration in memory
since it is necessary to infer with what prior information it should connect.

THESE PROCESSES HAVE BEEN VERY NEGLECTED IN THE BATTERIES

READING COMPREHENSION, THE MOST COMMON WAY TO MEASURE IT
Reading comprehension is based on questions about the text
THAT THE CHILD HAS JUST READ. BUT MOST OF THE TIME THE
QUESTIONS ARE LITERAL SINCE THEY REPEAT LITERALLY ONE
PART OF THE TEXT, SO THEY CAN BE ANSWERED
CORRECTLY BY SIMPLE MECHANICAL MEMORY WITHOUT ANY TYPE
OF COMPREHENSION. FEW TIMES THE QUESTIONS ARE REACHED
INFERENTIALS (QUESTIONS ABOUT INFORMATION NOT EXPLICITLY STATED IN THE
TEXT).

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