FACTORS THAT AFFECT READING: PHYSICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL FACTORS

Pangasinan State University
Sta. Maria Campus
College of the Teacher Education
Prof. Ed. 113 (Developmental Reading 1)
FACTORS THAT AFFECT READING:
PHYSICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL FACTORS
I. Introduction
Reading is both physical and physiological. Functions such as vision, hearing and thought are
possible only through the organs of the body.
No direct relationship may be said to exist between reading disability and physical health.
However, it is obvious that a child who is ill is not able to do well in school. Physical
inadequacies may result in lowered vitality, depletion of energy, slower physical development
and therefore, mental retardation.
Studies have shown that children who are hungry and malnourished have difficulty learning
because they cannot concentrate. Severe malnutrition in infancy may lower children’s IQ scores.
The lack of protein in an infant’s diet may adversely affect his or her ability to learn. Other
studies have found that food additives may be deterrent for learning for certain children. (Rubin,
1982). A child who is ill does not usually do well in school because of the illness itself but
because the child is out of school so often. He or she misses a lot of learning opportunities.
Learning to read is difficult enough for children.
Definition of Terms
Intrinsic Factors – considered as the main cause why certain things works well
or not especially those inside of the human body organ related as key functions in
reading.
Dyslexia – a variable often familial learning disability involving difficulties in
acquiring and processing language that is typically manifested by a lack of
proficiency in reading, spelling, and writing.
Myopia – a condition in which the visual images come to a focus in front of the
retina of the eye resulting especially in defective vision of distant objects, also
called nearsightedness.
Hyperopia – a condition in which visual images come to a focus behind the retina
of the eye and vision is better for distant than for near objects, also called
farsightedness.
Astigmatism – a defect of an optical system (as a lens) causing rays from a point
to fail to meet in a focal point resulting in a blurred and imperfect image
Strabismus – inability of one eye to attain binocular vision with the other
because of imbalance of the muscles of the eyeball.
Aniseikonia – a defect of binocular vision in which the two retinal images of an
object differ in size.
II. Discussion
INTRINSIC FACTORS
Intrinsic motivation is an energizing of behavior that comes from within an individual, out of
will and interest for the activity at hand. No external rewards are required to incite the

intrinsically motivated person into action. The reward is the behavior itself. Logically, this
seems like an ideal, for people to act as “origins” of their behavior rather than “pawns”
(deCharms, 1968). However, it is certainly not the case that every real world behavior stems
from an intrinsic energy.
Physical and Physiological Factors
 Cognitive deficiencies
 Hearing problems
 Early language impairment
 Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders
 Vision problems
Visual Adequacies
1. Reading requires the sense of sight.
2. Visual Acuity
- You do not need to have a 20/20 vision to read well.
-What a Reader Must Do Visually in Order to Read Efficiently (Dechant,1964 )
- Coordinate the eyes
-Move the eyes along line of print
-Make proper return sweeps
-See clearly and distinctly both near and far
-Change focus
-Fuse the impressions of each eye into a single image
-Have a visual memory for what was seen
-Sustain visual concentration
-Have good hand-eye coordination
-Accurately perceive size and distance relationships
Visual Defects
Refractive errors: myopia (nearsightedness) & hyperopia (farsightedness)
Astigmatism
Binocular difficulties
-Strabismus
-Aniseikonia
Symptoms of Visual Difficulty (Rubin, 1982)
1.Complains of constant headaches
2.Has red or watery eyes or eyes with red rims, swollen lids and frequent sties
3.Squints while reading
4.Asks to sit loser to the chalkboard and cannot seem to sit still while doing close work
5.Holds the book very close to his/her face while reading
6.Skips lots of words or sentences while reading
7.Makes many reversals while reading
8.Confuses letters
9.Avoids reading
10.Mouths the words or lip reads
11.Confuses similar words
12.Makes many repetitions while reading
13.Skips lines while reading

14.Has difficulty remembering what he/she just read silently
Educational Implications (Eames, 1959, Dechant, 1964)
Control the glare in the classroom.
Do not block the light source.
Arrange pupils in the classroom such that they are comfortable with the lighting especially when
they read
Use large-sized materials.
Write on the blackboard with large letters above children's eye level.
Provide ample rest periods.
Learn to use various screening tests.
Refer children to qualified professionals if necessary.
What is dyslexia?
It comes from the Greek 'dys-,' meaning difficulty with, and ‘-lexia,’ meaning words or
language.
Dyslexia affects information processing (receiving, holding, retrieving and structuring
information) and the speed of processing information. It therefore has an impact on skills such as
reading, writing, using symbols and carrying out calculations.
Dyslexia describes a group of different but related factors that affect an individual throughout
his/her life. It is not just about speaking and reading difficulties; it is not about lack of
intelligence.
Auditory Adequacies
There are four major ways in which hearing loss affects children:
1. It causes delay in the development of receptive and expressive communication skills (speech and
language).
2. The language deficit causes learning problems that result in reduced academic achievement.
3. Communication difficulties often lead to social isolation and poor self-concept.
4. It may have an impact on vocational choices.
Specific effects
Vocabulary
 Vocabulary develops more slowly in children who have hearing loss.
 Children with hearing loss learn concrete words like cat, jump, five, and red more easily than
abstract words like before, after, equal to, and jealous. They also have difficulty with function
words like the, an, are, and a.
 The gap between the vocabulary of children with normal hearing and those with hearing loss
widens with age. Children with hearing loss do not catch up without intervention.
 Children with hearing loss have difficulty understanding words with multiple meanings. For
example, the word bank can mean the edge of a stream or a place where we put money.
Sentence structure
 Children with hearing loss comprehend and produce shorter and simpler sentences than children
with normal hearing.

 Children with hearing loss often have difficulty understanding and writing complex sentences,
such as those with relative clauses ("The teacher whom I have for math was sick today.") or
passive voice ("The ball was thrown by Mary.")
 Children with hearing loss often cannot hear word endings such as -s or -ed. This leads to
misunderstandings and misuse of verb tense, pluralization, nonagreement of subject and verb,
and possessives.
Speaking
 Children with hearing loss often cannot hear quiet speech sounds such as "s," "sh," "f," "t," and
"k" and therefore do not include them in their speech. Thus, speech may be difficult to
understand.
 Children with hearing loss may not hear their own voices when they speak. They may speak too
loudly or not loud enough. They may have a speaking pitch that is too high. They may sound like
they are mumbling because of poor stress, poor inflection, or poor rate of speaking.
Academic achievement
 Children with hearing loss have difficulty with all areas of academic achievement, especially
reading and mathematical concepts.
 Children with mild to moderate hearing losses, on average, achieve one to four grade levels
lower than their peers with normal hearing, unless appropriate management occurs.
 Children with severe to profound hearing loss usually achieve skills no higher than the third- or
fourth-grade level, unless appropriate educational intervention occurs early.
 The gap in academic achievement between children with normal hearing and those with hearing
loss usually widens as they progress through school.
 The level of achievement is related to parental involvement and the quantity, quality, and timing
of the support services children receive.
Social functioning
 Children with severe to profound hearing losses often report feeling isolated, without friends,
and unhappy in school, particularly when their socialization with other children with hearing loss
is limited.
 These social problems appear to be more frequent in children with a mild or moderate hearing
losses than in those with a severe to profound loss.
Perceptual Factors
The perceptual factors in reading : a quantitative study of the psychological processes
involved in word perception / by Francis Marion Hamilton.
Internal Factors
 Self-concept : The way a person views the world depends a great deal on the concept or
image he has about himself. The concept plays an internal role in perceptual selectivity.
 Beliefs : A person's beliefs have profound influence on his perception. Thus, a fact is
conceived not on what it is but what a person believes it to be.
 Expectations : These affect what a person perceives. A technical manager may expect
ignorance about the technical features of a product from non-technical people.
 Inner Needs : The need is a feeling of tension or discomfort, when one thinks he is
missing something. People with different needs experience different stimuli. According
to Freud, wishful thinking is the means by which the Id attempts to achieve tension
reduction.

 Response Disposition : It refers to a person's tendency to perceive familiar stimuli rather
than unfamiliar ones.
 Response Salience : It is the set of disposition which are determined not by the
familiarity of the stimulus situations, but by the person's own cognitive predispositions.
Thus, a particular problem may be viewed as a marketing problem by marketing
personnel, a control problem by accounting people and human relations problem by
personnel people.
 Perceptual Defence : It refers to the screening of those elements which create conflict
and threatening situation in people.
1. Denying the existence or importance of conflicting information.
2. Distorting the new information to match the old one.
3. Acknowledging the new information but treating it as a non-representation exception.
The factors that influence perception may be broadly divided into three categories :
1. Factors that reside in the 'Perceiver' (i.e., attitude, motives, interests, past experiences
and personality, expectations)
2. Factors of the 'situation' and-factors connected with the 'Target'.
3. Factors that determine the preferred location of a brand on each of the relevant
dimension in perceptive mapping.
III. Reflection
Physiological factors play an important role in the reading performance of children. Without
the presence of the necessary organs, reading will not take place. Also, if the physical health of a
person is not good, education is very much affected.
Teachers should be sensitive enough to determine the needs as well as the difficulties of the
children. They need to help provide the necessary interventions. The teacher should refer the
child to the medical personnel and discuss the child’s behavior with his/her parents.
See for instance, the voice is articulated by the lips and tongue. If these physical features have
defects, the voice cannot function well. Hence, a person cannot articulate sound the way it
should. Example: A person with cleft lip and palate may not be able in or may have a hard time
producing nasal sounds, fricatives, labials, sibilants and other types of sounds in pronouncing
letters. There are sounds that are produced with a corresponding place of articulation. It is a
challenge for teachers to teach the right articulation to students who have problems in their vocal
apparatuses. And as a future language teacher, it is a salient role to excogitate to teach reading
and understand the learners’ abilities considering the physical and physiological structures.
IV. References
Hermosa, N. N. (2002).The Psychology of Reading. Quezon City: UP Open University.
Developmental Reading PPT by Florita Abarrientos

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