• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.649-667
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• 2015

This study handled underachievement issue of gifted students by developing and validating educational programs as a solution, or relief, of their academic underachievement problems. The proposed educational program was designed to enhancing reading comprehension ability of gifted students with underachievement. Based on comprehensive literature review, this study found that key issues of underachievement have to do with learning strategy, and also that learning strategy was established as 'reading comprehension strategy.' Considering diverse reading comprehension models and strategies suggested by preceding studies, the reading comprehension strategy program in Korean was customized for underachieving gifted students on the middle school level. The effectiveness of the reading comprehension strategy program as a solution to underachievement of gifted students was explored by applying the developed program to 36 identified students after school twice a week for 6 weeks, conducting pre- and post-tests that were selected to measure their reading comprehension abilities, collecting their academic achievement data before and after the intervention by this study, and interviewing students. As the results of this study, reading metacognition ability, reading comprehension skills, and school grades of gifted students with underachievement were meaningfully improved as a group. On the individual level, 12 identified students, exactly one third of the whole group of underachieving gifted students, showed so improved academic achievement as we can say they overcame underachievement based on the Supplee's definition.

• Child Studies in Asia-Pacific Contexts
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.47-63
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to develop a screening test for children at risk of reading underachievement and to investigate the effectiveness of the early-stage intervention program. In the first part of the study, we recruited 155 elementary first grade students for a screening test. Phonological deletion, digit naming, object naming, and sound-letter correspondence knowledge of a screening test, all assessed at the beginning of the school year, predicted the reading ability at the end of the school year. In the second part of the study, we analyzed the difference in the reading ability between fourteen children who participated in the intervention program and eighteen non-participating children. Reading ability was assessed by evaluating word recognition, oral reading fluency, reading comprehension, and pseudo-word recognition. The reading ability of intervention group improved more compared to control group, and the difference between two groups accentuated over time. However, final analysis conducted in November revealed that two groups did not differ significantly in oral reading fluency. This suggests that, unlike word recognition and comprehension, fluency might not dramatically improve in a short period.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.10
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• pp.393-402
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• 2014

This study aims to testify the effect of reading and writing abilities improvement program for elementary school children from multicultural families. Methods: The research design used in this study was a non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest research design. The participants were divided into two groups, an experimental group(n=9) and a control group(n=8). Data were analysed by using Mann-Whinety U test, Wilcoxon Signed Ranks, Cohen's d with SPSS(PASW)18.0 program. Result: Significant differences were found in scores for reading ability (z=-2.668, p=.008, ES(d)=0.6) and writing ability (z=-2.670, p=.008, ES(d)=0.5) in experimental group. Conclusion: The results indicate that the reading and writing abilities improvement program should be used with elementary school children of multicultural families to help them and to improve their reading and writing abilities.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.21-36
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• 2016

This study examines the sustaining power of program effects of Reading Comprehensive Strategy Program, for underachieving gifted students in middle schools, which was developed and applied by Choi(2015). The study was a kind of follow up study of Choi(2015) as this study traced and collected all data from the same samples that Choi(2015) used since Choi(2015) stopped his program and data collection from 31 participants for 9 to 12 months. As the results, Among 11 subjects, who overcome underachievement through Choi(2015)'s Reading Comprehensive Strategy Program, 5 subjects could consistently maintained their performance level. However, 3 subjects could not maintain their performance and went back to the underachieving level, and another 3 showed instability as they went up and down around the border line. And among 20 subjects, who could not help the underachieving level through Choi(2015)'s program, 5 subjects could reach the achieving level. But 15 subjects still remained in their underachieving level. In conclusion, we may say that at least 16.1%(5 among 31) of underachieving gifed students could overcome their underachiving issue by Choi(2015)'s program even in the most pessimistic view, and 51.6%(16 amoung 3) in the most optimistic view. After all, at least about 50% cases could not be explained only by cognitive factors such as absence of reading comprehensive strategy. We suggest that we should handle the underachieving issues of gifted students by more comprehensive approaches.