Francisca Serrano

Phonological Development in Relation to Native Language and Literacy: Variations on a Theme in Six Alphabetic Orthographies.

Phonological development was assessed in six alphabetic orthographies (English, French, Greek, Icelandic, Portuguese and Spanish) at the beginning and end of the first year of reading instruction. The aim was to explore contrasting theoretical views regarding: the question of the availability of phonology at the outset of learning to read (Study 1); the influence of orthographic depth on the pace of phonological development during the transition to literacy (Study 2); and the impact of literacy instruction (Study 3). Results from 242 children did not reveal a consistent sequence of development as performance varied according to task demands and language. Phonics instruction appeared more influential than orthographic depth in the emergence of an early meta-phonological capacity to manipulate phonemes, and preliminary indications were that cross-linguistic variation was associated with speech rhythm more than factors such as syllable complexity. The implications of the outcome for current models of phonological development are discussed.

La conciencia fonémica, aliada de la adquisición del lenguaje escrito

Resumen Este articulo de revision se centra en las habilidades de conciencia fonologica (CF) y el papel crucial que tienen en la adquisicion y el desarrollo de la lectura y la escritura y en la explicacion de sus dificultades, en particular la conciencia fonemica, que se refiere a las unidades mas pequenas del habla. Tratamos diversas cuestiones en torno a esta tematica, poniendo de relieve las aportaciones de varias decadas de investigacion, en particular las llevadas a cabo en lengua castellana, tanto en ninos con desarrollo normal como con dislexia. Tratamos su desarrollo evolutivo y como los ninos pasan de un conocimiento implicito de los sonidos del habla a otro explicito a traves de sus juegos y experiencias con el lenguaje oral y, sobre todo, cuando se enfrentan al aprendizaje de la lectura y de la escritura, lo cual no esta exento de dificultad dado el fenomeno de coarticulacion. Ese paso significa el desarrollo de las habilidades de CF, en sus distintos niveles, que tienen un valor predictivo respecto al aprendizaje de la lectura y la escritura. Adicionalmente, se senalan las dificultades que tienen los ninos dislexicos en las tareas fonologicas, que se ponen mas claramente de manifiesto en la velocidad de ejecucion que en las medidas de precision. La ultima parte se dedica a revisar algunos aspectos relevantes a la hora de disenar tareas de conciencia fonologica, tanto de evaluacion como de intervencion, asi como a senalar algunas indicaciones practicas sobre como intervenir de forma eficaz para el desarrollo de las habilidades fonologicas.

Diachronic and synchronic aspects of Spanish: the relationship with literacy acquisition / Aspectos diacrónicos y sincrónicos del español: relación con la adquisición del lenguaje escrito

Abstract In this article we intend to describe the evolution of the Spanish linguistic system (spoken and written) from both diachronic and synchronic perspectives, as well as to describe its current form; the main aim is to show how current Spanish language characteristics influence and explain, in part, the existing data about literacy acquisition in Spanish.

Learning to read and write in Spanish: phonology in addition to which other processes? / Aprendiendo a leer y escribir en español: además de la fonología, ¿qué otros procesos?

Abstract This study reviews some of the most relevant cognitive skills related to literacy acquisition in Spanish. Beyond the well-known influence of phonological segmental skills, it highlights the growing importance of other cognitive skills needed for acquisition, whether explicit or implicit in nature, to which too little attention has been devoted, including suprasegmental or prosodic skills, morphological skills and the implicit learning of linguistic regularities. It appears that all these skills constitute relevant factors that should be taken into account in order to understand typical as well as atypical literacy development.