Sylvia Defior

Common Patterns of Prediction of Literacy Development in Different Alphabetic Orthographies

Previous studies have shown that phoneme awareness, letter-sound knowledge, rapid automatized naming (RAN), and verbal memory span are reliable correlates of learning to read in English. However, the extent to which these different predictors have the same relative importance in different languages remains uncertain. In this article, we present the results from a 10-month longitudinal study that began just before or soon after the start of formal literacy instruction in four languages (English, Spanish, Slovak, and Czech). Longitudinal path analyses showed that phoneme awareness, letter-sound knowledge, and RAN (but not verbal memory span) measured at the onset of literacy instruction were reliable predictors, with similar relative importance, of later reading and spelling skills across the four languages. These data support the suggestion that in all alphabetic orthographies, phoneme awareness, letter-sound knowledge, and RAN may tap cognitive processes that are important for learning to read.

Different Patterns, but Equivalent Predictors, of Growth in Reading in Consistent and Inconsistent Orthographies

All alphabetic orthographies use letters in printed words to represent the phonemes in spoken words, but they differ in the consistency of the relationship between letters and phonemes. English appears to be the least consistent alphabetic orthography phonologically, and, consequently, children learn to read more slowly in English than in languages with more consistent orthographies. In this article, we report the first longitudinal evidence that the growth of reading skills is slower and follows a different trajectory in English than in two much more consistent orthographies (Spanish and Czech). Nevertheless, phoneme awareness, letter-sound knowledge, and rapid automatized naming measured at the onset of literacy instruction did not differ in importance as predictors of variations in reading development among the three languages. These findings suggest that although children may learn to read more rapidly in more consistent than in less consistent orthographies, there may nevertheless be universal cognitive prerequisites for learning to read in all alphabetic orthographies.

Effect of phonological training on reading and writing acquisition

The aim of our study was to determine the effect of training of phonological abilities upon the acquisition of reading and writing during the first year of primary school. An experimental design, with five groups of subjects matched by age, sex, IQ, phonological abilities and reading and writing level was used. Every group received twenty training sessions, over a period of six months. Four groups had different training procedures depending upon the type of task used (phoneme versus concept discrimination) and the way that the task was carried out (using or not using manipulative materials). The fifth group served as control. Post training measures were taken in reading, writing, and mathematics, besides the teachers estimated scores, twice: immediately after the end of training sessions and two months later. Significant effects on both reading and writing measures were obtained for the groups trained on phonological activities using manipulative materials. The effects were reliable for the two tests. The theoretical implications of the results are discussed and their implications for educational practice are indicated.

Differences in Reading Acquisition Development in Two Shallow Orthographies: Portuguese and Spanish.

The present study examines the role of the relative transparency of Portuguese and Spanish orthographies in schoolchildren’s word recognition procedures. Both Portuguese and Spanish may be considered as transparent orthographies. However, mappings at the grapheme–phoneme level are more consistent in Spanish than in Portuguese. Four groups of Portuguese and Spanish children from grades 1, 2, 3, and 4, who had been taught to read using a phonics-based approach, were given a Portuguese and a Spanish version of three different continuous reading tasks: numeral reading, number word reading, and pseudoword reading. Reading time per item was measured and errors noted. Improvement in reading time was observed in both orthographies from grades 1 to 4. There were no errors in numeral recognition and few children made errors in reading the number words. In pseudoword reading, the Spanish children were faster and made fewer errors than the Portuguese children. Errors in pseudoword reading were scored as phonological when leading to the production of another pseudoword and as lexical when involving refusals and/or the production of a real word. Portuguese children made more phonological errors than the Spanish group, and there was no difference in the number of lexical errors. The results are discussed in terms of the role played by the differing orthographic transparency of Spanish and Portuguese in young readers’ word recognition procedures.

Dyslexic children show deficits in implicit sequence learning, but not in explicit sequence learning or contextual cueing

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling abilities. The absence of other high level cognitive deficits in the dyslexic population has led some authors to propose that non-strategical processes like implicit learning could be impaired in this population. Most studies have addressed this issue by using sequence learning tasks, but so far the results have not been conclusive. We test this hypothesis by comparing the performance of dyslexic children and good readers in both implicit and explicit versions of the sequence learning task, as well as in another implicit learning task not involving sequential information. The results showed that dyslexic children failed to learn the sequence when they were not informed about its presence (implicit condition). In contrast, they learned without significant differences in relation to the good readers group when they were encouraged to discover the sequence and to use it in order to improve their performance (explicit condition). Moreover, we observed that this implicit learning deficit was not extended to other forms of non-sequential, implicit learning such as contextual cueing. In this case, both groups showed similar implicit learning about the information provided by the visual context. These results help to clarify previous contradictory data, and they are discussed in relation to how the implicit sequence learning deficit could contribute to the understanding of dyslexia.

The influence of lexical and sublexical variables in normal and poor Spanish readers

The main aim of our study was to find out the effect of several lexical and sublexical variables (lexical category, lexical frequency, syllabic structure, and word length) in the acquisition of reading in a transparent language such as Spanish. The second goal of our study was the comparison of the effect of these variables in normal and poor Spanish readers. One hundred and forty children (aged between 6 and 12), twenty of whom were poor readers, were tested using a reading test of 306 items in which we balanced all the variables. The dependent variable was the percentage of correct responses in a decontextualized word reading test. Our results showed that all the above mentioned variables produced a significant effect on the number of errors made by the children. This pattern of results suggests no difference between the processes involved in the reading acquisition of Spanish and those implicated in deep orthographies such as English. Our results also showed no qualitative differences between normal and poor readers. The four variables studied showed the same behaviour in their effect on reading performance for both normal and poor readers, indicating that poor readers also use both the lexical and the phonological route. Our data suggest the universality of the dual route model, independent of the transparency or opaqueness of the different alphabetical languages.

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.

Effects of phonological and musical training on the reading readiness of native- and foreign-Spanish-speaking children

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a music training program on children’s phonological awareness and naming speed in Spanish. Participants were preschool children whose first language was either Spanish (n = 45) or Tamazight ( n = 52), a Berber dialect spoken in Morocco’s Rif area. The two-year pretest/posttest study showed that the children who received phonological training with or without music performed significantly better in a naming speed posttest and a series of phonological processing tasks than those who did not participate in specialized training. The phonological training that included music activities was particularly effective for the development of phonological awareness of ending sounds and naming speed. The benefits of the training on children’s phonological awareness and naming speed, two strong predictors of reading acquisition, were significant regardless of the native language of the children.

Una clasificación de las tareas utilizadas en la evaluación de las habilidades fonológicas y algunas ideas para su mejora

ResumenEn este trabajo revisamos la metodologia de la investigacion sobre la consciencia fonologica, desde el punto de vista de las tareas utilizadas, con el fin de realizar una clasificacion. Tras una breve introduccion al tema, se propone una taxonomia en quince tareas tipo. Esta clasificacion incluye la descripcion de cada una de ellas y las referencias de algunos de los investigadores que las han empleado en sus trabajos. Despues de explicitar las fuentes de variabilidad inter e intra tarea y comentar los resultados de su manipulacion, se sugieren algunas lineas para la investigacion futura, asi como algunas ideas para la mejora de las habilidades fonologicas.

Desarrollo del reconocimiento de palabras en lectores normales y retrasados en función de diferentes variables lingüísticas

ResumenEl objetivo fundamental de este estudio era determinar la influencia de las variables longitud, frecuencia lexica, categoria lexica y categoria gramatical en la adquisicion de la lectura de palabras tanto en lectores normales como en lectores retrasados. Ciento cuarenta ninos de edades comprendidas entre 6 y 12 anos fueron evaluados mediante un test de lectura de palabras aisladas. Los resultados mostraron un alto nivel de semejanza entre el desarrollo de las habilidades de lectura en espanol y el de otras lenguas con una ortografia mas profunda tal como el ingles. En cuanto a las diferencias entre lectores normales y retrasados los resultados mostraban la inexistencia de diferencias cualitativas entre estos dos grupos respecto a las variables estudiadas. Sin embargo, cabe destacar una diferencia significativa en relacion con la pauta de desarrollo de la adquisicion de la lectura de palabras; mientras que los lectores normales mejoran su ejecucion hasta alcanzar una tasa del 90% de respuestas corre...