Article

How does orthographic learning happen?

January 2006

Authors:

Anne Castles

Macquarie University

Oral vocabulary knowledge and learning to read new words: A theoretical review

Article

Jul 2022

In this theoretical review, evidence for the link between spoken and written word knowledge is summarised, highlighting the specific hypotheses posed in this field and the extent to which they are informative regarding causation. A brief overview of major theories of orthographic learning draws attention to how each characterises the role of oral vocabulary within the learning process, and the timing of its influence. The theoretical foundations and evidence for two cognitive mechanisms that seek to explain the relationship between spoken and written word knowledge are outlined, drawing attention to a key difference between them: the proposed timing of the effect. Set for variability (or mispronunciation correction) is thought to operate from the point of visual exposure, while orthographic skeletons are thought to exert an influence on written word learning that begins before exposure to written words. The review closes with a discussion of directions for future research.

How Does Lexical Access Fit into Models of Word Reading?

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2021

Skilled reading requires fast and accurate access to previously encountered words stored in memory. Yet, little research addresses skills that support such lexical access. Based on theoretical predictions, one skill that may support lexical access is orthographic knowledge. Thus, our goal was to investigate the relation between lexical access and orthographic knowledge. We addressed this research question in a sample of 104 English-speaking fourth grade children. We assessed lexical access with an experimenter-created measure of timed word recognition; word reading efficiency with the TOWRE Sight Word Efficiency subtest; and lexical and sublexical orthographic knowledge with real and nonword orthographic choice tasks, respectively. We controlled for other reading related skills, including nonverbal ability and phonological awareness. A confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that lexical access and word reading efficiency are separate constructs. A subsequent linear regression revealed a concurrent relation between sublexical orthographic knowledge and lexical access beyond controls. Results highlight a unique place for lexical access in reading development theory and help us better understand the specific skills required to read quickly and accurately.

Using an item-specific predictor to test the dimensionality of the orthographic choice task

Article

Jul 2020

The orthographic choice (OC) task—requiring individuals to choose the correct spelling between a word and a pseudohomophone foil (e.g., goat vs. gote)—has been used as an outcome measure of orthographic learning and as a predictor of individual differences in word reading development. Some consider the OC task a measure of orthographic knowledge (e.g., Conrad, Harris, & Williams (Reading and Writing, 26(8), 1223–1239, 2013)), whereas others have suggested that the task measures a reader’s familiarity with the word’s orthographic representation and thus measures word reading skill (e.g., Castles & Nation, 2006). We examined this assertion by testing OC task performance of individuals ages 8 to 18 (J = 296) and their ability to read the OC target words (I = 80) in isolation using crossed random effects item-response models. Results reveal that response on the OC task is not fully determined by the ability of an individual to read the target word in isolation. Specifically, the probability of choosing the correct orthographic form when the word was pronounced incorrectly was .79; whereas it was .90 when the word was pronounced correctly. Measures of receptive spelling and phonemic awareness (person-characteristics) and word frequency and orthographic neighborhood size (item-characteristics) accounted for significant variance in orthographic choice after controlling for target item reading and other reading-related abilities. We interpret the results to suggest that the OC task taps both item-specific orthographic knowledge and more general orthographic knowledge.

Isolierte Rechtschreibstörung - eigenständiges Störungsbild oder leichte Form der Lese-Rechtschreibstörung? Eine Untersuchung der kognitiv-linguistischen Informationsverarbeitungskompetenzen von Kindern mit Schriftspracherwerbsstörungen

Thesis

Full-text available

Jan 2014

Julia Winkes

Orthographic processing and children’s word reading

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2018

Theories of reading development generally agree that, in addition to phonological decoding, some kind of orthographic processing skill underlies the ability to learn to read words. However, there is a lack of clarity as to which aspect(s) of orthographic processing are key in reading development. We test here whether this is orthographic knowledge and/or orthographic learning. Whereas orthographic knowledge has been argued to reflect a child’s existing store of orthographic representations, orthographic learning is concerned with the ability to form these representations. In a longitudinal study of second- and third-grade students, we evaluate the relations between these two aspects of orthographic processing and word-reading outcomes. The results of our analyses show that variance captured by orthographic knowledge overlaps with that of word reading, to the point that they form a single latent word-reading factor. In contrast, orthographic learning is distinctive from this factor. Further, structural equation modeling demonstrates that early orthographic learning was related to gains in word reading skills. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories of word-reading development.

Investigating lexical and sub‐lexical orthographic processing skills in French 3rd and 5th graders

Article

Nov 2018
J RES READ

Background Whether lexical and sub‐lexical orthographic skills relate to each other and to reading was investigated in French 3rd and 5th graders. Methods Two homophone choice tasks were constructed (1) by manipulating the frequency of words sub‐lexical features (choose the correct spelling in boat ‐ bacht vs yacht ‐ yoat ) and (2) by matching items on their sub‐lexical properties ( beach ‐ beech ). More, two orthographic choice tasks measured (1) sensitivity to legal versus illegal sub‐lexical patterns ( rouve ‐ rouvve ) and (2) distributional probabilities ( doat ‐ dacht ). Regular, irregular and pseudoword reading were assessed. Results/Conclusions On the one hand, performances were higher for words with more frequent sub‐lexical features, in favour of an impact of both lexical and sub‐lexical skills in the homophone choice task. This effect was however significant in the grade 3 group only, revealing stronger reliance on sub‐lexical orthographic knowledge during lexical retrieval in the younger group only. On the other hand, performances on orthographic choice tasks improved with grade and revealed to be higher for the task involving all‐or‐none patterns compared with that involving distributional probabilities. Regarding the relationships between this set of measures, the data revealed that the purer measure of lexical orthographic skills significantly correlated with sub‐lexical skills and irregular word reading; yet none of the measures that involved sub‐lexical orthographic skills correlated with reading.

Orthographic knowledge: clarifications, challenges, and future directions

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2019
READ WRIT

Orthographic knowledge is the understanding of how spoken language is represented in print. However, the terms used to describe the two levels of orthographic knowledge, lexical and sublexical orthographic knowledge, have been variably defined and inconsistently measured, potentially contributing to discrepancies in research findings. Dissimilarities in how orthographic knowledge has been operationally defined and measured and the associated differences in tasks used to assess that construct are discussed. As part of that discussion, we relate how some measures assess either implicit or more explicit levels of orthographic knowledge. Using current theories and the existing research, we next provide an argument for how initial development of sublexical orthographic knowledge occurs before lexical orthographic knowledge. Suggestions are provided for what researchers might do in the future to help move the field toward a better understanding of orthographic knowledge. Strategies for assessing orthographic knowledge in literacy research are offered.

Developmental Dyslexia, Reading Acquisition, and Statistical Learning: A Sceptic’s Guide

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2021
BSRCCS

Many theories have been put forward that propose that developmental dyslexia is caused by low-level neural, cognitive, or perceptual deficits. For example, statistical learning is a cognitive mechanism that allows the learner to detect a probabilistic pattern in a stream of stimuli and to generalise the knowledge of this pattern to similar stimuli. The link between statistical learning and reading ability is indirect, with intermediate skills, such as knowledge of frequently co-occurring letters, likely being causally dependent on statistical learning skills and, in turn, causing individual variation in reading ability. We discuss theoretical issues regarding what a link between statistical learning and reading ability actually means and review the evidence for such a deficit. We then describe and simulate the “noisy chain hypothesis”, where each intermediary link between a proposed cause and the end-state of reading ability reduces the correlation coefficient between the low-level deficit and the end-state outcome of reading. We draw the following conclusions: (1) Empirically, there is evidence for a correlation between statistical learning ability and reading ability, but there is no evidence to suggest that this relationship is causal, (2) theoretically, focussing on a complete causal chain between a distal cause and developmental dyslexia, rather than the two endpoints of the distal cause and reading ability only, is necessary for understanding the underlying processes, (3) statistically, the indirect nature of the link between statistical learning and reading ability means that the magnitude of the correlation is diluted by other influencing variables, yielding most studies to date underpowered, and (4) practically, it is unclear what can be gained from invoking the concept of statistical learning in teaching children to read.

Developmental dyslexia, reading acquisition, and statistical learning: A skeptic’s guide

Preprint

Full-text available

Aug 2021

Many theories have been put forward that propose that developmental dyslexia is caused by low-level neural, cognitive or perceptual deficits. For example, statistical learning is a cognitive mechanism which allows the learner to detect a probabilistic pattern in a stream of stimuli, and to generalise the knowledge of this pattern to similar stimuli. The link between statistical learning and reading ability is indirect, with intermediate skills, such as knowledge of frequently co-occurring letters, likely being causally dependent on statistical learning skills and, in turn, causing individual variation in reading ability. We discuss theoretical issues regarding what a link between statistical learning and reading ability actually means, and review the evidence for such a deficit. We then describe and simulate the “Noisy Chain Hypothesis”, where each intermediary link between a proposed cause and the end-state of reading ability reduces the correlation coefficient between the low-level deficit and the end-state outcome of reading. We draw the following conclusions: (1) Empirically, there is evidence for a correlation between statistical learning ability and reading ability, but there is no evidence to suggest that this relationship is causal, (2) theoretically, focusing on a complete causal chain between a distal cause and developmental dyslexia, rather than the two end points of the distal cause and reading ability only, is necessary for understanding the underlying processes, (3) statistically, the indirect nature of the link between statistical learning and reading ability means that the magnitude of the correlation is diluted by other influencing variables, yielding most studies to date underpowered, and (4) practically, it is unclear what can be gained from invoking the concept of statistical learning in teaching children to read.

Phonology-independent general orthographic knowledge

Article

Full-text available

May 2021

While reading is among the most important and well-researched topics of developmental psychology, sublexical regularities and how these regularities relate to reading skills have attracted less interest so far. This study tested general orthographic knowledge (GOK) using an indirect reaction time (RT)-based task, in which participants had to detect letters appearing within frequent and infrequent letter clusters. The aim of the method was to minimise the roles of phonological activation and metalinguistic decision. Three different age-groups of German-speaking individuals were tested: first graders ( N = 60), third graders ( N = 68), and adults ( N = 44). Orthographic regularity affected RTs in all three groups, with significantly lower RTs for frequent than for infrequent clusters. The indirect measure of GOK did not show an association with reading measures in first graders and adults, but in the case of third graders it explained variance over and above age and phonological skills. This study provides evidence for phonology-independent GOK, at least in third graders.

Orthographic learning of novel words in adults: Effects of exposure and visual attention on eye movements

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2020

Eye movement monitoring was used to explore the time course of orthographic learning in adult skilled readers while they read novel words presented in isolation one, three or five times. Offline measures of spelling-to-dictation and orthographic decision were used to measure orthographic memorisation. Further, the participants' visual attention span was estimated. Results showed better memorisation of new words' orthography with additional exposures. An exposure-by-exposure in-depth analysis of eye movements revealed an early sharper decrease for the number of fixations and most measures of processing time. Participants with a higher visual attention span showed better performance in orthographic decision and processing times. The overall findings suggest that orthographic learning occurs from the first exposure and that top-down effects from the newly acquired orthographic knowledge would facilitate processing from the second exposure. Further, time needed for bottom-up information extraction appears to be modulated by visual attention span.

Developmental Changes in the Relationship Between Character Reading Ability and Orthographic Awareness in Chinese

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2019

The present study examined developmental changes, over a 6-year period, in the relationship between character reading ability and orthographic awareness in Chinese from the first year of kindergarten to the third year of primary school in two separate samples: the kindergarten sample of 96 children was assessed three times in the first, second, and third years of kindergarten (K1, K2, K3) with 12-month intervals. The primary school sample of 204 children was assessed four times in the first and second semesters of grade 1 (P1-S1; P1-S2), first semester of grade 2 (P2-S1) and grade 3 (P3-S1), with the first three waves at 6-month intervals and the final wave at 12-month interval. Cross-lagged path analysis showed three developmental stages of the relationship between Chinese character reading and orthographic awareness. At stage 1, reading ability in K1 and K2 predicted subsequent orthographic awareness in K2 and K3. At stage 2, there was a bidirectional relationship between character reading and orthographic awareness from P1-S1 to P1-S2. At stage 3, orthographic awareness at P1-S2 and P2-S1 predicted subsequent character reading ability at P2-S1 and P3-S1, but the prediction from reading to orthographic awareness vanished at this stage. The results depict a full developmental picture of the changed relationship between Chinese character reading and orthographic awareness over time. Beginning readers demonstrated impressive abilities in discovering or extracting orthographic regularities with increased reading ability.

Developmental changes in the relationship between character reading ability and orthographic awareness in Chinese I n r e v i e w Conflict of interest statement Ethics statements

Article

Oct 2019

Word count: 228 The present study examined developmental changes, over a six-year period, in the relationship between character reading ability and orthographic awareness in Chinese from the first year of kindergarten to the third year of primary school in two separate samples: the kindergarten sample of 96 children was assessed three times in the first, second and third years of kindergarten (K1, K2, K3) with 12-month intervals. The primary school sample of 204 children was assessed four times in the first and second semesters of grade 1 (P1-S1; P1-S2), first semester of grade 2 (P2-S1) and grade 3 (P3-S1), with the first three waves at 6-month intervals and the final wave at 12-month interval. Cross-lagged path analysis showed three developmental stages of the relationship between Chinese character reading and orthographic awareness. At stage 1, reading ability in K1 and K2 predicted subsequent orthographic awareness in K2 and K3. At stage 2, there was a bidirectional relationship between character reading and orthographic awareness from P1-S1 to P1-S2. At stage 3, orthographic awareness at P1-S2 and P2-S1 predicted subsequent character reading ability at P2-S1 and P3-S1, but the prediction from reading to orthographic awareness vanished at this stage. The results depict a full developmental picture of the changed relationship between Chinese character reading and orthographic awareness over time. Beginning readers demonstrated impressive abilities in discovering or extracting orthographic regularities with increased reading ability. Contribution to the field • The present study examined developmental changes, over a six-year period, in the relationship between character reading ability and orthographic awareness in Chinese from the first year of kindergarten to the third year of primary school (i.e., K1, K2, K3, P1, P2, P3) in two separate samples of kindergarteners and primary school graders. • Cross-lagged path analysis showed three developmental stages of the relationship between Chinese character reading and orthographic awareness, which are novel findings in the field. • At stage 1, reading ability in K1 and K2 predicted subsequent orthographic awareness in K2 and K3. • At stage 2, there was a bidirectional relationship between character reading and orthographic awareness in P1. • At stage 3, orthographic awareness at P1 and P2 predicted subsequent character reading ability at P2 and P3, but the prediction from reading to orthographic awareness vanished at this stage.

EPS mid-career prize lecture 2017: Writing systems, reading, and language

Article

Feb 2019

Kathleen Rastle

Skilled reading reflects an accumulation of experience with written language. Written language is typically viewed as an expression of spoken language, and this perspective has motivated approaches to understanding reading and reading acquisition. However, in this article, I develop the proposal that written language has diverged from spoken language in important ways that maximise the transmission of meaningful information, and that this divergence has been central to the development of rapid, skilled reading. I use English as an example to show that weaknesses in the relationship between spelling and sound can give rise to strong regularities between spelling and meaning that are critical for the rapid analysis of printed words. I conclude by arguing that the nature of the reading system is a reflection of the writing system and that a deep understanding of reading can be obtained only through a deep understanding of written language.

Ending the Reading Wars: Reading Acquisition From Novice to Expert

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2018
Psychol Sci Publ Interest

There is intense public interest in questions surrounding how children learn to read and how they can best be taught. Research in psychological science has provided answers to many of these questions but, somewhat surprisingly, this research has been slow to make inroads into educational policy and practice. Instead, the field has been plagued by decades of “reading wars.” Even now, there remains a wide gap between the state of research knowledge about learning to read and the state of public understanding. The aim of this article is to fill this gap. We present a comprehensive tutorial review of the science of learning to read, spanning from children’s earliest alphabetic skills through to the fluent word recognition and skilled text comprehension characteristic of expert readers. We explain why phonics instruction is so central to learning in a writing system such as English. But we also move beyond phonics, reviewing research on what else children need to learn to become expert readers and considering how this might be translated into effective classroom practice. We call for an end to the reading wars and recommend an agenda for instruction and research in reading acquisition that is balanced, developmentally informed, and based on a deep understanding of how language and writing systems work.

Incidental orthographic learning during a color detection task

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2017
COGNITION

Orthographic learning refers to the acquisition of knowledge about specific spelling patterns forming words and about general biases and constraints on letter sequences. It is thought to occur by strengthening simultaneously activated visual and phonological representations during reading. Here we demonstrate that a visual perceptual learning procedure that leaves no time for articulation can result in orthographic learning evidenced in improved reading and spelling performance. We employed task-irrelevant perceptual learning (TIPL), in which the stimuli to be learned are paired with an easy task target. Assorted line drawings and difficult-to-spell words were presented in red color among sequences of other black-colored words and images presented in rapid succession, constituting a fast-TIPL procedure with color detection being the explicit task. In five experiments, Greek children in Grades 4–5 showed increased recognition of words and images that had appeared in red, both during and after the training procedure, regardless of within-training testing, and also when targets appeared in blue instead of red. Significant transfer to reading and spelling emerged only after increased training intensity. In a sixth experiment, children in Grades 2–3 showed generalization to words not presented during training that carried the same derivational affixes as in the training set. We suggest that reinforcement signals related to detection of the target stimuli contribute to the strengthening of orthography-phonology connections beyond earlier levels of visually-based orthographic representation learning. These results highlight the potential of perceptual learning procedures for the reinforcement of higher-level orthographic representations.

Phonological and orthographic processing in deaf readers during recognition of written and fingerspelled words in Spanish and English

Thesis

Full-text available

Nov 2022

Laura Monroy

The role of phonological and orthographic access during word recognition, as well as its developmental trajectory in deaf readers is still a matter of debate. This thesis examined how phonological and orthographic information is used during written and fingerspelled word recognition by three groups of deaf readers: 1) adult readers of English, 2) adult and 3) young readers of Spanish. I also investigated whether the size of the orthographic and phonological effects was related to reading skill and other related variables: vocabulary, phonological awareness, speechreading and fingerspelling abilities. A sandwich masked priming paradigm was used to assess automatic phonological (pseudohomophone priming; Experiments 1-3) and orthographic (transposed-letter priming; Experiments 4–6) effects in all groups during recognition of single written words. To examine fingerspelling processing, pseudohomophone (Experiments 7–9) and transposed-letter (Experiments 10-12) effects were examined in lexical decision tasks with fingerspelled video stimuli. Phonological priming effects were found for adult deaf readers of English. Interestingly, for deaf readers of Spanish only those young readers with a small vocabulary size showed phonological priming. Conversely, orthographic masked priming was found in adult deaf readers of English and Spanish as well as young deaf readers with large vocabulary size. Reading ability was only correlated to the orthographic priming effect (in accuracy) in the adult deaf readers of English. Fingerspelled pseudohomophones took longer than control pseudowords to reject as words in the adult deaf readers of English and in the young deaf readers of Spanish with a small vocabulary, suggesting sensitivity to speech phonology in these groups. The findings suggest greater reliance on phonology by less skilled deaf readers of both Spanish and English. Additionally, they suggest greater reliance on phonology during both word and fingerspelling processing in deaf readers of a language with a deeper orthography (English), than by expert readers of a shallow orthography (Spanish).

Reading dysfluency in Russian-German biliterate adults: Letter processing speed is a bottleneck

Preprint

Full-text available

Apr 2022

Anecdotal evidence suggests that biliterates who had limited exposure to one of their scripts during childhood often struggle to develop reading fluency. Reading fluency is a prerequisite for fluent reading and comprehension. Here, we investigate reading dysfluency and its causes in 70 biliterate adults reading while processing Cyrillic and Latin scripts. We confirm that most participants indeed struggle to develop fluency if they have not had exposure to a script from childhood. We test three potential bottlenecks: letter processing, orthographic coding efficiency, and word-specific knowledge. We find that speed depends on the first of these bottlenecks. This has likely knock-on effects on orthographic processing and word-specific knowledge, which in turn slows down the reading process. This finding suggests that reading instructions for adults should be supplemented by training of letter processing.

Orthographic knowledge: a predictor or an outcome of word reading and spelling in bilingual children?

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2022
READ WRIT

Orthographic knowledge is predicted to be central in the process of children’s reading development. We examined both the temporal order between orthographic knowledge and each of word reading and word spelling—effectively, which predicts which by including autoregressive controls— and cross-linguistic transfer between English and French for our emerging bilingual participants. Seven-three children (36 males) were followed from Grades 1 to 3 in a French immersion program in which instruction was entirely in French. We conducted cross-lagged panel models of orthographic knowledge, word reading, and spelling that included controls of phonological awareness, non-verbal ability. In terms of temporal order, word reading (at grade 1) and word spelling (at grade 2) predicted gains in each of English and French orthographic knowledge. In contrast, early orthographic knowledge did not predict gains in word reading or word spelling in either language. In terms of transfer, from their earliest point of measurement, English word reading and spelling consistently predicted later French orthographic knowledge; French word reading and spelling contributed to English orthographic knowledge only from Grade 2. These findings illustrate a dynamic picture of the relations between orthographic knowledge and word reading and spelling both within and across languages, informing current models of each reading with both monolinguals and bilinguals.

Probabilistic modeling of orthographic learning based on visuo-attentional dynamics

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2022

How is orthographic knowledge acquired? In line with the self-teaching hypothesis, most computational models assume that phonological recoding has a pivotal role in orthographic learning. However, these models make simplifying assumptions on the mechanisms involved in visuo-orthographic processing. Against evidence from eye movement data during orthographic learning, they assume that orthographic information on novel words is immediately available and accurately encoded after a single exposure. In this paper, we describe BRAID-Learn, a new computational model of orthographic learning. BRAID-Learn is a probabilistic and hierarchical model that incorporates the mechanisms of visual acuity, lateral interference, and visual attention involved in word recognition. Orthographic learning in the model rests on three main mechanisms: first, visual attention moves over the input string to optimize the gain of information on letter identity at each fixation; second, top-down lexical influence is modulated as a function of stimulus familiarity; third, after exploration, perceived information is used to create a new orthographic representation or stabilize a better-specified representation of the input word. BRAID-Learn was challenged on its capacity to simulate the eye movement patterns reported in humans during incidental orthographic learning. In line with the behavioral data, the model predicts a larger decline with exposures in number of fixations and processing time for novel words than for known words. For novel words, most changes occur between the first and second exposure, that is to say, after creation in memory of a new orthographic representation. Beyond phonological recoding, our results suggest that visuo-attentional exploration is an intrinsic portion of orthographic learning seldom taken into consideration by models or theoretical accounts.

La mémorisation de l’orthographe des mots lus en CM2 : effet du traitement visuel simultané

Article

Jun 2012

Development of Reading Comprehension in Bilingual and Monolingual Children—Effects of Language Exposure

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2021

The current study aimed at investigating the performance of bilingual children with English as an additional language (EAL) on language and literacy measures compared to monolinguals across the first four years of primary school in the U.K. Moreover, it addressed whether bilinguals and monolinguals’ performance on reading comprehension was consistent with the Simple View of Reading. An additional area of interest was to examine the extent to which use of and exposure to both heritage and majority language affected the development of the children’s reading comprehension in both of their spoken languages. A total of forty bilingual and forty monolingual children were assessed in oral language skills and decoding in Year 1 and Year 3 in primary school. After one school year, they were assessed in oral language skills, decoding, and reading comprehension in Year 2 and Year 4. The results showed that the bilinguals performed better than the monolinguals in decoding in all years, suggesting that exposure to a first language with transparent orthography (Greek) may benefit the development of word reading skills. However, the bilinguals scored lower in oral language skills and reading comprehension than their monolingual peers. This finding underlined the significant role of oral language skills in the development of bilinguals’ reading comprehension. Both oral language skills and decoding contributed to reading comprehension in bilinguals but the effects of oral language skills on reading comprehension were stronger than the effects of decoding. Finally, we found that language use of the minority language outside the home could significantly predict reading comprehension in the minority language, underlining the importance of language exposure through complementary schools and other activities outside the home to the maintenance and development of the heritage language.

De rol van alfabetische en woord-specifieke kennis in didactiek en interventie van technisch lezen.

Chapter

Sep 2016

Bidirectional Relations among Paired Associate Learning, Language-Specific Skills and Chinese Word Reading in Kindergarten Children

Article

Apr 2021

Research Findings: This study investigated the bidirectional relations among paired associate learning (PAL), language-specific skills and Chinese word reading in kindergarten children from second year (K2) to third year (K3). We tested 204 children on four mapping conditions of PAL (i.e., visual-verbal, verbal-verbal, visual-visual, and verbal-visual), phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge , executive functioning skills of working memory and inhibition, visual-motor integration, and Chinese word reading. Results of cross-lagged panel analysis showed that Chinese word reading uniquely predicted subsequent development of PAL and the language-specific skills of phonological awareness and orthographic knowledge, but not vice versa. Furthermore, the bidirectional associations between PAL and orthographic knowledge were not found in this study. The covariates of inhibition and visual-motor integration were also found to play crucial roles in the development of PAL. Practice or Policy: Together, these findings suggest that the process of learning to read modifies and refines the development of PAL and language-specific skills in beginning readers.

Character and Word Reading in Chinese: Why and How They Should Be Considered Uniquely Vis-à-vis Literacy Development

Article

Feb 2021

Two correlational studies from the same data set demonstrated the distinctiveness of character and word reading for Chinese reading development among 337 Hong Kong Chinese children in grades 1-3. Study 1 examined the cognitive-linguistic correlates of single-character reading and two-character word reading. Rapid automatized naming, morphological awareness and visual-orthographic skill independently explained variance in both character and word reading beyond age, grade, nonverbal IQ and vocabulary knowledge. Importantly, rapid automatized naming and morphological awareness additionally explained variance in word reading even after statistically controlling for character reading; there were no such unique correlates for character reading beyond word reading. Study 2 investigated the roles of character and word reading in reading comprehension. Both were individually significantly associated with reading comprehension even when a multifaceted measure of language comprehension was statistically controlled. Moreover, character reading and language comprehension significantly explained variance in reading comprehension through word reading; word reading and language comprehension uniquely contributed to reading comprehension in the model. Results suggest that character and word reading likely reflect slightly different processes in Chinese literacy: Theoretically, these results underscore the importance of models of reading that integrate unique features of Chinese. Practically, these results suggest that character and word reading may depend on different cognitive-linguistic processes which can be cultivated when teaching them, separately or together.

The longitudinal relationship between early inhibitory control skills and emergent literacy in preschool children

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2021
READ WRIT

This study analyses the longitudinal relationship between early inhibitory control skills and subsequent emergent literacy. At Time 1, a sample of 50 typically monolingual Italian toddlers aged 28 to 36 months in their last year of day-care was assessed on expressive vocabulary and two inhibitory control measures, tapping specifically response inhibition and interference suppression. At Time 2, during the preschool years, children aged 49 to 72 months were re-assessed on a battery of emergent literacy tasks including three phonological awareness tasks and an orthographic knowledge task. The results of the hierarchical linear regression analyses suggest that interference suppression evaluated at Time 1 is a key process in the acquisition and construction of both phonological awareness and early orthographic knowledge, even when children’s early expressive vocabulary was included in the analyses. Unlike previous studies, the present study included very young children, thus allowing us to explore the developmental antecedents of two important precursors of reading and writing abilities.

Silent word-reading fluency is strongly associated with orthotactic sensitivity among elementary school children

Article

May 2021

Some written languages (the so-called “deep orthographies” such as English) have often unpredictable links to word sounds, making some written words difficult to associate with their spoken forms (i.e., to decode), thereby impeding comprehension. To read these languages efficiently for comprehension, readers require visual cues such as predictable spelling patterns (orthotactic conventions). Sensitivity to English orthotactic conventions (e.g., which letters are sometimes doubled, where configurations such as wh can typically be found in a word) was assessed in a cross-sectional sample of children (N = 271, ages 5–11 years) in kindergarten through Grade 5 using a word-likeness task. Orthotactic sensitivity was strongly correlated with silent word-reading fluency, an important reading skill used frequently in daily life to obtain information, and was modestly correlated with lexical spelling recognition. Among fluent decoders of predictable letter–sound relations, orthotactic sensitivity began to emerge prior to formal reading instruction and developed rapidly from kindergarten to Grade 2. About two thirds of dysfluent decoders (a proxy for dyslexia) demonstrated above-chance orthotactic sensitivity; however, their performance lagged behind that of fluent decoders through Grade 5. Orthotactic acquisition, possible reasons for impairment, and classroom implications are discussed.

L'apprentissage de la lecture

Book

Full-text available

Jan 2020

Sylviane Valdois

Tracking the evolution of orthographic expectancies over building visual experience

Article

Nov 2020

Literate children can generate expectations about the spellings of newly learned words that they have not yet seen in print. These initial spelling expectations, or orthographic skeletons, have previously been observed at the first orthographic exposure to known spoken words. Here, we asked what happens to the orthographic skeleton over repeated visual exposures. Children in Grade 4 (N = 38) were taught the pronunciations and meanings of one set of 16 novel words, whereas another set were untrained. Spellings of half the items were predictable from their phonology (e.g., nesh), whereas the other half were less predictable (e.g., koyb). Trained and untrained items were subsequently shown in print, embedded in sentences, and eye movements were monitored as children silently read all items over three exposures. A larger effect of spelling predictability for orally trained items compared with untrained items was observed at the first and second orthographic exposures, consistent with the notion that oral vocabulary knowledge had facilitated the formation of spelling expectations. By the third orthographic exposure, this interaction was no longer significant, suggesting that visual experience had begun to update children’s spelling expectations. Delayed follow-up testing revealed that when visual exposure was equated, oral training provided a strong persisting benefit to children’s written word recognition. Findings suggest that visual exposure can alter children’s developing orthographic representations and that this process can be captured dynamically as children read novel words over repeated visual exposures.

Sight word acquisition in first grade students at risk for reading disabilities: an item-level exploration of the number of exposures required for mastery

Article

Jun 2020

The purpose of this study was to examine word learning efficiency in at-risk first grade students (N = 93) participating in a yearlong study evaluating a multicomponent intervention targeting word reading and decoding skills. As part of each intervention lesson, students participated in a 1 to 3-min sight word reading activity in which high-frequency words were read from a list until mastered, at which point the word dropped off the list. This study explored factors predicting the number of exposures required for item reading mastery (N = 145 words). Specifically, we explored how the number of word exposures required to reach mastery varied as a function of linguistic features of the words and cognitive characteristics of the students. Using item-level crossed-random effects models, we found students required an average of 5.65 exposures for mastery, with word features representing word length, vocabulary grade, and imageability being significant predictors of learning efficiency. We also found a significant interaction between pretest word reading skill and imageability of a word, with this semantic feature being especially important for the poorest readers. Results indicate that in the absence of typical word recognition skills, poor readers tend to rely on other sources of information to learn words, which tend to be related to the semantic features of words.

The Deployment of Young Readers´ Visual Attention across Orthographic Strings: The Influence of Stems and Suffixes

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2020

The goal of the paper was to investigate whether morphological units – stems and suffixes – influence orthographic processing by modulating visual attention demands to the task. Orthographic processing was measured with a visual one-back task requiring letters to be detected within pseudowords not including stems/suffixes, or containing real stems or real suffixes. Fourth grade children (between 9.5 and 10.5 years old) who read in a transparent orthography of a morphologically rich and agglutinative language (Basque) were tested. The results showed that the presence of morphemes in the strings did not improve letter detection performance though it slightly modulated the distribution of visual attention, showing a bias toward the processing of central letters in the presence of a stem. We suggest that the presence of highly regular and recurrent structures prioritizes stem identification, which when achieved, reduces visual attention deployment across the remaining letters.

Learning morphologically complex spoken words: Orthographic expectations of embedded stems are formed prior to print exposure

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2020

It is well known that information from spoken language is integrated into reading processes, but the nature of these links and how they are acquired is less well understood. Recent evidence has suggested that predictions about the written form of newly learned spoken words are already generated prior to print exposure. We extend this work to morphologically complex words and ask whether the information that is available in spoken words goes beyond the mappings between phonology and orthography. Adults were taught the oral form of a set of novel morphologically complex words (e.g., "neshing", "neshed", "neshes"), with a 2nd set serving as untrained items. Following oral training, participants saw the printed form of the novel word stems for the first time (e.g., nesh), embedded in sentences, and their eye movements were monitored. Half of the stems were allocated a predictable and half an unpredictable spelling. Reading times were shorter for orally trained than untrained stems and for stems with predictable rather than unpredictable spellings. Crucially, there was an interaction between spelling predictability and training. This suggests that orthographic expectations of embedded stems are formed during spoken word learning. Reading aloud and spelling tests complemented the eye movement data, and findings are discussed in the context of theories of reading acquisition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Becoming bilingual readers

Thesis

Nov 2018

Cira Chung

The development on transposed-letter effect in English word recognition: Evidence from Late unbalanced Chinese-English bilinguals

Article

Nov 2019
LINGUA

The present study examined the orthographic processing of English visual word recognition in adult Chinese-speaking English learners under the framework of the multiple-route model of reading development. Two groups of adult learners with high and low English proficiency finished a forward-masked lexical decision task. The results showed a complicated scenario on transposed-letter effects, implying that the late unbalanced Chinese-English bilinguals with low English proficiency still needed to adopt a letter-to-letter reading strategy, and that the L2 users with high English proficiency also had not properly developed the fine-grained orthographic route even they had a long experience of English learning in the foreign language learning settings in China. Overall, it is suggested that late unbalanced Chinese-English bilinguals generally follow a path similar to that of native readers in acquiring English visual word recognition skills developed from the letter-to-letter reading strategy to the parallel orthographic processing strategies. However, since L2 users usually have no or limited spoken vocabulary of English before accessing printed words and inadequate supervision in developing L2 word reading skills, their development would be much slower than that of English native speakers.

Children’s reading difficulties, language, and reflections on the simple view of reading

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2019

Kate Nation

Reading comprehension is a complex task which depends on a range of cognitive and linguistic processes. According to the Simple View of Reading, this complexity can be captured as the product of two sets of skills: decoding and linguistic comprehension. The Simple View explains variance in reading comprehension and provides a good framework to guide the classification of reading disorders. This paper discusses how weaknesses in either or both of components of the Simple View are implicated in children’s reading comprehension difficulties. It concludes with reflections on the strengths and limitations of the Simple View as a theoretical and practical framework to guide our understanding of reading comprehension and its development.

Implicit Statistical Learning of Graphotactic Knowledge and Lexical Orthographic Acquisition

Chapter

Feb 2019

Exploring the Space Between Good and Poor Spelling: Orthographic Quality and Reading Speed

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2018

Variations in the accuracy and stability of a word’s spelling can be used to gauge the quality of its underlying orthographic representation. The Lexical Quality Hypothesis (LQH) contends that words with higher quality cognitive representations should be accessed more efficiently than those with lower quality representations. If this is the case, deviations in spelling accuracy and stability should be reflected in differences in reading times. Here, 90 teenage participants read 30 words; reading times were recorded. After a 2-week delay, the students spelled these same words 3 times each to gain a measure of orthographic quality. In line with the LQH, faster reading speeds were observed for words with higher spelling accuracy and stability, even for words that were not always spelled perfectly. To our knowledge, our findings provide the first empirical support for the notion that orthographic quality exists along a continuum, both within and across individuals.

Phonetic radicals, not phonological coding systems, support orthographic learning via self-teaching in Chinese

Article

Mar 2018

According to the self-teaching hypothesis (Share, 1995), phonological decoding is fundamental to acquiring orthographic representations of novel written words. However, phonological decoding is not straightforward in non-alphabetic scripts such as Chinese, where words are presented as characters. Here, we present the first study investigating the role of phonological decoding in orthographic learning in Chinese. We examined two possible types of phonological decoding: the use of phonetic radicals, an internal phonological aid, andthe use of Zhuyin, an external phonological coding system. Seventy-three Grade 2 children were taught the pronunciations and meanings of twelve novel compound characters over four days. They were then exposed to the written characters in short stories, and were assessed on their reading accuracy and on their subsequent orthographic learning via orthographic choice and spelling tasks. The novel characters were assigned three different types of pronunciation in relation to its phonetic radical - (1) a pronunciation that is identical to the phonetic radical in isolation; (2) a common alternative pronunciation associated with the phonetic radical when it appears in other characters; and (3) a pronunciation that is unrelated to the phonetic radical. The presence of Zhuyin was also manipulated. The children read the novel characters more accurately when phonological cues from the phonetic radicals were available and in the presence of Zhuyin. However, only the phonetic radicals facilitated orthographic learning. The findings provide the first empirical evidence of orthographic learning via self-teaching in Chinese, and reveal how phonological decoding functions to support learning in non-alphabetic writing systems.

The Place of Morphology in Learning to Read in English

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2018
CORTEX

Kathleen Rastle

Morphology is a major organising principle of English and other alphabetic languages, but has been largely neglected in theories of reading acquisition. In this article, I develop the view that learning to appreciate morphological relationships may be a vital part of acquiring a direct mapping between printed words and their meanings, represented in the ventral brain pathway of the reading network. I show that morphology provides an important degree of regularity across this mapping in English, and suggest that this regularity is directly associated with irregularity in the mapping between spelling and sound. I further show that while children in primary school display explicit knowledge of morphological relationships, there is scant evidence they show the rapid morphological analysis of printed words that skilled readers exhibit. These findings suggest that the acquisition of long-term morphological knowledge may be associated with the ongoing development of reading expertise. Implications for reading instruction are discussed.

Identifying the unique role of orthographic working memory in a componential model of Hong Kong kindergarteners’ Chinese written spelling

Article

Full-text available

May 2018
READ WRIT

We sought to test a componential model of Chinese written spelling, including the role of orthographic working memory (OWM), among Hong Kong kindergartners. One hundred seventeen kindergartners were recruited. OWM was measured using a visual orthographic judgment and a delayed copying task. Orthographic knowledge, semantic knowledge, and visual–motor skills were assessed via a set of cognitive–linguistic measures. Model comparison yielded the best fitting measurement model, which consisted of four factors, namely, OWM, orthographic knowledge, semantic knowledge, and visual–motor skills. A structural equation model indicated that 79% of the variance in Chinese spelling could be explained by these four factors. OWM was the strongest correlate of Chinese written spelling. These results highlight the fact that OWM is a predominant and distinctive correlate of Chinese written spelling acquisition.

Developing Automaticity in Children with Learning Disabilities: A Functional Perspective Part One: Theory and Assessment

Chapter

Full-text available

Nov 2017

Charles Potter

Orthographic Processing: a "Mid-Level" Vision of Reading

Article

Apr 2017
Q J EXP PSYCHOL

Jonathan Grainger

I will describe how orthographic processing acts as a central interface between visual and linguistic processing during reading, and as such can be considered to be the "mid-level vision" of reading research. In order to make this case, I first summarise the evidence in favour of letter-based word recognition before examining work investigating how orthographic similarities among words influence single word reading. I describe how evidence gradually accumulated against traditional measures of orthographic similarity and the associated theories of orthographic processing, forcing a reconsideration of how letter position information is represented by skilled readers. Then I present the theoretical framework that was developed to explain these findings, with a focus on the distinction between location-specific and location-invariant orthographic representations. Finally, I describe work extending this theoretical framework in two main directions. First, to the realm of reading development, with the aim to specify the key changes in the processing of letters and letter strings that accompany successful learning to read. Second, to the realm of sentence reading, in order to specify how orthographic information can be processed across several words in parallel, and how skilled readers keep track of which letters belong to which words.

The development of orthographic processing skills in children in early French immersion programs

Chapter

Oct 2016

Cognitive Neuroscience Foundations for School Psychologists: Brain-Behavior Relationships in the Classroom

Book

Full-text available

Oct 2022

The influence of L1 script directionality and L2 proficiency on Hanzi learning among Arabic and English learners of L2 Chinese

Article

Mar 2021

The present research investigates the role of L1 script directionality and L2 proficiency on the learning of Hanzi (Chinese characters) by pre-intermediate and intermediate adult Arabic (right to left) and English (left to right) learners of L2 Chinese who studied at their home country. The tasks included reading Hanzi for pronunciation, writing Hanzi according to Pinyin and meaning, and naming pseudo-Hanzi to examine phonetic radical application skills. The results showed that (1) L1 script directionality background only predicted the performance in Hanzi writing, (2) L2 proficiency was a significant predictor in Hanzi reading and Hanzi writing, and (3) L2 proficiency interacted with L1 script directionality background in phonetic radical application skills. These findings suggest that L1 script directionality background and L2 proficiency play different roles in the development of Hanzi literacy skills and orthographic awareness. The theoretical implications for the influence of L1 writing system on L2 learning and the threshold level for the development of orthographic awareness in Hanzi, and the practical implications for Hanzi instruction are discussed.

The effects of spacing and massing on children’s orthographic learning

Article

Feb 2022
J EXP CHILD PSYCHOL

Despite substantial evidence that spacing study opportunities over time improves the retention of learned verbal material compared with study trials that occur consecutively, the influence of temporal spacing on children’s learning of written words has not been investigated. This experiment examined whether temporal spacing influenced Grade 3 and 4 children’s (N = 37; mean age = 8 years 7 months) learning of novel written words during independent reading compared with massing. Children read 16 sentences containing a novel word under either a spaced (sentences appeared once in each of four blocks) or massed conditions (four consecutive trials). After a delay, orthographic learning was assessed using recognition (orthographic choice) and recall (spelling to dictation) measures. Words experienced in the spaced condition were better recognized than those in the massed condition, but there was no effect on recall. These findings suggest that temporal spacing influences the acquisition of new written word forms, extending the potential utility of the spacing principle to reading acquisition.

Chapter 19. Cognitive-linguistic skills and reading and writing in Korean Hangul, Chinese Hanja, and English among Korean children

Chapter

Jun 2018

Jeung-Ryeul Cho

“Zooming in” on orthographic knowledge to clarify the relationship between rapid automatised naming (RAN) and word reading

Article

Aug 2019
LEARN INDIVID DIFFER

Studies of relationships between orthographic knowledge (OK), rapid automatised naming (RAN) and reading have yielded mixed results due to inconsistency in measures used, the definition of OK and group characteristics. We comprehensively examined OK (MGR; mental graphemic representations and GOK; generic orthographic knowledge, accuracy/efficiency); alpha/non-alphanumeric RAN (ANRAN/NANRAN) and word reading (accuracy/efficiency) with control for nonverbal reasoning and phonological awareness. In 169 Grade 6 children, ANRAN uniquely influenced MGR (accuracy/efficiency), with NANRAN influencing only GOK efficiency. ANRAN/NANRAN influenced word reading efficiency directly/indirectly through MGR efficiency. We observed similar direct/indirect effects on word reading accuracy from ANRAN and MGR accuracy but only indirect influence from NANRAN through MGR accuracy. Further analyses indicated that RAN and OK relate reciprocally when influencing word reading. Our inference that both RAN and OK types, especially ANRAN and MGR, influence word reading by interactively and differentially accessing the same neural substrata as reading, should inform future research and intervention.

The role of metalinguistic and socio-cognitive factors in reading skill

Chapter

Full-text available

Dec 2017

Orthographic development of French children exposedto different teaching practices

Article

Dec 2017

Fabiane Puntel Basso

This article aims at understanding how children's orthographic performance is improved in two classes of Preparatory Course (CP) exposed to contrasting teaching methods of reading-writing. The study took place in two primary schools, located in Grenoble-France region. Longitudinal orthographic assessments were performed in two classes (A and B) to analyze orthographic knowledge throughout the school year. The written outputs of the children were analyzed in order to determine the orthographic level, the types of words used, the nature of the procedures and the effect of the words frequency. The results showed that children in class B, exposed to a balanced teaching of several didactic and pedagogical strategies encompassing the meaning and the code, respected more the orthographic constraints in the tests. The performance gap between the two classes widened over the course of the school year. In both classes, erroneous spellings decreased throughout the year, while approximate spelling and orthographic increased. Errors of omission and substitution were most pronounced at the beginning and at the end of the year. The analysis of the word frequency factor indicates that the pupils from class B wrote more orthographically the very frequent words. For students in class A the effect of word frequency was not observed. These results provide a basis for discussion on the question of the development of orthographic learning in different teaching contexts.

Quick, automatic, and general activation of orthographic and phonological representations in young readers

Article

Full-text available

Jan 1999

Second through 6th graders were presented with nonword primes (orthographic, pseudohomophone, and control) and target words displayed for durations (30 and 60 ms) that were brief enough to prevent complete processing. Word reading skills were assessed by 3 word and nonword naming tasks. Good readers exhibited more orthographic priming than poor readers at both durations and more pseudohomophone priming at the short duration only. This suggests that good readers activate letter and phonemic information more efficiently than poor readers. Good readers also exhibited an equal amount of priming at both durations, whereas poor readers showed greater priming at the longer duration. This suggests that activation was not under strategic control. Finally, priming was reliable for both high- and low-frequency targets. This suggests that readers activate consistent information regardless of target word characteristics. Thus, quick, automatic, and general activation of orthographic and phonological information in skilled readers results from the precision and redundancy of their lexical representations.

Use of orthography in reading and learning to read

Chapter

Full-text available

Mar 1980

Implicit Learning Out Of the Lab: The Case of Orthographic Regularities

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2001

Children's (Grades 1 to 5) implicit learning of French orthographic regularities were investigated through nonword judgment (Experiments 1 and 2) and completion (Experiments 3a and 3b) tasks. Children were increasingly sensitive to (a) the frequency of double consonants (Experiments 1, 2 and 3a), (b) the fact that vowels can never be doubled (Experiment 2) and (c) the legal position of double consonants (Experiments 2 and 3b). The later effect transferred to never doubled consonants, although with a decrement in performance. Moreover, this decrement persisted without any trend towards fading even after the massive amounts of experience provided by years of practice. This result runs against the idea that transfer to novel material is indicative of abstract rule-based knowledge, and suggests instead the action of mechanisms sensitive to the statistical properties of the material. A connectionist model is proposed as an instantiation of such mechanisms.

Converging evidence for the concept of orthographic processing

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2001

Six different measures of orthographic processing (three different letter string choice tasks, two orthographic choice tasks, and a homophone choice task) were administered to thirty-nine children who had also been administered the word recognition subtest of the Metropolitan Achievement Test and a comprehensive battery of tasks assessing phonological processing skill (four measures of phonological sensitivity, nonword repetition, and pseudoword reading). The six orthographic tasks displayed moderate convergence – forming one reasonably coherent factor. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that a composite measure of orthographic processing skill predicted variance in word recognition after variance accounted for by the phonological processing measures had been partialed out. A measure of print exposure predicted variance in orthographic processing after the variance in phonological processing had been partialed out.

Beneath the surface of developmental dyslexia

Article

Full-text available

Jan 1985

Uta Frith

Connectionist and Statistical Approaches to Language Acquisition: A Distributional Perspective

Article

Full-text available

Jun 1998

We propose that one important role for connectionist research in language acquisition is analysing what linguistic information is present in the child' s input. Recent connectionist and statistical work analysing the properties of real language corpora suggest that a priori objections against the utility of distributional information for the child are misguided. We illustrate our argument with examples of connectionist and statistical corpus-based research on phonology, segmentation, morphology, word classes, phrase structure, and lexical semantics. We discuss how this research relates to other empirical and theoretical approaches to the study of language acquisition.

Transfer of implicit knowledge across domains: How implicit and how abstract?

Article

Full-text available

Oct 1997

The Nonword Reading Deficit in Developmental Dyslexia: A Review

Article

Full-text available

Jan 1992

The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.

Tracking the Unique Effects of Print Exposure in Children: Associations With Vocabulary, General Knowledge, and Spelling

Article

Full-text available

Jun 1991

This study assessed the construct validity of a recently introduced measure of children's exposure to print, the Title Recognition Test (TRT). In samples of 4th-, 5th-, and 6th-grade children, the TRT demonstrated significant correlations with spelling, vocabulary, verbal fluency, word knowledge, and general information. Most important, it accounted for variance in these criterion variables when differences in both general ability and phonological coding ability were controlled. Although correlational, the latter result suggests that print exposure is an independent contributor to the development of verbal abilities. Studies of the cognitive consequences of differing amounts of print exposure could be facilitated by the use of this easily administered indicator. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Assessing Print Exposure and Orthographic Processing Skill in Children: A Quick Measure of Reading Experience

Article

Full-text available

Dec 1990

In a study of 3rd- and 4th-grade children it was established that orthographic processing ability can account for variance in word recognition skill after the variance due to phonological processing has been partialed out. This independent orthographic variance was related to performance on a new measure of individual differences in exposure to print, the Title Recognition Test, that has a very brief administration time. Additionally, some of the orthographic processing variance linked to word recognition ability was not shared with either phonological processing measures or with print exposure. The results of the study were supportive of the idea that there are individual differences in word recognition ability caused by variation in orthographic processing abilities that are in part determined by print exposure differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Matthew Effects in Reading: Some Consequences of Individual Differences in the Acquisition of Literacy

Article

Full-text available

Sep 1986
READ RES QUART

Keith E Stanovich

A FRAMEWORK for conceptualizing the development of individual differences in reading ability is presented that synthesizes a great deal of the research literature. The framework places special emphasis on the effects of reading on cognitive development and on "bootstrapping" relationships involving reading. Of key importance are the concepts of reciprocal relationships-situations where the causal connection between reading ability and the efficiency of a cognitive process is bidirectional-and organism-environment correlation-the fact that differentially advantaged organisms are exposed to nonrandom distributions of environmental quality. Hypotheses are advanced to explain how these mechanisms operate to create rich-getricher and poor-get-poorer patterns of reading achievement. The framework is used to explicate some persisting problems in the literature on reading disability and to conceptualize remediation efforts in reading.

Subtypes of Developmental Dyslexia and Lexical Acquisition

Article

Full-text available

Feb 1996
AUST J PSYCHOL

Although much has been learned about the nature and etiology of impairments in sublexical translation skills, less is known about the difficulties of children who are poor at recognising words as whole orthographic units. In the research described here, an attempt was made to look closely at the process these poor readers go through when trying to acquire new lexical information. Groups of poor readers were required to learn the pronunciations of a set of “irregular” nonsense words over a series of training sessions. There was an imperfect correspondence between the orthographic and phonological forms of these items, so grapheme-phoneme conversion rules could not be used (e. g., macht was pronounced “mot”). The results indicated that this learning task distinguishes between poor readers with a specific lexical deficit and those with a different type of reading difficulty. Ways in which this kind of task might usefully be employed in future research in this area are discussed.

Studies in the Acquisition Procedure for Reading: Rationale, Hypotheses, and Data

Chapter

Nov 2017

Brian Byrne

Matthew Effects in Reading: Some Consequences of Individual Differences in the Acquisition of Literacy

Article

Jan 2009

Keith E Stanovich

A framework for conceptualizing the development of individual differences in reading ability is presented that synthesizes a great deal of the research literature. The framework places special emphasis on the effects of reading on cognitive development and on “bootstrapping” relationships involving reading. Of key importance are the concepts of reciprocal relationships—situations where the causal connection between reading ability and the efficiency of a cognitive process is bidirectional-and organism-environment correlation—the fact that differentially advantaged organisms are exposed to nonrandom distributions of environmental quality. Hypotheses are advanced to explain how these mechanisms operate to create rich-get-richer and poor-get-poorer patterns of reading achievement. The framework is used to explicate some persisting problems in the literature on reading disability and to conceptualize remediation efforts in reading.

The Increasingly Inextricable Relationship between Orthographic and Phonological Coding in Learning to Read: Some Reservations about Current Methods of Operationalizing Orthographic Coding

Chapter

Jan 1995

Unlike phonological coding, orthographic coding as a psychological construct is not well understood and has not been well defined. Currently, the most often used tasks to measure orthographic coding include orthographic choice (“which is a real word?”—rain, rune), homophone choice (“which is a number?”—ate, eight), spelling recognition (time, tient, tihm, teirn) and, more recently, spelling from dictation. In the present chapter, we express our reservations about using these measures because, in our opinion, they evaluate word identification and/or spelling ability rather than orthographic coding as a basic cognitive process that underlies word identification and spelling ability. We present research findings from our laboratory and review research done elsewhere to support our reservations. We also point out the risk of using only reading level match designs in evaluating orthographic coding effects. Using our data, we show that matching samples based on one reading variable creates a mismatch on another, and that interpretations of the findings based on exclusive employment of this type of design are inevitably problematic. We also discuss research that shows that matching poor and normal readers on tests that depend heavily on word specific knowledge, in particular tests of word identification and/or spelling ability, will tend to equate these groups on orthographic coding tasks that also depend heavily on word specific knowledge, while matching them on tests that depend heavily on pseudoword decoding ability will tend to equate them on orthographic coding tasks that also depend heavily on general orthographic knowledge.

Introduction to the Varieties of Orthographic Knowledge I: Theoretical and Developmental Issues

Chapter

Jan 1994

Virginia W. Berninger

Visual processes in reading have been studied for over a century by experimental psychologists and neuropsychologists (Venezky, 1993). However, advances in psycholinguistics over the past two decades led to a relative focus on the linguistic aspects of reading, particularly the phonological processes involved, and a relative neglect of the visual processes. Recently interest in the visual processes involved in reading and writing the orthography of the language has reappeared (Willows, Kruk, & Corcos, 1993), but the lack of consensus on how to define orthographic processes and measure them has impeded progress.

Modelling reading: The dual-route approach

Article

Jan 2005

M. Coltheart

The Nature of Phonological Processing and Its Causal Role in the Acquisition of Reading Skills

Article

Mar 1987

Three bodies of research that have developed in relative isolation center on each of three kinds of phonological processing: phonological awareness, awareness of the sound structure of language; phonological recoding in lexical access, recoding written symbols into a sound-based representational system to get from the written word to its lexical referent; and phonetic recoding in working memory, recoding written symbols into a sound-based representational system to maintain them efficiently in working memory. In this review we integrate these bodies of research and address the interdependent issues of the nature of phonological abilities and their causal roles in the acquisition of reading skills. Phonological ability seems to be general across tasks that purport to measure the three kinds of phonological processing, and this generality apparently is independent of general cognitive ability. However, the generality of phonological ability is not complete, and there is an empirical basis for distinguishing phonological awareness and phonetic recoding in working memory. Our review supports a causal role for phonological awareness in learning to read, and suggests the possibility of similar causal roles for phonological recoding in lexical access and phonetic recoding in working memory. Most researchers have neglected the probable causal role of learning to read in the development of phonological skills. It is no longer enough to ask whether phonological skills play a causal role in the acquisition of reading skills. The question now is which aspects of phonological processing (e.g., awareness, recoding in lexical access, recoding in working memory) are causally related to which aspects of reading (e.g., word recognition, word analysis, sentence comprehension), at which point in their codevelopment, and what are the directions of these causal relations?

The Development of Orthographic Processing Ability

Chapter

Jan 1994

When children learn to read, their success is determined by a number of factors. Some determinants of success are found in the environment, including the intensity, duration, and quality of the reading instruction provided, and the nature of the oral and written language the child must attempt to master. Other determinants of success are found within the child. Examples include maturational readiness (the majority of 6-year-olds can learn to read whereas few 2-year-olds can), fluency in oral language, and an interest in reading (for summaries of the reading literature, see Adams, 1990; Crowder & Wagner, 1991; Rayner & Pollatsek, 1989). During the past decade, a great deal of progress has been made in our understanding of beginning reading in general, and in the areas of phonological and orthographic knowledge and processing in particular.

Phonological Skills and Learning to Read

Book

Jan 1990

This book sets out to integrate recent exciting research on the precursors of reading and early reading strategies adopted by children in the classroom. It aims to develop a theory about why early phonological skills are crucial in learning to read, and shows how phonological knowledge about rhymes and other units of sound helps children learn about letter sequences when beginning to be taught to read. The authors begin by contrasting theories which suggest that children's phonological awareness is a result of the experience of learning to read and those that suggest that phonological awareness precedes, and is a causal determinant of, reading. The authors argue for a version of the second kind of theory and show that children are aware of speech units, called onset and rime, before they learn to read and spell. An important part of the argument is that children make analogies and inferences about these letter sequences in order to read and write new words.

Neighbourhood Effects on Masked Form Priming in Developing Readers

Article

Apr 1999

The processing of a written word can be facilitated by the brief prior presentation of an orthographically similar stimulus. However, for adults, this masked form-priming effect does not occur if the target looks like many other words (i.e. if it has many neighbours). The usual interpretation of this result is that the adult word recognition system is tuned to the differing discrimination demands of words: If a word looks like many others, a more precise recognition procedure is required than if it is orthographically distinctive. This theory has developmental implications: Children should show more form priming for high neighbourhood words than adults and should show a gradual reduction in priming as their written vocabularies become larger. Masked form priming was examined in three groups of developing readers, from grades 2, 4 and 6, and a group of adults. In a lexical decision task, the children showed significantly greater priming overall than the adults for high N words. However, the predicted gradual attenuation across age was not found. Supplementary analyses suggested that the adaptation to lexical density may not occur until a somewhat more advanced stage of reading than we had first expected.

An examination of familial resemblance among subgroups of dyslexics

Article

Jan 1990
ANN DYSLEXIA

The goal of the present study was to ascertain whether developmental dyslexics and their affected parents evinced similar patterns of deficits in word recognition skills. Forty dyslexic children and both their biological parents were administered a battery of experimental measures of phonological and orthographic processing. Deficits in component skills were defined in terms of deviations from the performance of normal readers matched on reading achievement level. Four distinct patterns of deficits were found among both the dyslexics and their parents: a subgroup with a specific deficit in processing phonological codes; a subgroup with a specific deficit in processing orthographic codes; a subgroup with deficits in processing both phonological and orthographic codes; and a subgroup of individuals who did not significantly differ from normal readers at the same reading level in either processing domain. Although limited evidence for familial subgroup concordance was obtained in both the phonological and combined phonological subgroups, no concordance was observed among families classified into the orthographic or reading-achievement equivalent subgroups. It was concluded that all affected family members shared a propensity for a phonological deficit, and that some family members share a fundamental problem in processing orthographic information as well.

Content Coverage and Contextual Reading in Reading Groups

Article

Jun 1984

Richard Allington

Teacher logs for 600 reading group sessions from grades 1, 3, and 5 were analyzed in an effort to identify whether the amount and mode of assigned contextual reading differed systematically between reading groups. Analyses indicated that groups designated as good readers read more total words and more words silently than groups designated as poor readers (p < .01). There were, however, no significant differences in the number of words read orally by the two groups, which indicated that the greater amounts of silent reading done by good reader groups account primarily for differences in amount of contextual reading noted. These data reinforce and extend the findings of other research on differences in content coverage and the pacing of students through reading materials.

The Role of Orthographic Processing Skills on Five Different Reading Tasks

Article

Oct 1992

The unique contribution of orthographic processing skills to individual differences on five types of reading measures was examined using a sample of 87 third-grade children. The reading measures included nonword reading, untimed isolated word identification, timed word identification, oral reading rate for text, and silent reading rate for text. The role of orthographic skills in each of these measures was examined in a series of hierarchical regression analyses in which measures of orthographic skills were entered after age, IQ, and phonological ability measures. Orthographic skills contributed significantly to each type of reading, but their role in reading of text was stronger than for isolated words. A second series of analyses showed that, while differences in print exposure can explain part of the meaningful variation in orthographic skills, significant variation still remains after print exposure is partialed out of the regressions. /// [French] On a examiné la contribution spécifique des savoir-faire orthographiques sur les différences individuelles dans cinq types de mesure de la lecture avec un échantillon de quatre vingt sept enfants de 3° année. Les mesures de lecture comportaient la lecture de non mots, l'identification en temps libre de mots isolés, l'identification de mots en temps limité, la vitesse de lecture orale d'un texte, et la vitesse de lecture silencieuse d'un texte. On a examiné le rôle que jouent les savoir-faire orthographiques sur chacune de ces mesures dans une série d'analyses de régression hiérarchiques dans lesquelles les mesures de savoir-faire orthographique ont été entrées après l'àge, le QI, et des mesurs de compétence phonologique. Les savoir-faire orthographiques ont contribué de manière significative à chaque type de lecture, mais leur rôle dans la lecture de texte est plus fort que pour des mots isolés. Une seconde série d'analyses a montré que, quoique les différences dans le temps d'exposition puissent expliquer une partie des variations significatives des savoir-faire orthographiques, il demeure une variation significative même quand le temps d'exposition est un partie exclu des régressions. /// [Spanish] La contribución única de las habilidades de procesamiento ortográfico a las diferencias individuales en cinco tipos de medidas de lectura fue examinada usando una muestra de 87 niños de tercer grado. Las medidas de lectura incluyeron lectura de pseudopalabras, identificatión de palabras aisladas sin medir tiempo, identificación de palabras midiendo tiempo, velocidad de lectura oral de texto y velocidad de lectura en silencio de texto. El rol de las habilidades ortográficas en cada una de estas medidas fue examinado en una serie de análisis de regresión jerárquicos en los que las medidas de habilidades ortográficas fueron consideradas según edad, CI y medidas de habilidad fonológica. Las habilidades ortográficas contribuyeron significativamente a cada tipo de lectura, pero su rol en la lectura de texto fue más fuerte que para palabras aisladas. Una segunda serie de análisis mostró que, si bien las diferencias en exposición a la escritura pueden explicar parte de la variación significativa en habilidades ortográficas, aún se observa variación significativa cuando la exposición a la escritura es eliminada de las regresiones. /// [German] In einer Stichprobe mit 87 Drittklässlern wurde der singuläre Beitrag orthographischer verarbeitungsprozesse an indivuellen Unterschieden in fünf Typen von Leseaufgaben gemessen. Die Kriterien betrafen das Lesen oberhalb der Wortebene zeitbemessene Wortidentifikation, unbemessenes Erkennen isolierter Wörter, die Vorlesegeschwindigkeit und das Tempo beim stillen Lesen eines Textes. Die Rolle orthographischer Fähigkeiten bei all diesen Kriterien wurde in einer Reihe von hierarchisch gestaffelten Regressionasanalysen untersucht, bei denen Kriterien von Rechschreibfähigkeiten nach Alter, IQ und phonologischen Fähigkeiten berücksichtigt wurden. Rechtschreibfähigkeiten trugen signifikant zu jedem Lesetyp bei, ihre Rolle beim Textlesen war jedoch wichtiger als die beim Erkennen einzelner Wörter. Eine zweite Reihe von Analysen zeigte, wie Unterschiede im Druckbild einen Teil der bedeutungsvollen Unterschiede der Rechtschreibfähigkeiten erklären können, dabei aber signifikante Unterschiede bleben, wenn das Druckbild aus den Regressionsanalysen herausgenommen wird.

The Foundations of Literacy: The Child's Acquisition of the Alphabetic Principle

Article

Jan 1998

B. Byrne

Orthographic and Word-Specific Mechanisms in Children's Reading of Words

Article

Mar 1979

Jonathan Baron

3 experiments show differences among children in relative reliance on spelling-sound rules versus word-specific associations in reading words. Ability to read nonsense words (e. g., lut) is correlated more highly with ability to read regular words (cut) than with ability to read exception words (put). Children also differ in their tendencies to make meaning-preserving errors as opposed to errors involving overgeneralization of spelling-sound rules to exception words. Children who rely more on rules are more slowed by reading 2 successive words with the same spelling pattern pronounced differently (maid, said). The tendency to rely on rules as opposed to word-specific associations is correlated with ability to read regular words. Individual differences appear to arise largely from differences in instruction, although there are also consistent sex differences (boys tend to rely more on rules). In experiment 3, performance on nonsense words is improved by instruction to think of analogous words. This finding, plus others, indicates that both analogies and smaller-unit rules are used to apply rules.

Cognitive Correlates of Developmental Surface Dyslexia: A Single Case Study

Article

Jan 1996

Anne Castles

Recently, there have been several reports of developmental analogues of the specific orthographic processing deficits observed in acquired surface dyslexics (Goulandris & Snow ling, 1991; Hanley, Hastie, & Kay, 1992). How ever, very little has been discovered about w hat basic cognitive deficits might be associated w ith this particular kind of reading disorder. This paper describes the case of MI, a 10-year-old boy w ith a high IQ and no known history of neurological impairment. He demonstrates extremely poor performance for his age and reading level on irregular word reading tasks, but performs normally on nonword and regular word tasks. His performance on a series of homophone selection tasks suggests an impairment at the orthographic input level. The results of various tests of associated cognitive abilities conducted on MI suggest that this impairment is not associated either with phonological awareness deficits or with the visual memory problems proposed by Goulandris and Snowling (1991).

Visual Memory Deficits: A Plausible Cause of Developmental Dyslexia? Evidence from a Single Case Study

Article

Mar 1991

This paper presents the case of JAS, a developmental dyslexic who had largely resolved her reading problems as an undergraduate student. However, testing revealed that JAS had subtle reading deficits, having difficulty with low-frequency irregular words and with the comprehension of written homophones. In contrast, her phonological reading strategies were normal. JAS's reading deficit was accompanied by serious spelling problems; she showed a marked tendency to spell phonologically, although with reference to some word-specific knowledge.JAS's reading and spelling difficulties were accompanied by significant visual memory deficits although phonological processing was relatively good. It is argued that visual memory impairments have prevented JAS from establishing detailed orthographic representations in a lexical system. In the absence of these, the operation of the system for reading is faulty; for spelling, which requires die use of full orthographic cues, there are serious consequences.

What Comes after Phonological Awareness? Using Lexical Experts to Investigate Orthographic Processes in Reading

Article

Dec 1996
AUST J PSYCHOL

This research was designed to provide insight into the contribution of orthographic processes to skilled reading and spelling. Instead of defining orthographic knowledge in the manner dictated by dual-route frameworks, the research attempted to assess the quality and precision of skilled readers' lexical representational system. Measures of repetition and neighbour priming were derived from masked priming paradigms and used to predict reading comprehension and a number of measures of spelling performance in a sample of 62 skilled readers. Reading comprehension was predicted primarily by a measure of memory processing span. The best unique predictors of spelling were average lexical classification time, and measures of repetition priming. Skilled spellers showed enhanced repetition priming, particularly for nonword stimuli. The results are compatible with the restricted interactive model of reading skill, which assumes that skilled reading and spelling relies on a functionally autonomous lexical system defined by precise lexical representations that can be retrieved with minimal contextual support.

Beginning Reading Without Phonology

Article

Feb 1986

The reading development of the individual members of a class of new entrants to primary school (aged 4 1/2–5 1/2 years) was studied over a period of a year. The teaching they received emphasised the formation of a “sight vocabulary”. Instruction in letter-sound associations was restricted to spelling and writing. The children appeared to “read without phonology”, that is without the application of letter-sound (grapheme-phoneme) associations. Words could be read only after they had been taught. Errors involved visual confusions and occasional semantic, visual-then-semantic, derivational, and functor substitution paralexias. Error responses were generally selected from the set of words the child had been taught and this set was represented in episodic memory. In many cases spatial distortions which were destructive of word shape were not effective in abolishing reading. The results are discussed in terms of the formation of a rudimentary word recognition system, termed a “logographic lexicon”.

On the basis of two subtypes of developmental dyslexia

Article

Jan 1996
COGNITION

Masked Homophone and Pseudohomophone Priming in Children and Adults

Article

Dec 1998

The experiments reported here investigated whether the phonological properties of visually presented words routinely influence the process of lexical access. Recent models of developing reading suggest that the potential for such phonological effects may vary as a function of reading experience. Four experiments were conducted, two with adults and two with fourth-grade children. A masked priming procedure was employed, in which the critical measurement was the facilitation observed in the recognition of a target word when it was preceded by a briefly masked exposure of a phonologically identical stimulus. The results indicated no priming of a target word from a phonologically identical prime for the adult subjects. This was the case even for primes and targets that had a high degree of orthographic overlap. The children also showed little evidence for masked phonological priming, although there was some indication that individual differences may exist, with some children using phonological information and others not. In general, our results provide little support for the claim that the phonological attributes of words are standardly used to achieve lexical access.

Routes to Reading Success and Failure

Article

Jan 2001

Semantic Processing and the Development of Word-Recognition Skills: Evidence from Children with Reading Comprehension Difficulties

Article

Jul 1998

Children with specific reading comprehension difficulties were compared with control children on tests of language skill. The two groups performed at a similar level on tests requiring predominantly phonological skills, but the poor comprehenders performed less well on tests tapping semantic ability. Although the two groups were matched for decoding ability (as assessed by nonword reading), the poor comprehenders were worse at reading words with irregular spelling patterns and low-frequency words. These results show that despite having adequate phonological decoding skills, poor comprehenders have problems reading words that are typically read with support from semantics. These findings are related to connectionist models of reading development in which phonological and semantic processes interact.

Acquisition of Literacy. A Longitudinal Study of Children in First and Second Grade

Article

Aug 1986

Tested a model of early literacy acquisition regarding the interrelation of word recognition, spelling, reading comprehension, and writing skills, using longitudinal data collected from 80 children who passed from 1st through 2nd grades. Incoming characteristics (i.e., ethnicity, IQ, oral language) and the rate at which each S progressed through his or her reading books were examined in relation to growth in phonemic awareness, spelling/sound knowledge, and lexical knowledge. The impact of these factors on development in word recognition and spelling was explored, along with the relation of word recognition and listening comprehension to reading comprehension, and the relation of spelling and ideation to story writing. It was hypothesized that poor reading achievement in minority students would be partially attributable to poorer phonemic awareness of school English due to dialect, 2nd language, and cultural differences. Results support the hypothesis, suggesting the strong importance of phonemic awareness in literacy acquisition. The relation between word recognition and spelling was strong due to reliance on similar sources of knowledge. The relation between reading comprehension and writing appeared less strong, suggesting that the generation of ideas involved in story production is not isomorphic to the processes involved in reading comprehension. (61 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Acquisition of Word Identification Skills in Normal and Disabled Readers

Article

Feb 1985

Franklin R. Manis

10 normal and 10 disabled readers in Grades 5 and 6 were required to learn the meaning and pronunciation of unfamiliar words varying in word length and in letter–sound regularity and complexity. Results show that disabled readers were slower to name the unfamiliar words than normal readers, even after 3 sessions of practice. Naming accuracy and latency were found to be more strongly related to both regularity and complexity for disabled readers than for normal readers across 3 test sessions, suggesting that disabled readers were capable of using regular letter–sound correspondences to pronounce printed words but were hampered by weaker knowledge of these correspondences. Performance by both groups on a delayed naming task showed that the differences in naming speed were due to decoding rather than response-execution processes. The effects of word length on naming latency were more pronounced for disabled readers, suggesting that they relied on smaller subword components than normal readers when decoding the stimulus words. Disabled readers were slower at word naming than normal readers in all conditions, suggesting phonological coding and retrieval deficits. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Components of reading ability: Issues and problems in operation-alizing word identification, phonological coding, and orthographic coding

Article

this chapter is concerned with the components of reading ability, defined in terms of both reading subskills and the cognitive abilities that underlie those subskills / discuss the relative importance of various cognitive abilities / present new evidence from research we have conducted documenting that given abilities carry different weights as determinants of reading development contend that facility in word identification is the central component of the reading process and that adequate facility in word identification is a prerequisite to adequate reading comprehension, along with adequate language comprehension / focuses on the visual and linguistic underpinnings of word identification, and places special emphasis on issues and problems involved in operationalizing phonological and orthographic coding raise the question of whether or not certain commonly used tests of phonological and orthographic coding are valid measures of these abilities / express concern over conceptualizations of word identification that are based on the assumption that phonological and orthographic coding are the only cognitive abilities that underlie word identification / present evidence to the contrary and discuss alternative approaches to operationalizing phonological and orthographic coding (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

The representation problem in reading acquisition.

Article

Charles Perfetti

how does the child mentally represent printed words at each point of reading development / how does the child access these representations during encounters with print / how do word representation and word access change with experience and instruction restricted-interactive model / acquiring functional lexical representations / acquiring an autonomous lexicon (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

The beginnings of orthographic knowledge: Children's knowledge of double letters in words

Article

Dec 1997

Three experiments were carried out to examine the development of knowledge about double letters. Children and adults chose items they thought looked most word-like from pairs of nonwords. First graders chose nonwords with final doublets (e.g., baff) and allowable doublets (e.g., yill) as more word-like than nonwords with initial doublets (e.g., bbaf) or unallowable doublets (e.g., yihh). Children in late kindergarten chose final-doublet nonwords (e.g., pess) more often than initial-doublet nonwords (e.g., ppes), but performed at chance when choosing between items such as jull and jukk . The same children in 1st grade chose jull more often than jukk even though their own spellings were semiphonetic and phonetic according to stage theories of spelling development. Only participants in the 6th grade and above knew the correspondence between a medial doublet and a preceding short vowel (e.g., tebbif). The results suggest that even young writers know about simple orthographic patterns. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

The Self-Organising Lexical Acquisition and Recognition (SOLAR) model of visual word recognition

Article

Jul 2001

Colin John Davis

The ability to read is supported by the existence of codes that represent the orthographic, phonological, and semantic properties of words. This thesis addresses the issue of how orthographic codes are self-organised. This question is explored using a combination of theoretical and computational approaches, leading to the introduction of a new computational model of Visual word recognition. The thesis begins with a review and critique of existing models of visual word recognition, with particular reference to their inability to satisfy adaptive constraints. This analysis highlights the inability of current models to explain self-organisation processes or to operate in real-world input environments. Subsequent chapters review neural networks for pattern recognition, learning and working memory, focussing on the work of Grossberg and colleagues. Two specific networks-the masking field network and its extension, the SONNET network-exhibit adaptive properties that are lacking in current models of visual word recognition. The SOLAR (Self-Organising Lexical Acquisition and Recognition) model is a new neural network model of visual word recognition that embodies self-organisation and masking principles. The model differs from previous models in its capacity for stable self-organisation, its spatial coding scheme, its combination of serial and parallel processes, and its chunking mechanism. The model also introduces a novel mechanism to explain word frequency effects. Another distinctive feature of the model is its incorporation of a novel opponent processing mechanism for performing lexical decision. The SOLAR model explains a broad range of empirical data, including frequency effects, the lexical status effect, length effects, facilitatory and inhibitory effects of orthographic Similarity, the pseudohomophone effect, masked and unmasked repetition priming effects, the frequency attenuation effect, and left-to-right processing effects. Simulations have also demonstrated the model's ability to recognise complex stimuli (e.g., polysyllabic words) via a chunking mechanism that implements segmentation-through-recognition. This poses a critical challenge to alternative computational models, which are restricted to processing monosyllabic words. The SOLAR model also generates a number of novel empirical predictions. The final chapter discusses how the model might be extended to incorporate phonological codes, and the implications for explaining reading performance in skilled and dyslexic readers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Reconceptualizing the development of sight word reading and its relationship to recoding

Article

Jan 1992

Linnea Ehri

traces the development of sight word reading from a time when prereaders use strictly visual cues to a time when readers analyze spellings as symbols for the phonemic structure of words (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Phonological recoding skills and learning to read: A longitudinal study

Article

Sep 1984
APPL PSYCHOLINGUIST

How does orthographic learning happen?

No full-text available