Contribution of phonological,morphological and orthographic awareness to English word spelling: A comparison of EL1 and EFL models

The purpose of the present study was to examine the contribution of metalinguistic skills—as measured through orthographic awareness, phonological awareness, and morphological awareness—to the English spelling ability of Grade 8 Chinese students who study English as a foreign language (EFL group) and of third graders in the U.S. whose first language is English (EL1 group). The two groups were initially matched through calculating the Flesch-Kincaid reading level of Chinese EFL students' textbooks and then through propensity score matching, taking into consideration various predictors. Using multiple regression and dominance analysis, we compared the models of metalinguistic awareness that predict English word spelling between the two groups. We found that orthographic awareness and morphological awareness were uniquely related to spelling for the EL1 group, whereas morphological awareness, orthographic awareness and phonological awareness were uniquely related to spelling for the EFL group, after accounting for the effect of vocabulary. Further analysis of relative importance of the predictors showed that orthographic choice was the dominant predictor for the EL1 group and inflectional morpheme production was the dominant predictor for the EFL group. The importance of metalinguistic awareness in acquiring English spelling in both EL1 and EFL groups is discussed.     

Development of phonological, morphological, and orthographic knowledge in young spellers: The case of inflected verbs

This study was designed to simultaneously investigate the influence of phonological, morphological, and orthographic awareness skills on the ability to spell inflected verbs in structured spelling tasks. Children in grades 1, 2, and 3 (n=103) spelled inflected past and progressive tense verbs and completed awareness tasks. Developmental changes occurred in the ability to include the inflected ending, to spell the ending consistently reflecting the correct morphological unit, and to affix the ending using the correct orthographic pattern. The contributions of phonological, morphological, and orthographic awareness to spelling development varied across the three grades but were similar for each sub-component, suggesting a developmental relationship between the ability to spell inflected verbs and linguistic and orthographic awareness.     

The role of orthographic flexibility in Chinese word reading among kindergarten children

Abstract

The present study aimed to examine the potential importance of orthographic flexibility for Chinese reading acquisition. Orthographic flexibility is a novel concept that represents the ability to manage and switch attention among multiple aspects of orthographic information. A total of 92 Chinese kindergarten children at age 6 were assessed on measures of orthographic flexibility, orthographic knowledge, executive functions (EF) skills (i.e. cognitive flexibility and working memory) and Chinese word reading. Results of hierarchical regressions showed that orthographic flexibility uniquely and significantly contributed to word reading beyond the effects of established predictors, namely orthographic knowledge and EF skills. Path analysis further indicated that orthographic flexibility significantly mediated the contribution of EF skills to word reading. These findings provided theoretical insights into the linkage between domain-general EF skills and domain-specific reading ability. The present study also provided practical implication that training on orthographic flexibility in addition to orthographic knowledge could be beneficial to early acquisition of Chinese word reading.     

Processing inflected morphology in second language word recognition: Russian-speakers and English-speakers read Hebrew

This paper reports on an investigation into the morphosyntactic processing of second language (L2) learners who differ in terms of language learning experience. The chief area of interest was the relationship of L2 learning patterns and experience to the acquisition of automatized processing skills in the morphological domain. English- and Russian-native speakers of Hebrew as L2 were assessed on their sensitivity to complex morphological structures which do not exist in their respective native languages (L1). The Hebrew word formation rule which was the focus of investigation was the affixation of prepositions to nouns, resulting in single words which are also full prepositional phrases. In both English and Russian, prepositions and nouns in prepositional phrases must be autonomous. Participants named high frequency words of one (e.g., /parah/ cow) and three morphemes (e.g., /bakis/ in the pocket), which were presented in a control condition and also presented in conditions which either preserved or disrupted the natural morpheme boundaries through the manipulation of font-size. In addition to the experimental measure, participants were also asked to read an expositional passage from a popular Israeli newspaper. Results showed that the Russians, although significantly more accurate than the English speakers at text reading, were significantly less accurate and slower than the English at the naming task, and less impaired by the experimental manipulations. The results are discussed in terms of automaticity, print exposure and age of L2 acquisition.     

高师文言文教学法探究

文言文在教材中占有相当大的分量,广大教育工作者也始终在探究关于文言文的教法与学法。遵循素质教育的原则,文言文教学既要教给学生学习方法,培养学生热爱中华民族优秀文化的感情,还要深刻挖掘文言文所蕴涵的知识,注意把古人智慧和现代意识很好地结合在一起。针对高师学生的特点,文言文教学可以从熟读背诵、积累质疑、汉字构造、弘扬传统文化、组建兴趣小组等方面入手。     

Development of morphological awareness in Chinese and English

The development of morphological awareness in Chinese and English was investigated in the current study involving 412 Taiwanese and 256 American students in second, fourth, and sixth grades. The results from both Chinese-speaking and English-speaking students indicate that the morphological awareness develops with grade level and is strongly related to reading ability. More proficient readers outperformed less proficient readers when asked to (1) recognize morphological relationships between words, (2) discriminate word parts having the same or different meanings, (3) select the best interpretations of low-frequency derivatives and compounds composed of high-frequency parts, and (4) judge the well-formedness of novel derivatives and compounds. Chinese students' acquisition of derivational morphology seems to lag behind that of compounding rules, which might reflect the nature of Chinese word formation in that there are far fewer derivatives than compounds in Chinese.     

Metalinguistic skills and vocabulary knowledge in Chinese (L1) and English (L2)

How are metalinguistic skills associated with vocabulary knowledge in languages with contrasting phonological and morphological properties? To address this question, tasks of phonological awareness and morphological awareness, other reasoning and literacy-related skills, and measures of vocabulary knowledge in Chinese and English, were administered to 217 Hong Kong Chinese kindergarten children learning English as a second language. Syllable-level awareness but not phoneme onset awareness was strongly associated with Chinese vocabulary knowledge; phoneme onset awareness but not syllable awareness was associated with English vocabulary knowledge. In hierarchical regression equations, phonological awareness in English explained unique variance in English vocabulary knowledge but not in Chinese vocabulary knowledge. In contrast, measures of morphological awareness, which were strongly associated with syllable awareness, uniquely explained 13% of the variance in Chinese vocabulary knowledge apart from all other measures included but were not uniquely associated with English vocabulary knowledge. Findings highlight the strong overlap across phonological and morphological awareness in Chinese and the different associations of each to vocabulary acquisition in Chinese (L1) and English (L2) languages.     

Morphological awareness and learning to read Chinese

This study investigated the nature of morphological awareness and its relation to learning to read Chinese characters among 46 Chinese-speaking preschool children. The children took a morphological awareness task, which varied in semantic transparency and morpheme position. Children’s vocabulary knowledge and extant character reading ability were measured. Additionally, a character learning task was administered. Results showed that children’s performances on morphological awareness were affected by semantic transparency but not by morpheme position. Morphological awareness was related to vocabulary knowledge when partialling out character reading ability but not to character reading ability after partialling out vocabulary knowledge. The results of the character learning task further revealed that morphological awareness was related to character identification in the words that were just taught but not to character identification in the words that were not taught or in pseudowords. The relation between morphological awareness and character identification ceased to be significant when partialling out the variance in children’s prior knowledge of the characters to be learnt. Taken together, the findings suggested that vocabulary knowledge may play a more important role than reading ability in the initial development of morphological awareness and that the facilitative effect of morphological knowledge in reading does not seem to be significant in the very initial stages of reading acquisition.     

Transfer of reading-related cognitive skills in learning to read Chinese (L1) and English (L2) among Chinese elementary school children

This study investigated transfer of reading-related cognitive skills between learning to read Chinese (L1) and English (L2) among Chinese children in Hong Kong. Fifty-three Grade 2 students were tested on word reading, phonological, orthographic and rapid naming skills in Chinese (L1) and English (L2). The major findings were: (a) significant correlations between Chinese and English measures in phonological awareness and rapid naming, but not in orthographic skills; (b) significant unique contribution of Chinese and English rapid naming skills and English rhyme awareness for predicting Chinese word reading after controlling for all the Chinese and English cognitive measures; (c) significant unique contribution of English phonological skills and Chinese orthographic skills (a negative one) for predicting English word reading after controlling for all the English and Chinese cognitive measures; and (d) significant unique contribution of Chinese rhyme awareness for predicting English phonemic awareness. These findings provide initial evidence that developing reading-related cognitive skills in English may have facilitative effects on Chinese word reading development. They also suggest that Chinese orthographic skills or tactics may not be helpful for learning to read English words among ESL learners; and that Chinese rhyme awareness facilitates the development of English phonemic awareness which is an essential skill predicting ESL learning.     

Phonological awareness and morphological awareness: differential associations to regular and irregular word recognition in early Korean Hangul readers

A large battery of reading related skills were orally administered to 111 4-year old and 118 5-year old Korean kindergartners, who were also tested on reading of regular and irregular Korean Hangul words. In regression equations, speeded naming was uniquely associated with reading of both regular and irregular words. In contrast, only the three measures of phonological awareness at the levels of phoneme onset, coda, and syllable uniquely explained Hangul regular word recognition, whereas only morphological awareness consistently explained irregular word recognition. Results suggest somewhat different cognitive demands for reading of regular and irregular words, based on the dual-route model, in Korean Hangul.     

Development of lexical tone awareness in Chinese children with and without dyslexia

This paper describes two studies that examined the lexical tone awareness of Chinese children both with and without dyslexia at different primary school ages.Study 1 examined the contributions of lexical tone awareness to distinguish children with and without dyslexia with respect to their Chinese character reading skills. Two hundred and seventy Chinese children participated in Study 1. Ninety of these were children with dyslexia (equally recruited from second, fourth, and sixth grades). Moreover, ninety children functioned as a chronological-age control group, and an additional ninety children functioned as a reading-level control group. The participants were tested for nonverbal intelligence, Chinese character reading, and cognitive-linguistic skills and lexical tone awareness. Our results revealed a later developmental ceiling in Chinese children with dyslexia than in those without dyslexia. Furthermore, children’s lexical tone awareness could serve to distinguish children with dyslexia from typically developing children in all primary school years.Study 2 compared the lexical tone awareness and Chinese character reading skills of Chinese children with dyslexia both before and after introducing the Perceptual Training Method. The participants in this study consisted of all the participants with dyslexia from Study 1, and the measurements were the Chinese character reading test and the lexical tone awareness task from Study 1. Our results revealed that only second-grade children with dyslexia gained substantially from the training on both lexical tone awareness and character naming, whereas those in the fourth grade obtained a significant improvement only on lexical tone awareness.     

牧区小学语文阅读教学措施及如何提升学生写作能力

在学生接触语文学习的启蒙阶段,教师要充分重视提升语文读写能力在小学语文素养培育中的重要性。尤其是对于处于牧区的学生来说,教育是一件非常需要关注的大事,因为无论是从教学条件还是语文教学理念上来看,牧区的语文教学都要落后于城市中的语文教学。因此,在小学语文课堂教学研究中,教师要分析造成学生阅读教学质量不佳、学生写作能力低下的原因,并在此基础上进行优化改革,将语文教学中的读写两个板块的教学进行切实有效的提高。     

Executive functioning and word reading in Hong Kong Chinese children: A 1-year longitudinal perspective

This study examined the bidirectionality between kindergarten children's executive functioning (EF) and word reading across two time points. Participants were 523 Hong Kong Chinese-speaking children (mean age at Time 2 = 64.59 months; 52.9% male) and their parents. At Time 1, children were administered the measures of EF skills: inhibitory control, attention shifting, working memory and Chinese word reading. They were reassessed with these measures at Time 2 one year later. Results from the cross-lagged panel model revealed that, controlling for child age, gender and parental education levels, children's word reading at Time 1 was significantly predictive of their working memory at Time 2, but that the three EF skills at Time 1 were not predictive of word reading at Time 2. These findings underscored the role of early word reading in promoting children's working memory.     

Infusing higher-order thinking and learning to learn into content instruction: A case study of secondary computing studies in Scotland

This case study examines ideas on a thinking curriculum and learning to learn in the context of secondary education, by exploring one subject area- computing studies- at the Scottish secondary 3/4 (S3/S4) level with 14- to 16-year-olds. The infusion approach used in this project combines direct teaching on problem solving strategies, modeling of solution processes, on-going formative assessment, and developing metacognition through processes of reflection, articulation and exploration. The case study provides an example of how these approaches can be interweaved within a problem-based learning methodology for teaching computer programming at an introductory level. The study demonstrates how an appropriate balance can be struck between content objectives and broader educational goals within an infusion approach, resulting in the achievement of successful learning outcomes. Extending the approach to other subject domains could greatly enhance the connectedness of the secondary curriculum, thus enabling students to learn more efficiently. This would require cross-curricular collaborations and a reformulation of existing curricula.     

中草药免疫促进剂对AA仔鸡法氏囊和脾脏形态结构的影响

试验研究了中草药免疫促进剂对AA仔鸡法氏囊和脾脏形态结构的影响。选用1日龄健康的AA仔鸡200只,随机分为实验组和对照组,每组100只,分四个重复组。中草药免疫促进剂按200 mg/kg添加基础日粮中。在42日龄时,从每个重复组中随机抽取10只仔鸡,颈静脉放血处死,采集各组鸡法氏囊和脾脏的组织样本,置于Bouin固定液中,应用石蜡组织切片技术制作组织切片,显微摄影系统观察拍照。试验结果表明添加中草药免疫促进剂的试验组仔鸡的法氏囊和脾脏的形态结构较对照组鸡退化延缓,其中脾脏的组织结构变化比较明显;试验组鸡的法氏囊较对照组皱襞发达,法氏囊小结排列紧密;脾脏组织结构中红髓与白髓界线清晰,脾小结试验组较对照组明显增多。结果表明,中草药免疫促进剂能够促进AA仔鸡免疫器官的发育。     

浅谈语文教学中建构学习者个体的语言结构

语文应该教些什么?如何才能更有效地开展语文教学?本文从现代语言学、语文学科性质和当前语文教育教学现状出发,提出建构学习者个体的语言结构才是语文教育教学的终极追求。并论述了语言结构在语文教学中的特征,教师认知学习者的语言结构与相应的教学策略和学习者认知自身的语言结构与相应的学习策略。     

形式与意义——20世纪90年代中国长篇小说叙事结构研究

叙事结构研究是中国当代长篇小说研究的一个组成部分。本文承续20世纪80年代以来的结构艺术研究,并结合90年代中国当代长篇小说的创作实践,对当时几部长篇小说的叙事结构及其意义进行了具体的分析。     

汉语语篇结构标注面临的挑战与对策

作为一个新的研究课题,汉语语篇结构标注面临各种挑战,如理论支撑的建立、基本语篇单位的确定、汉语语篇抽象结构的构建等。然而,国外研究者利用修辞理论进行语篇结构标注的成果为战胜这些挑战提供了一系列的对策。     

Pathways to reading,mathematics, and science: Examining domain-general correlates in young Chinese children

Early competencies in reading, mathematics, and science are associated with later school achievement and adulthood socioeconomic status. This cross-sectional study examined how fundamental domain-general capacities, including language, spatial, and self-regulatory skills, together relate to competencies in reading, mathematics, and science in young Chinese children. A total of 584 Chinese children aged approximately six years were tested individually on their language (receptive vocabulary), spatial (spatial perception, spatial visualization, and mental rotation), and self-regulation (behavioral regulation and working memory) skills, as well as their academic competencies in reading, mathematics, and science. The results showed that vocabulary, spatial, and self-regulatory skills were all associated with Chinese reading, mathematics, and life sciences, whereas only vocabulary was related to earth and physical sciences. The relation between vocabulary and formal mathematics and that between mental rotation and life sciences were found to be stronger in boys than in girls. The findings suggest that foundational domain-general skills may provide the building blocks for children’s academic competencies.