Reading ability and memory span: Long-term memory contributions to span for good and poor readers

A number of studies have shown that childrenwith reading difficulties perform poorly ontests of verbal memory span. The extent towhich differences in memory span for good andpoor readers can be explained by differences ina long-term memory component to span as well asby differences in short-term memory processeswas investigated in this study. Memory spanand rehearsal rate were measured for high andlow frequency words and nonwords. Althoughmemory span performance for high frequencywords was comparable for all reading abilitygroups, good readers had better memory spanperformance for low frequency words. This wasattributable to differences in both short-termand long-term memory contributions to spanperformance. Differences between readingability groups also emerged when memory spanfor nonwords was measured. In this case,differences between groups also appeared to bethe result of difficulties which poor readersencountered in learning newphonologically-based materials (i.e. nonwords). The nature of the inter-relationships betweenmemory span, reading and measures ofphonological awareness are discussed in thelight of these findings.     

The role of phonological memory,word recognition,and comprehension skills in reading development: from preschool to grade 2

We examined the relationships among phonologicalawareness, phonological memory, and development ofreading skills in a longitudinal study, by following222 Finnish preschoolers through the grade 2.The main focus was on the role of phonological memoryin word recognition and comprehension. The skillsassessed were verbal abilities, phonological memory,phonological awareness, word recognition, listeningand reading comprehension, altogether comprising themost extensive set of variables so far used in thestudy of phonological memory and reading. We proposeda structural equation model for the developmentalrelationships among the variables. This model waslargely confirmed by the data. The most significantpredictor of word recognition was phonologicalawareness. Phonological memory had only a weak effecton phonological awareness at preschool age, andvia this connection, a weak indirect effect on grade 1 word recognition. Contrary toexpectations, phonological memory also had asignificant, albeit weak effect on grade 2word recognition. Phonological memory did notdirectly affect reading comprehension. However,it was strongly related to listeningcomprehension at preschool, and via the strongeffects of both listening comprehension and wordrecognition on reading comprehension, there weresignificant indirect effects of phonological memory onreading comprehension. The results also underline thestability of development of phonological memory, wordrecognition, and comprehension from preschool to theend of grade 2.     

The role of visual and phonological representations in the processing of written words by readers with diagnosed dyslexia: evidence from a working memory task

The aim of the study was to elucidate the nature and efficiency of the strategies that readers with phonological dyslexia use for temporary retention of written words in Working Memory (WM). Data was gathered through a paradigm whereby participants had to identify serially presented written (target) words from within larger word pools according to their presentation order, with word pools containing code-specific distracter (CSD) words and non-code-specific distracter (NCSD) words. Analyses focused on three aspects of performance: (1) false recognition of target words; (2) correct recognition of target words; and (3) retention of word presentation order. Participants were readers with diagnosed phonological dyslexia (n = 20, mean grade level = 9.05 [0.89]) and a control group of regular readers (n = 25, mean grade level = 9.00 [0.76]). Results provide direct evidence that the dyslexic readers and the regular readers used essentially different memory coding strategies for the temporary retention of written words, with the former predominantly relying on a visual strategy and the latter on a phonological strategy. Findings further pinpointed a notably impoverished ability of the dyslexic readers to retain word presentation order. The implication of these findings is discussed in relation to theories predicting the acquisition and mastery of reading.

Distinctive patterns of relationship of phonological awareness and working memory with reading development

The purpose of this study was to assess the contributions of specific components of verbal and nonverbal working memory and of phonological awareness to the prediction of reading achievement. One hundred and three children from grades 1, 2, and 3 were administered a measure of phonological awareness, four measures of working memory, four measures of academic achievement, and a measure of verbal intelligence. Separate multiple regression analyses controlling for the effects of age, sex and verbal intelligence showed that tests of verbal memory and of direct recall significantly predicted reading and spelling achievement whereas tests of backward recall significantly predicted only pseudoword identification. Phonological awareness was also found to relate significantly to reading and spelling achievement even when working memory was partialled out. Thus, phonological awareness and measures of working memory predicted specific and significant amounts of variance in reading and spelling achievement. Further, none of these measures were specifically related to arithmetic achievement. The specific roles of phonological awareness and working memory in reading development are examined in the discussion.     

Phonological processing and emergent literacy in younger and older preschool children

Phonological awareness, phonological memory, and phonological access to lexical storage play important roles in acquiring literacy. We examined the convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of these phonological processing abilities (PPA) in 389 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the validity of each PPA as separate from general cognitive ability and separate from each other. Multigroup structural equation modeling (SEM) with mean structure demonstrated that older preschoolers have better developed latent PPA than younger preschoolers but that the structure of PPA is equivalent. RAN was found uniquely associated with letter knowledge and text discrimination in younger preschoolers, and PA was found uniquely associated with word reading skills in older preschoolers. Finally, general cognitive ability was only indirectly associated with emergent literacy via PPA. These results highlight the importance of PPA in the early literacy development of English-speaking preschool children.     

Developmental changes in the contributions of phonological processing skills to Chinese character reading and arithmetic

This study examined the associations of phonological processing skills with reading and arithmetic ability in Chinese kindergartners (Mage = 5.56 years), third graders (Mage = 9.72 years), and fifth graders (Mage = 11.75 years) (N = 413) of Han descent. The results showed that phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming (RAN) showed stronger relations than phonological memory with reading and arithmetic across grades. Furthermore, the associations of phonological awareness and RAN with reading were much stronger in kindergartners than in primary school children, whereas their relationships with arithmetic remained stable across grades. Among phonological skills, phonological awareness has a unique influence on arithmetic that is independent of Chinese character reading in third-graders and kindergartners. In contrast, RAN uniquely explained the variation in arithmetic skills in fifth graders when reading was statistically controlled for. These findings have important implications for understanding the co-development of reading and arithmetic across grades and raise the possibility of training in phonological awareness and/or RAN to help children at risk for learning disabilities.     

Phonological skills and comprehension failure: A test of the phonological processing deficit hypothesis

Shankweiler and colleagues argue that text comprehensionproblems in young children arise from phonological processingdifficulties. Their work has focused on children with poor wordreading ability. We investigated this hypothesis for children whoexperience comprehension difficulties in the presence of age-appropriate word reading skills. We found that good and poorcomprehenders performed comparably on various measures ofphonological processing and differed on a task that made greaterdemands on working memory, Bradley and Bryant's odd-word-outtask. In a final study, hierarchical regression analyses supportedthis distinction: the odd-word-out task was a strong predictor ofreading comprehension performance even after IQ, vocabulary and single word reading had been controlled for, but a lessmemory-dependent phonological task was not. These studiessupport previous work which indicates that poor comprehenders'problems arise from higher-level processing difficulties.     

The relation between reading ability and morphological skills: Evidence from derivational suffixes

The English orthography represents both phonemes and morphemes, implying that sensitivity to each of these units could play a role in the acquisition of decoding skills. This study offers some new evidence about sensitivity to morphemes and the decoding skills of American children in grades three to six. It focuses on knowledge of derivational suffixes, which is examined with sentence completion and sentence acceptability tasks that manipulate the suffixes in real words (e.g., electric, electricity) and nonsense derived forms (e.g., froodly, froodness). Both written and spoken materials are considered over the course of two experiments in which the children also received various reading tests, as well as tests of phonological awareness, vocabulary and intelligence. The results indicate that knowledge of derivational suffixes increases with grade level, along with decoding ability and phoneme awareness. Path analyses further reveal that, although there is a consistent correlation between performance on the derivational suffix materials and phoneme awareness and decoding ability, performance on the derivational suffix materials makes an independent and increasing contribution to decoding ability throughout the higher elementary grades.     

Phonological working memory, phonological awareness and language in literacy difficulties in Brazilian children

One of the most usual flaws that lead to literacy disability regards cognitive difficulties and alterations some children present in the literacy process. Many studies have found alterations in phonological processing, more specifically in phonological working memory (PWM) and phonological awareness (PA). Therefore, our aim was to identify alterations in skills of phonological working memory, phonological awareness and language (semantic, syntactic and phonological aspects) of Brazilian children with literacy disabilities (age 7–8). They were divided into two groups: (1) Group of Normal Literacy (NL); and (2) Group With Literacy Disabilities (LD). The evaluation comprised tests that assessed general cognitive functions and the skills at stake. The LD presented a poorer performance than the NL in the skills of PWM, PA and language aspects. The factor analysis showed that these skills prevailed in differentiating the groups. Thus, children with literacy disabilities presented deficits in phonological processing and language. These deficits seem to be a result of alterations of the phonological representations and poor language skills that are prior to the literacy period. Consequently, we believe that the early identification of these alterations can be very useful for the prevention of future literacy problems.     

大学生英语语音意识培养与阅读能力提升

文章通过探讨英语专业本科新生语音意识和阅读能力之间的相关性,研究大学生提高阅读能力的过程中遇到的问题,并从语音教学的角度提出利用自然拼读法增强学生英语语音意识,减轻学习负担,迅速扩大词汇量的方法。本科新生英语语音不准和语音意识薄弱问题会导致其单词记忆困难和阅读效果不理想,而大学阶段的英语阅读量大、知识内容覆盖面广、专业词汇丰富的特点使学生必须尽快解决这些难题。自然拼读法教学能够帮助学生培养和增强语音意识,进而有效地提高学生的阅读能力,是行之有效的教学方法。     

Spelling predictors; investigating the role of phonological ability and rapid naming in a large cross-sectional British study

This study aimed to identify predictors of single word spelling performance in children using a novel test containing regular words, irregular words and pseudowords. We assessed reading ability, letter-sound knowledge, phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatised naming (RAN) in children aged 4–12 years (N = 641). Mixed model analyses with hierarchical nested data were conducted with Year_group (Yr R to Yr 6) included as a factor, PA and RAN as predictors, and reading and letter-sound knowledge as covariates. For irregular word spelling, PA and RAN were significant predictors, but the associations were dependent upon the year the children attended. Interestingly, for regular words and pseudowords PA was not significantly related. For pseudowords, only RAN was a significant predictor and only in Yr 2. We argue that a better understanding of spelling development can be achieved using tools that distinguish between regular and irregular words and pseudowords, as different processes seem to be associated with the different types of letter string across the variable levels of spelling experience.     

Training of poor readers' phonological decoding skills: Evidence for syllable-bound processing

A flash card computer program designed to increase decoding speed in reading was evaluated with a sample of 55 eight- to twelve-year-old Dutch poor readers by using a pretest-training-posttest control group design. The reading level of the poor readers was comparable to the reading level of normal readers in grade two. After 8 weeks of practicing (twice a week) for 30 minutes per session, children in the training group showed substantial improvements in decoding speed not only on pseudowords directly practiced during the training, but also in untrained pseudowords and in existing words. The no-training control group did not improve in decoding speed from pre- to posttest. The results, furthermore, indicate that syllable-bound processes play a role in phonological decoding in Dutch, and that the flash card method used in this study stimulates poor readers to decode letter strings into syllabic units, which leads to an increase in decoding speed. The role of the syllable in phonological decoding and the potential of a specific flash card technique as a means to improve decoding skills of poor readers are discussed.     

The role of phonological and syntactic awareness in second-language reading: The case of Spanish-speaking learners of French

Spanish-speaking learners of French, aged 9 to 11 years old, were tested after approximately 7months of French instruction to explore the contribution of phonological and syntactic awareness in L2 in 4 components of L2 reading, taking oral competence in L2 andreading in L1 into account. Phonological tasksin L2 better explain decoding. Word recognitionthrough the visual route is best explained bythe corresponding ability in L1. Sentencecomprehension is best explained by oralcompetence in L2, although it is stronglycorrelated with syntactic awareness. Finally,text comprehension is explained by thecorresponding ability in L1, althoughcorrelations with syntactic awareness and oralcompetence are strong. Theoretical implicationsare derived from these findings, and questionsrelative to the subjects' age and level ofbilingualism as well as methodological issuesare discussed.     

Learning to read Chinese: Semantic,syntactic, phonological and working memory skills in normally achieving and poor Chinese readers

Whereas many studies point to a positive relationship between phonological skills and reading in English, little is known about these relationships for children learning to read in a morphemic orthography such as Chinese. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships among reading ability, phonological, semantic and syntactic skills in Chinese. The participants were 196 grade 1 to grade 4 Chinese children in Hong Kong. A word recognition task in Chinese was developed and children who scored in the lowest quartile were classified as poor readers. The children were administered phonological tasks (tone and rhyming discrimination), semantic tasks (choosing similar words and sentences meanings), a syntactic task (oral cloze), and a working memory task. The results showed that word recognition was highly correlated with phonological skills and semantic processing, and was only moderately related to syntactic knowledge and working memory. Poor readers showed a significant lag in the development of these skills with the most significant problems at the phonological and semantic levels. Phonological skills are important to the acquisition of reading skills in both Chinese and English.     

Early phonological and lexical markers of reading disabilities

Phonological and lexical characteristics of 30-month-old children’s spontaneous language samples were examined as indicators of later reading outcome. Participants were 27 children, 10 children with reading disability and 17 children without reading disability. Of the non-disabled readers, 7 were at high familial risk for reading disability, and 10 came from families with no history of reading difficulties. Children later identified as reading disabled at second grade and beyond demonstrated narrower lexical diversity and simpler phonological forms as compared to the normal reading participants. Implications of reduced phonological complexity in the productive lexicons of reading disabled children are discussed.     

Levels of phonological awareness in preliterate and literate Spanish-speaking children

Evidence of phonological awareness levels usually comes from English-speaking children. The evidence in Spanish is scarce. The present study examined the phonological awareness of syllables, onsets–rimes, and phonemes, extending the Treiman and Zukowski (1991) results to preliterate and literate Spanish-speaking children. The sample comprised preschoolers, kindergarteners and first-graders. Children found syllables easier than onset–rime units, and onset–rime units easier than phoneme units (Experiments 1 and 2). Preliterate children found ending units easier than beginning units. However, literate children were best at initial linguistic units, particularly initial syllables. Results on the phonological awareness task and on the masked priming lexical decision task support that the phonological awareness development is sensitive to the orthographic units used by children from the time they begin to read (Experiment 3). For all children, initial continuant consonants were easier than stop consonants.     

Literacy ability and phonological processing skills amongst dyslexic and non-dyslexic speakers of Arabic

This paper investigates the relationship between phonological processing and reading ability amongst grade 4 and grade 5 Arabic speaking children in Egypt. In addition to measuring reading level, the study assessed the children’s ability to identify rhymes, delete individual phonemes from words, retain and manipulate sequences of digit names and rapidly access verbal labels. Further literacy and literacy-related tasks required children to decode novel letter strings, to distinguish similar words, to identify words within letter chains and to correctly spell dictated text. A non-verbal ability measure was also included to allow comparisons to be made between a group of poor readers with good non-verbal skills (dyslexics) with a control group of chronological-age-matched normal readers with equivalent average scores on the non-verbal task. Results indicated relationships between literacy ability, decoding and phonological processing within this cohort, as well as identifying differences between dyslexic and control groups that suggest Arabic dyslexics show signs of poor phonological skills. The study supports the view that Arabic dyslexic children have impairments in the phonological processing domain.     

Reading,phonological skills and short-term memory: interactive tributaries of development

Short-term memory, phonological processing and reading are associated abilities, but the causal relationships between them are yet to be determined. A longitudinal study of 40 children as they develop from 5 to 7 years old is analysed to investigate the interactive development of these skills. In children who have not yet begun to read it appears that phonological skills promote the acquisition of letter knowledge and that these two abilities, together with visual STM, lead the development of reading. The pattern changes once reading acquisition begins. LISREL analyses demonstrate that reading now promotes further growth of phonological skills and auditory STM, and these phonological skills in turn lead to the development of visual STM. The acquisition of reading makes relevant active phonological processing in short-term memory and thus stimulates the development of these skills.     

Questions people ask about the role of phonological processes in learning to read

A growing reliance on research to guidedecisions about reading instruction hasresulted in a swing toward approaches thatemphasize phoneme awareness and the relationsbetween speech and alphabetic writing. Becausethis is a time of innovation andexperimentation in the schools, and because thenew emphasis has not won universal acceptance,there is a need to address recurring questionsabout the role of phonology in readingacquisition. These questions concern: (1) therelevance of phoneme awareness instructionto reading; (2) the consequences of thecomplexity of English spelling for decisionsabout explicit instruction in the alphabeticcode; and (3) the causes and symptoms of readingdifficulties and implications for remediation. In this paper, we offer our answers to suchquestions and discuss the research bases forthem.