The effect of orthographic depth on reliance upon semantic context for oral reading in English and Hebrew

This paper examines the relationship between orthographic depth and reliance upon context for oral reading in English and Hebrew. Research on context effects in English has indicated that the decoding ability of adequate readers is only minimally affected by context. The effect of context may be greater in Hebrew because of its deeper orthography – context may help readers phonologically and semantically disambiguate words whose letters do not provide enough information for grapheme‐to‐phoneme conversion. It is hypothesised that bilingual English‐Hebrew participants would rely more upon context for oral reading of Hebrew than English and that in Hebrew, reading words which are more phonologically ambiguous (high degree of freedom words) would be more affected by context than reading of words which are less phonologically ambiguous (low degree of freedom words). Results support both hypotheses. The findings are consistent with the Orthographic Depth Hypothesis.     

Phonological skill,lexical decision and letter report performance in good and poor adult spellers

Two groups of undergraduate students, matched for reading skill but differing in spelling ability, participated in three experiments with the aim of exploring the causes of differences in spelling skill in this population. In the first experiment participants were presented with a range of tasks to investigate the possibility that the poor spellers had poorer phonological abilities than the good spellers. No significant differences were observed. In Experiment 2, a lexical decision task was used. The words in the task differed in orthographic neighbourhood size (N) and frequency. Analysis of the latencies revealed effects of frequency and N, but the effect of spelling group was not significant and neither was the interaction with N. Analysis of the errors revealed that the poor spellers made significantly more errors than the good spellers. In Experiment 3 participants were asked to identify the letters in briefly presented words and non‐words. There was a significant effect of stimulus type in favour of words. Poor spellers made more errors in the task than the good spellers, although the difference was restricted to non‐words. Finally, an analysis of the errors made in spelling to dictation by the two groups was carried out. This revealed that the poor spellers were more likely than the good spellers to make errors that were not phonologically plausible and that differed markedly from the target. Overall, the results are interpreted in terms of a partial orthographic representations explanation of poor spelling in good readers.     

The development of children’s sensitivity to bigram frequencies when spelling in Spanish,a transparent writing system

The aim of this study was to collect data concerning the sensitivity of 2nd–6th grade Spanish-speaking children towards orthographic regularities. In a first experiment, children were asked to spell words that begin with /b/, a sound that is inconsistently spelled b or v, depending on the lexeme. Low frequency words were used to reduce the use of lexical information in spelling. In Spanish, the frequency of graphemes b and v depends on the following vowel; for example, in initial position, the bigram vi is more frequent than bi while vu is less frequent than bu. Evidence concerning the use of sublexical regularities in English and French—opaque orthographic systems—is already available. The question was whether such knowledge also applies in a more transparent system like Spanish, in which a phonologically based strategy is quite efficient. The main finding was that participants’ spelling strongly depended on the relative frequency of bigrams. This was already evident in second graders’ spelling and increased with schooling. In Experiment 2 these results were confirmed using pseudo-words. The results exclude a functional view of spelling, which supposes that orthographic resources are not used to spell in consistent orthographic systems, since phonologically based mechanisms are sufficient to override any others.     

Phoneme segmentation training: Effect on reading readiness

Recent evidence suggests that the ability to segment words into phonemes is significantly related to reading success, and that training in phoneme segmentation appears to have a positive influence on beginning reading. In this study, we evaluated the effect on reading readiness of phoneme segmentation training in kindergarten. Ninety nonreaders with PPVT-R standard scores of 78 or higher were randomly selected from six kindergarten classrooms and assigned to one of three treatment conditions: a) phoneme segmentation group; b) language activities group (control group I); and c) no intervention (control group II). The phoneme segmentation group received seven weeks of instruction in segmentation and in letter names and sounds. Also for seven weeks, the language activities group received the identical instruction in letter names and sounds and additional language activities. Prior to the intervention, the three groups did not differ in age, sex, race, PPVT-R phoneme segmentation, letter name and letter sound knowledge, or reading ability. After the intervention, the phoneme segmentation group outperformed both control groups on phoneme segmentation and reading measures. This study provides additional strong support for including phoneme segmentation training in the kindergarten curriculum. Clinical suggestions for teachers are included. This project was supported in part by USDE grant # G008630421 and a Syracuse University Senate Research Grant.     

An investigation of grapheme parsing and grapheme-phoneme knowledge in two children with dyslexia

The aim of this study was to understand the relationship between children’s knowledge of letter-sound rules (“grapheme-phoneme knowledge”) and their ability to identify separate graphemes (e.g., SH, OI) that comprise words (“grapheme parsing”). We used a single-case study approach with children with phonological dyslexia who were able to read words accurately via whole-word processes (“lexical reading”), but were not able to read using grapheme-phoneme knowledge (“non-lexical reading”). These children were able to correctly parse some graphemes without grapheme-phoneme knowledge for these graphemes. However, they were unable to correctly parse some graphemes for which they had grapheme-phoneme knowledge. This dissociation suggests that children may acquire grapheme-phoneme knowledge and phoneme parsing independently. We discuss the implications of these findings for cognitive models of word reading.     

Spelling of Deaf Children Who Use Cochlear Implants

The spellings of 39 profoundly deaf users of cochlear implants, aged 6 to 12 years, were compared with those of 39 hearing peers. When controlled for age and reading ability, the error rates of the 2 groups were not significantly different. Both groups evinced phonological spelling strategies, performing better on words with more typical sound–spelling correspondences and often making misspellings that were phonologically plausible. However, the magnitude of these phonological effects was smaller for the deaf children than for hearing children of comparable reading and spelling ability. Deaf children with cochlear implants made the same low proportion of transposition errors as hearing children. The findings indicate that deaf children do not rely primarily on visual memorization strategies, as suggested by previous studies. However, deaf children with cochlear implants use phonological spelling strategies to a lesser degree than hearing peers.     

Meaning As a Factor in Predicting Spelling Difficulty

Abstract

This study was designed to assess whether knowing the meaning of a word facilitates one’s ability to spell it. A total of 180 fourth, sixth, and eighth graders took four spelling tests and four multiple-choice vocabulary tests on a list of 100 words. Results of analysis showed that when the effects of word frequency, word length, and phoneme-grapheme regularity were partialed out, there was still a significant relationship between ability to spell words and understanding of their meanings. Implications for the teaching of spelling and vocabulary are discussed.     

Spelling,Reading Abilities and Speech Perception in Deaf Children with a Cochlear Implant

ABSTRACT

This study aims to compare word spelling outcomes for French-speaking deaf children with a cochlear implant (CI) with hearing children who matched for age, level of education and gender. A picture written naming task controlling for word frequency, word length, and phoneme-to-grapheme predictability was designed to analyze spelling productions. A generalized linear mixed model on the percentage of correct spelling revealed an effect of participant’s reading abilities, but no effect of hearing status. Word frequency and word length, but not phoneme-to-grapheme predictability, contributed to explaining the spelling variance. Deaf children with a CI made significantly less phonologically plausible errors and more phonologically unacceptable errors when compared to their hearing peers. Age at implantation and speech perception scores were related to deaf children’s errors. A good word spelling level can be achieved by deaf children with a CI, who nonetheless use less efficiently the phoneme-to-grapheme strategy than do hearing children.     

Spelling pronunciation and visual preview both facilitate learning to spell irregular words

Spelling pronunciations are hypothesized to be helpful in building up relatively stable phonologically underpinned orthographic representations, particularly for learning words with irregular phoneme-grapheme correspondences. In a four-week computer-based training, the efficacy of spelling pronunciations and previewing the spelling patterns on learning to spell loan words in Dutch, originating from French and English, was examined in skilled and less skilled spellers with varying ages. Reading skills were taken into account. Overall, compared to normal pronunciation, spelling pronunciation facilitated the learning of the correct spelling of irregular words, but it appeared to be no more effective than previewing. Differences between training conditions appeared to fade with older spellers. Less skilled young spellers seemed to profit more from visual examination of the word as compared to practice with spelling pronunciations. The findings appear to indicate that spelling pronunciation and allowing a preview can both be effective ways to learn correct spellings of orthographically unpredictable words, irrespective of age or spelling ability.     

The use of morphological knowledge in spelling derived forms by learning-disabled and normal students

Currently popular systems for classification of spelling words or errors emphasize the learning of phoneme-grapheme correspondences and memorization of irregular words, but do not take into account the morphophonemic nature of the English language. This study is based on the premise that knowledge of the morphological rules of derivational morphology is acquired developmentally and is related to the spelling abilities of both normal and learning-disabled (LD) students. It addresses three issues: 1) how the learning of derivational morphology and the spelling of derived words by LD students compares to that of normal students; 2) whether LD students learn derived forms rulefully; and 3) the extent to which LD and normal students use knowledge of relationships between base and derived forms to spell derived words (e.g. “magic” and “magician”). The results showed that LD ninth graders’ knowledge of derivational morphology was equivalent to that of normal sixth graders, following similar patterns of mastery of orthographic and phonological rules, but that their spelling of derived forms was equivalent to that of the fourth graders. Thus, they know more about derivational morphology than they use in spelling. In addition, they were significantly more apt to spell derived words as whole words, without regard for morphemic structure, than even the fourth graders. Nonetheless, most of the LD spelling errors were phonetically acceptable, suggesting that their misspellings cannot be attributed primarily to poor knowledge of phoneme-grapheme correspondences. I am indebted to Laurel Fais and students in the Language Training program at the Forman School in Litchfield, Connecticut, for their participation in this study. The first phase of this research project was sponsored by NICHD grant HD-01994 to Haskins Laboratories and by a Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Connecticut. The final stages of work on this project were completed while I was at American International College.     

The relationship between the phonological strategies employed In reading and spelling

This paper summarises a longitudinal study which examined the relationship between the abilities of young children to read and spell phonologically. Empirical evidence of Bryant and Bradley (1980) and Cataldo and Ellis (1988) to show that children acquire the ability to use a phonological strategy for spelling before the ability to use an equivalent strategy for reading is confirmed. Implications for the teaching of reading are discussed.     

The influence of phonological mechanisms in written spelling of profoundly deaf children

In the present study, the effect of phonological and working memory mechanisms involved in spelling Italian single words was explored in two groups of children matched for grade level: a group of normally hearing children and a group of pre-verbally deaf children, with severe-to-profound hearing loss. Three-syllable and four-syllable familiar words were presented to the two groups for spelling to dictation. Three conditions were used: simple spelling, concurrent articulation, and foot tapping. Verbal digit span was also assessed. Overall, the performance of deaf children tended to be lower compared to hearing children, but not significantly so. Concurrent articulation produced more errors than tapping in both groups. Regression analyses showed that the main predictor in all three tasks was school level, however the proportion of variance explained by this factor was much greater in the dual tasks, in particular in concurrent articulation. Qualitative analyses of errors showed a worse performance of deaf children, with a greater proportion of mixed errors compared to hearing children. They also showed a greater proportion of phonologically plausible errors compared to hearing children, presumably due to their deprived auditory representation, and/or to phonological representations that rely to a large extent on lip reading and kinesthetic and visual perception of articulatory gestures.     

Do Italian dyslexic children use the lexical reading route efficiently? An orthographic judgment task

The study uses an orthographic judgment task to evaluate the efficiency of the lexical reading route in Italian dyslexic children. It has been suggested that Italian dyslexic children rely prevalently on the sub-word-level routine for reading. However, it is not easy to test the lexical reading route in Italian directly because of the lack of critical items (irregular words), so visual lexical decision tasks and the comprehension/detection of pseudo-homophones are often used. While the former may also be solved on the basis of visual familiarity or phonological re-codification, the latter also involves conceptual and syntactic skills. Eleven dyslexic children participated in the study, performing an orthographic judgment task on stimuli with two phonologically plausible spellings, of which only one was orthographically correct. Their performance was compared with those of 11 proficient readers. The dyslexic children showed selective impairment in detecting phonologically plausible errors, but their performance was normal when required to judge errors inserted in words with regular orthography, i.e., devoid of orthographic ambiguity, and for which a sub-word-level reading procedure is sufficient to guarantee a good performance. Overall, data are coherent with a diagnosis of surface dyslexia, with most children showing defective orthographic lexical processing.

Statistical Learning and Spelling: Older Prephonological Spellers Produce More Wordlike Spellings Than Younger Prephonological Spellers

The authors analyzed the spellings of 179 U.S. children (age = 3 years, 2 months–5 years, 6 months) who were prephonological spellers, in that they wrote using letters that did not reflect the phonemes in the target items. Supporting the idea that children use their statistical learning skills to learn about the outer form of writing before they begin to spell phonologically, older prephonological spellers showed more knowledge about English letter patterns than did younger prephonological spellers. The written productions of older prephonological spellers were rated by adults as more similar to English words than were the productions of younger prephonological spellers. The older children s spellings were also more wordlike on several objective measures, including length, variability of letters within words, and digram frequency.     

Cognitive and linguistic constraints on phoneme isolation in Dutch kindergartners

This study investigated whether task instructions affect sound-isolation performance. The effects of phoneme class and phoneme position were also assessed. Two hundred Dutch kindergartners were presented with a free-sound-isolation task and its constrained counterparts: an initial-, a middle-, and a final-sound-isolation task. All tasks contained 17 CVC words. Children's performance on the free-sound-isolation task was better than on the constrained tasks. On all four tasks, children made fewer errors in isolating the initial phoneme than the final phoneme. Isolating the middle phoneme proved to be the most demanding. The effect of phoneme class depended on the type of task and on phoneme position. Findings were placed against the background of sonority and word-final phoneme vocalization in Dutch.     

Rapid visual processing by college students in reading irregular words and phonologically regular pseudowords presented singly and in contiguity

Using normal adult readers, this study examined the relative involvement of magnocellular and parvocellular processes in reading English phonologically regular pseudowords and irregular words presented in isolation and in contiguity from left to right. The data showed that a low temporal frequency visual measure that implied more parvocellular involvement was active in processing irregular words presented singly and pseudowords presented in contiguity. However, the results failed to show the involvement of the magnocellular pathway (as implicated by low spatial and/or high temporal frequency visual measures) in reading words presented in contiguity from left to right. The discrepancy was discussed in terms of the sensitivity of the tasks used in testing the two pathways.     

The diagnostic assessment of word recognition and phonic skills in five‐year‐olds

Parallel versions of a new multiple‐choice word‐recognition test were administered to 1019 and 590 Year‐1 pupils respectively. The test format was based on a published test of Word Recognition and Phonic Skills and was intended to provide reliable diagnostic information. It was found that internally consistent measures of three types of word recognition error could be derived (relating to consonants, vowels and phoneme omission), but that scales for letter order errors were unreliable. Information about the length of words which an individual can usually recognise, the proportion of high frequency to low frequency words recognised and the relative ease of recognising regular and irregular words were also considered as having possible implications for teaching. Of these measures, only word length was found to be a strong independent predictor of word recognition. Implications of these findings for the future development of norm‐referenced tests that at the same time provide objective feedback about individual strengths and weaknesses are discussed.     

Genetic and environmental bases of reading and spelling: A unified genetic dual route model

We develop and test a dual-route model of genetic effects on reading aloud and spelling, based on irregular and non-word reading and spelling performance assessed in 1382 monozygotic and dizygotic twins. As in earlier research, most of the variance in reading was due to genetic effects. However, there were three more specific conclusions: the first was that most of the genetic effect is common to both regular and irregular reading. In addition to this common variance evidence was found for distinct genes influencing the acquisition of a lexicon of stored words, and additional genetic effects influencing the acquisition of grapheme–phoneme correspondence rules. The third conclusion, from a combined model of reading and spelling, is that reading and spelling have a common genetic basis. Models that did not distinguish lexical and non-lexical performance fit significantly worse than dual route genetic models. An implication of the research is that models of reading, whether connectionist or dual-route, must allow for the genetic independence of neurological processes underlying the decoding of non-words and irregular words.     

The Role of Instruction for Spelling Performance and Spelling Consciousness

This study examined the role of instruction for spelling performance and spelling consciousness in the Dutch language. Spelling consciousness is the ability to reflect on one's spelling and correct errors. A sample of 115 third-grade spellers was assigned to a strategy-instruction, strategic-monitoring, self-monitoring, or control condition representing different types of metacognitive aspects. The results showed that students in all three training conditions made more progress in both spelling performance and spelling consciousness than students in the control condition. With respect to spelling consciousness, only students in the strategy-instruction condition made significant improvement between pretest and posttest. Students made more progress in spelling performance on regular words than on loan words. Students in all four conditions became more accurate at assessing which words they could spell correctly. Students in the control condition more frequently overestimated their spelling ability.