The role of output speech in literacy acquisition: Evidence from congenital anarthria

A case study of literacy acquisition in acongenitally speechless child (SM) isreported. In spite of a complete oral apraxia(due to bilateral focal brain damage), SMdeveloped normal intelligence and acquired complete mastery of reading and writing skills.Furthermore, both his verbal memory andmetaphonological skills were surprisinglypreserved. However, he showed a relativeimpairment in writing non-words. Theimplications of these findings for thedevelopmental interactions between language andliteracy are discussed.     

The influence of early linguistic skills and family factors on literacy acquisition in Chinese children: Follow-up from age 3 to age 11

The present longitudinal study investigated the predictive power of preschool linguistic skills and early family factors on children's comprehensive literacy skills at the end of primary school in 262 Chinese children. The results indicated that a substantial (20–34%) share of variance of 5th grade (age 11) literacy skills in Chinese could be explained by early family factors (age 3) and linguistic skills (age 3–age 5). Family socioeconomic status and parent-child reading tuition were associated with different literacy measures. A differential pattern of prediction was also observed among different literacy skills. Furthermore, path analyses indicated that the relationships between early family factors and literacy skills at age 11 were mediated by specific linguistic and cognitive skills at preschool.     

Children's literacy environments and early word recognition subskills

First-grade children completed a battery of tasks that included standardized measures of word recognition and spelling, measures of phonological and orthographic processing skill, and a short indicator of exposure to print via home literacy experiences. Phonological and orthographic processing skill were separable components of variance in word recognition. Orthographic processing ability accounted for variance in word recognition ability even after the variance in three phonological processing measures had been partialed. Additionally, variance in orthographic processing ability not explained by phonological abilities was reliably linked to differences in print exposure. The print exposure measure was not, however, linked to the measures of phonological processing. This finding was unexpected but it is consistent with some previous research. The theoretical implications of this result are discussed.     

Factors of success in a volunteer adult literacy program

Kavale and Lindsey concluded in 1977 that adult literacy programs from 1965 to 1977 failed to address successfully the problem of adult illiteracy. Ten years later, the average literacy program participant still fails to achieve a functional level of literacy. Even so, some students are extremely successful in these programs. What can we learn from these people about the factors that contribute to success and failure in adult literacy programs? This was the question addressed in the present study. Data from 194 students were selected from the 1982–86 records of a typical community-based, volunteer-oriented adult literacy program. Nine personal and program variables found to discriminate significantly between extremely “successful” and extremely “unsuccessful” students were factor analyzed to identify those factors fundamental to success and failure. Two factors accounted for 46.1% of the variance. First, in comparison to unsuccessful students, successful students had greater reason to expect their efforts to achieve literacy would be successful. Second, successful students saw greater relevance in literacy and literacy training than did unsuccessful students. These findings are consistent with expectancy-value theories of motivation and suggest some ways in which the effectiveness of literacy programs may be enhanced.     

Phonological awareness,verbal working memory and the acquisition of literacy

This paper describes a 2-year longitudinal study of 76 initially prereading children. The study examined the relationships between phonological awareness (measured by tests of onset and rime, phonemic segmentation and phoneme deletion), verbal working memory and the development of reading and spelling. Factor analyses showed that the verbal working memory tests which were administered loaded on two distinct but highly related factors, the first of which,simple repetition, involved the repetition of verbal items exactly as spoken by the experimenter, whereas the second,backwards repetition, involved repetition of items in reverse order. Factor analyses also showed that, whist the phonological awareness variables consistently loaded on the backwards repetition factor at the beginning and end of Grade 1, by Grade 2 the phonological awareness variables loaded on a separate factor which also included sentence repetition. Results of multiple regression analyses, with reading and spelling as a compound criterion variable, indicated that phonological awareness consistently predicted later reading and spelling even when both simple and backwards repetition were controlled. In contrast, verbal working memory did not consistently predict reading and spelling across testing times. Whilst there was some indication that verbal working memory, especially backwards repetition, measured during Grade 1 did predict reading and spelling in Grade 2, these effects were no longer evident when all three phonological variables were controlled. Nevertheless, with 4 individual reading and 2 individual spelling measures as the criterion variables, it was shown that phonological awareness was not quite such a consistent predictor of reading and spelling: it was most highly related to reading pseudowords and spelling real words; but it was not so highly related to spelling pseudowords, apparently because the processing demands of the task for the young children in the study were extremely high. Given the importance of verbal working memory for the completion of phonological awareness, reading and spelling tasks, in particular for spelling pseudowords, the findings are interpreted as providing some support for a theoretical position which posits that both phonological awareness and verbal working memory contribute to the early stages of literacy acquisition. Whilst the findings suggest some support for a general underlying phonological ability, there is also evidence that, as children learn to read and write, verbal working memory and phonological awareness become more differentiated.     

基于Krashen专题阅读的图式知识习得

本文以图式理论为视角,通过分析Krashen（克拉申）专题阅读理论在阅读图式知识习得中的作用,论述了专题阅读理论作为一种二语学习策略在快速构建并激活阅读者合适的图式知识、增强阅读材料的可理解性以及促进二语习得的有效产生等方面较之传统的＂通读＂策略所占的优势。     

Patterns of word and nonword processing in skilled and less-skilled readers

Sixty-eight third graders who were less-skilled readers performed more poorly than younger reading-level control children on tests of pseudoword reading and phonological sensitivity. These findings add to the growing consensus that the proximal cause of reading difficulties are spelling-sound coding problems that result from deficient underlying phonological processes and structures. Analyses of their word and pseudoword reading performance provided some suggestive evidence that less-skilled readers are less sensitive than their younger reading-level matched counterparts to all subword-size orthographic units, perhaps especially to grapheme-sized units.     

高三英语阅读教学目标达成度的探索和实践

阅读是英语教学的重点和难点 ,对已有一定阅读基础的高三学生 ,阅读应以提高正确率和阅读速度为目标。作者以“三步目标法”作为高三阅读教学目标达成度的训练方法 ,取得了较好的效果     

Untangling the effects of shared book reading: Multiple factors and their associations with preschool literacy outcomes

Evidence strongly suggests that shared book reading at home and in preschool is important for young children's development of the foundational skills required for the eventual mastery of decoding and comprehension. Yet the nuances of how learning from book reading might vary across these contexts and with children's skills are not well understood. One hundred and thirty children participating in a longitudinal investigation of literacy development were videotaped reading a storybook with a parent. Children were also videotaped in their 33 preschool classrooms during the instructional book-reading portion of the day. Readings were coded for adult and child contextualized and decontextualized language relating to both decoding and meaning-making skills, and relations between this talk and emergent literacy outcomes were analyzed. Results demonstrate that parents and teachers overwhelmingly focus their book-related talk on meaning-related rather than code-related information, and that the relations between outcomes and talk depend in part on children's initial levels of vocabulary skills. Implications for practice and research are discussed.     

Literacy's verb: Exploring what literacy is and what literacy does

This article considers contemporary policy claims about “what literacy is” and “what literacy does.” First, the article reviews in-depth the ways in which development discourses define literacy, and the claims made in development discourses about the “consequences” of literacy for economic and political development. I then draw on 24 months of ethnographic research in Brazil with 41 highly impoverished literacy students from four literacy programs in two cities in order to demonstrate that there is no predictable “impact” of literacy on development. Instead, I show that the opportunities afforded by literacy depend greatly on the types of literacy and the types of literacy programs made available to students, as well as students’ cultural understandings of literacy and the social, political, and economic contexts within which they attempt to assert new literacy practices. The article concludes that we should not consider literacy as an actor with some “impact”; instead, we should examine how people use literacy in ways that are conditioned by social and cultural forces.     

Vocabulary acquisition and reading ability

Lexical acquisition ability for aurally taught words was studied in fourthgrade children. Reading ability, intelligence, and working memory were evaluated as predictor factors in vocabulary learning. Reading ability was found to predict facility at learning the novel phonological sequences, while intelligence was the only factor which accounted for performance level for the semantic content of the words. The working memory measure, digit span, failed to make a significant contribution to either the phonological or semantic outcome measures. Examination of two subgroups of skilled and less-skilled readers indicated that less-skilled readers had more difficulty acquiring the phonological information for new words. No between-group differences were found in long-term retention or in the ability to provide definitions for the newly learned words. The findings suggest that the vocabulary deficits of less-skilled readers stem, at least in part, from difficulty establishing accurate phonological representations for new words.     

英语词汇附带习得的影响因素及其研究

词汇学习在任何语言学习中都至关重要,英语学习也不例外。许多研究者对词汇附带习得都有深入的研究,特别是近几年,对其进行的实证研究越来越多,而研究的基础则是影响词汇附带习得的主要因素。文章从国内外对词汇附带习得的研究回顾、影响词汇附带习得的因素等方面进行探讨。     

主题阅读策略在内隐词汇习得中的应用

本文首先对内隐学习理论的定义及特点进行了归纳和分析,接着指出泛读教学中内隐词汇习得的有效性,并提出在阅读教学中采用主题阅读策略可以更有效地促进内隐词汇的习得。     

Social literacy and citizenship education in the school curriculum

This article explores citizenship education's need to focus on both ‘political’ and ‘social’ literacy within a communitarian framework. The Crick Report (1998; see also Lahey, Crick and Porter, 1974), while recognizing that the social dimension of citizenship education was a precondition for both the civic and political dimensions, concentrated largely on ‘political’ literacy. This article examines the social dimension of citizenship education. Concern with the social dimension of the curriculum in schools is not a recent interest, but changes within society have accelerated the social demands made upon schools. At the very least, society expects schools to correct the behaviour of children and to teach them values which usually means insisting on ‘good’ behaviour. The social development of pupils has thus assumed a much greater place in the aspirations of schools. Programmes of personal and social education, together with citizenship education, invariably emphasize a range of social skills and these skills are introduced early and built upon throughout the years of schooling. An individual's sense and ability to make socially productive decisions do not develop by themselves; rather, they require knowledge, values and skills. Above all opportunities are required for children to experience social relations in such a way that they are able to operate critically within value-laden discourses and thereby to become informed and ethically empowered, active citizens.     

Service learning and literacy tutoring: Academic impact on pre-service teachers

How does service learning impact content acquisition? Undergraduate pre-service teachers participating in a literacy tutoring service-learning experience are compared with pre-service teachers engaged in self-selected and independently directed tutoring sessions. The findings of this study support previous assertions that service-learning positively influences student academic achievement. The data gathered provide evidence that this positive influence is related to several design features. Specifically, the value placed on the service increased student motivation to learn course content. The frequency and variety of opportunities to reflect coupled with academic goals being embedded into the actual service experience strengthened connections between service and academic content.     

Considering linguistic and orthographic features in early literacy acquisition: Evidence from Korean

This study investigated (1) the role of syllable awareness in word reading and spelling after accounting for the effects of print-related skills (letter-name and letter-sound knowledge, and rapid serial naming), and (2) unique contributions of orthographic, semantic (vocabulary and morphological awareness), phonological, and print-related predictors to word reading and spelling for 4- and 5-year old Korean-speaking children (N = 168). Syllable awareness was found to be positively related to word reading and spelling after accounting for print-related skills and phoneme awareness. Letter-name knowledge and orthographic awareness were uniquely related to word reading and spelling after accounting for other language and literacy-related skills. In addition, phoneme awareness was uniquely related to spelling whereas rapid serial naming was uniquely related to word reading, after accounting for other language and literacy-related skills. Semantic knowledge such as vocabulary and morphological awareness were not related to either word reading or spelling after accounting for other language and literacy-related skills. Word reading and spelling remained uniquely and positively related to each other. These findings are discussed in light of crosslinguistic variation in early literacy acquisition.     

Links among segmenting,spelling, and reading words in first and second Grades

Twenty first graders and twenty second graders were examined on skills in segmenting, reading, and spelling 50 words with regular and exceptional spelling patterns. By using the same words for each task, it was possible to assess the interrelationships among these skills on a word by word, child by child basis. A multivariate analysis of variance was conducted on difference scores among segmentation, reading, and spelling. Generally, differences favored segmentation and were maximized when final sounds were deleted and minimized when medial sounds were deleted. In addition, graphical analyses showed a greater probability of correct reading and spelling given correct segmentation than incorrect segmentation. Results were interpreted to support a computational notion of phonology as a prerequisite to reading and spelling, with a more reflective notion explaining the reciprocal relation between reading and segmentation of consonant blends and medial sounds.     

翻译活动对二语词汇附带习得作用的实证研究

运用"投入量假设"的理论,对翻译活动和二语词汇附带习得之间的相关性进行实证研究,考查翻译活动对二语词汇习得的作用与价值。82名高校非英语专业学习者参与了这项实验。在阅读完一篇含有目标词的文章后,他们中的一半做阅读理解和完形填空练习,另一半做英汉互译练习。对受试者进行的即时词汇测试和延时测试的结果表明,翻译练习能够促成二语词汇的附带习得。而且,相对于阅读后做理解题及填空题,翻译练习能够获得更佳的词汇习得效果,尤其在词汇的产出性知识方面。     

Drop Everything and Write (DEAW): an innovative program to improve literacy skills

It is believed that language is an innate ability and, therefore, spoken language is acquired naturally and informally. In contrast, written language is thought to be an invention and, therefore, has to be learned through formal instruction. An alternate view, however, is that spoken language and written language are two forms of manifestations of the same inner language and that under certain circumstances, they both are acquired the same way. Nevertheless, in reality, the motor mechanisms for speech mature earlier than the ones needed for reading and writing, and, therefore, spoken language gains precedence and is acquired earlier than the written language. Based on this rationale, it is hypothesized that if the option to communicate through oral language is restricted, and children are made to communicate only through written language, we can expect written language skill to emerge with greater force. This hypothesis was put to test by conducting a pilot study in which children’s option to communicate with each other in the classroom was limited to written language for brief periods. One group of fourth graders were allowed to communicate with each other for half an hour a day, 4 days a week, for a period of one semester only through written language. No talking was allowed during this period. A comparison group of children were not restricted in this way. We labeled this project “Drop Everything and Write” (DEAW). Both the groups were administered pre- and post-tests of reading and spelling. After one semester of this program, children in the DEAW program achieved significantly higher scores on tests of vocabulary, reading comprehension, and spelling than the comparison group. The DEAW group also improved greatly in written language use. The results are interpreted to support the hypothesis.     

A historical reflection on literacy,gender and opportunity: implications for the teaching of literacy in early childhood education

This paper presents a historical reflection on gender and literacy, with a view to informing the present teaching of literacy in early childhood. The relationship between gender, literacy and opportunity in the labour market is examined, given that despite girls’ achievement in literacy, in comparison with boys’, women continue to earn substantially less than men. In order to understand this relationship, this paper reflects on literacy as a socio-historical construct as well as examining the ways in which the past is constitutive in forming enduring notions of gender that penetrate all elements of society, including the literacy classroom. This critical analysis of what is learned about and through the medium of literacy in the early childhood classroom has major implications for the teaching of literacy today. It is argued that in order to address this issue, early childhood educators need to value and nurture children’s digital literacies as well as create learning environments that allow all children genuine opportunities to question, challenge and explore dominant discourses that are embedded in text.