Cross-language transfer of phonological and orthographic processing skills from Spanish L1 to English L2

Previous cross-language research has focused on L1 phonological processing and its relation to L2 reading. Less extensive is the research on the effect that L1 orthographic processing skill has on L2 reading and spelling. This study was designed to investigate how reading and spelling acquisition in English (L2) is influenced by phonological and orthographic processing skills in Spanish (L1) in 89 Spanish-English bilingual children in grades 2 and 3. Comparable measures in English and Spanish tapping phonological and orthographic processing were administered to the bilingual children. We found that cross-language phonological and orthographic transfer occurs from Spanish to English. Specifically, the Spanish phoneme deletion task contributed a significant amount of unique variance to English word reading and spelling, for both real words and pseudowords. The Spanish homophone choice task predicted English reading, but not spelling. Taken together, these results suggest that there are shared phonological and orthographic processes in bilingual reading; however, orthographic patterns may be language specific, thereby not likely to transfer to spelling performance.     

Reading development and dyslexia in a transparent orthography: a survey of Spanish children

Spanish-speaking children learn to read words printed in a relatively transparent orthography. Variation in orthographic transparency may shape the architecture of the reading system and also the manifestation of reading difficulties. We tested normally developing children and children diagnosed with reading difficulties. Reading accuracy was high across experimental conditions. However, dyslexic children read more slowly than chronological age (CA)-matched controls, although, importantly, their reading times did not differ from those for ability-matched controls. Reading times were significantly affected by frequency, orthographic neighbourhood size and word length. We also found a number of significant interaction effects. The effect of length was significantly modulated by reading ability, frequency and neighbourhood. Our findings suggest that the reading development of dyslexic children in Spanish is delayed rather than deviant. From an early age, the salient characteristic of reading development is reading speed, and the latter is influenced by specific knowledge about words.     

A Cross-Linguistic,Longitudinal Study of the Foundations of Decoding and Reading Comprehension Ability

ABSTRACT

The present study investigated the moderating role of orthographic consistency on the development of reading comprehension in four language groups (English, n = 179; Spanish, n = 188; Czech, n = 135; Slovak, n = 194) from kindergarten to Grade 2. In all languages, early variations in phoneme awareness/letter knowledge, rapid automatised naming, and emerging decoding skills, but not oral language, predicted variations in decoding skills at the end of Grade 1; these in turn predicted reading comprehension in Grade 2. For the three consistent orthographies (Spanish, Slovak, and Czech), kindergarten language skills were another significant predictor of Grade 2 reading comprehension. This effect was absent in the English sample, where variations in decoding skills were a more powerful predictor. These results provide the first longitudinal evidence for effects of orthographic consistency on the development of reading comprehension and provide support for the simple view of reading.     

Orthographic learning in Spanish children

In order to read fluently, children have to form orthographic representations. Despite numerous investigations, there is no clear answer to the question of the number of times they need to read a word to form an orthographic representation. We used length effect on reading times as a measure, because there are large differences between long and short words for unknown words, differences that disappear when reading frequent words. Two lists of new words (half short and half long) were presented to 102 second‐grade to sixth‐grade Spanish children, to be read aloud six times. One of the lists was presented as part of a story and the other in isolation. Comparison of the length effect at the first and sixth exposure showed large differences between short and long words in the first presentation and small differences at the sixth presentation, indicating that Spanish children develop representations of words after just a few repetitions.     

Orthographic learning in Spanish children: influence of previous semantic and phonological knowledge

Orthographic learning is one of the steps needed to achieve reading fluency. There are different variables that could influence the formation of orthographic representations. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the previous semantic and phonological knowledge on the formation of orthographic representations. We used a decrease of the length effect as the measure of orthographic learning. We made a reading aloud task that utilised new words with Spanish children from third grade under three different conditions: with prior semantic and phonological training, with prior phonological training and without training. Results showed that knowing the meaning and the phonological form of the words facilitated the formation of orthographic representations, as the length effect was significantly lower than in the other conditions, and it also improved the children's reading performance.     

Predicting Spelling Behaviour in 7 to 11 Year-olds

There is an increasing number of studies which demonstrate that readers in more transparent orthographies than English, such as Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Greek and German have little difficulty in decoding written words, while English children have many more problems. Increasingly, lack of orthographic transparency in English is seen as having a powerful negative effect on the development of reading skills in English-speaking children. There is evidence that English-speaking children who fail to acquire reading skills may fall into two distinct categories: those who would succeed in languages, other than English, that have greater orthographic consistency; and, those who would still have problems even with perfect orthographic transparency. The first, larger, group are let down by the interaction of poor teaching methods and an incomprehensible system of orthography. At Hull University’s Institute for Learning, word factors associated with poor spelling and reading have been identified. We have found three factors which account for the relative ease with which pupils can spell words: frequency of the word in the English language, length of the word, and the presence of “tricky” letters or letter combinations. Data is presented illustrating our predictive model of spelling which enables word difficulty to be calculated from the characteristics of English words. The implications the model has for teaching and learning English is elaborated, with particular reference to the most common 150 words in the English language.     

Learning about print: the development of orthographic processing and its relationship to word reading in first grade children in French immersion

As children learn to read, they become sensitive to the patterns that exist in the ways in which their language(s) are represented in print. This skill is known as orthographic processing. We examined the nature of orthographic processing in English and French for children in the first grade of a French immersion program, and the relationship between orthographic processing and reading beyond controls for mother’s education, non-verbal reasoning, English vocabulary and phonological awareness. We found that children showed greater orthographic processing skill to patterns that were common to both of their languages than to those that occurred in just one of their languages. Across both lexical and sub-lexical orthographic processing measures, scores were related to word reading within each language, beyond our control variables. There was some evidence of cross-language relationships between orthographic processing and word reading, both for lexical and sub-lexical language-shared measures of orthographic processing. These findings suggest that children’s attention to features that are common both languages might be one source of transfer of orthographic processing to reading between languages.     

Relations between early reading and writing skills among Spanish-speaking language minority children

Although there is a growing body of literature on the development of reading skills of Spanish-speaking language minority children, little research has focused on the development of writing skills in this population. This study evaluated whether children’s Spanish early reading skills (i.e., print knowledge, phonological awareness, oral language) were related to their Spanish and English early writing skills using a sample of 554 children whose home language was Spanish. Multivariate regression analyses with simultaneous outcomes (Spanish and English invented spelling skills) were conducted to evaluate whether children’s early reading and writing skills were related across languages. Results indicated that children’s print knowledge and phonological awareness skills, but not oral language skills, were significantly related to their Spanish and English invented spelling skills. Spanish early literacy skills were not differentially related to Spanish and English reading and writing skills. The magnitude of the relations between print knowledge and oral language skills and children’s invented spelling skills varied as a function of child age; however, the magnitude of the relation between phonological awareness and invented spelling skills did not differ as a function of child age. Furthermore, results suggested that language minority children’s early reading and writing skills are related but distinct constructs and that children may be able to apply information gained from learning to read and write in their first language when learning to write in their second language.     

Oral Language and Reading in Bilingual Children

This article examines the question: Do lexical, syntactic, fluency, and discourse measures of oral language collected under narrative conditions predict reading achievement both within and across languages for bilingual children? More than 1,500 Spanish–English bilingual children attending kindergarten–third grade participated. Oral narratives were collected in each language along with measures of Passage Comprehension and Word Reading Efficiency. Results indicate that measures of oral language in Spanish predict reading scores in Spanish and that measures of oral language skill in English predict reading scores in English. Cross‐language comparisons revealed that English oral language measures predicted Spanish reading scores and Spanish oral language measures predicted English reading scores beyond the variance accounted for by grade. Results indicate that Spanish and English oral language skills contribute to reading within and across languages.     

Role of narrative skills on reading comprehension: Spanish–English and Cantonese–English dual language learners

This longitudinal study examined the role of narrative skills in English reading comprehension, after controlling for vocabulary and decoding, with a sample of 112 dual language learners (DLLs), including both Spanish–English and Cantonese–English children. Decoding, vocabulary, and narrative samples were collected in the winter of first grade and reading comprehension skills were assessed on the same children 1 year later in second grade. Spanish–English DLLs had significantly lower English receptive vocabulary but higher L1 receptive vocabulary than their Cantonese peers. At the same time, Spanish–English DLLs scored lower than Cantonese–English DLLs on English reading comprehension. There were no differences in English reading comprehension between DLL children in bilingual programs and those in mainstream English programs after controlling for L1. Multiple regression results show that English decoding and English vocabulary explain a significant portion of the variance in English reading comprehension. Regression results also revealed a significant, albeit small, effect of narrative quality (both within- and cross-language) on English reading comprehension 1 year later, after controlling for English decoding and English vocabulary. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

The effect of orthographic depth on letter string processing: the case of visual attention span and rapid automatized naming

The present study investigated whether orthographic depth can increase the bias towards multi-letter processing in two reading-related skills: visual attention span (VAS) and rapid automatized naming (RAN). VAS (i.e., the number of visual elements that can be processed at once in a multi-element array) was tested with a visual 1-back task and RAN was measured in a serial letter naming task that introduced a novel manipulation (some letter sequences formed frequent words). Spanish-Basque and French-Basque bilingual children were tested at early (30 children in 1st and 2nd grade), and more advanced (24 children in 3rd, 4th and 5th grade) stages of reading acquisition to investigate whether they would be differently biased towards multi-letter processing due to reading in two shallow (Spanish, Basque), or a deep and a shallow (French, Basque) orthography. The French-Basque bilinguals, who read in a deep orthography, were expected to rely on larger orthographic units in reading and thus to be more biased towards multi-letter processing in both tasks. This was expected to be reflected by: (a) a uniform distribution of attention across letter strings in the VAS task, and (b) a greater interference of the embedded words on letter-by-letter naming in RAN, leading to longer naming times. The expected group differences were observed in the more advanced readers, with French-Basque bilinguals showing a wider distribution of VAS across letter strings and longer naming times in RAN.     

Phonological and orthographic processing: Their roles in reading prediction

Ninety-six children were administered an orthographic test as preschoolers and two measures of nonphonemic phonological awareness (syllable segmentation, rhyme detection) in midkindergarten. The power of the three measures to predict reading at grades 1, 3, and 7 was examined. With earlier reading level, preschool verbal IQ and age, and verbal memory controlled, both phonological measures added significant variance to grade 1 word reading, and syllable segmentation also contributed to reading comprehension, but neither measure accounted for variance in reading at grades 3 and 7. The orthographic measure contributed significant variance to grade 1 word reading, and also to reading vocabulary and reading comprehension at grades 3 and 7, with the proportion of variance in reading comprehension increasing with grade level. When early (grade 1) and late (grade 7) poor readers were compared, late poor readers were significantly higher than early poor readers on a first grade phonological test, but significantly lower on a seventh grade orthographic measure. Evidence suggested that a late reading comprehension deficit may be due to poor orthographic processing skills in some children, but to a phonological and general verbal deficit in others.     

Fingerspelling and sign language as alternative codes for reading and writing words for Chilean deaf signers

The study examined the role of sign language and fingerspelling in the development of the reading and writing skills of deaf children and youth. Twenty-six deaf participants (13 children, 13 adolescents), whose first language was Chilean Sign Language (CHSL), were examined. Their dactylic abilities were evaluated with tasks involving the reading and writing of dactylic and orthographic codes. The study included three experiments: (a) the identification of Chilean signs and fingerspelled words, (b) the matching of fingerspelled words with commercial logos, and (c) the decoding of fingerspelled words and the mapping of these words onto the writing system. The results provide convergent evidence that the use of fingerspelling and sign language is related to orthographic skills. It is concluded that fingerspelling can facilitate the internal representation of words and serve as a supporting mechanism for reading acquisition.     

Predicting reading ability over the long term: The changing roles of letter naming,phonological awareness and orthographic processing

A cohort of 92 children was followed through sixth grade to investigate the relationship of preschool skills and first grade phonological awareness to reading and spelling. In particular, the focus was on the changing roles of letter naming, orthographic awareness, and phonological processing in prediction, as reading experience increased. Preschool letter naming was a consistently significant predictor of reading vocabulary, reading comprehension, and spelling at each grade level, but the preschool orthographic task contributed most to reading comprehension and spelling at the higher grades. Conversely, the contribution of the first grade phonemic awareness measures to reading skills dropped sharply after third grade, although they continued to contribute to spelling prediction. When preschool precursors of phonological processing were examined, letter naming was found to be a predictor of first and third grade phonemic awareness. Findings confirm the importance of letter naming as a predictor and of the role of phonemic awareness in early reading acquisition, but also highlight the contribution of orthographic processing skills to later reading.     

LONGITUDINAL PREDICTION OF 1ST AND 2ND GRADE ENGLISH ORAL READING FLUENCY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS: WHICH EARLY READING AND LANGUAGE SKILLS ARE BETTER PREDICTORS?

This study investigates the relation between Spanish and English early literacy skills in kindergarten and first grade, and English oral reading fluency at the end of first and second grade in a sample of 150 Spanish‐speaking English language learners. Students were assessed in kindergarten, first, and second grades on a broad bilingual academic battery that included phonological awareness, letter knowledge, vocabulary, word reading, and oral reading fluency. These measures were analyzed using hierarchal multiple regression to determine which early reading skills predicted English oral reading fluency scores at the end of first and second grade. Predictive relationships were different between English and Spanish measures of early literacy and end of year first grade and second grade English oral reading fluency. This study has important implications for early identification of risk for Spanish‐speaking English language learners as it addresses the input of both Spanish and English early reading skills and the relation between those skills and English oral reading fluency.     

How do different cognitive and linguistic variables contribute to reading in Arabic? A cross-sectional study from first to sixth grade

The contribution of linguistic and cognitive variables to reading processes might vary depending on the particularities of the languages studied. This view is thought to be particularly true for Arabic which is a diglossic language and has particular orthographic and morpho-syntactic systems. This cross-sectional study examined the contribution of phonological, orthographic, morphological, semantic, syntactic, visual perception, rapid automatic naming and phonological working memory abilities to decoding and fluency (the two components of reading). The results, obtained from 1305 native Arabic-speaking children in first–sixth grade, were analyzed using path models. The analysis revealed that memory and orthographic knowledge contributed to both components of reading, while phonological awareness contributed mainly to decoding and rapid automatic naming contributed to fluency. The contribution of morphology to the two components, which appeared already in the first grade, was weak and inconsistent. Finally, the results showed that visual perception, semantics, and syntax predicted neither decoding nor fluency. The data presented here suggest that reading development in Arabic differs from other languages, a finding that might explain certain difficulties in reading acquisition in Arabic. The results are discussed in the light of previous findings in the literature and the specific features of Arabic.     

Orthographic Neighborhood-Size Effects on the Reading Aloud of Italian Children With and Without Dyslexia

This study examines the effects of orthographic neighborhood size (N-size) in relationship with word frequency on the reading aloud of children with and without dyslexia whose language has a consistent orthography. Participants included 22 Italian fourth-grade children with dyslexia and 44 age-matched typically developing readers. Children with dyslexia read low-frequency words with high N-size faster than words that had no neighbors; by contrast, typically developing readers showed no N-size effects, irrespective of word frequency. The facilitating effect of N-size on low-frequency word reading in children with dyslexia indicates that they benefit from lexical activation spreading from dense neighborhoods.     

Development of reading skills from K-3 in Spanish-speaking English language learners following three programs of instruction

The development of English and Spanish reading and oral language skills from kindergarten to third grade was examined with a sample of 502 Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELLs) enrolled in three instructional programs. The students in the transitional bilingual and dual-language programs had significantly higher scores than the students in the English immersion program on the Spanish reading and oral language measures and significantly lower scores on the English reading comprehension and oral language measures. Multiple-group path models showed that the predictors of third grade English and Spanish reading comprehension did not differ across the three programs. Spanish phonological/decoding skill and oral language in first grade mediated the association between Spanish phonological/decoding skill and oral language in kindergarten and third grade Spanish reading comprehension. English phonological/decoding, Spanish phonological/decoding skill, and English oral language in first grade mediated the link between Spanish phonological/decoding skill in kindergarten and third grade English reading comprehension.     

The relationship between IQ and reading disabilities in English-speaking Canadian and Spanish children

This study was designed to examine the role of intelligence (IQ) in the definition of reading disabilities (RD) in languages with different orthographic systems. A sample of 94 Spanish children and 157 English-speaking Canadian children with RD was classified into four groups on the basis of IQ scores from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (< 80; 81-90; 91-109; 110-140). We examined the reading and spelling skills of Canadian and Spanish children as a function of Full Scale, Verbal, and Performance IQ scores. Significant differences between the languages were found when reading performance was analyzed as a function of Verbal IQ scores, in that there were some differences between the groups of Canadian children with RD but not between the groups of Spanish children. The Canadian children with Verbal IQ scores < 80 demonstrated relatively lower performance in reading and spelling skills than the Canadian groups with higher IQ scores. There were differences in reading tasks as a function of Performance IQ in English but not in Spanish. The differences in the role of IQ as a function of orthographic systems may relate to the greater significance of visual-orthographic as opposed to phonological processing in English.     

Statistical learning of past participle inflections in French

The purpose of this research was to understand better how morphemic units are encoded and auto-organised in memory and how they are accessed during writing. We hypothesised that the activation of morphemic units would not depend on rule-based learning during primary school but would be determined by frequency-based learning, which is a process that automatically encodes whole orthographic forms encountered during reading. To evaluate gradual changes in the impacts of each process, the ability to inflect a verb was investigated in a spelling-to-dictation task utilising simple sentences that included past participle inflections in three participant populations: 2nd to 5th primary-school graders, 6th and 8th secondary-school students with varying print linguistic abilities and young adults. Two frequency indicators were manipulated: past participle inflection frequency (the frequency of a particular suffix irrespective of the word root) was used to index the use of a rule-based procedure, and orthographic-form frequency was used to index the use of a frequency-based procedure. The results revealed the following: (a) the younger spellers mainly used a frequency-based procedure that produced many spelling errors that were mostly due to the selection of the most frequent orthographic forms in their orthographic lexicon; (b) the rule-based procedure is notably late and led to fewer errors only at the 5th grade in primary school; and (c) the frequency-based procedure is still operating in the less skilled spellers of grades six and eight. The results are discussed in light of statistical learning, which seems to jeopardise the use of an efficient grammatical processing by younger children and less skilled spellers.