The contribution of sensitivity to speech rhythm and non‐speech rhythm to early reading development

Both sensitivity to speech rhythm and non‐speech rhythm have been associated with successful phonological awareness and reading development in separate studies. However, the extent to which speech rhythm, non‐speech rhythm and literacy skills are interrelated has not been examined. As a result, five‐ to seven‐year‐old English‐speaking children were assessed on measures of speech rhythm sensitivity, non‐speech rhythm sensitivity (both receptive and productive), reading attainment and phonological awareness. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that productive non‐speech rhythm was unable to predict variance in reading attainment independently of phonological awareness and speech rhythm sensitivity. Receptive sensitivity to speech rhythm and non‐speech rhythm were both able to predict a significant amount of unique variance in reading attainment after controlling for age, vocabulary, phonological awareness, short‐term memory and each other. The findings suggest that receptive sensitivity to speech rhythm and non‐speech rhythm, while related to each other, also make contributions to reading attainment that are independent of each other. These findings provide only partial consistency with the general auditory processing deficit theory of reading difficulties, but are in line with the emerging theoretical claim that sensitivity to speech prosody may be implicated in successful literacy development.     

Learning to read: where should early childhood educators begin?

Learning to read is a process that begins well before children commence formal schooling and well before children learn to decode print. Children's early reading skills are, first and foremost, foundationally contingent upon children's oral language and phonological awareness proficiencies – skills that can be mapped across a continuum of development from speech‐to‐print. Nine educators from Victoria, Australia, were interviewed, asked to share their understandings and planning for literacy learning when working with 2–3‐year‐old children. Findings showed that the educators exposed children to opportunities to develop their communication and oral language skills, privileging general conversation and storybook reading. However, some educators appeared unaware of the various stages of phonological awareness and/or appeared to privilege phonics over and above earlier stages of development. The authors recommend that educators, managers and course designers seeking to support young children's emergent literacy development use a framework such as the one presented in this paper to evaluate their knowledges/practices/programmes and that further, larger scale research be conducted that compares educators' interview data with what they do in practice.     

Reading aloud: A way for parents to support their children's growth in literacy

Parents can form a vital link to literacy and later school success by encouraging literacy and language modeling in their daily communication with children. This article describes a study in Head Start classrooms in Florida and North Carolina where teachers used a book lending system and high quality books which they shared with children and families. Strategies for teachers to assist parents in providing support for emergent literacy are given. Ways to help families see the importance of their practices and encourage the use of these ideas as part of their daily routines are shared.     

LAS for Mej,Pappa——瑞典的家庭读写项目简介与启示

近年来,亲子阅读正逐渐成为国际早期阅读的重要趋势,父亲参与早期教育的重要性也日益受到关注。LAS for Mej,Pappa（爸爸,请读给我听）,是瑞典应对家庭中父亲读写能力的读写项目,致力于读写能力的发展成为关乎每个人的事情。通过为父亲提供图书资料以及进行阅读技能的指导,使参与的父亲及其孩子的读写能力都获得了发展。通过对该方案产生的背景、内容以及实施效果的介绍,笔者提出了对于我国家庭读写教育的启示。     

Does a visual-orthographic deficit contribute to reading disability?

In this study, visual-orthographic skills were defined as the ability to recognize whether letters and numerals are correctly oriented. Aims were to investigate whether visual-orthographic skills would contribute independent variance to reading, and whether children with a visual-orthographic deficit would be more impaired readers than similar children without this deficit. Participants were 207 children, aged 8 to 10 years, who attended school in a small suburban community. Because of the evidence that phonological awareness and naming speed are strongly related to reading, visual-orthographic skills were entered into hierarchical regression analyses following these variables. With age, verbal IQ, and verbal short-term memory also controlled, visual-orthographic skills accounted for significant independent variance in all reading measures. When children with a visual—orthographic deficit (29% of the sample) were compared with those without this deficit, they were significantly lower on all reading variables. At 8 to 10 years of age, reading progress of some children continues to be hampered by a problem in orthographic memory for the orientation of letters and numerals. Such children will require special attention, but their problems may be overlooked. As recommended by Willows and Terepocki (1993), there is need for further research on the phenomenon of letter reversals when they occur among children beyond first grade.     

“Literacy Lift-Off”: an experimental evaluation of a reading recovery programme on literacy skills and reading self-concept

Worldwide, considerable emphasis is currently being placed on the provision of appropriate classroom-based preventative interventions and in-class literacy support, in preference to withdrawal methods of educational support. Many schools in Ireland are currently implementing Literacy Lift-Off in their classrooms. Literacy Lift-Off is an adaption of the well-known Reading Recovery programme. The current study aims to establish whether Literacy Lift-Off improves students’ literacy skills. It further seeks to determine what impact Literacy Lift-Off has on students’ reading self-concept levels. Ninety-two students aged between five years and six years six months (52 boys, 40 girls) attending four Senior Infant classes were recruited for this study. Two class groups were randomly chosen to act as an intervention cohort (n = 47) and two class groups were randomly chosen to act as a wait-list control cohort (n = 45). This experimental study evaluated the Literacy Lift-Off intervention on students’ letter identification, word attack skills, word reading, and reading self-concept beliefs. Intervention students were compared with control students who did not receive the Literacy Lift-Off intervention at pre-test and post-test levels. Results showed that while both groups showed significant change on all dependent variables from pre-intervention to post-intervention, those in the experimental group showed significantly more improvement on word attack skills, word reading and reading self-concept beliefs. This study showed that a whole-class reading recovery programme can be effective in improving literacy skills and reading self-concept.     

How do phonological processing abilities contribute to early Chinese reading and mathematics?

Abstract

The present study examined phonological processing skills (phonological memory, phonological awareness, and rapid automatised naming, RAN) in relation to early Chinese reading and early Chinese mathematics for young children. Early Chinese reading was assessed with single character reading and multi-character word reading, and early mathematics was assessed with procedural arithmetic and arithmetic story problems. Among 86 Chinese kindergarteners, phonological processing skills explained 20% of the variance in character reading and 28% of the variance in word reading; they accounted for 8% of the variance in arithmetic and 11% of the variance in story problem performance. Specifically, findings further highlight the general importance of phonological awareness in early Chinese single character reading, word reading, simple arithmetic and story problems, and the specific role of RAN in single character reading and simple arithmetic.

• Highlights

• Phonological awareness and rapid automatised naming explained unique variance in Chinese single character reading and procedural arithmetic.

• Only phonological awareness significantly accounted for unique variance in Chinese word reading and arithmetic story problems.

• The associations of phonological awareness with procedural arithmetic and arithmetic story problem were maintained even beyond other variables.

     

汉语儿童从图像到文字的早期阅读与读写发展过程：来自早期阅读眼动及相关研究的初步证据

为了解汉语儿童从图像到文字的早期阅读与读写发展过程的特点,本研究以257名2-6岁儿童为被试,研究了（1）2-6岁儿童图画阅读的眼动发展特点,图画信息获取能力和文字阅读能力的发展特点;（2）4-6岁儿童的汉字视觉解析能力发展状况;（3）4-6岁儿童汉字视觉表现能力发展阶段。从阅读的视觉关注,汉字知觉解析和汉字视觉表现三个层面论证了汉语儿童从图像到文字的早期阅读与读写发展过程,探索了汉语儿童早期阅读和读写的视觉认知关键点,揭示了汉语儿童早期阅读和读写发展的文化独特性。     

The effects of Reading Recovery on children’s literacy progress and special educational needs status: a three-year follow-up study

Reading Recovery (RR) is an intensive one-to-one reading intervention programme designed for five- to six-year-old children who are the lowest literacy achievers after one year of formal tuition. RR has been shown to have impressive effects in the short-term, particularly on those measures tailored to, and designed for, the programme. However, less is known about the programme’s long-term effectiveness. The present study followed up at the end of Year 4: 120 comparison children, 73 children who had received RR three years earlier, and 48 children in RR schools who had not received RR. We found that the children who had received RR achieved an average National Curriculum (NC) level of 3b in reading which indicates being on track for Level 4 at the end of Key Stage 2. The comparison children were on average at Level 2a in reading, significantly lower than the RR. RR children were also significantly less likely than comparison children to be identified as having a special educational need at the end of Year 3. These findings indicate that effects of the RR programme are still apparent three years post-intervention.     

Is the Simple View of Reading too Simple?

According to the Simple View of Reading (SVR), reading comprehension is the product of word decoding ability and linguistic comprehension (R = D × C). However, there is also evidence showing that an additive model (R = D + C) explains just as much or even more of the variance in reading comprehension than the product model. To further evaluate these models, 467 Norwegian students in grade 6 were administered measures of reading comprehension, decoding ability, listening comprehension, phonemic awareness, and rapid digit naming. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to evaluate the explanatory power of each model, in addition to the influence of phonemic awareness and rapid naming. The preliminary hierarchical regression analyses were replicated among Swedish students. According to the present study, the additive model explained more of the variance in reading comprehension than the product model, and only rapid naming contributed significantly to explain variance in reading comprehension, above and beyond that explained by the SVR.