What Children Know about Reading before they can Read

1982 ◽  
Vol 164 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Carter ◽  
William T. Stokes
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Developmental Stages ◽  
Visual Stimuli ◽  
Metalinguistic Awareness ◽  
Learning To Read ◽  
Formal Instruction ◽  
Poor Predictor

This paper examines the characteristic achievements of children who have not yet begun formal instruction in reading but nevertheless have begun to discover the significance of print. The strategies that fourteen children (mean chronological ages 1;9-5;8) employ to extract meaning from assorted visual stimuli and the children's metalinguistic awareness of these strategies are examined. Three principal strategies are identified: meaning, decoding, and memory. All children showed some competence with each approach but most revealed decided, if temporary, preferences for specific approaches. Clear developmental stages were not found, and age proved a poor predictor of performance. It is argued that young children display substantial metalinguistic awareness of their own approaches to print and that the three distinct strategies used in learning to read may develop simultaneously but independently.

East-Asian Philosophical Concepts as Analytical Framework for Interpreting Non-Western Images in Children's Picturebooks

2020 ◽  
pp. 393-420
Author(s):  
Ngoc Tai Huynh ◽  
Angela Thomas ◽  
Vinh Thi To
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Learning To Read ◽  
Intercultural Awareness ◽  
Semiotic Approach ◽  
Art Forms ◽  
Cultural Constraints

In contemporary Western cultures, picturebooks are a mainstream means for young children to first attend to print and start learning to read. The use of children's picturebooks has been reported as supporting intercultural awareness in children. Multiliteracies researchers suggest that other theoretical frameworks should be applied in addition to the semiotic approach of interpreting picturebooks, especially picturebooks from non-Western cultures. This chapter theorizes how Eastern philosophical concepts influence the meaning-making potential of illustrations in Eastern picturebooks. To do this, the authors first discuss the cultural constraints when applying a contemporary semiotic framework in analyzing non-Western images. The authors introduce a framework developed based on philosophical concepts that have influenced East-Asian art forms, particularly that of painting, to understand the Eastern artistic traditions. The chapter demonstrates how to apply this framework for interpretation of non-Western images to working with multicultural picturebooks.

De Analfabetische Blik en de Geletterde Bril

2002 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. 9-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeanne Kurvers
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Metalinguistic Awareness ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Adult Readers ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Language Analysis ◽  
The One ◽  
Low Educated ◽  
Metalinguistic Knowledge

Until recently, studies about adults' metalinguistic knowledge nearly always dealt with adult readers. Since explanations about the development of children's metalinguistic knowledge are not conclusive about the influence of either (language) development or experience with written language. Adult illiterates form a nice test case for these contrasting hypotheses, since they are both experienced language users and inexperienced in the written code. Therefore, a research project was carried out to compare the metalinguistic knowledge of adult illiterates with another group of non-readers (young children) and with low-educated adult readers. The research project was carried out with 24 young pre-readers, 25 adult (true) illiterates and 23 adult readers with about four years of schooling. All groups were offered different tests of metalinguistic awareness on the phonological, lexical/semantic and discourse-level of language. Analysis of variance and posthoc analyses showed that, on the whole, there were hardly any differences between young children and all adults in the knowledge of linguistic entities (favouring the developmental hypotheses) while there were many significant differences between the no-nreaders on the one hand (both children and adults) and low-educated literates on the other hand. It is concluded that experience with writing systems plays a major role in triggering metalinguistic knowledge.

Children's epistemic inferences through modal verbs and prosody

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 1132-1169
Author(s):  
Meghan ARMSTRONG
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Choice Task ◽  
Epistemic Modality ◽  
Metalinguistic Awareness ◽  
Modal Verbs ◽  
Epistemic Modal ◽  
Negative Valence ◽  
Forced Choice Task ◽  
Positive And Negative Valence

AbstractThis study explores how young children infer nuances in epistemic modality through prosody. A forced-choice task was used, testing children's (ages three to seven) comprehension of the might/will distinction (modal condition) as well their ability to modulate the strength of might through two prosodic tunes (prosody condition). Positive and negative valence conditions were included. Younger children were shown to start off performing above chance for the modal condition, and at around chance for the prosody condition, but after age four performance on the prosody condition quickly improved. For both modal verbs and prosody, children performed significantly better when valence was positive. By age seven, children performed at ceiling for all conditions. Qualitative analysis of children's justifications for prosody responses showed metalinguistic awareness of prosodic meaning as early as age four, with the ability to relate prosody to epistemic modal meaning becoming quite common by age seven.

Young Children Use Letter Names in Learning to Read Words

1999 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 334-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Treiman ◽  
Kira Rodriguez
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Learning To Read ◽  
Letter Names
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