scholarly journals The Effects of Lexical Tone Awareness on Early Word Recognition, Word Reading, and Spelling From Dictation of Thai Children: A Longitudinal Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Therdpong Thongseiratch ◽  
Tuangporn Kraiwong ◽  
Rungpat Roengpitya

In tonal languages such as Thai, lexical tone (the pitch of a syllable) affects word meaning. This study examined the effects of lexical tone awareness (LTA) on early word recognition and the relationship between these abilities and word reading and spelling in subsequent grades. A longitudinal design was used to assess reading-related skills in 259 Thai children, first in kindergarten (130 girls, Mage=67.25months) and later in Grade 3 (Mage=102.25months). In kindergarten, the children were tested on lexical tone identification and differentiation, early literacy skills, non-verbal IQ, and early word recognition. In Grade 3, they were tested on word reading and spelling from dictation. The hierarchical regression analyses showed that the lexical tone identification skills in kindergarten accounted for 2% of the unique variance in early word recognition. However, none of the LTA skills could predict word reading and spelling from dictation after controlling for other literacy-related skills. These findings suggest that LTA skill positively associated with early word recognition at the kindergarten level, but not for word reading and spelling from dictation at a Grade 3 level.

2011 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 543-555 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie A. Wolter ◽  
Trisha Self ◽  
Kenn Apel

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between the ability to quickly acquire initial mental graphemic representations (MGRs) in kindergarten and fourth grade literacy skills in children with typical language (TL) and children with language impairment (LI). The study is a longitudinal extension of a study conducted by Wolter and Apel in which kindergarten children with LI and TL were administered early literacy measures as well as a novel written pseudoword task of MGR learning (spelling and identification of target pseudowords). In the current study (4 years later), the authors administered reading and spelling measures to 37 of the original 45 children (18 children with LI, 19 children with TL). The children with LI performed significantly lower than their peers with TL on all fourth grade literacy measures. For both groups, kindergarten initial MGR acquisition ability significantly related to fourth grade real-word reading and spelling. For the children with LI, kindergarten initial MGR acquisition ability also related to fourth grade pseudoword decoding and reading comprehension. Collectively, the findings suggest that initial MGR learning in kindergarten is an essential skill that may uniquely relate to later literacy abilities.


2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 821-835 ◽  
Author(s):  
DILARA DENIZ CAN ◽  
MARIKA GINSBURG-BLOCK ◽  
ROBERTA MICHNICK GOLINKOFF ◽  
KATHRYN HIRSH-PASEK

ABSTRACTThis longitudinal study examined the predictive validity of the MacArthur Communicative Developmental Inventories-Short Form (CDI-SF), a parent report questionnaire about children's language development (Fenson, Pethick, Renda, Cox, Dale & Reznick, 2000). Data were first gathered from parents on the CDI-SF vocabulary scores for seventy-six children (mean age=1 ; 10). Four years later (mean age=6 ; 1), children were assessed on language outcomes (expressive vocabulary, syntax, semantics and pragmatics) and code-related skills, including phonemic awareness, word recognition and decoding skills. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that early expressive vocabulary accounted for 17% of the variance in picture vocabulary, 11% of the variance in syntax, and 7% of the variance in semantics, while not accounting for any variance in pragmatics in kindergarten. CDI-SF scores did not predict code-related skills in kindergarten. The importance of early vocabulary skills for later language development and CDI-SF as a valuable research tool are discussed.


2005 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 308-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gail T. Gillon

Purpose: This study investigated the phonological awareness and early literacy development of 12 children who presented at 3 years of age with moderate or severe speech impairment. The children’s response to early intervention that included specific activities to facilitate phoneme awareness and letter knowledge, in addition to improving speech intelligibility, was examined. Method: Using a 3-year longitudinal design, the children’s development in phonological awareness was monitored and compared to that of a group of 19 children without speech impairment. During the monitoring period from 3 to 5 years of age, the children with speech impairment received, on average, 25.5 intervention sessions. At 6 years of age, the children’s performance on phonological awareness, reading, and spelling measures was also compared to that of the 19 children without impairment as well as to a matched control group of children with speech impairment who had not received any specific instruction in phonological awareness. Results: The results indicated that (a) phoneme awareness can be stimulated in children with speech impairment as young as 3 and 4 years of age, (b) facilitating phoneme awareness development can be achieved concurrently with improvement in speech intelligibility, and (c) enhancing phoneme awareness and letter knowledge during the preschool years is associated with successful early reading and spelling experiences for children with speech impairment. Clinical Implications: The data provide evidence to support the clinical practice of integrating activities to develop phoneme awareness and letter knowledge into therapy for 3- and 4-year-old children with moderate or severe speech impairment.


2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 765-781 ◽  
Author(s):  
YANLING ZHOU ◽  
CATHERINE MCBRIDE

We investigated cognitive and metalinguistic correlates of Chinese word reading in children with L2 Chinese learning experience and compared these to those in L1 Chinese speaking children. In total, 102 third and fourth grade children were recruited for the study. We examined a range of Chinese and English word reading related cognitive and metalinguistic skills. Compared to the native Chinese speaking group (NCSS), the non-native Chinese speaking group (NNCS) only performed better in English vocabulary knowledge and English working memory. On Chinese word reading related skills the NNCS group performed significantly worse than the NCS group. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that the unique correlates of Chinese word reading for both groups were Chinese vocabulary, working memory, lexical tone awareness, and orthographic skills. For the NNCS group only, visual skills were also unique correlates of word reading skills. The results suggest cognitive similarities and differences in reading among native and non-native Chinese speakers.


Author(s):  
Jia Rong Yap ◽  
Mellisa Lee Lee Chin

Studies focusing on the strategy of phonics in Malaysia have highlighted the insufficiency and ineffectiveness of SBELC phonics training received by teachers, resulting in confusion among them as to what really constitutes effective use of the phonics strategy. On the other hand, systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) has been proven beneficial in accelerating the performance of children in their early literacy. However, few studies have been conducted on English language learners as the majority of those research was focused on native speakers of the English language. Against this background, this article presents a description of a systematic way of teaching phonics that could inform teachers on how the strategy can be optimally utilised to accelerate the performance of students who are possibly at risk of being left behind. It then reports an investigation that compared the efficacy of SSP against SBELC phonics in accelerating the acquisition of early literacy skills with a group of indigenous children residing in the rural parts of Sarawak, Malaysia. Five instruments; (1) productive letter-sound test, (2) free-sound isolation test, (3) reading test, (4) spelling test, and (5) oral-reading fluency test were administered to measure phonemic awareness, decoding, reading, and spelling ability. Data were collected from the pretest and the posttest. The results demonstrate that both groups recorded significant improvement in reading and spelling, but children in the experimental group (SSP) outperformed the control group (SBELC phonics) significantly. Following this, SSP should be implemented in classrooms to help accelerate children’s early reading fluency and spelling ability.


Author(s):  
Joana Batalha ◽  
Maria Lobo ◽  
Antónia Estrela ◽  
Bruna Bragança

In this article, we present an assessment instrument aimed at diagnosing oral language and reading and writing skills in children attending pre-school (5 years) and the early years of primary school. The instrument was mainly designed for the school context, and it was developed in collaboration with kindergarten educators and primary teachers who participated in PIPALE - Preventive Intervention Project for Reading and Writing, a project which is integrated in the National Program for the Promotion of School Success. The instrument covers the assessment of phonological and syntactic awareness, comprehension of syntactic structures, early literacy, and reading and writing skills (word reading, word and sentence writing, text comprehension, and text production). Besides offering a detailed description of the structure and tasks of the instrument, the present study includes the results of the first implementation of this tool to a total of 495 students in pre-school, first grade and second grade. The results show significant differences between the three groups (pre-school, first grade and second grade) in phonological awareness (identification of initial syllable, initial phoneme and final rhyme) and between the younger groups and the second graders in syntactic awareness (acceptability judgement task) and early literacy skills. As for reading and writing skills, the results show better performance in reading tasks than in writing tasks, a strong significant correlation between phonological awareness and word reading and word writing, and between literacy skills and word reading and writing. We also found a milder correlation between syntactic awareness and reading comprehension, as well as text writing. These results suggest that the instrument is effective for an early diagnosis and early intervention of reading and writing skills.


1996 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-60
Author(s):  
G. Robinson ◽  
C. M. Rutten

In two experiments, the acquisition of literacy skills by three to six year olds was examined to (1) assess a possible developmental sequence of knowledge about print and word reading, and (2) compare the skill levels of good and poor six year old readers using a developmental model.The first experiment involved 30 three, four and five year olds from a preschool and primary school who were assessed on a battery of tasks designed to measure five aspects of awareness of print and word reading concepts. The five aspects assessed were concepts about print, graphic awareness, phonemic awareness, grapheme-phoneme correspondence knowledge and word reading. Analysis of the data showed a developmental expansion of print related concepts and skills with age.In the second experiment, using similar methodology, 25 good six year old readers performed significantly better than 22 poor six year old readers across all component measures and a developmental lag reading disability model was thus implied.


2021 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luís Querido ◽  
Sandra Fernandes ◽  
Arlette Verhaeghe

Abstract Orthographic knowledge is an important contributor to reading and spelling. However, empirical research is unclear about its long-lasting influence along with literacy development. We examined whether reading and spelling benefitted from an independent contribution of lexical and sublexical orthographic knowledge in European Portuguese, an intermediate depth orthography. This was investigated longitudinally from Grade 2 to 5 with two cohorts of Portuguese children, using common measures of orthographic knowledge, and word and pseudoword reading and spelling tasks. Regression analyses showed that lexical orthographic knowledge assessed at the beginning of Grade 2 predicted word reading at the beginning of Grade 3 (p < .05, variance explained = 6%), word spelling at the end of Grade 2 (p < .05, variance explained = 6%) and pseudoword spelling at the beginning of Grade 3 (p < .05, variance explained = 8%). They also revealed that lexical orthographic knowledge assessed at the beginning of Grade 4 predicted word spelling at the end of Grade 4 (p < .001, variance explained = 21%). Differently, sublexical orthographic knowledge evaluated at the beginning of Grade 2 and of Grade 4 only contributed to pseudoword spelling at the beginning of Grade 3 (p < .01, variance explained = 12%), and to pseudoword reading at the end of Grade 5 (p < .01, variance explained = 9%), respectively. Therefore, orthographic knowledge predicted spelling more often and earlier than reading. Furthermore, the results suggest that the influence of orthographic knowledge may vary during literacy development and, along with findings from other studies, that this influence at the lexical level may depend on orthographic consistency.


2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 402-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eve Kikas ◽  
Gintautas Silinskas ◽  
Piret Soodla

This study examined the effects of children’s reading skills and interest in reading-related tasks on teacher perceptions of children’s literacy skills (reading and spelling) and the respective individualized support for children during the first two years of formal schooling. The participants were 334 children and their classroom teachers. Identical measures were administered at three time points (at the beginning of Grade 1 and at the end of Grades 1 and 2). Children’s reading skills were assessed with the word reading fluency test, and their interest in reading was assessed with self-reports. Also, teachers evaluated each child’s level of reading and spelling skills and reported the level of individual literacy support they provided. The results showed that children’s poor skills in reading at the beginning of Grade 1 were related to both teacher perceptions of children’s skills as being poor and to increased support at the end of Grade 1. In turn, teacher perceptions of children’s skills as being poor at the end of Grade 1 were related to more support at the end of Grade 2. Moreover, children’s reading skills at the beginning of school had an indirect effect via teacher perceptions at the end of Grade 1 on teacher support in Grade 2. The findings underscore the importance of examining the role of teacher perceptions in providing individualized support during literacy activities.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyle Levesque ◽  
Helen Breadmore ◽  
Helene Deacon

A defining feature of language lies in its capacity to represent meaning across oral and written forms. Morphemes, the smallest units of meaning in a language, are the fundamental building blocks that encode meaning, and morphological skills enable their effective use in oral and written language. Increasing evidence indicates that morphological skills are linked to literacy outcomes, including word reading, spelling, and reading comprehension. Despite this evidence, the precise ways in which morphology influences the development of children’s literacy skills remains largely underspecified in theoretical models of reading and spelling development. In this paper, we draw on the extensive empirical evidence base in English to explicitly detail how morphology might be integrated into models of reading and spelling development. In doing so, we build on the perspective that morphology is multidimensional in its support of literacy development. The culmination of our efforts is the Morphological Pathways Framework—an adapted framework that illuminates precise mechanisms by which morphology impacts word reading, spelling, and reading comprehension. Through this framework, we bring greater clarity and specificity on how the use of morphemes in oral and written language supports the development of children’s literacy skills. We also highlight gaps in the literature, revealing important areas to focus future research to improve theoretical understanding. Furthermore, this paper provides valuable theoretical insight that will guide future empirical inquiries in identifying more precise morphological targets for intervention, which may have widespread implications for informing literacy practices in the classroom and educational policies more broadly.


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