DYSLEXIA IN PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN

Dyslexia as a variant of language difficulties in teaching younger schoolchildren is traditionally one of the urgent problems of modern speech therapy, which has undoubted theoretical and practical significance. In the last 10-15 years, there has been an increase in scientific interest in the problem of dyslexia all over the world, which is associated not only with an increase in the prevalence of the disorder and the need to clarify its pathogenesis. Public awareness of the importance of learning in the modern world, the need to assess the impact of dyslexia on a person's personal development and to find ways to fully integrate children with dyslexia into the cultural and educational environment. A dyslexic child constantly faces difficulties when reading: one incorrectly read word in itself destroys the overall picture of what he has read, that is, the text remains completely incomprehensible to the child. The article provides an overview of the concept of dyslexia and provides information on the prevalence. The article considers reading disorders occurring in primary school students with the Kazakh language of instruction.

Do embodied effects reflect the consequences rather than the causes of meaning? - "Ja!"

It has been shown that a movement in a direction incongruent with the spatial semantics of words typically requires more time than movements that are directionally congruent. Two explanations have been proposed for this effect. Either a word's meaning is understood by using an internal model to simulate a word's meaning -- and incogruent directionality needs time to be resolved. Or words simply serve to reduce hearers' uncertainty about future states of the world, facilitating actions that prepare for them. However, since previous experiments have focused on actions that are directly involved in the exploration of space, they provide evidence for both hypotheses. Experiment 1 of the present study avoids this shortcoming. We investigated the basic downwards directed articulatory gesture producing a high-frequency German word, "ja" (`yes'), in response to reading words with vertical semantics. This task is thus completely unrelated to the semantics of the words. We show that tongue movements are systematically modulated by verticality ratings collected from the same speakers. To investigate the source of the effect, we performed two additional, linguistically unrelated experiments. Experiment 2 demonstrates anti-phasic coupling between tongue body movements and vertical arm and leg movements. Experiment 3 investigates tongue body movements prior to head movements and uncovers preparatory tongue raising to head raising in contrast to head lowering. Taken together, the results indicate that the changes in "ja" associated with vertical semantics most likely emerge from anticipating a head movement in the direction of the spatial target associated with the read word in order to optimize the body position for subsequent actions. Thus, the results support the assumption that words reduce the uncertainty about future states of the world.

Do embodied effects reflect the consequences rather than the causes of meaning? - "Ja!"

It has been shown that a movement in a direction incongruent with the spatial semantics of words typically requires more time than movements that are directionally congruent. Two explanations have been proposed for this effect. Either a word's meaning is understood by using an internal model to simulate a word's meaning -- and incogruent directionality needs time to be resolved. Or words simply serve to reduce hearers' uncertainty about future states of the world, facilitating actions that prepare for them. However, since previous experiments have focused on actions that are directly involved in the exploration of space, they provide evidence for both hypotheses. Experiment 1 of the present study avoids this shortcoming. We investigated the basic downwards directed articulatory gesture producing a high-frequency German word, "ja" (yes), in response to reading words with vertical semantics. This task is thus completely unrelated to the semantics of the words. We show that tongue movements are systematically modulated by verticality ratings collected from the same speakers. To investigate the source of the effect, we performed two additional, linguistically unrelated experiments. Experiment 2 demonstrates anti-phasic coupling between tongue body movements and vertical arm and leg movements. Experiment 3 investigates tongue body movements prior to head movements and uncovers preparatory tongue raising to head raising in contrast to head lowering. Taken together, the results indicate that the changes in "ja" associated with vertical semantics most likely emerge from anticipating a head movement in the direction of the spatial target associated with the read word in order to optimize the body position for subsequent actions. Thus, the results support the assumption that words reduce the uncertainty about future states of the world.

THE APPLICATION OF SAFINDA METHOD IN TRANSLATION LEARNING AL-QUR'AN IN STUDENTS IN FATTAHUL MULUK PAPUA

This paper elaborates on the application of the Safinda method in learning the translation of al-Quran for students at IAIN Fattahul Muluk Papua. This type is qualitative research, the research approach is a phenomenological perspective and a descriptive analysis approach, and data sources are primary data and secondary data, data collection techniques through observation, interviews, and documentation. The research instrument, namely, the researcher as a key instrument, observation guide, interview guide and documentation reference, data processing and analysis techniques namely data reduction, data presentation, conclusion and verification, data validity testing, namely triangulation techniques, checking the correctness of the information, discussing and consulting data, and extending research time. The results of the study found that the application of the Safinda method in learning the translation of al-Quran to students at IAIN Fattahul Muluk Papua was carried out by (a) paying attention to class management which included classroom arrangement and student management before entering preliminary activities; (b) in the introductory activity, the lecturer starts learning effectively and pleasantly by providing motivation to students; (c) the core activities are carried out through reading activities, aural-oral activities, and memorizing activities are all carried out classically and individually, namely the lecturer reads word for word followed by students, lecturers and students read word for word, students read word for word, the lecturer interprets it, the students interpret all the verses that have been read together, the students read one by one, then the lecturer gives the opportunity to students who do not understand to ask questions, and finally the lecturer explains all the verses that have been studied together.

Analisis Faktor Penyebab Kesulitan Membaca Permulaan Pada Siswa Kelas I SDN Argopeni Tahun Ajaran 2019/2020

<p><em>The study aimed to determine the early reading difficulties to first grade students of SDN Argopeni in academic year of 2019/2020, to determine the causal factors of early reading difficulties, and to describe the solutions to overcome early reading difficulties to first grade students of SDN Argopeni in academic year of 2019/2020. It was qualitative research. The subjects were four students of first grade. The results showed that: (1) the early reading difficulties of first grade students were: (a) not able to analyze words into letters, (b) not able to understand letter-sound, (c) not able to arrange words and letters and read word for word; (2) the causal factors of early reading difficulties were: (a) internal factors, (b) external factors; (3) alternative solutions applied by the teachers to overcome the early reading difficulties were: (a) having additional classes, (b) applying interesting media, (c) using the SAS method. It concludes that there are difficulties of early reading, the causal factors, and the teachers have applied the solution to overcome the early reading difficulties.</em></p><p><strong><em><br /></em></strong><em></em></p>

Spatio-temporal Characteristics of Noun and Verb Processing during Sentence Comprehension in the Brain

The human brain is very effective at integrating new words one by one into the composed representation of a sentence as it is read left-to-right. This raises the important question of what happens to the neural representations of words present earlier in the sentence? For example, do the strength of word representations encountered earlier on in the sentence remain constant or do they evolve as additional words are processed? Representation of words by neural activity in the brain has been the subject of several previous studies. We perform the experiment with a naturalistic task in which the subjects read simple active and passive sentences. Naturalistic studies have tended to explore words in isolation or in a very limited context (e.g., adjective-noun phrases). Representation of previously encountered words during incremental sentence reading, and how such representation evolve as more parts of a sentence are read, is a fundamental but unexplored problem – we take a first step in this direction. In particular, we examine the spatio-temporal characteristics of neural activity encoding nouns and verbs encountered in a sentence as it is read word-by-word. We use Magnetoencephalography (MEG) to passively observe neural activity, providing 1 ms temporal resolution.Our experiments reveal that nouns and verbs read early in the sentence have a varying influence on neural activity while reading subsequent words, decreasing and increasing at particular word positions in active and passively voiced sentences, with particularly important contributions to activity in frontal and temporal cortical regions. We find the noun and verb information to be decodable from the neural activity for several seconds after sentence reading has completed. Our exploration is also the first to study the effect of question-answering task on the neural representation of the words post-sentence. We are releasing our 300 sentence MEG dataset to encourage further research in this important area.

HEAT MAPS AND SCAN PATHS: QUALITATIVE EYE-TRACKING EVIDENCE ON HOW THE QUR’AN IS MEMORIZED THROUGH READING

The process of memorizing the Qur’an typically takes place through reading its printed version (mus’haf). The Qur’an is read word by word so that the process of recalling the memorized verses or chapters is done accurately and fluently. Memorizing the Qur’an may be a great challenge to non-Arabic speakers because of their lack of knowledge in the Arabic vocabulary and grammar; yet more and more non-Arabic speakers continue to memorize the Qur’an for various reasons. In order to scientifically investigate how non-Arabic speakers memorize the Qur’an, a reading experiment was conducted to achieve this aim. Sixty-four (21 Male, 43 Female) native speakers of Malay who have memorized a portion of the Qur’an (10 juzu’ and below) participated in this experiment. Using the Tobii TX300 eye-tracking machine, participants’ eye movements, as they read to memorize four verses of the Qur’an (two with and two without Malay translations), were tracked, and their gaze plots were analysed qualitatively (via heat maps and scan paths). Results show evidence that Malay non-Arabic speakers’ act of reading the Qur’an to memorize it went beyond what is usually known as “cramming”; instead, the process involved finding the meaning of unknown words, so that the process of recalling the memorized verses can be done accurately and fluently. Keywords: Cognitive processes, eye movements, memorization, psycholinguistics, Qur’an Cited as: Salehuddin, K., Shahimin, M. M., Sulaiman, M. Z., & Md Zolkapli, R. B. (2019). Heat maps and scan paths: Qualitative eye tracking evidence on how the Qur’an is memorized through reading. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 4(2), 318-334. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol4iss2pp318-334

How do we segment text? Two-stage chunking operation in reading

Chunking in language comprehension is a process that segments continuous linguistic input into smaller chunks that are in reader’s mental lexicon. Effective chunking during reading facilitates disambiguation and enhances efficiency for comprehension. However, the mechanisms of chunking remain elusive, especially in reading given that information arrives simultaneously yet the written systems may not have explicit cues for labeling boundaries such as Chinese. What are the mechanisms of chunking operation that mediates the reading of the text that normally contains hierarchical information? We investigated this question by manipulating the lexical status of the chunks at distinct levels of grain-size in four-character Chinese strings, including the two-character local chunk and four-character global chunk. Participants were asked to make lexical decision on these strings in a behavioral experiment, followed by a passive reading task when their electroencephalography (EEG) were recorded. The behavioral results showed that the lexical decision time of lexicalized two-character local chunks was influenced by the lexical status of four-character global chunk, but not vice versa, which indicated that the processing of global chunks possessed priority over the local chunks. The EEG results revealed that familiar lexical chunks were detected simultaneously at both levels and further processed in a different temporal order -- the onset of lexical access for the global chunks was earlier than that of local chunks. These consistent behavioral and EEG results suggest that chunking in reading occurs at multiple levels via a two-stage operation -- simultaneous detection and global-first recognition.Significance StatementThe learners of a new language often read word by word. But why can proficient readers read multiple words at a time? The current study investigates how we efficiently segment a complicate text into smaller pieces and how we process these pieces. Participants read Chinese strings with different structures while their key-press responses and brain EEG signals were recorded. We found that texts were quickly (about 100 ms from their occurrences) segmented to varied sizes of pieces, and larger pieces were then processed earlier than small pieces. Our results suggest that readers can use existing knowledge to efficiently segment and process written information.