Construction and learning to spell

Little is known about the way in which children learn the rules of literacy. We argue that children’s learning about orthographic rules can be the result of their own constructions. We provide longitudinal evidence on Greek children’s understanding of the morphophonemic rules for the spelling of the /o/ and /e/ vowel sounds in stems and inflections. These sounds can be spelled with more than one phonetically acceptable grapheme. When the vowel sound represents part of an inflection or the inflection itself, the grammatical status of the word is the key to the right choice between the alternative spellings. In contrast, no such morphemic rule applies when the sound is part of the stem morpheme. The spelling of each of these vowel sounds in the stem must rely on rote learning. Our results suggest that children go through a three-step developmental sequence in learning how to spell /o/ and /e/ in inflections: initially they adopt only one spelling for each vowel sound. Later, when they add the alternative spelling to their repertoire, they overgeneralize it to inappropriate words. Eventually, they restrict the alternative spellings to the grammatically appropriate words. We argue that these overgeneralizations, which have also been found in English, French and Portuguese spelling, indicate that children at first try to extend an existing rule, based on grapheme–phoneme conversion, for the new spelling. This slight change produces new experiences for them which allow them to construct a higher-level morphophonemic spelling rule.     

Gesture for generalization: gesture facilitates flexible learning of words for actions on objects

Verb learning is difficult for children (Gentner, 1982 ), partially because children have a bias to associate a novel verb not only with the action it represents, but also with the object on which it is learned (Kersten & Smith, 2002 ). Here we investigate how well 4‐ and 5‐year‐old children (N = 48) generalize novel verbs for actions on objects after doing or seeing the action (e.g., twisting a knob on an object) or after doing or seeing a gesture for the action (e.g., twisting in the air near an object). We find not only that children generalize more effectively through gesture experience, but also that this ability to generalize persists after a 24‐hour delay.     

Orthographic learning in learning to spell: The roles of semantics and type of practice

This study investigated the relevance of type of practice and presence of semantic representation for orthographic learning in learning to spell. A total of 36 students in Grade 2 (mean age = 7 years 10 months) were exposed to 10 novel nonwords, 5 of which were paired with semantic information. Half of the participants practiced reading these new items, whereas the others spelled them. The students were then tested 1 and 7 days later on a dictation task. Results revealed a significant main effect of practice type favoring spelling practice and a main effect of the teaching condition, where taught items paired with semantic information were spelled correctly more often than words presented without semantic support. There was no effect of testing time, with learned words being retained well over the 1-week delay, nor were there any significant interactions. The findings support the contention that spelling offers an excellent milieu for orthographic learning to occur. Furthermore, semantics are proposed as a relevant factor in learning to spell, supporting the view that orthographic learning involves the integration of phonological, orthographic, and semantic representations.     

Learning words and learning sounds: Advances in language development

Phonological development is sometimes seen as a process of learning sounds, or forming phonological categories, and then combining sounds to build words, with the evidence taken largely from studies demonstrating ‘perceptual narrowing’ in infant speech perception over the first year of life. In contrast, studies of early word production have long provided evidence that holistic word learning may precede the formation of phonological categories. In that account, children begin by matching their existing vocal patterns to adult words, with knowledge of the phonological system emerging from the network of related word forms. Here I review evidence from production and then consider how the implicit and explicit learning mechanisms assumed by the complementary memory systems model might be understood as reconciling the two approaches.     

The cognitive bases of learning to read and spell in Greek: evidence from a longitudinal study

We conducted a longitudinal study examining the role of phonemic awareness, phonological processing, and grammatical skills in the development of reading and spelling abilities in Greek. A battery of cognitive, linguistic, and literacy tasks was administered to 131 primary school children (65 7-year-olds and 66 9-year-olds) and was repeated in the following year (8- and 10-year-olds, respectively). Phoneme awareness, speech rate, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) were concurrent predictors of reading rate at Time 1 (T1), and speech rate was a longitudinal predictor of reading rate at Time 2 (T2) when reading at T1 was controlled. The predictors of spelling differed from those of reading; phoneme awareness and speech rate predicted concurrent attainments at T1, and phoneme awareness was a robust longitudinal predictor. Despite the differences in the degree of transparency between the Greek and English orthographies, phoneme awareness predicts variations in learning to read and spell in both languages.     

Domain effects in lexical development: learning words for foods and toys

We investigated 3-year-olds’ and adults’ use of domain cues in learning words for solid and nonsolid material entities. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants heard a novel neutral noun (e.g., “my X”) for a standard solid or nonsolid entity described as either a toy or a food. They then were asked to extend the word to one of two other entities. Both options matched the standard in solidity; but one differed from it in an object-relevant property (shape) and the other in a substance-relevant property (color, texture, or smell). Both children and adults were more likely to select the same-shaped entity if the standard was (1) solid than if it was nonsolid, and (2) described as a toy than if it was described as a food. Their interpretations of novel words for material entities were thus affected not only by perceptual information (about solidity) but also by conceptual information (about domain). In Experiment 3, the novel noun was presented in a syntactic context that suggested the solid entity should be interpreted as an object (e.g., “an X”) and that the nonsolid entity should be interpreted as a substance (e.g., “some X”). For adults, these changes largely eliminated the effect of the entity’s domain (toy, food) on interpretation. We interpret these findings in terms of the proposal that domain cues, like solidity cues, furnish information about whether an entity’s structure should be thought of as arbitrary or nonarbitrary and, hence, about whether a word should be interpreted as naming an object or a substance construal.     

Linking working memory and long-term memory: a computational model of the learning of new words

The nonword repetition (NWR) test has been shown to be a good predictor of children's vocabulary size. NWR performance has been explained using phonological working memory, which is seen as a critical component in the learning of new words. However, no detailed specification of the link between phonological working memory and long-term memory (LTM) has been proposed. In this paper, we present a computational model of children's vocabulary acquisition (EPAM-VOC) that specifies how phonological working memory and LTM interact. The model learns phoneme sequences, which are stored in LTM and mediate how much information can be held in working memory. The model's behaviour is compared with that of children in a new study of NWR, conducted in order to ensure the same nonword stimuli and methodology across ages. EPAM-VOC shows a pattern of results similar to that of children: performance is better for shorter nonwords and for wordlike nonwords, and performance improves with age. EPAM-VOC also simulates the superior performance for single consonant nonwords over clustered consonant nonwords found in previous NWR studies. EPAM-VOC provides a simple and elegant computational account of some of the key processes involved in the learning of new words: it specifies how phonological working memory and LTM interact; makes testable predictions; and suggests that developmental changes in NWR performance may reflect differences in the amount of information that has been encoded in LTM rather than developmental changes in working memory capacity.     

Associations to unfamiliar words: Learning the meanings of new words

Five experiments were designed to examine whether subjects attend to different aspects of meaning for familiar and unfamiliar words. In Experiments 1–3, subjects gave free associations to high- and low-familiarity words from the same taxonomic category (e.g.,seltzer:sarsparilla; Experiment 1), from the same noun synonym set (e.g.,baby:neonate; Experiment 2), and from the same verb synonym set (e.g.,abscond:escape; Experiment 3). In Experiments 4 and 5, subjects first read a context sentence containing the stimulus word and then gave associations; stimuli were novel words or either high- or low-familiarity nouns. Low-familiarity and novel words elicited more nonsemantically based responses (e.g.,engram:graham) than did high-familiarity words. Of the responses semantically related to the stimulus, low-familiarity and novel words elicited a higher proportion of definitional responses [category (e.g.,sarsparilla:soda), synonym (e.g.,neonate:newborn), and coordinate (e.g.,armoire:dresser)], whereas high-familiarity stimuli elicited a higher proportion of event-based responses [thematic (e.g.,seltzer:glass) and noun:verb (e.g.,baby:cry)]. Unfamiliar words appear to elicit a shift of attentional resources from relations useful in understanding the message to relations useful in understanding the meaning of the unfamiliar word.     

Learning to spell from reading: General knowledge about spelling patterns influences memory for specific words

Adults often learn to spell words during the course of reading for meaning, without intending to do so. We used an incidental learning task in order to study this process. Spellings that contained double n, r and t which are common doublets in French, were learned more readily by French university students than spellings that contained less common but still legal doublets. When recalling or recognizing the latter, the students sometimes made transposition errors, doubling a consonant that often doubles in French rather than the consonant that was originally doubled (e.g., tiddunar recalled as tidunnar). The results, found in three experiments using different nonwords and different types of instructions, show that people use general knowledge about the graphotactic patterns of their writing system together with word-specific knowledge to reconstruct spellings that they learn from reading. These processes contribute to failures and successes in memory for spellings, as in other domains.     

Enhancing the learning of new words using an errorless learning procedure: Evidence from typical adults

Two experiments compared the efficacy of errorless and errorful training procedures in the acquisition of novel words in typical adults. One experiment involved learning novel names for novel objects, while a second involved learning obscure English words and their definitions. In both studies the errorless method led to significantly better learning as assessed by an immediate cued recall test. The errorless advantage was characterised by a reduction in extra-experimental intrusion errors and was still present when learning was re-tested 3–4 days after training. In contrast there was no errorless advantage in recognition of word-to-object pairings. Taken together, these results suggest that errorless learning procedures improve retrieval by leading to the creation of better-specified, retrievable representations in long-term memory.     

Motivational‐emotional vulnerability and difficulties in learning to read and spell

Background: Although the relationship between motivation and learning problems has been studied in older children, little is known about how these factors interact during the first years of schooling or even earlier. Aims: To compare the development of motivational‐emotional profiles from preschool to grade 2 between groups classified as poor readers, good decoders and good readers in grade 2. To study the possibility that diverging motivational‐emotional paths occur concomitantly with school experience. Sample: A total of 127 children were followed longitudinally from preschool up to the second grade. In preschool, their mean age was 6 years 8 months. Method: Two different methods tapping motivational‐emotional vulnerability were used. Firstly, researchers at preschool age and classroom teachers in grades 1 and 2 rated children's task, ego‐defensive and social dependence orientations. Secondly, an experimental situation was arranged each year where children's play behaviour with LEGO® bricks was observed in free play vs. in induced pressure situations, and their motivational orientations were scored. Results: In preschool, the motivational‐emotional profiles were almost the same among the three prospective reading‐level groups, but in grades 1 and 2, classroom teachers rated poor readers as less task‐oriented and more ego‐defensive and socially dependent compared to good decoders and good readers. The ratings were corroborated by observational data on play behaviour in induced pressure situations. Conclusions: Early problems in learning to read and spell are related to motivational‐emotional vulnerability in learning situations in the school context.     

How parents introduce new words to young children: The influence of development and developmental disorders

This study documents how parents weave new words into on-going interactions with children who are just beginning to speak. Dyads with typically developing toddlers and with young children with autism spectrum disorder and Down syndrome (n = 56, 23, and 29) were observed using a Communication Play Protocol during which parents could use novel words to refer to novel objects. Parents readily introduced both labels and sound words even when their child did not respond expressively or produce the words. Results highlight both how parents act in ways that may facilitate their child's appreciation of the relation between a new word and its referent and how they subtly adjust their actions to suit their child's level of word learning and specific learning challenges.     

The learning and motor development transfer process

The aim of this study is to analyze the transference process in motor skill learning. For this purpose, 320 boys and girls, with ages ranging from 3 to 12 years (M= 7.61; SD= 2.61), took part in nine object movement reception drills in which the following variables were cross-examined: the presence-absence of displacement (static or in motion), the corporal segments utilized (hands or arms), the movement direction (right or left), and the moving object (volleyball or tennis ball). The results indicate that what is being transferred is the common factor among them, the ocular-kinesthetic regulating system, which is constructed according to a generalized motor program and a predictive strategy of continuous control. The way that individuals group by levels of skill that represent the developmental levels of the aforementioned regulating system can also be observed. Lastly, the results are discussed, and strategies to improve the learning process in sports and physical education are provided.     

Between realism and nominalism: learning to think about names and words

Some of the factors that influence our understanding of the nature of names and words were investigated. Participants (from kindergarten, 2nd, 4th, and 6th grades, and a university undergraduate class) were told a series of brief narratives thematizing the relation between objects and names, after which they were asked questions about the origins and changeability of names and words. Responses were coded as either realist (i.e., viewing names as intrinsic properties of objects) or nominalist (i.e., understanding names and words as arbitrary social conventions). By Grade 2, the children showed a significant increase in nominalist thinking, but this was not a universal development among the participants. Many adults expressed views that did not reflect a strictly nominalist understanding of words and names. Furthermore, the use of nominalist and realist models was influenced by various social-discursive factors including the type of object being named, the type of name being asked about, and the participant's prior experience with the name. It is argued that linguistic (especially literate) experiences play a crucial role in developing a nominalist understanding of names and words.     

Looking is not enough: Multimodal attention supports the real-time learning of new words

Most research on early language learning focuses on the objects that infants see and the words they hear in their daily lives, although growing evidence suggests that motor development is also closely tied to language development. To study the real-time behaviors required for learning new words during free-flowing toy play, we measured infants’ visual attention and manual actions on to-be-learned toys. Parents and 12-to-26-month-old infants wore wireless head-mounted eye trackers, allowing them to move freely around a home-like lab environment. After the play session, infants were tested on their knowledge of object-label mappings. We found that how often parents named objects during play did not predict learning, but instead, it was infants’ attention during and around a labeling utterance that predicted whether an object-label mapping was learned. More specifically, we found that infant visual attention alone did not predict word learning. Instead, coordinated, multimodal attention–when infants’ hands and eyes were attending to the same object–predicted word learning. Our results implicate a causal pathway through which infants’ bodily actions play a critical role in early word learning.