Alexia and agraphia with spared spelling and letter recognition abilities

A patient with alexia and agraphia had intact spelling and comprehension of spelled words and used a letter-naming strategy to read and write. We propose that there is a graphemic area important for distinguishing graphemic features and for programming movements used in writing. In this patient this area was not functioning or did not have access to the area of visual word imagés. Therefore, he used an ideographic letter-naming strategy to verbally circumvent his disability and gain access to the area of visual word images.     

Teaching reading and spelling: exclusion and stimulus equivalence

In Experiment 1, 7 nonreading children were exposed to a program designed to teach reading of 51 training words. The program featured an exclusion-based procedure in which the children (a) matched printed to dictated words and (b) constructed (copied) printed words with movable letters and named them. All children learned to read the training words. Five children also read generalization words and showed progress in spelling. Experiment 2 applied the program to 4 different children, omitting the word-construction task. They also learned to read the training words, but only 1 participant read generalization words. The data support a stimulus equivalence account of reading acquisition and suggest that reading generalization may be obtained, especially when the teaching program includes word construction.     

Acquisition and use of spelling-sound correspondences in reading

The acquisition and use of knowledge concerning the spelling-sound correspondences of English were evaluated by having children read words and nonwords that contained regular and homographic spelling patterns. Regular spelling patterns are associated with a single pronunciation (e.g., -UST as in MUST); homographic patterns have multiple pronunciations (e.g., -OSE as in HOSE, DOSE, LOSE). Analyses of errors, latencies, and pronunciations provided evidence for two complementary developmental processes: good beginning readers rapidly learn to recognize high-frequency words from visual input alone, while at the same time they are expanding and consolidating their knowledge of spelling-sound correspondences. Younger and poor readers rely more on phonological information in word decoding, as evidenced by their particular difficulty reading homographic spelling patterns. Poor readers do not appear to use a radically different strategy for reading words: their perfomance is similar to that of younger, good readers.     

Is a "Phoenician" reading style superior to a "Chinese" reading style? Evidence from fourth graders

This study compared normally achieving fourth-grade "Phoenician" readers, who identify nonwords significantly more accurately than they do exception words, with "Chinese" readers, who show the reverse pattern. Phoenician readers scored lower than Chinese readers on word identification, exception word reading, orthographic choice, spelling, reading comprehension, and verbal ability. When compared with normally achieving children who read nonwords and exception words equally well, Chinese readers scored as well as these children on word identification, regular word reading, orthographic choice, spelling, reading comprehension, phonological sensitivity, and verbal ability and scored better on exception word reading. Chinese readers also used rhyme-based analogies to read nonwords derived from high-frequency exception words just as often as did these children. As predicted, Phoenician and Chinese readers adopted somewhat different strategies in reading ambiguous nonwords constructed by analogy to high-frequency exception words. Phoenician readers were more likely than Chinese readers to read ambiguous monosyllabic nonwords via context-free grapheme-phoneme correspondences and were less likely to read disyllabic nonwords by analogy to high-frequency analogues. Although the Chinese reading style was more common than the Phoenician style in normally achieving fourth graders, there were similar numbers of poor readers with phonological dyslexia (identifying nonwords significantly more accurately than exception words) and surface dyslexia (showing the reverse pattern), although surface dyslexia was more common in the severely disabled readers. However, few of the poor readers showed pure patterns of phonological or surface dyslexia.     

Units of English spelling‐to‐sound mapping: a rational approach to reading instruction

In this paper a rationale for choosing how many and what types of spelling‐to‐sound units of English to teach children to learn to read is introduced. The rationale is based on an analysis of the frequency with which various units of spelling‐to‐sound mapping occur in monosyllabic words of the English language. Analysis of spelling‐to‐sound mappings at three levels (whole words, onsets and rimes and graphemes) reveals that the distribution of these mappings in English text approximates Zipf's Law. Further analyses reveal that a substantial proportion of text can be read if knowledge of the most frequent mappings at each level is assumed. It is suggested that viewing reading from this perspective can be useful in developing reading instruction so that children are taught information that is most useful in achieving the endpoint of learning to read. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Children’s and adults’ use of spelling-sound information in three reading tasks

This research examined the effects of irregular spelling and irregular spelling-sound correspondences on word recognition in children and adults. Previous research has established that, among skilled readers, these irregularities influence the reading of only lower frequency words. However, this research involved the lexical decision and naming tasks, which differ from the demands of normal reading in important ways. In the present experiments, we compared performance on these tasks with that on a task requiring words to be recognized in sentence contexts. Results indicated that adults showed effects of spelling and spelling-sound irregularities in reading lower frequency words on all three tasks, whereas younger and poorer readers also showed effects on higher frequency words. The fact that irregular spelling-sound correspondences affected performance on the sentence task indicates that access of phonological information is not an artifact of having to read a word aloud or perform a lexical decision. Two other developmental trends were observed: As children became more skilled in reading, the effects of irregular spelling were overcome before the effects of irregular spelling-sound correspondences; the latter effects were eliminated on silent reading tasks earlier than on the naming task.     

Effects of computer-assisted practice on reading and spelling in children with learning disabilities

The main purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of computer-assisted practice on reading and spelling in children with learning disabilities (LD). We compared three practice conditions, one with reading and two with spelling, in order to test whether computer-based reading and spelling practice has an influence on the development of reading and spelling ability in children with LD. A sample was selected of 85 children with LD, with age range between 8 years and 10 years (age, M=111.02, SD=9.6), whose spelling performance was two years below grade level. The participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups: 1) Copy the target word from the computer screen (n=22), 2) Memorize the target word and write it from memory (n=21), 3) Word reading (n=21), and 4) the untrained control group (n=21). We administered measures of pseudoword reading, phonological awareness, phonological word decoding and orthographical word decoding tasks. We examined the learning effects and transfer effects on words classified as a function of length, consistency, and complexity of syllable structure. Overall, the results showed that reading training did not improve spelling; however, the children who participated in the copy training condition improved their spelling skills.     

The role of phonology in incidental vocabulary acquisition during silent reading

In two experiments, we investigated the role of phonology in learning new words incidentally during silent reading. Participants read sentence pairs containing novel or known words that varied in homophony (whether another word exists with an alternate spelling for the same pronunciation). In Experiment 1, we monitored readers' eye movements to investigate online processes involved in establishing meanings for novel words. In Experiment 2, participants completed cued recall and vocabulary recognition tasks after the reading session to assess the influence of phonological form on word learning. Eye movement results indicate that readers spent the most time reading novel homophones (e.g., skwosh) and surrounding context, indicating that phonological information is activated early during a reader's initial encounter with a new letter string. Retention measures suggest that readers were able to infer a meaning for each novel word type, despite the increased difficulty associated with reading novel words with familiar phonological forms, and that phonology aided the acquisition of orthography.     

When children write nonwords to dictation

Skill in written spelling of simple, monosyllabic nonwords was investigated in 9- to 11-year-old English children. Two aspects of their spellings were of interest: first, could they spell these nonwords so that they sounded correct (nonword spelling accuracy), and second, did their spellings show evidence of biasing from words heard earlier in the test sequence? Nonword spelling was poorer for children of this age than for tested adults. Nevertheless, significant biasing occurred in these children's spellings, though not to the same extent as in adults' nonword spellings, and significant correlations emerged between reading age, nonword spelling skill, susceptibility to biasing, and real word spelling skill. Children with a reading age greater than 11 years showed biasing from word spellings that was within range of that reported for adults, and, for these more skilled readers, word spelling accuracy correlated significantly with both susceptibility to biasing and with nonword spelling accuracy. These children were not as accurate as tested adults at spelling nonwords. Children with a reading age below 11 years were poorer at nonword spelling and showed no overall biasing, yet they also showed a significant correlation between word spelling skill and nonword biasing. Together with evidence from the same task from adults with specific spelling disorders, these results suggest that word knowledge had a direct (biasing) and an indirect (general word spelling knowledge) effect on the performance of the nonword spelling task. But although skill in word spelling may be a necessary prerequisite for nonword spelling, it need not always be sufficient.     

Effects of orthographic transparency on reading and phoneme awareness in children learning to read in Wales

The relationship between the development of reading skills and the consistency of the orthography (writing system) is investigated in a study that examines reading acquisition in children living in Wales. Performance of children learning to read Welsh (a transparent alphabetic orthography) on tests of reading and phoneme detection was compared with the performance of children learning to read English (an opaque alphabetic orthography). The children were tested during their second year of formal reading instruction at school when they were aged between 5 and 6 years, and again one year later. The children learning to read in Welsh performed significantly better at reading both real words and nonwords than children learning to read in English. The English readers made fewer phonologically based reading errors. The Welsh readers also performed better on a phoneme awareness task. These findings support the claim that children learn to read more quickly in a transparent orthography, and provide further evidence that the consistency of the orthography influences the initial adoption of different strategies for word recognition.     

A Developmental Study of Chinese Children’s Word and Character Reading

To investigate the relationship between Chinese children’s character and word reading, 62 third and 50 fifth grade children in Hong Kong were asked to read single characters and words that were comprised of these characters. Results showed that words helped children to recognize characters for both grades of children. Compared to older children, younger children’s character reading was more likely to rely on the word that the character appeared in as a component; younger children made more errors in confusing the correct character with words related to it. Younger children’s greater rate of meaning-related errors also underscored the role of the word in their character learning. This study confirmed the important role of words in children’s character learning, and provided evidence for a developmental pattern of character and word reading in Chinese.     

The role of discourse context in developing word form representations: a paradoxical relation between reading and learning

To acquire representations of printed words, children must attend to the written form of a word and link this form with the word's pronunciation. When words are read in context, they may be read with less attention to these features, and this can lead to poorer word form retention. Two experiments with young children (ages 5-8 years) confirmed this hypothesis. In our experiments, children attempted to read words they could not previously read, during a self-teaching period, either in context or in isolation. Later they were tested on how well they learned the words as a function of self-teaching condition (isolation or context). Consistent with previous research, children read more words accurately in context than in isolation during self-teaching; however, children had better retention for words learned in isolation. Furthermore, this benefit from learning in isolation was larger for less skilled readers. This effect of poorer word retention when words are learned in context is paradoxical because context has been shown to facilitate word identification. We discuss factors that may influence this effect of context, especially the role of children's skill level and the demands of learning new word representations at the beginning of reading instruction.     

Phonological priming and orthographic analogies in reading

Recent work has demonstrated that children can use orthographic analogies between the spelling patterns in words to help in decoding new words (e.g., using beak to read peak; Goswami, 1986, 1988). However, one objection has been that these analogy effects may be due to phonological priming. Two experiments examined the phonological priming alternative. In Experiment 1, a single word reading task compared the use of analogies to read words that shared both orthography and phonology (e.g., most-post), that shared orthography only (e.g., most-cost), or that shared phonology only (e.g. most-toast--the phonological priming condition). Limited effects of phonological priming were found. Experiment 2 then presented the same words embedded in prose passages--"real reading." While the orthographic analogy effect remained robust, the small phonological priming effect disappeared. It is argued that phonological priming is an insufficient explanation of the analogy effect at the single word level, and plays no role in the use of analogies in story reading.     

Developmental surface dyslexia and dysgraphia: An orthographic processing impairment

This study presents a detailed investigation of a young man in his early twenties who has suffered from a severe spelling impairment since childhood, and currently has a spelling age of only 9 years and 2 months. In contrast with the developmental phonological dyslexics reported by Campbell and Butterworth (1985) and Funnell and Davison (1989), his performance on tests of phonological awareness is good. In addition, he can read and spell non-words competently and, unlike normal 9-year-old children, virtually all of his spelling errors are phonologically appropriate. Further analysis of these errors reveals that he has knowledge of many of the different ways in which a given phoneme can be written, and that he uses phoneme-to-grapheme correspondences at the end of a word that are different from those he uses earlier in a word. However, he finds it difficult to spell words that contain uncommon phoneme-to-grapheme correspondences, which is compatible with the view that he has not developed an orthographic spelling lexicon. Although his oral reading of words is prompt and generally accurate, analysis of his lexical decision performance and the way that he defines homophones indicate that he does not have fully specified lexical entries available for reading either. We suggest that he suffers from a general orthographic processing deficit, and relies instead upon the combination of sub-lexical phonology and a lexicon that contains only partial information about way in which words are spelt. This leads to reasonably competent reading, even of many irregular words, but produces very poor spelling. It is argued that qualitatively different types of developmental dyslexia do genuinely exist, but that reading impairments are likely to be much more pronounced in children who have a phonological rather than an orthographic processing deficit.     

The role of nasals in reading: a normative study in French

Dual-route models of reading assume that reading can be done in two ways. A most common lexical route, on the one hand, allows regular and irregular words to be read while a second sublexical route allows nonwords and novel words to be read. A graphemic processing stage in sublexical reading is assumed to assemble the individual letters of a word or a nonword into multiletter graphemes prior to grapheme-phoneme conversion. The purpose of this study was to determine whether vowel/nasal clusters required as much time to be processed asvowel/vowel and consonant/consonant clusters in sublexical nonword reading in French. Results indicate that nonwords that contain vowel/nasal clusters are read significantly faster than nonwords comprising vowel/vowel and consonant/consonant clusters. Furthermore, nonwords that contain single-letter graphemes are read significantly faster than nonwords comprising vowel/nasal clusters and nonwords comprising vowel/vowel and consonant/consonant clusters. These results taken as a whole support the idea that nasals act as diacritic marks rather than being processed by means of a graphemic parsing procedure.     

EARLY AND CURRENT READING AND SPELLING PRACTICES OF GIFTED SPELLERS

This study continued investigating the early reading and spelling experiences as well as the spelling practices of the finalists in the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee, specifically the 1987 spellers who were considered gifted spellers. Two open-ended questionnaires were used: one for the parents of the spellers and one for the spellers. A follow-up telephone interview was conducted with a random sample of respondents. Results indicated that gifted spellers showed an early interest in language arts activities with 86% of the parents reporting that their children could read prior to formal schooling. The spellers considered themselves avid readers and indicated sophisticated metacognitive awareness whether reading or spelling. Results that suggested the spellers passed through developmental spelling stages far earlier than average children and relied on visual memory strategies, word meanings, and saying/writing words to master the orthography replicated findings from an earlier study.     

MORPHOLOGY MATTERS IN LEARNING TO READ: A COMMENTARY

This paper provides a review of current research on the relevance of morphological awareness to reading and reading instruction. On the assumption that many educators are relatively unfamiliar with morphology, children’s development of awareness of the morphemic structure of words is discussed, as is the need for children to learn strategies that will help them read, spell, and understand morphologically complex words. Educational practices and implications, based on theory and research findings, are presented. Results suggest that educators and educational researchers need to incorporate more word study into reading and spelling programs, focusing attention to both form and meaning. In addition, the value of instructional goals and programs in morphological awareness for children in the early elementary years needs to be explored.     

Individual differences among children in spelling and reading styles

Previous studies have found differences among children in their relative reliance on spelling-sound rules and word-specific associations in reading words. Children at one end of the continuum ("Phoenicians") rely heavily on spelling-sound rules; children at the other end ("Chinese") are more likely to use specific associations. This study found evidence for a Phoenician-Chinese continuum in spelling as well as in reading. Ability to spell nonsense word (e.g., "prunt") correlated more highly with ability to spell regular words (e.g., "grunt") than with ability to spell exception words (e.g., "front"). Children who were skilled at rules tended to overgeneralize them to exception words. In addition, a measure of rule use in spelling correlated with measures of rule use in reading.     

Invented Spelling,Word Stress,and Syllable Awareness in Relation to Reading Difficulties in Children

The study assessed the clinical utility of an invented spelling tool and determined whether invented spelling with linguistic manipulation at segmental and supra-segmental levels can be used to better identify reading difficulties. We conducted linguistic manipulation by using real and nonreal words, incorporating word stress, alternating the order of consonants and vowels, and alternating the number of syllables. We recruited 60 third-grade students, of which half were typical readers and half were poor readers. The invented spelling task consistently differentiated those with reading difficulties from typical readers. It explained unique variance in conventional spelling, but not in word reading. Word stress explained unique variance in both word reading and conventional spelling, highlighting the importance of addressing phonological awareness at the supra-segmental level. Poor readers had poorer performance when spelling both real and nonreal words and demonstrated substantial difficulty in detecting word stress. Poor readers struggled with spelling words with double consonants at the beginning and ending of words, and performed worse on spelling two- and three-syllable words than typical readers. Practical implications for early identification and instruction are discussed.     

The roles of letter names and letter sounds in connecting print and speech

Three experiments were carried out to examine the cues that are used in learning to read and spell new words. In a reading task (Experiment 1), even preschoolers who could not read simple real words were able to benefit from print-sound relationships that were based on letter names. They found it easier to learn that the made-up word TM was pronounced as 'team" (name condition) than that TM was pronounced as "tame" (sound condition) or as "wide" (visual condition). The letter-name strategy persisted among college students (Experiment 2). In a spelling task (Experiment 3), prereaders and novice readers again did better in the name condition than in the sound condition. The ability to use relationships based on letter sounds emerged later than the ability to use relationships based on letter names. However, sound-based relationships were used to a greater extent in spelling than in reading.