Phonological awareness in French-speaking children at risk for reading disabilities

We report the phonological awareness abilities of preliterate French-speaking children. The performance of a group of children identified At Risk (n = 26) for reading disabilities was compared to that of normally developing age-matched controls (n = 22) on a range of standardised and experimental tests. Results showed the At Risk children to have a selective impairment in expressive relative to receptive language, whereas Controls performed at equivalent levels on both measures. Although the children At Risk performed at a significantly lower level than Controls on all but one of the metaphonological tests, their pattern of performance was similar to that of Controls, suggesting a developmental delay. Interestingly, both groups showed a superiority of awareness for syllables over phonemes, reflecting the phonological structure of the French language.     

Crossover: the role of morphological awareness in French immersion children's reading

Achieving biliteracy is a remarkable accomplishment, and it is important to understand the range of factors that permit its successful realization. The authors investigated a factor known to affect reading in monolingual children that has received little attention in the second-language literature: morphological awareness. The researchers tracked the relationships between performance on past tense analogy tasks (the measure of morphological awareness) and reading of English and French in a group of 58 French immersion children across Grades 1-3. Early measures of English morphological awareness were significantly related to both English and French reading, after controlling for several variables. In contrast, early measures of French morphological awareness were significantly related to French reading only. Later measures of morphological awareness in French were significantly related to English and French reading. These relationships persisted even after controlling for several variables. Results of this study suggest that morphological awareness can be applied to reading across orthographies and that this relationship changes as children build their language and literacy skills. These findings are discussed in light of current theories of second-language reading acquisition.     

Phonological awareness in young Chinese children

Two studies explored the nature of phonological awareness (PA) in Chinese. In Study 1, involving 146 children, awareness of phoneme onset did not differ from chance levels at ages 3-5 years in preschool but increased to 70% correct in first grade, when children first received phonological coding (Pinyin) instruction. Similarly, tone awareness was at better than chance levels from second year kindergarten (age 4), but increased strongly and significantly in first grade to 74% accuracy. In contrast, syllable and rime awareness increased gradually and steadily across ages 3-6 years. Patterns suggest different influences of age and literacy instruction for different PA levels. In Study 2, involving 202 preschoolers, variance in Chinese character recognition was best explained by tasks of syllable awareness, tone awareness, and speeded naming. Findings underscore the unique importance of both tone and syllable for early character acquisition in Chinese children.     

Phonological dyslexia: a test case for reading models

Following brain damage, skilled readers may encounter more severe problems in reading nonwords than familiar words, a type of deficit referred to as phonological dyslexia. We report on 2 individuals with Alzheimer's disease who show phonological dyslexia. Although highly accurate in reading familiar words aloud (even those with irregular spelling, such as sew), they were quite impaired in nonword reading. Both patients performed well in phonological tasks involving the repetition, identification, and manipulation of phonemes of orally presented words and nonwords. These results challenge the idea, proposed in the context of connectionist and evolutionary theories, that phonological dyslexia originates from a phonological deficit. However, the results are consistent with reading models, such as the dual-route model, that attribute phonological dyslexia to a deficit that selectively affects the reading mechanisms responsible for deriving the sounds of nonwords. According to these models, such a deficit is not necessarily accompanied by a more general phonological impairment.     

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.     

Phonological coding in reading comprehension: The importance of individual differences

Abstract

In two experiments, texts were presented word by word at a fixed pace to subjects high or low in test anxiety, under various concurrent interference conditions: no interference, articulatory suppression, finger tapping, unattended meaningful speech, reversed (meaningless) speech and nonword (meaningless) speech. High-anxiety subjects produced overt articulation more frequently than low-anxiety subjects, especially in the speech conditions. There was an interaction between anxiety and interference on comprehension performance: Conditions thought to interfere with phonological coding (i.e. articulatory suppression and nonword speech) were detrimental to comprehension for high but not for low-anxiety subjects; in contrast, there were no differences in comprehension performance as a function of anxiety under conditions causing no (proper) phonological interference (i.e. no interference, finger tapping and reversed speech). There were mixed results in the meaningful speech condition, partly attributable to its semantic interference component. These findings reveal that the use and importance of phonological coding in reading comprehension vary with differences in test anxiety-high-anxiety subjects are vulnerable to disruptive effects on phonological coding. This suggests that high-anxiety individuals are especially likely to resort to speech-based coding during reading, and that phonological coding has a compensatory role for them.     

Phonetic awareness and reading acquisition

Summary Three issues are dealt with: the relationship between phonetic awareness and reading acquisition, the nature of the cognitive capacities that make phonetic awareness possible, and the potential influence of phonetic awareness on language perception and comprehension. Data on the relationships between phonetic awareness and reading acquisition support an interactive view. For most people, learning to read in the alphabetic system stimulates phonetic awareness. On the other hand, phonetic awareness is a critical factor for success in reading acquisition. Indications about the nature of the cognitive capacities that underlie phonetic awareness may be obtained by inspecting its development. Two capacities at least seem to be required: the capacity to ignore meaning and focus on the sound properties of speech and the capacity of segmentation.Lack of phonetic awareness does not imply that phonetic processing does not take place during speech perception. Recent data suggest that speech perception includes a stage of extraction of phonetic features regardless of whether or not the subject is able to segment speech into phones explicitly. However, phonetic awareness may influence perceptual strategies and the relative weight of meaning expectancies in identification.Our work received support from the Belgian Fonds de la Recherche fondamentale collective (F.R.F.C.) under contracts No. 2.4505.76 and 2.4505.80 as well as from the Belgian Ministère de la Politique et de la Programmation scientifiques (Action de Recherche concertée Processus cognitifs dans la lecture)     

Phonological processing during silent reading in aphasic patients

In a task involving the detection of a predesignated letter during the silent reading of a series of passages, left-brain-damaged aphasic patients and right-brain-damaged patients showed patterns of performance consistent with those of normal individuals. Both of the brain-damaged groups were more likely to detect letters when they were pronounced in a typical way (e.g., g in "ago") than in an atypical way (e.g., g in "through"), suggesting the use of phonological recoding during silent reading. In addition, both of these groups were more likely to detect letters when they occurred in content than in function words, suggesting a differential processing of these word types. Possible differences in the strategies predominantly relied on for phonological recoding and for the differential processing of content and function words by different groups of patients are discussed.     

Phonological awareness and the use of phonological similarity in letter-sound learning

The effects of the phonological similarity between a letter sound and the sound in a spoken word, and phonological awareness on letter-sound learning were examined. Two groups of 41 kindergartners were taught four letter sounds. First, both groups had to learn the associations between four symbols and four familiar words. Next, both groups were taught the letter sounds that were paired to these same symbols. Each letter sound corresponded to the first sound of the word that was previously associated with that symbol in the phonological similarity group, whereas such a relation was absent in the other group. In addition, measures of vocabulary, letter knowledge, and phonological awareness were administered. Phonological similarity facilitated letter-sound learning. Individual differences in phonological awareness had a strong effect on letter-sound learning even after current letter knowledge was controlled. Unexpectedly, the effects of phonological awareness and the ability to use phonological similarity on letter-sound learning were found to be independent.     

Phonological alexia with vowel-consonant dissociation in non-word reading

We present a patient with alexia secondary to cerebral lesion whose errors in the reading of non-words affect vowels more than consonants. The interest of the case resides in: (1) the documentation of a vowel-consonant dissociation selectively affecting the reading of non-words; and (2) the localization of the alteration in a specific stage of the perilexical reading pathway, that is, the blending of phonetic chains. The case contributes to the discussion on the nature of representations and the processing of vowels and consonants.     

Phonological coding in word reading: Evidence from hearing and deaf readers

The ability of prelingually, profoundly deaf readers to access phonological information during reading was investigated in three experiments. The experiments employed a task, developed by Meyer, Schvaneveldt, and Ruddy (1974), in which lexical decision response times (RTs) to orthographically similar rhyming (e.g., WAVE-SAVE) and nortrhyming (e.g., HAVE-CAVE) word pairs were compared with RTs to orthographically and phonologically dissimilar control word pairs. The subjects of the study were deaf college students and hearing college students. In Experiments 1 and 2, in which the nonwords were pronounceable, the deaf subjects, like the hearing subjects, were facilitated in their RTs to rhyming pairs, but not to nonrhyming pairs. In Experiment 3, in which the nonwords were unpronounceable, both deaf and hearing subjects were facilitated in their RTs to both rhyming and nonrhyming pairs, with the facilitation being significantly greater for the rhyming pairs. These results indicate that access to phonological information is possible despite prelingual and profound hearing impairment. As such, they run counter to claims that deaf individuals are limited to the use of visual strategies in reading. Given the impoverished auditory, experience of such readers, these results suggest that the use of phonological information need not be tied to the auditory modality.     

Phonological awareness, executive functioning, and theory of mind

Language plays a critical role in theory of mind (ToM) development, particularly the understanding of false beliefs (FB). Further, there is some evidence that the development of FB is important for metalinguistic development, such as the understanding of homonyms and synonyms. However, there is debate regarding the nature of this relationship. This study explored the role of ToM, including FB, understanding and executive function in another aspect of metalinguistic development involving phonological awareness, specifically rhyming. Of interest was the relative role of ToM and executive function, particularly inhibitory control, in children's ability to identify rhymes. Two studies of 4-year-olds demonstrated that ToM understanding was primarily associated with rhyming ability, whereas inhibitory control was not independently related. Results are discussed in terms of children's ability to flexibly shift between different perspectives, by bracketing one perspective and focusing on the other, in both metalinguistic and ToM tasks.     

Phonological representations in deaf children: the importance of early linguistic experience

It is argued that the development of phonological representations in deaf children does not necessarily depend on auditory speech experience, neither at the perception nor at the production level. Instead, this development depends upon early experience of an input in which all phonological contrasts are well specified, independently of input modality. This is argued on the basis of the studies investigating phonological and morpho-phonological abilities of profoundly deaf children early exposed to Cued Speech. The paper is concluded with some speculations about the effect of early exposure to CS on the development of language specific processes housed in the left-hemisphere.     

Phonological encoding and ideographic reading by the disconnected right hemisphere: Two case studies

The mute disconnected right hemispheres (RHs) of two commissurotomy patients are able to understand spoken words and read printed words by matching them with pictures of the objects named. In this paper we report the results of five experiments. The RH of one patient could “evoke the sound image” of a word to the extent of matching two pictures with homonymous names (experiment 1) or with rhyming names (experiment 2) without being able to name either one. This transformation of picture to covert sound does not depend on orthographic similarity of word ends as a clue to homonymy or rhyme, nor does it improve with short-term learning. Yet neither RH can translate print into sound by matching a spelled word with a picture that has a rhyming name (experiment 3) or by matching two orthographically dissimilar rhymes, be they meaningful (experiment 4) or nonsense words (experiment 5). We suggest that these RHs read “ideographically,” recognizing words directly as visual gestalts without intermediate phonetic recoding or grapheme-to-phoneme translation.     

Phonological coding in reading of deaf children: Pseudohomophone effects in lexical decision

The purpose of this study was to find new evidence for phonological coding in written word recognition among deaf Dutch children. A lexical decision task was presented to 48 severely and profoundly deaf children aged from 6 years 8 months to 13 years 5 months, and a control group of Grade 1 hearing children matched on written word recognition. Sixteen pseudohomophones were introduced, closely matched on orthographic similarity with 16 control pseudo-words. Both hearing children and deaf children made significantly more mistakes on pseudohomophones than on control pseudo-words. Although pseudohomophony effects were smaller for deaf than for hearing participants, the findings were taken as evidence that deaf children also used phonological coding during written word recognition.     

Phonological assembly in reading: Lexical contribution leads to violation of graphophonological rules

According to current models of reading, the phonological representation-of a-letter string could be generated by means of two different procedures. The first consists in the looking up or addressing of the phonological representation of the appropriate word in the mental lexicon. The second consists in the assignment of a phonological code to the various orthographic units that occur in the letter string and the assembly of them into a unitary phonological representation. However, the various models of phonological assembly differ in the nature of the knowledge that such assembly requires. On the one hand, dual-route theories assert that the assembly process operates by means of extralexical graphophonological rules and, therefore, without reference to lexical knowledge. On the other hand, in analogy theories and interactive models of phonological assembly, the lexical phonological representations of words orthographically close to the letter string (the orthographic neighborhood) are supposed to contribute to the-translation process. The aim of the experiments reported here was to empirically distinguish between these two categories of models. In Experiment 1, subjects were asked to pronounce pseudowords containing the letterg. Results indicate that the phonological representation assigned to the letterg depends on the pronunciation favored by the lexical neighbors. Experiment 2 shows that lexical contribution to phonological assembly also takes place in lexical decision.     

Phonological representation of words in working memory during sentence reading

The temporal dynamics of a visual target word’s phonological representation was examined by presentation of an irrelevant spoken companion word when the participant’s eyes reached the target’s location during sentence reading. The spoken word was identical, similar, or dissimilar to the phonological specification of the visual target. All spoken words increased the time spent viewing the target, with larger effects in thesimilar anddissimilar spoken word conditions than in theidentical condition. The reading of posttarget text was disrupted when the spoken word was similar but not when it was identical or dissimilar to the target. Phonological interference indicates that a word’s phonological representation remains active after it has been identified during sentence reading.     

Phonological awareness and spelling in normal children and dyslexics: the case of initial consonant clusters

We investigated phonological awareness and spelling skills among normal readers and spellers in Grades 1 and 2 and among dyslexics who scored at the same level as the normals on a standardized spelling test. Both normal children and dyslexics had difficulty with consonants in word-initial clusters in a phoneme recognition task and a phoneme deletion task. Also, both groups of children had trouble producing legal spellings of syllables with initial clusters, sometimes failing to represent the second consonants of the clusters. The dyslexics' phonological awareness and spelling skills were poorer than those of the younger normal children, but the two groups showed similar patterns of performance.     

Effects of phonological awareness and morphological awareness on blind students' reading comprehension

The exploration of blind students' reading skills is needed not only for further understanding their reading development but also for providing targeted suggestions for practical education. This study aims to examine the relations among phonological awareness (PA), homograph awareness (HA), compounding awareness (CA) and reading comprehension (RC), and explore the mediating effect of listening comprehension (LC) in Chinese blind students from elementary school. A total of 148 blind and 302 sighted elementary school students completed assessments of PA, HA, CA, LC and RC. The results found that PA, HA and CA were important variables that predicted Chinese blind and sighted students' RC not only directly but also indirectly through LC, which varied across different grades. The findings suggest that there were many similarities that exist in the influencing mechanism of RC between Chinese blind and sighted students.