一年级汉语儿童语素意识与口语词汇的双向关系:追踪研究的证据

以145名小学一年级儿童为被试,进行为期6个月的追踪,考察了儿童复合、同音和同形等不同层面语素意识与口语词汇的双向关系。结果发现:(1)控制了年龄、一般认知能力、语音意识及口语词汇的自回归效应后,同音和复合语素意识对口语词汇的发展具有显著的预测作用。(2)控制了相关变量及自回归效应后,口语词汇能够显著预测复合、同音和同形语素意识的发展。     

The relationship between morphological awareness and reading comprehension in Spanish‐speaking children

In the last decades, a series of studies has explored the role of morphological awareness on reading comprehension. Path analysis studies performed in English have shown that morphological awareness benefits reading comprehension both directly and indirectly, through word decoding. This issue has seldom been explored in Spanish. The aim of this study was to replicate in Spanish the results previously found in English. We used path analysis to assess three alternative models of the relationship between morphological awareness, word decoding and reading comprehension in 4th grade Spanish‐speaking children. Contrary to English, we found that morphological awareness benefits reading comprehension only directly. We conclude that in Spanish, in which accurate and fluent pronunciation of written words can be achieved through grapheme‐to‐phoneme conversion rules, morphological awareness does not help the correct pronunciation of words. Thus, morphological awareness is not relevant for word decoding in Spanish but is related to reading comprehension since this type of morphological knowledge provides access to the semantic and syntactic information of new words.     

Learning to read in Chinese: Evidence for reciprocal relationships between word reading and oral language skills

This study investigates the longitudinal predictors of the development of Chinese word reading skills and potential bidirectional relationships between Chinese word reading and oral language skills. We examine, in a 2‐year longitudinal study, a wide range of theoretically important predictors (phonological awareness, tone awareness, morphological awareness, visual skills, rapid automatized naming, Pinyin knowledge, and vocabulary knowledge) of reading in 143 primary‐school children living in mainland China. Initial levels of reading were predicted by vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness, and visual discrimination skills. Only initial reading levels predicted growth in reading. Initial reading also predicted growth in vocabulary knowledge and morphological construction. This pattern demonstrates that the early stages of learning to read in Chinese places demands on semantic (vocabulary) and visual skills in addition to phonological skills. Furthermore, early levels of word reading predict the growth of vocabulary knowledge and morphological awareness suggesting that the development of these oral language skills is facilitated by learning to read.     

The comprehension skills of children learning English as an additional language

Background Data from national test results suggests that children who are learning English as an additional language (EAL) experience relatively lower levels of educational attainment in comparison to their monolingual, English‐speaking peers. Aims The relative underachievement of children who are learning EAL demands that the literacy needs of this group are identified. To this end, this study aimed to explore the reading‐ and comprehension‐related skills of a group of EAL learners. Sample Data are reported from 92 Year 3 pupils, of whom 46 children are learning EAL. Method Children completed standardized measures of reading accuracy and comprehension, listening comprehension, and receptive and expressive vocabulary. Results Results indicate that many EAL learners experience difficulties in understanding written and spoken text. These comprehension difficulties are not related to decoding problems but are related to significantly lower levels of vocabulary knowledge experienced by this group. Conclusions Many EAL learners experience significantly lower levels of English vocabulary knowledge which has a significant impact on their ability to understand written and spoken text. Greater emphasis on language development is therefore needed in the school curriculum to attempt to address the limited language skills of children learning EAL.     

How long do the advantages of learning to read a transparent orthography last? An investigation of the reading skills and reading impairment of Welsh children at 10 years of age

Spencer and Hanley (2003) showed that Welsh-speaking children aged between 5 and 7 years who were learning to read Welsh (a transparent orthography) performed significantly better at reading both real words and nonwords than did English-speaking children living in Wales who were learning to read English (a deep orthography). In this study, the reading skills of these children were reexamined three years later, during their sixth year of formal reading instruction. The children learning to read English continued to perform poorly at reading low- and medium-frequency irregular words but no differences were observed in reading regular words or nonwords. These findings emphasize how long it takes to acquire a large sight vocabulary in English, but indicated that the reading skills of the majority of the English-speaking children had caught up with those of their Welsh-speaking counterparts. However, the poorest 25% of the English readers continued to perform much worse than the lowest performing 25% of Welsh readers on both words and nonwords. An underachieving tail of this kind was not observed in the reading performance of the Welsh-speaking group. Overall, these findings suggest that in the long term the detrimental effects of an opaque orthography are most damaging to the poorest readers.     

Contrasting contributions of phonological short‐term memory and long‐term knowledge to vocabulary learning in a foreign language

The contributions of phonological short‐term memory and existing foreign vocabulary knowledge to the learning of new words in a second language were compared in a sample of 40 Greek children studying English at school. The children's speed of learning new English words in a paired‐associate learning task was strongly influenced by their current English vocabulary, but was independent of phonological memory skill, indexed by nonword repetition ability. However, phonological memory performance was closely linked to English vocabulary scores. The findings suggest that in learners with considerable familiarity with a second language, foreign vocabulary acquisition is mediated largely by use of existing knowledge representations.     

The development of comprehension and reading‐related skills in children learning English as an additional language and their monolingual,English‐speaking peers

Background. A significant number of pupils in UK schools learn English as an additional language (EAL). Relative differences between the educational attainment of this group and monolingual, English‐speaking pupils call for an exploration of the literacy needs of EAL learners. Aims. This study explores the developmental progression of reading and listening comprehension skills and a range of reading‐related skills in EAL learners, whose first language is of South Asian origin, and their monolingual peers. Sample. Participants were 39 children learning EAL and 39 monolingual, English‐speaking children who were all in school Year 3 at the start of the study. Method. Children completed standardized measures of comprehension, vocabulary, reading accuracy, and reading fluency in school Year 3 and again in Year 4. Results. The results suggest that, although children learning EAL often demonstrate fast and accurate reading accuracy skills, lower levels of vocabulary knowledge place significant constraints on EAL learners' comprehension of spoken and written texts. Conclusions. Reciprocal relationships between vocabulary and comprehension may lead to increasing gaps in reading comprehension between monolingual and EAL pupils over time. It is proposed that support for the development of vocabulary skills in children learning EAL is needed in early years' classrooms.     

Children's early reading vocabulary: Description and word frequency lists

Background: When constructing stimuli for experimental investigations of cognitive processes in early reading development, researchers have to rely on adult or American children's word frequency counts, as no such counts exist for English children. Aim: The present paper introduces a database of children's early reading vocabulary, for use by researchers and teachers. Sample: Texts from 685 books from reading schemes and story books read by 5‐7 year‐old children were used in the construction of the database. Method: All words from the 685 books were typed or scanned into an Oracle database. Results: The resulting up‐to‐date word frequency list of early print exposure in the UK is available in two forms from a website address given in this paper. This allows access to one list of the words ordered alphabetically and one list of the words ordered by frequency. We also briefly address some fundamental issues underlying early reading vocabulary (e.g., that it is heavily skewed towards low frequencies). Other characteristics of the vocabulary are then discussed. Conclusions: We hope the word frequency lists will be of use to researchers seeking to control word frequency, and to teachers interested in the vocabulary to which young children are exposed in their reading material.     

Home Literacy Environment and English Language and Literacy Skills Among Chinese Young Children Who Learn English as a Second Language

The present study explored the home literacy environment for Chinese ESL kindergarteners and examined the relationships between home literacy practices and language and literacy skills. Ninety Hong Kong Chinese ESL kindergarteners were assessed for English vocabulary, phonological awareness, letter knowledge and word reading. Their parents completed a questionnaire about home literacy practices. Results showed that these practices can be classified into three aspects: shared reading, exposure to English materials and home teaching. Shared reading uniquely predicted receptive and expressive vocabulary, syllable awareness and word reading in English. Exposure to English materials predicted expressive vocabulary and home teaching predicted letter knowledge.     

Morpheme-based reading aloud: evidence from dyslexic and skilled Italian readers

The role of morphology in reading aloud was examined measuring naming latencies to pseudowords and words composed of morphemes (roots and derivational suffixes) and corresponding simple pseudowords and words. Three groups of Italian children of different ages and reading abilities, including dyslexic children, as well as one group of adult readers participated in the study. All four groups read faster and more accurately pseudowords composed of root and suffix than simple pseudowords (Experiment 1). Unlike skilled young and adult readers, both dyslexics and younger children benefited from morphological structure also in reading aloud words (Experiment 2). It is proposed that the morpheme is a unit of intermediate grain size that proves useful in processing all linguistic stimuli, including words, in individuals with limited reading ability (dyslexics and younger readers) who did not fully develop mastering of whole-word processing. For skilled readers, morphemic parsing is useful for reading those stimuli (i.e., pseudowords made up of morphemes), for which a whole-word lexical unit does not exist; where such whole-word lexical units do exist, skilled readers do not need to rely on morphological parsing because they can rely on a lexical (whole-word) reading unit that is larger than the morpheme.     

Fast automatic translation and morphological decomposition in Chinese-English bilinguals

In this study, we investigated automatic translation from English to Chinese and subsequent morphological decomposition of translated Chinese compounds. In two lexical decision tasks, Chinese-English bilinguals responded to English target words that were preceded by masked unrelated primes presented for 59 ms. Unbeknownst to participants, the Chinese translations of the words in each critical pair consisted of a fully opaque compound word (i.e., a compound with two constituent morphemes that were semantically unrelated to the compound) and a monomorphemic word that was either the first or the second morpheme of the compound. The data revealed that bilinguals responded faster to English word pairs whose Chinese translations repeated the first morpheme than to English word pairs whose Chinese translations did not repeat the first morpheme, but no effect of hidden second-morpheme repetition was found. This effect of hidden first-morpheme repetition suggests that participants translated English words to Chinese and decomposed the translated compounds into their constituent morphemes. Because the primes were presented for only 59 ms, translation and morphological decomposition must be fast and automatic.     

Parafoveal processing of prefixed words during eye fixations in reading: evidence against morphological influences on parafoveal preprocessing

Two eye movement experiments were conducted to investigate whether the morphological constituents of a prefixed word influenced early word processing when English was read. Participants read sentences containing free-stem, bound-stem, or pseudoprefixed words, and the availability of the prefixed word morphemes in the parafovea was manipulated. Although preview benefit was greatest for the entire word, there was evidence that subsequent word processing was facilitated in both the prefix-only and the stem-only conditions. This effect was not influenced by word type. There was no evidence that morphological preprocessing occurred when morphological information was available in the parafovea. In addition, reading times for the target word did not differ for the different word types. Thus, there was no evidence to suggest that morphological constituents influence early word processing during reading. It is possible that morphological effects tend to be obscured when examined within a sentence context (although this phenomenon may be specific to English).     

Task complexity,student perceptions of vocabulary learning in EFL,and task performance

Background. The study deepened our understanding of how students’ self‐efficacy beliefs contribute to the context of teaching English as a foreign language in the framework of cognitive mediational paradigm at a fine‐tuned task‐specific level. Aim. The aim was to examine the relationship among task complexity, self‐efficacy beliefs, domain‐related prior knowledge, learning strategy use, and task performance as they were applied to English vocabulary learning from reading tasks. Sample. Participants were 120 second‐year university students (mean age 21) from a Chinese university. Method. This experiment had two conditions (simple/complex). A vocabulary level test was first conducted to measure participants’ prior knowledge of English vocabulary. Participants were then randomly assigned to one of the learning tasks. Participants were administered task booklets together with the self‐efficacy scales, measures of learning strategy use, and post‐tests. Data obtained were submitted to multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and path analysis. Results. Results from the MANOVA model showed a significant effect of vocabulary level on self‐efficacy beliefs, learning strategy use, and task performance. Task complexity showed no significant effect; however, an interaction effect between vocabulary level and task complexity emerged. Results from the path analysis showed self‐efficacy beliefs had an indirect effect on performance. Our results highlighted the mediating role of self‐efficacy beliefs and learning strategy use. Conclusions. Our findings indicate that students’ prior knowledge plays a crucial role on both self‐efficacy beliefs and task performance, and the predictive power of self‐efficacy on task performance may lie in its association with learning strategy use.     

小学低年级儿童汉语语素意识、口语词汇知识对阅读能力的影响:一项追踪研究

以149名小学一年级儿童为被试，进行为期三年的追踪，采用交叉滞后的分析方法考察了儿童汉语语素意识、口语词汇知识与阅读能力的关系。结果发现：（1）儿童汉语语素意识、口语词汇知识、阅读准确性和阅读流畅性在小学1~3年级间有显著增长；（2）控制一般认知能力、语音意识、快速命名后，口语词汇知识在儿童早期的语素意识与后期的阅读能力之间起跨时间点的中介作用。结果表明，儿童早期的语素意识水平能够提高词汇知识获得的效率，进而促进阅读能力的发展。     

Tracing children's vocabulary development from preschool through the school‐age years: an 8‐year longitudinal study

In this 8‐year longitudinal study, we traced the vocabulary growth of Chinese children, explored potential precursors of vocabulary knowledge, and investigated how vocabulary growth predicted future reading skills. Two hundred and sixty‐four (264) native Chinese children from Beijing were measured on a variety of reading and language tasks over 8 years. Between the ages of 4 to 10 years, they were administered tasks of vocabulary and related cognitive skills. At age 11, comprehensive reading skills, including character recognition, reading fluency, and reading comprehension were examined. Individual differences in vocabulary developmental profiles were estimated using the intercept‐slope cluster method. Vocabulary development was then examined in relation to later reading outcomes. Three subgroups of lexical growth were classified, namely high‐high (with a large initial vocabulary size and a fast growth rate), low‐high (with a small initial vocabulary size and a fast growth rate) and low‐low (with a small initial vocabulary size and a slow growth rate) groups. Low‐high and low‐low groups were distinguishable mostly through phonological skills, morphological skills and other reading‐related cognitive skills. Childhood vocabulary development (using intercept and slope) explained subsequent reading skills. Findings suggest that language‐related and reading‐related cognitive skills differ among groups with different developmental trajectories of vocabulary, and the initial size and growth rate of vocabulary may be two predictors for later reading development.     

小学儿童词汇知识与阅读理解的关系：交叉滞后研究

对小学1、3、5年级共399名学生进行为期1年的追踪测查, 使用交叉滞后模型检验小学低、中、高年级儿童词汇知识与阅读理解的关系。在控制了语音意识、语素意识、一般认知能力和自回归效应之后, 结果发现：在小学低年级, 词汇知识与阅读理解之间未发现显著的纵向预测关系; 在中年级, 词汇知识和阅读理解存在显著的双向预测关系; 在高年级, T1的阅读理解能够显著预测T2的词汇知识, 而T1的词汇知识对T2阅读理解的预测作用不显著。研究结果表明词汇知识与阅读理解的关系在小学不同年级段存在不同的模式, 这一发现支持了阅读发展阶段论, 并对阅读三角理论进行了一定的补充。     

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.     

Morphological effects in children's spelling of French words.

The present study examined whether primary school children represent morphological information when spelling French words that have silent-consonant endings (e.g., chat). Children in grades 2 (n = 57) and 4 (n = 55) spelled regular, morphological, and deep words. The morphological and deep words differed in the presence or absence of derivatives that revealed the nature of the silent-consonant ending. As expected, regular words were the easiest to spell whereas morphological words (for which the silent consonant could be derived) were easier to spell than were deep words (for which the silent consonant must be memorized). Children's linguistic knowledge of morphology made a contribution to their spelling of morphological words that was independent of reading experience, vocabulary, spelling ability (i.e., spelling regular words), and phoneme awareness.     

识字量和词汇知识在儿童阅读发展中的相对重要性

本研究基于简单阅读观理论,以两个样本共计666名大班至四年级的汉语儿童为研究对象,探索了识字量和词汇知识在儿童阅读能力发展中的作用及相对重要性的变化。结果显示,在阅读学习早期,识字量对阅读理解的重要性高于词汇知识。随着年级的升高,识字量的重要性降低,而词汇知识的重要性增加。这一发现证实简单阅读观理论也适用于解释汉语阅读能力的发展,并对今后的语文教学具有重要的启示意义。