Phonetic recoding and reading difficulty in beginning readers

The results of a recent study (Liberman, Shankweiler, Liberman, Fowler, & Fischer, 1977) suggest that good beginning readers are more affected than poor readers by the phonetic characteristics of visually presented items in a recall task. The good readers made significantly more recall errors on strings of letters with rhyming letter names than on nonrhyming sequences; in contrast, the poor readers made roughly equal numbers of errors on the rhyming and nonrhyming letter strings. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether the interaction between reading ability and phonetic similarity is solely determined by different rehearsal strategies of the two groups. Accordingly, good and poor readers were tested on rhyming and nonrhyming words using a recognition memory paradigm that minimized the opportunity for rehearsal. Performance of the good readers was more affected by phonetic similarity than that of the poor readers, in agreement with the earlier study. The present findings support the hypothesis that good and poor readers do differ in their ability to access a phonetic representation.     

The relationship of phonemic awareness to reading acquisition: More consequence than precondition but still important

Three studies examined the presence of phonemic awareness among Austrian children before reading instruction and its relationship to concurrent and later reading. These children were about 6–7 years of age but in the majority of cases unable to read when they entered school. Testing phonemic awareness with a newly developed, rather simple and natural vowel substitution task revealed that many children showed not a single correct response or little success. In contrast, the few readers at the beginning of grade one exhibited high phonemic awareness and after a few months of reading instruction most of the children scored at least close to perfect in the vowel substitution task. Despite this apparent effect of reading on phonemic awareness there was a specific predictive relationship between initial phonemic awareness differences and success in learning to read and to spell. In agreement with other studies it was found that phonemic awareness differences before instruction predicted the accuracy of alphabetic reading and spelling at the end of grade one independent from IQ and initial differences in letter knowledge and reading. However, closer examination of the relationship between phonemic awareness before instruction and later success in learning to read revealed a specific pattern. Children with high phonemic awareness at the beginning of grade one showed uniformly high reading and spelling achievement at the end of grade one.     

A developmental sequence in preschool children's acquisition of reading readiness skills and print awareness concepts

While various attempts have been made to explain the relationships among preschool children's acquisition of various aspects of print-related knowledge, studies have generally employed statistical procedures appropriate for linear relationships. Yet the relationships among measures of print-related knowledge may not be linear. One technique that has not been employed in this area but which provides a means for identifying nonlinear hierarchical relationships among measures is order analysis. The purpose of this paper was to examine empirically the acquisition of preschool children's print-related knowledge through order analysis. A data set that consisted of 60 preschool children's performances on five measures which assessed concepts about the purposes and processes of reading and the reading readiness skills of letter naming and visual and auditory discrimination was reanalyzed using ordering procedure. A multivariate analysis indicated a multidimensional relationship among the three reading readiness and two print awareness measures that differed across the three age groups. The hierarchical orderings of the five measures indicated that mastery of the reading readiness skills occurred prior to the mastery of the print awareness concepts.     

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.     

Word association and the acquisition of reading

Two studies relating reading ability to word association responses were carried out. The first involved early readers and matched control children from pre-first-grade classes. There were 29 early readers and 29 nonreading controls matched for age, sex, and IQ. The early readers were found to give significantly more paradigmatic, or same-form-class, responses than the controls. The second study related reading ability, mental age, and word association responses in developmentally delayed teen-agers and young adults, and pre-first-grade children who varied in reading ability. With partial correlation reading ability was found to be related to paradigmatic responding, while mental age was not significantly related. These results indicate that reading acquisition may change word association responses in children through a reorganizing process in the lexicon.The authors would like to thank the Halifax and Dartmouth School Boards for their cooperation. We would also like to thank Paul Cable of Special Education, and the principals and teachers: Beth Conrad, Karen Duerdan, Elaine Fram, Peter Montgomery, Wayne Serebrin, and Bill Schipilow. Their help was greatly appreciated. An earlier version of study 1 was presented at the American Psychological Association meeting in Los Angeles, August 1981.     

Early precursors and enabling skills of reading acquisition

Research on early linguistic precursors and enabling skills of reading acquisition among young children is reviewed. Language development starts early in infancy when the child learns to categorize the speech sounds according to the pattern typical of the mother tongue. Equipped with these sound categories the child is ready to learn to segment words from the sound stream and to understand and to use words. The precise phonological representation of words will facilitate the important development of phonological awareness, a basic prerequisite for reading acquisition. This paper reviews some of my longitudinal research and training studies indicating the causal direction of the relation between phonological awareness and reading and includes some ongoing studies, where gender differences, socio‐economic factors, dose‐response‐effects and motivational factors are explored. Preventive and remedial implications of the findings are pointed out. Finally, the complexity of the causal relationships between different aspects of early language development, including genetic influences and later reading is pointed out.     

Phoneme awareness is a better predictor of early reading skill than onset-rime awareness

We present the results of a short-term longitudinal study. Children in the early stages of learning to read (5 and 6 year olds) were administered three different tasks (deletion, oddity, and detection) tapping awareness of four phonological units (initial phoneme, final phoneme, onset, and rime). Measures of phoneme awareness were the best concurrent and longitudinal predictors of reading skill with onset-rime skills making no additional predictive contribution once phonemic skills were accounted for. The findings are related to recent controversy over the role of large versus small phonological units as predictors of children's reading skills.     

Parallel acquisition of awareness and trace eyeblink classical conditioning

Trace eyeblink conditioning (with a trace interval ≥500 msec) depends on the integrity of the hippocampus and requires that participants develop awareness of the stimulus contingencies (i.e., awareness that the conditioned stimulus [CS] predicts the unconditioned stimulus [US]). Previous investigations of the relationship between trace eyeblink conditioning and awareness of the stimulus contingencies have manipulated awareness or have assessed awareness at fixed intervals during and after the conditioning session. In this study, we tracked the development of knowledge about the stimulus contingencies trial by trial by asking participants to try to predict either the onset of the US or the onset of their eyeblinks during differential trace eyeblink conditioning. Asking participants to predict their eyeblinks inhibited both the acquisition of awareness and eyeblink conditioning. In contrast, asking participants to predict the onset of the US promoted awareness and facilitated conditioning. Acquisition of knowledge about the stimulus contingencies and acquisition of differential trace eyeblink conditioning developed approximately in parallel (i.e., concurrently).     

Parallel acquisition of awareness and differential delay eyeblink conditioning

There is considerable debate about whether differential delay eyeblink conditioning can be acquired without awareness of the stimulus contingencies. Previous investigations of the relationship between differential-delay eyeblink conditioning and awareness of the stimulus contingencies have assessed awareness after the conditioning session was finished using a post-experimental questionnaire. In two experiments, the point at which contingency awareness developed during the conditioning session was estimated from a button-press measure of expectancy of the unconditioned stimulus (US). In both experiments, knowledge of the stimulus contingencies and acquisition of differential delay eyeblink conditioning developed approximately in parallel. In Experiment 1 it was shown that predicting the US facilitated eyeblink conditioning compared with predicting the eyeblink response. In Experiment 2, a masking task was used that slowed down the emergence of awareness, and it was shown that differential conditioning only occurred in participants who were able to predict the US. The current findings challenge the hypothesis that differential delay eyeblink conditioning is entirely mediated by a functionally and neurally distinct nondeclarative learning system.     

Prosodic sensitivity and morphological awareness in children’s reading

This study examined the relationships among prosodic sensitivity, morphological awareness, and reading ability in a sample of 104 8- to 13-year-olds. Using a task adapted from Carlisle (Applied Psycholinguistics, 9 (1988) 247-266), we measured children’s ability to produce morphological derivations with differing levels of phonological complexity between stem and derivation: No Change, Phonemic Change, Stress Change, and Both Phonemic and Stress Change. A 3 (Grade) × 4 (Derivation Type) analysis of variance showed that children perform significantly more poorly on both types of derivations that involve stress changes than on phonemic change and no change derivations. Regression analyses showed that both prosodic sensitivity and morphological awareness, especially in derivations that require manipulation of stress, are significant predictors of reading ability after controlling for age, verbal and nonverbal abilities, and phonological awareness.     

A small-to-large unit progression in metaphonological awareness and reading?

The paper reports a series of studies of reading and metaphonological processing by children in their second year in primary school(aged 6 years). An earlier study had established that, in the first year of learning, performance was characterized by a small-unit approach in which graphemes and phonemes were emphasized. In the second year, reading became more sensitiveto the frequencies of rime structures in the lexicon. Capacity to generate word analogies for nonwords also showed increasing commitment to rime-based responses, and this trend was strongly linked to reading age. The present results suggest that a small-unit approach to reading is augmented by a large-unit approach as development proceeds. This trend was reflected in performance on a test of explicit phonological awareness. When asked to report the segment of sound shared by two spoken words, Primary 1 children were poor in reporting shared rimes but relatively adept in reporting shared phonemes. During Primary 2 there was an improvement in ability to report shared rimes, and this trend was also related to reading age. These results are discussed in relation to the influence of instruction and the nature of the orthography in determining the course of reading development.     

Competence and performance factors in word order awareness and early reading

Previous research has yielded contradictory estimates of the age at which children develop word order awareness, yet has shown that word order awareness predicts beginning reading. In Study 1, forty-five 6-year-olds and forty-three 5-year-olds were given a word order awareness task which used three different sets of instructions, increasing in explicitness. Five months later, they were given the word order task, along with vocabulary, reading readiness (for the 5-year-olds), or reading achievement tests. In Study 2, eighty-nine 6-year-olds were twice given a word order task and a reading achievement test (3 months apart): and ninety-one 5-year-olds were given the word order task and a test of reading readiness. Most older children at Time 2 passed the word order task, whereas many of the younger children could not do so even with explicit instructions. Children who demonstrated word order awareness without explicit instructions were advanced in reading, vocabulary, and readiness. Children requiring further instructions to detect word order were average in reading ability, and those who completely lacked competence in word order awareness were below average in readiness and achievement. Word order awareness may be related to the spontaneous use of syntactic strategies in reading or to other types of linguistic awareness which are useful for beginning readers.     

The acquisition of parafoveal word information in reading

A somewhat counterintuitive finding has emerged from experiments that restrict the "window" of visual information available on a fixation during reading: fixation duration increases even though there is less information to process on a fixation. The two most likely explanations for this phenomenon are: (1) that the reader extracts abnormal information outside the window and this slows down processing; (2) that a restricted window does not allow a preview of a word before it is fixated, and hence identification of the word is slower when the word subsequently is fixated. In the present experiments, these two alternatives were tested. Conditions in which the size of the window alternated between fixations were compared with conditions in which the size of the window remained constant from fixation to fixation. This manipulation allowed us to separate effects due to restriction of the size of the window on the current fixation from preview benefits (which would be due to restriction of the size of the window on the prior fixation). Two experiments demonstrated clear beneficial effects on fixation duration due to receiving a preview of a word on the fixation prior to when it was fixated. In contrast, restriction of the size of the window had only marginal effects on the fixation on which that restriction occurred. In addition, a subsidiary analysis suggested that the benefit of previewing a word was influenced by its length; for short words, a preview primarily allowed the reader to skip the word more frequently, whereas for longer words, a preview primarily shortened the fixation time on the word when it was later fixated.     

The development of metalinguistic awareness and its relation to reading achievement

The relation between certain aspects of metalinguistic ability and reading, e.g., morpho-phonological ability and reading, has been well documented in the literature. What has not been fully discussed is the relation between structural-relational (semantic-syntactic) linguistic knowledge and reading development. This study examined two types of questions about this relation: (a) which aspects of structural-relational metalinguistic awareness in what forms and during which age periods are significantly related to reading achievement? and (b) what is the relation between metalinguistic awareness in oral language processing and written language processing? Sixty-four subjects, from fourth graders to adults, participated in the study. Each subject was asked to judge and produce corrections of nongrammatical, anomalous, and ambiguous stimulus items in sentences and passages. These items were presented in both oral and written modes. Results indicated that reading achievement and age were positively related to metalinguistic ability. Subjects were better able to judge than produce correct forms. While ambiguity was the most difficult task, nongrammaticality was the most discriminating task. Good readers' performance on oral tasks equalled their performance on written tasks by adulthood.     

Influence of oral language and phonological awareness on children's bilingual reading

The purpose of this study was to assess the roles of oral language and phonological awareness on reading performance in grade 3 bilingual students. Several hierarchical models assessed the best predictors of third grade English and Spanish word attack, word identification and reading comprehension. Predictor variables were measures of phonological awareness, expressive vocabulary, receptive vocabulary, and syntax in both English and Spanish. The results showed that within language contributions of expressive vocabulary and syntax best predicted literacy when compared to phonological awareness measures.     

Morphological awareness predicts the growth rate of Chinese character reading

In this longitudinal study, we assessed 88 Hong Kong Chinese typically developing kindergarteners' Chinese character reading accuracy four times with 6‐month intervals over 1.5 years with the first testing point in the fall of the second year of kindergarten (K2), during which morphological awareness, phonological awareness, orthographic awareness, visual–spatial relationships, and nonverbal IQ were tested (Time 1). The latent growth curve modeling showed that reading development in Chinese of typically developing kindergarteners followed a cumulative linear trajectory, suggesting that children with higher initial reading ability develop reading ability at a faster rate. Additionally, morphological awareness at K2 positively and uniquely predicted a linear growth pattern of character reading between K2 and K3 over 1.5 years, a period in which formal teaching and learning Chinese takes place in Hong Kong. Contributing to the literature, these findings highlighted the unique significance of morphological awareness in the growth rate of reading: Typically developing children with better early morphological awareness tend to have a higher initial point of reading ability and, more importantly, a faster growth rate, resulting in a wider discrepancy of developmental outcomes between low‐ and high‐ performers. The results suggest that greater attention should be focused on the development of morphological awareness in early readers, given its salient role in Chinese reading development.     

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.