Component processes of early reading, spelling, and narrative writing skills in Turkish: a longitudinal study

The study examined: (a) the role of phonological, grammatical, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) skills in reading and spelling development; and (b) the component processes of early narrative writing skills. Fifty-seven Turkish-speaking children were followed from Grade 1 to Grade 2. RAN was the most powerful longitudinal predictor of reading speed and its effect was evident even when previous reading skills were taken into account. Broadly, the phonological and grammatical skills made reliable contributions to spelling performance but their effects were completely mediated by previous spelling skills. Different aspects of the narrative writing skills were related to different processing skills. While handwriting speed predicted writing fluency, spelling accuracy predicted spelling error rate. Vocabulary and working memory were the only reliable longitudinal predictors of the quality of composition content. The overall model, however, failed to explain any reliable variance in the structural quality of the composition

Does a truly symmetrically transparent orthography exist? Spelling is more difficult than reading even in an orthography considered highly transparent for both reading and spelling

Although we know that spelling develops more slowly than reading in asymmetrically transparent orthographies, such as Italian, we do not know whether spelling lags behind reading in orthographies considered symmetrically transparent for both spelling and reading. This is because reading and spelling skills are rarely tested on the same lexical items, which impedes their direct comparison. This study aimed to address this issue by comparing children’s reading and spelling accuracy on the same lexical items in Turkish, which is highly transparent for both reading and spelling. The study also examined an exceptional case, namely letter Ğ, which can cause phonemic ambiguity and potentially complicate spelling but not reading accuracy in Turkish. Through two experiments, children’s reading and spelling accuracy rates were tested on the same nonword and real word items at grade 1 (Experiment 1, N = 40, M age = 80.93 months, SD = 2.79 months; Experiment 2, N = 39; M age = 80.97 months, SD = 2.80 months). The consistent findings from nonwords and words (with Ğ or without Ğ) confirmed that spelling development lagged behind reading development in Turkish and that Ğ reduced spelling accuracy but had no effect on reading accuracy. These findings raise questions about the notion of symmetrical transparency: spelling is less transparent and cognitively more demanding than reading even in orthographies considered highly transparent for both reading and spelling. The case of Ğ highlights that even the most transparent orthographies may have exceptional cases that can differentially affect reading and spelling accuracy and therefore the developmental trajectories of reading and spelling skills. Clearly, spelling words as they are heard may not always result in accurate spellings even in Turkish and children should be explicitly taught about the phonemic ambiguity that Ğ may cause

Component skills that underpin listening comprehension and reading comprehension in learners with English as first and additional language

Aims: The primary aim of this study is to augment our understanding of the component skills that underpin second-language learners' text comprehension by examining the direct and indirect roles of vocabulary knowledge and grammatical skills in second-language learners' listening and reading comprehension.  Methods: Our sample included 134 learners with English as an additional language (EAL) and 74 with English as first language (EL1) (Mage = 123.76, SD = 5.02 months). Results: Our path analyses underscored the central role of English vocabulary and grammar in EAL learners' text comprehension. Both made independent and direct contributions to EAL learners' listening and reading comprehension levels. There were also indirect relations between vocabulary and grammar, and reading comprehension through listening comprehension. Similar results were observed for the EL1 group. We also found an association between weaknesses in EAL learners' vocabulary and grammatical skills and their underperformance on listening comprehension and reading comprehension.  Conclusions: EAL learners' oral language, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension development should be examined in tandem and beyond the primary-school years to clarify the long-term implications of the observed EAL gap at primary-school levels. Finally, our findings suggest that both vocabulary knowledge and grammatical skills need to be targeted to support children's listening and reading comprehension. This is important for both EAL and EL1 learners but particularly for the former whose English oral language skills may lag behind those of their EL1 peers

Linguistic comprehension and narrative skills predict reading ability: A 9-year longitudinal study

Background: Linguistic comprehension and narrative skills encapsulate a complex array of grammatical and semantic skills that underpin complex reading comprehension processes. However, most research in this area has focused on children with reading difficulties and not on typically developing children. Also the research has mostly focused on short-term effects of these skills on reading during the primary school years. Therefore, it remains unclear what specific role linguistic comprehension and narrative skills play in typically developing children’s reading beyond the primary school years. Aims: With this 9-year prospective longitudinal study, we sought to clarify the independent effects of linguistic comprehension and narrative skill (at 5 years of age) on children’s reading ability at 10 and 14 years of age. Sample: We examined the data from 716 children (MAge = 67 months, SD = 2.13 months), which were drawn from a major population cohort study, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Methods: Children’s language skills were assessed at 5 and word reading and reading comprehension skills at 10 years of age. The reading achievement scores at 14 years of age were based on national curriculum test results. Results: Linguistic comprehension and narrative skills at 5 years of age made unique and direct contributions to reading comprehension skills and reading achievement after accounting for general cognitive ability, memory, phonological skills, and mother's education. Moreover, listening comprehension predicted reading achievement even when prior reading skills were taken into account. Conclusions: Linguistic comprehension and narrative skills are related but distinct oral language skills that continue to influence children's reading development beyond the primary school years

A systematic review of the effectiveness of reading comprehension interventions in the South African multilingual context

International comparative measures show that South Africa has extremely low standards in reading. A variety of programmes aimed at boosting reading have been developed, however, the effectiveness of these programmes is unclear. Prior reviews of effective reading instruction practices have focused almost exclusively on learners whose first language and language of instruction is English. This paper reviews evidence from 17 intervention studies which focused on the teaching of reading comprehension in the distinctive multilingual context of South Africa. Although in line with prior reviews, we found some evidence that reading strategy instruction including vocabulary development are features of successful interventions alongside effective teacher education and resourcing of reading. These findings remained inconclusive due to variability in the quality of research, considerable methodological variations of the studies and the limited number of studies. Research in this field requires a more rigorous scientific approach to improve the evidence base

The relations between word reading, oral language, and reading comprehension in children who speak English as a first (L1) and second language (L2): a multigroup structural analysis

© 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. This study compared the reading and oral language skills of children who speak English as a first (L1) and second language (L2), and examined whether the strength of the relationship between word reading, oral language, and reading comprehension was invariant (equivalent) across the two groups. The participants included 183 L1 and L2 children (M=9; 7years, SD=3.64months) in England. As anticipated, there was a significant L1 advantage for oral language (i.e., vocabulary, verbal working memory, sentence repetition) and reading comprehension but not for word reading. Findings from the multigroup structural analysis indicated that the strength of relationships between oral language and reading was relatively invariant across the two groups. Oral language was the strongest predictor of reading comprehension levels in both groups. Finally, the weaker English oral language skills explained the lower performance of L2 learners on reading comprehension. Together the results underscored the importance of supporting oral language development in minority language learners

Correlates of early reading comprehension skills: a componential analysis

This study had three main aims. First, we examined to what extent listening comprehension, vocabulary, grammatical skills and verbal short-term memory (VSTM) assessed prior to formal reading instruction explained individual differences in early reading comprehension levels. Second, we examined to what extent the three common component skills, namely vocabulary, grammar and VSTM explained the relationship between kindergarten listening comprehension and early reading comprehension levels. Third, we examined the relative contributions of word-reading and listening comprehension skills to early reading comprehension in Turkish. For this purpose, 56 Turkish-speaking children were followed from kindergarten (mean age = 67.7 months) into Grade 2 (mean age = 90.6 months). The relative role of kindergarten listening comprehension, vocabulary, VSTM and grammatical skills in later reading comprehension tended to vary across time, and they partly explained the relationship between listening comprehension and reading comprehension. Finally, as anticipated, listening comprehension, rather than word-reading , was found to play a more powerful role in children’s reading comprehension levels even during the early primary grades. These results contradicted those reported in English and can be explained by the rapid development of accurate word-reading skills due to the consistency of the grapheme–phoneme relationships of the Turkish orthography

The dimensions of written expression: Language group and gender differences

© 2014. This study compared the written expression of 159 English-speaking first (L1) and second language (L2) learners (Mage=9; 7 years, SD=3.63 months) in England The L1 learners outperformed their L2 peers on the four dimensions of written expression, namely holistic quality, written vocabulary, organisational quality, and compositional fluency. Girls also outperformed boys on all dimensions, except for organisation. The interaction between language group and gender was nonsignificant, but there was a trend for the language group differences to be larger for boys. Vocabulary, organisation, and compositional fluency made unique contributions to holistic quality in both language groups and the strength of these relations were relatively comparable across the L1 and L2 groups. Educational implications are discussed