Separating the influences of prereading skills on early word and nonword reading

The essential first step for a beginning reader is to learn to match printed forms to phonological representations. For a new word, this is an effortful process where each grapheme must be translated individually (serial decoding). The role of phonological awareness in developing a decoding strategy is well known. We examined whether beginning readers recruit different skills depending on the nature of the words being read (familiar words vs. nonwords). Print knowledge, phoneme and rhyme awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological short-term memory (STM), nonverbal reasoning, vocabulary, auditory skills, and visual attention were measured in 392 prereaders 4 and 5 years of age. Word and nonword reading were measured 9 months later. We used structural equation modeling to examine the skills–reading relationship and modeled correlations between our two reading outcomes and among all prereading skills. We found that a broad range of skills were associated with reading outcomes: early print knowledge, phonological STM, phoneme awareness and RAN. Whereas all of these skills were directly predictive of nonword reading, early print knowledge was the only direct predictor of word reading. Our findings suggest that beginning readers draw most heavily on their existing print knowledge to read familiar words

The proper name as starting point for basic reading skills

Does alphabetic-phonetic writing start with the proper name and how does the name affect reading and writing skills? Sixty 4- to 5½-year-old children from middle SES families with Dutch as their first language wrote their proper name and named letters. For each child we created unique sets of words with and without the child’s first letter of the name to test spelling skills and phonemic sensitivity. Name writing correlated with children’s knowledge of the first letter of the name and phonemic sensitivity for the sound of the first letter of the name. Hierarchical regression analysis makes plausible that both knowledge of the first letter’s name and phonemic sensitivity for this letter explain why name writing results in phonetic spelling with the name letter. Practical implications of the findings are discussed

Orthographic facilitation in oral vocabulary acquisition

An experiment investigated whether exposure to orthography facilitates oral vocabulary learning. A total of 58 typically developing children aged 8-9 years were taught 12 nonwords. Children were trained to associate novel phonological forms with pictures of novel objects. Pictures were used as referents to represent novel word meanings. For half of the nonwords children were additionally exposed to orthography, although they were not alerted to its presence, nor were they instructed to use it. After this training phase a nonword-picture matching posttest was used to assess learning of nonword meaning, and a spelling posttest was used to assess learning of nonword orthography. Children showed robust learning for novel spelling patterns after incidental exposure to orthography. Further, we observed stronger learning for nonword-referent pairings trained with orthography. The degree of orthographic facilitation observed in posttests was related to children's reading levels, with more advanced readers showing more benefit from the presence of orthography

Spelling in adolescents with dyslexia: errors and modes of assessment

In this study we focused on the spelling of high-functioning students with dyslexia. We made a detailed classification of the errors in a word and sentence dictation task made by 100 students with dyslexia and 100 matched control students. All participants were in the first year of their bachelor’s studies and had Dutch as mother tongue. Three main error categories were distinguished: phonological, orthographic, and grammatical errors (on the basis of morphology and language-specific spelling rules). The results indicated that higher-education students with dyslexia made on average twice as many spelling errors as the controls, with effect sizes of d ≥ 2. When the errors were classified as phonological, orthographic, or grammatical, we found a slight dominance of phonological errors in students with dyslexia. Sentence dictation did not provide more information than word dictation in the correct classification of students with and without dyslexia

To what extent do frameworks of reading development and the phonics screening check support the assessment of reading development in England?

The purpose of this article is to question the suitability of the phonics screening check in relation to models and theories of reading development. The article questions the appropriateness of the check by drawing on theoretical frameworks which underpin typical reading development. I examine the Simple View of Reading developed by Gough and Tunmer and Ehri’s model of reading development. The article argues that the assessment of children’s development in reading should be underpinned and informed by a developmental framework which identifies the sequential skills in reading development

The efficacy of orthographic rime, grapheme-phoneme correspondence, and implicit phonics approaches to teaching decoding skills

This study compared the efficacy of two decoding skill-based programs, one based on explicit orthographic rime and one on grapheme–phoneme correspondences, to a control group exposed to an implicit phonics program. Children in both explicit decoding programs performed consistently better than the control group in the accuracy with which they read and spelled words covered in the program. Only children in the grapheme–phoneme correspondence program consistently spelled transfer words better than children in the control group. In addition, children in the grapheme–phoneme correspondence group consistently read words more quickly than children in the control group. Children in both explicit decoding programs scored higher than the children in the control group on measures of reading comprehension and oral reading at posttest

Promover a fluência em leitura: um estudo com alunos do 2º ano de escolaridade

Neste artigo são analisados os resultados de um Programa de Promoção da Fluência em Leitura (PPFL), implementado junto de 74 alunos do 2º ano de escolaridade de um Agrupamento Escolar do norte de Portugal. O PPFL é constituído por 22 sequências didáticas, elaboradas a partir de 22 textos (9 narrativos, 4 informativos e 9 poemas). Cada sequência foi operacionalizada em sessões de 10 a 15 minutos, durante 22 semanas, em ciclos de cinco dias (quinta-feira a quarta-feira). Em cada semana foi trabalhado apenas uma sequência didáctica (i.e. um texto). Foi utilizado um design quase experimental, com grupo experimental e grupo de controlo e com pré e pós-teste. Os sujeitos foram avaliados através de um teste de fluência de leitura – o Teste de Fluência em Leitura (TFL) –, considerando as variáveis velocidade e precisão. Os resultados evidenciam diferenças significativas a favor do grupo experimental, que superou as diferenças iniciais que se registavam no pré-teste. A análise qualitativa do impacto do PPFL aponta para um incremento na motivação para ler, no envolvimento da família e para a mudança de práticas por parte dos professores envolvidos.CIEC - Centro de Investigação em Estudos da Criança, IE, UMinho (UI 317 da FCT), PortugalFundos Nacionais através da FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) e cofinanciado pelo Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) através do COMPETE 2020 – Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI) no âmbito do CIEC (Centro de Investigação em Estudos da Criança, da Universidade do Minho) com a referência POCI-01-0145-FEDER-00756