Abstract
Fluent reading in a foreign language includes a complex coordination process of visual and auditory nature as the reading brain transforms written symbols into speaking auditory patterns through subvocalization (inner voice). The auditory information activated for reading involves the projection of speech prosody and allows, beyond letters and words decoding, the recognition of word boundaries and the construction of the melodic contours of the phrase. On the one hand, phonological awareness and auditory working memory have been identified in the literature as relevant factors in the reading process as skilled readers keep the acoustic information in their auditory working memory to predict the construction of larger lexical units. On the other hand, we observed that the inclusion of musical aptitude as an element belonging to the acoustic dimension of the silent reading aptitude of adults learning a foreign language remains understudied. Therefore, this study examines the silent reading fluency of 117 Italian adult students of Spanish as a foreign language. Our main aim was to find a model that could show if linguistic, cognitive and musical skills influence adults’ silent reading fluency. We hypothesized that learners’ contextual word recognition ability in L1 and FL in addition to, phonological awareness, auditory working memory and musical aptitude, elements related to the acoustic dimension of reading, would influence adults’ silent reading fluency. Our structural modeling allows us to describe how these different variables interact to determine the silent reading fluency construct. In fact, the effect of musical aptitude on fluent silent reading in our model reveals to be stronger than phonological awareness or auditory working memory.
Highlights
IntroductionThe Acoustic Dimension of Reading in a Foreign LanguageEither in the mother tongue (L1) or in a foreign language (FL), the reading process implies the inter-relationship between written and spoken language. Ahissar et al (2000), for instance, studied adults’ reading abilities and concluded that auditory processing abilities accounted for more than 50% of the reading score variance, even in the group of adults who never had childhood histories of reading difficulties. Tichko and Skoe (2018) pointed out that “sensorineural auditory processingThe Acoustic Dimension of Reading in central auditory structures is related to reading ability across the lifespan, beginning in the preliterate period and continuing into adulthood” (p.2), while Mankel and Bidelman (2018) stated that the brain’s neural encoding and perception of sound differences is due to inherent auditory abilities that belong to the acoustic dimension
In order to more comprehensively examine relationships among musical aptitude and silent reading fluency, we subjected these data to structural equation modeling (SEM) in Figure 1 [RQ5]
The objective of this study was to uncover the acoustic dimension of silent reading fluency based on an analysis of factors such as contextual word recognition in L1 and foreign language (FL), in addition to phonological awareness, auditory working memory and musical aptitude among 117 Italian university students of Spanish as a FL
Summary
The Acoustic Dimension of Reading in a Foreign LanguageEither in the mother tongue (L1) or in a foreign language (FL), the reading process implies the inter-relationship between written and spoken language. Ahissar et al (2000), for instance, studied adults’ reading abilities and concluded that auditory processing abilities accounted for more than 50% of the reading score variance, even in the group of adults who never had childhood histories of reading difficulties. Tichko and Skoe (2018) pointed out that “sensorineural auditory processingThe Acoustic Dimension of Reading in central auditory structures is related to reading ability across the lifespan, beginning in the preliterate period and continuing into adulthood” (p.2), while Mankel and Bidelman (2018) stated that the brain’s neural encoding and perception of sound differences is due to inherent auditory abilities that belong to the acoustic dimension. In alphabetic and shallow languages, such as Spanish and Italian, phonological awareness or the identification and manipulation of units in oral language is a reliable indicator of word recognition (McBride-Chang, 1995; Share, 1995, 2008): fluent reading is not possible without efficient contextual word recognition (Wang et al, 2005; Koda, 2007a; Macalister, 2010) In this sense, letters to sounds conversion is a critical subskill for word recognition and reading fluency, the role of phonology appears to be more complex than support of word-by-word visual recognition. We hypothesized that learners’ contextual word recognition abilities in L1 and FL in addition to phonological awareness, auditory working memory and musical aptitude, elements related to the acoustic dimension of reading, explain adults’ silent reading fluency
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