Grapheme-phoneme Correspondences Research Articles

PHONEME- GRAPHEME CORRESPONDENCE IN READING SKILLS OF GRADE SEVEN STUDENTS: A THEMATIC ANALYSIS

PHONEME- GRAPHEME CORRESPONDENCE IN READING SKILLS OF GRADE SEVEN STUDENTS: A THEMATIC ANALYSIS

Enhancing Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondence Learning: A Single-Case Study Using Picture Mnemonics

The ability to recognize and name the sounds of alphabet letters is a crucial prerequisite for students as they embark on their journey to learn how to read. Regrettably, some children face significant challenges in this area. In this single-case multiple baseline study, we utilized mnemonic pictures to facilitate the memorization of the grapheme-phoneme correspondence of ten target letters. Our aim was to empower four struggling first-grade students to quickly and confidently retrieve this information. The results reveal that the students significantly benefited from the intervention. Furthermore, the approach was perceived as attractive and helpful by both the four children and their teacher. The study concludes by reflecting on its limitations and discussing potential implications and future avenues of research.

Visuo-Attentional and Phonological Deficits Explored in French Students with Dyslexia: Eye Movements Recorded during a Phonological Lexical Decision Task.

Whether dyslexia is caused by phonological or attentional dysfunction remains a widely debated issue. To enrich this debate, we compared the eye movements of 32 French university students with (14 students) and without (18 students) dyslexia while performing a delayed phonological lexical decision task on 300 visually presented stimuli. The processing stimuli involved either a lexical (i.e., words) or a non-lexical route relying on a grapheme-phoneme correspondence (pseudohomophones and pseudowords), while other stimuli involved only a visual search (consonant and symbol sequences). We recorded the number of fixations, the duration of the first fixation and the amplitude of saccades made on the stimuli. Compared to the controls, the participants with dyslexia made more fixations while reading regardless of the type of stimulus (lexical and non-lexical). Crucially, the participants with dyslexia exhibited longer first fixations in particular while reading phonologically challenging stimuli such as pseudohomophones and pseudowords compared to stimuli involving a simple visual search (consonants, symbols). Taken together, these results suggest that both visual and phonological impairments may be implicated in dyslexia, supporting the hypothesis that dyslexia is a multifactorial deficit.

Tarefas com base na Fonotática para estimulação de consciência fonológica

The purpose of this paper is to present some fundamental phonotactic concepts and their importance in phonological awareness tasks in literacy. Only after the beginning of their schooling do children start to observe and notice the segmental elements of words. Furthermore, mastery of phonological awareness will determine children’s reading success in school, which in turn affects their proficiency in adulthood (BYRNE; LEDEZ, 1983). In this study, we present a playful way to explore the sonority scale perception with students through the recognition of geometric shapes (circle and straight line), according to the Sonority Syllable Model (SSM), proposed by Basbøll (2005). It is an alternative proposal to the phonotactic description and analysis that uses distinctive features in its sound organization. In our proposal, we use a phoneme-grapheme correspondence, but, as Basbøll (2005) suggests, we firstly establish which one is the prototypical syllable peak, i.e., main/central peak, in order to determine the implicational relations among the segment types. In addition, in a playful way to illustrate this relation, we make use of a set of concentric circles known as Euler’s diagram. This set of circles is a mathematical set used to demonstrate the intersection among elements. Lastly, we show how this adaptation may be used in a pedagogical practice with children and adults in the literacy stage.

How word semantics and phonology affect handwriting of Alzheimer’s patients: A machine learning based analysis

Using kinematic properties of handwriting to support the diagnosis of neurodegenerative disease is a real challenge: non-invasive detection techniques combined with machine learning approaches promise big steps forward in this research field. In literature, the tasks proposed focused on different cognitive skills to elicitate handwriting movements. In particular, the meaning and phonology of words to copy can compromise writing fluency. In this paper, we investigated how word semantics and phonology affect the handwriting of people affected by Alzheimer’s disease. To this aim, we used the data from six handwriting tasks, each requiring copying a word belonging to one of the following categories: regular (have a predictable phoneme–grapheme correspondence, e.g., cat), non-regular (have atypical phoneme–grapheme correspondence, e.g., laugh), and non-word (non-meaningful pronounceable letter strings that conform to phoneme–grapheme conversion rules). We analyzed the data using a machine learning approach by implementing four well-known and widely-used classifiers and feature selection. The experimental results showed that the feature selection allowed us to derive a different set of highly distinctive features for each word type. Furthermore, non-regular words needed, on average, more features but achieved excellent classification performance: the best result was obtained on a non-regular, reaching an accuracy close to 90%.

Effects of orthography and cognate status on second language Spanish lexical encoding

Abstract This study examined the accuracy of English-speaking learners of Spanish in storing L2 sounds within cognates and noncognates, specifically in words containing 〈g〉 and 〈h〉, which have differing cross-linguistic phoneme-grapheme correspondences. In the first task, participants heard Spanish words with target-like pronunciations of 〈g〉 and 〈h〉 or inaccurate pronunciations with an English-like phonemic substitution for these graphemes, and they decided whether or not they were words. The second task had participants decide between the two pronunciations of each Spanish word and select the accurate pronunciation. The findings in both tasks showed that for L2 learners, 〈h〉 cognate words had less accurate phonological representations compared to all other conditions, possibly due to the greater consistency in phoneme-grapheme correspondence for 〈h〉 in English. These results show that cognate status and orthographic (in)congruity interact to influence the accuracy of L2 lexical encoding.

ALTERNATIONS OF INDONESIAN SOUNDS IN SAMBAS MALAY

Indonesian is derived from Standard Malay, while Sambas Malay (SM), a language-code spoken by indigenous people mostly living in Sambas Regency, West Kalimantan, becomes one of Malay dialects; and SIL (2006) also explains it becomes one of standard variations of Malay. Therefore, the two language codes are assumed to be derived from the same ancestral language, i.e., Proto-Austronesian language. Consequently, Indonesian and SM share sameness which is shown by identical cognates of the two language codes. There are other cognates which show sound alternations. The sound alternations comprise changes, additions, deletions, and syllabic movements of segments and sound clusters. The data corpora are the phonological forms of the cognates of Indonesian and SM. The phonological forms of SM cognates are obtained from and/or based on a previous study on phonological aspects of SM lexical items conducted by Firman et al. (1998). Meanwhile, Indonesian cognates are Indonesian lexical items which are available in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (the Main Dictionary of Indonesian) and become the equivalents for SM lexical items afore-mentioned; and the phonological forms of Indonesian cognates are determined by referring to the rules of grapheme-phoneme correspondences in Indonesian proposed by Fauzi (2015). Sound alternations show morphophonemic alternations like consonant weakening, consonant strengthening, lenition, fortition, nasalization, de-nasalization, glottalization, de-glottalization, vowel laxing, vowel tensing, diphthongization, sound deletion, sound addition, gemination or consonant doubling, sound fusion, sound fission, metatheses, assimilation, dissimilation, word lengthening, word shortening, and de-reduplication. Certain findings show certain phonotactics in SM. The result of the discussion also shows the distribution of segments in both of two language codes.

Absence of Vowels in the English Spelling of Arabic Personal Names on Social Media

Many users of social media from different countries and speaking different languages that use non-Latin orthography such as Arabic choose to transliterate their first name and surname in Romanized script, vis English. Due to the differences between the user’s native language and English in vowels and consonants and how they are pronounced, some people make vowel and consonant errors in the English spelling of their names due to the user’s proficiency level in English and their awareness level of the grapheme-phoneme correspondences in their native as well as English language. This study aims to investigate vowel omissions in the English spelling of Arabic personal names, what kind of vowels are omitted, location of the missing vowels, why educated Arabs omit vowels in the English spelling of their names, whether vowel omissions are attributed to transfer from the native language (Arabic) or lack of competence in English spelling. Analysis of a sample of Arabic personal names with missing vowels in their English spelling showed that in the vast majority of misspelled names, one short vowel is missing. In most cases, the missing short vowel is fatha /a/ in the first syllable of the name. It seems that educated Arabs transfer the Arabic vowel system to English. The Arabic orthographic system has 3 long vowels represented by written letters ا و ي /a:, i:, u:/ and 3 short vowels that are represented by diacritics which are pronounced but not shown in the written form of Arabic words. In addition, omission of short vowels in the English spelling of Arabic names may be attributed to how the name is pronounced in the dialect of the Arabic speaker, not how it is pronounced in Standard Arabic, especially when the vowel is in the initial syllable of some surnames. Vowel deletion may also be due to insufficient proficiency in English and lack of contrastive knowledge of the Arabic and English vowel and spelling systems. Examples of transliterated personal names with missing vowels, explanations, causes, and recommendations for more accurate spelling in English are given.

İkiliğin Ötesinde: Türkçenin Merceğinden Bir İmla Derinliği Muhakemesi

In this study, we chart a course through the labyrinthine array of orthographic systems, casting aside the customary binary of ‘shallow’ and ‘deep’ orthographies. The Turkish language, commonly typecast as a quintessential shallow language, becomes our focal point, unearthing the sophisticated and layered structures that underpin orthographic depth. Our enquiry digs into linguistic elements unique to Turkish, such as the irregular representation of vowel length, a characteristic that weaves additional complexity into the ordinarily clear-cut fabric of grapheme-phoneme correspondence. The driving ambition of this enterprise is to shed light on the richly diverse, and frequently overlooked, intricacies deeply rooted in the orthography of modern standard Turkish. In this endeavor, we aim to redefine the understanding of orthographic depth and its influence on language learning and the development of literacy. Our discoveries position Turkish at an ‘intermediate’ point on the orthographic depth continuum, thus sparking a reassessment of current pedagogical strategies. We put forth a more flexible interpretation of the orthographic spectrum as a fresh approach to the study and pedagogy of orthography. By charting the fluid interplay between orthography and phonology, we craft a comprehensive narrative of their interconnectedness, a perspective vital to the comprehension and application of language. This venture seeks to enrich our communal understanding of orthographic systems and hopes to bring their pivotal role in language instruction and literacy advancement into clearer focus.

Grapheme–phoneme correspondence learning in parrots

Abstract Symbolic representation acquisition is the complex cognitive process consisting of learning to use a symbol to stand for something else. A variety of non-human animals can engage in symbolic representation learning. One particularly complex form of symbol representation is the associations between orthographic symbols and speech sounds, known as grapheme–phoneme correspondence. To date, there has been little evidence that animals can learn this form of symbolic representation. Here, we evaluated whether an Umbrella cockatoo (Cacatua alba) can learn letter-speech correspondence using English words. The bird-participant was trained with phonics instruction and then tested on pairs of index cards while the experimenter spoke the word. The words were unknown to the bird and the experimenter was blinded to the correct card position. The cockatoo’s accuracy (M = 71%) was statistically significant. Further, we found a strong correlation between the bird’s word-identification success and the number of overlapping letters between words, where the more overlapping letters between words, the more likely the cockatoo answered incorrectly. Our results strongly suggest that parrots may have the ability to learn grapheme–phoneme correspondences.

Young Pashtun L1 speakers' laryngeal contrast and voicing variation in Korean word-initial stops production

While age proved to have a critical influence on learning L2 phonology, the reason behind it is yet controversial. (brain maturation, LOR, quality l2 input, crib or sequential bilingualism, etc.) This paper examines 6 young people in the same household using Pashtun as their L1. As the elder children arrived in Korea at ages 10, 8, 6, and 3 respectively, the younger two were born in Korea now aged 10 and 8. All family members have equal LOR(10 years except for the youngest), equal L1, and equal L1 and L2 use extent in the home. Examining the differences between VOT and f0 production in these young people will clarify some of the explanations behind the age effects. Moreover, the data reveals the unique L1 transfer phenomena. While Pashtun is a true voicing language, Korean is an aspirating language where all 3- way contrast stops have positive VOT values. This can lead the young people to produce word-initial Korean stops in intersonorant positions with a marked voicing-ratio and to produce allophones that neither exists in their L1 nor in L2 such as voiced aspirated stop sounds ( bɦ, d̪ɦ, gɦ). This paper will also examine whether these young people’s VOT and f0 productions would align with the current tonogenesis like sound change in Korean. This paper used picture naming tasks with easy words instead of reading non-words to not test their grapheme-phoneme correspondences. Each person produces 9 phonemes of word-initial Korean stops (3-way laryngeal contrasts in 3 POA) both in the position in isolation and carrier sentence.

Evaluating the effectiveness of a broader approach to reading instruction: A single-case study of a reading intervention

AimsThis small-scale study investigated outcomes from a reading intervention which taught a broader range of reading skills. The intervention followed recommendations made by Solity (2020), with instruction on high frequency words (HFWs), grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs), and vocabulary, taught through frequent, distributed practise of skills and real books.MethodFive students in Year Five (all with English as an Additional Language and low levels of literacy skills) from an inner London Borough primary school took part in a reading intervention delivered daily over 3 months (45 sessions). A mixed methods single-case study design was implemented. Students were assessed pre- and post-intervention using interviews, Diagnostic Reading Assessment, questionnaires on students’ reading views and confidence, and fluency reading the 100 HFWs and GPCs. Questionnaire and interview feedback were gained from education staff. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics. Themes and quotes from qualitative data provided an understanding of the students’ and staffs’ views.FindingsResults indicated increases in students’ knowledge of HFWs and GPCs, and students showed improvements in reading ability in at least one skill assessed. Most students felt they were better and more confident at reading, although views towards reading were mixed.LimitationsThe small sample size and lack of control group mean that results may be difficult to generalise to other school populations.ConclusionsThis research goes some way to demonstrating the efficacy of a reading intervention approach which focuses on teaching a broader range of skills compared to a sole focus on systematic synthetic phonics.

Can a Tablet Game That Boosts Kindergarten Phonics Advance 1st Grade Reading?

We report the effectiveness of using the tablet-game Kalulu Phonics immediately after intervention in kindergarten and on national evaluations the year after. In a previous intervention testing the software with 1st graders, fluency and comprehension were boosted, but only when used in concert with reading instruction at the start of the year. Here, we asked whether a similar intervention would be more efficient if it started a year earlier, in kindergarten. Forty classes (1092 = children) were randomized into playing Kalulu Phonics or the matched Kalulu Numbers control game for the first half of the year, with reversed assignments in the second half. Ten non-randomized business-as-usual classes also participated. In a cross-over effect, children who used the phonics version improved in letter naming, grapheme-phoneme correspondence (GPC) matching and fluency. Students with the number version improved in number knowledge. In a longitudinal follow-up, all intervention participants maintained an advantage in phoneme awareness and GPC matching at the start of 1st grade, but this advantage failed to translate into school literacy gains by mid-year. No longitudinal benefits were found for numbers. Our results support using tablet-based aids in spurring early reading skills but question the possibility that a short-term intervention may address the challenges of long-term educational goals.

English Spelling of Arabic Compound Personal Names by Educated Arabs on Facebook

This study examines a sample of Arabic compound personal name spelling errors in English on Facebook as produced by educated Arabs such as students, faculty, schoolteachers, and other professionals. It also examines the kinds of variant spellings and their sources, and the spelling strategies used. A sample of 452 compound names was selected from Facebook consisting of the prefixes عبد Abd, أبو Abu, and the suffix الدين -ddine. The subjects have different proficiency levels in English. The English spelling data analysis revealed that 68.1% of the compound names begin with Add, Abel, Abdal and Abdul; 27.6% begin with Abo, Abu, Abou, Apo; and 4.2% end with -ddine, -dine, -din. In compound name containing Abd, the prefix has 3 attached forms, 3 detached forms and 1 hyphenated form. In 5 variants, Abd is attached to the definite article -al whether the compound structure is Abd + -al+ Noun or just Abd +-al. In 27% a capitalized noun follows Abd, Abdel, Abdal, Abdel and Abdul. The second prefix Abo was used in 54 compounds in this category; Abu in 50 compounds; Abou in 17; Apo in 2; Abul in 1; and Aboul in 1 compound. Only two compounds out of 125 contain this prefix attached -al (Abul & Aboul). In 74%, the subjects capitalized the second constituent that follows Abu, Abo, Abou, Aboul, Abul, and Apo. The suffix الدين occurred in 19 unique names. It has three variants (-ddine, -din, -dine) and 38 occurrences. The form with the highest occurrence is -din. In 10 compounds, the suffix and the first constituent are spelled as one word. In 15 compounds the definite article in الدين is capitalized. In 8 compounds the initial letter in دين is doubled as it is a sun letter that is assimilated with -al. The variant and deviant English spellings of compound names in this study can be attributed to lack of competence in grapheme-phoneme correspondence, ignorance of the English spelling rules, and transfer of the Arabic spelling system to English. The study gives recommendations for improving the subjects’ spelling skills in English.

The impact of explicitly teaching word segmentation using a visual vowel hand sign system to help at-risk children learn to read and spell English: A proof-of-concept study

ABSTRACT English vowels are phonologically and orthographically more difficult than consonants when learning to map speech to print. We sought to determine if teaching young at-risk readers and spellers to use a visual vowel hand sign system to segment spoken words into their component phonemes contributed to improved grapheme-phoneme correspondence knowledge, word reading and spelling. Twenty-three at-risk Year 1 participants were assessed prior to receiving Crack the Code – an intervention that incorporates a visual vowel hand sign system for phoneme segmentation – and immediately after its completion on measures of segmentation, grapheme-phoneme correspondence knowledge, word reading accuracy, word reading efficiency and spelling. Analysis of group data showed statistically significant improvement across all measures with effect sizes ranging from 0.73 to 1.83. Explicitly teaching phonemic segmentation with a visual vowel sign system may be an effective way of improving vowel knowledge, word reading and spelling skills of at-risk children.

Reflections on Spanish Pronunciation

"The present article emphasizes how relevant Spanish pronunciation is to the entire language-learning process. Though a phonetic language, Spanish may be challenging for learners, if pronunciation is not appropriately addressed. Furthermore, in order to expand their Spanish pronunciation knowledge, learners are reminded that the International Phonetic Alphabet can always enable them with more tools to gain a better understanding of the grapheme-phoneme correspondence."

English Transliteration of Arabic Personal Names with the Definite Article {al-} on Facebook

This study aimed to explore how native speakers of Arabic transliterate first and last names containing the definite article {al-} to English on Facebook; what variations exist in transliterating the definite article itself, which is usually attached to the name in Arabic script; how Arabic speakers transliterate {al-} before sun and moon letters in their names; and which strategies they use in transliterating names with a definite article. A sample of 641 unique names with 1207 occurrences (repeats) was collected from the author’s friends’ list on Facebook. Results revealed that {al-} was used in 55% of the names; {el-} was used in 44%; reduced {l-} was used in 1% and {il-} was used in one name only. In 54% of the names, the definite article is attached to the name, with the names spelled in lowercase (الجرف Algarf, Aljarf; الشيخ Alshekh; Alsayd, Elsayed, Alqudah; Alshareef). In 15.5% of the names, the definite article is detached from the name, i.e., spelled as an independent morpheme (الجرف Al Jarf, Al Jorf, Al Jurf; القضاة Al Qudah). In 15.5% the name is spelled with a capital letter although it is attached to the definite article (الجرف AlJurf). In 13.5%, the definite article and the name are hyphenated (الجرف El-Garf, Al-Jurf). In 1%, the definite article is reduced to {l-}, i.e., the vowel in the definite article is deleted (الجرف ljarf, الأسود Lassoued , الغريب Leghrib). In addition, it was found that 40 of the name that follows the definite article begins with a sun (coronal) consonant (Al-Salem; Attaher) as opposed to 60% of the names that begin with a moon letter (Alomari, Aljarf). The study recommends a strategy for transliterating the definite article where the following name begins with a sun (coronal) letter based on the English grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules to enable non-native speakers of Arabic to pronounce the transliterated al+ noun accurately.

Błędy w zapisie fonemów samogłoskowych języka polskiego

The article approaches the subject of spelling errors made in notation of vowel phonemes of the Polish language. The focus group consisted of Polish teenagers aged 15 or 16 years who were asked to produce a sample writing in the form of an argument and to write a dictation, devised by the author himself. The article comprises four parts: the introduction, the typology of spelling errors, the description of spelling errors seen from the perspective of phoneme-grapheme correspondences, and the discussion part. Most of the collected errorscollected were of orthographic (phonetically correct) or morphological type, depending on the chosen classification. Of the gathered material, substituting the ę grapheme with e in the ę - /ɛ/ word-final position (such as Ja chcę – eng. ‘I want’) was the most prevalent pattern. Other errors concerned mainly: incorrect spellings of the /u/ phoneme (especially in a context where the ó grapheme does not alternate with the o grapheme), wrong spellings of the ął, ęł, ęl, and en biphonematic group (as in wziął, wzięła, wzięli, argument), as well as confusing the om and ą graphemes in their word-final position (e.g. kolegom, kolegą eng. ‘a friend’ respectively in its dative and ablative grammar case).

Before Learning the Code: A Commentary on Sargiani, Ehri, and Maluf (RRQ, 2022)

AbstractIn this commentary, we argue the importance of the period before learning the alphabetic code and develop a new theoretical framework for the cognitive processes involved at the very beginning of learning to read. According to our theory, prereaders begin to learn to read by associating letter clusters with concrete phonological units such as syllables, a process we refer to as “building the syllabic bridge” (Doignon‐Camus & Zagar, 2014). This procedure may trigger statistical learning to extract regularities of grapheme–phoneme correspondences. We assume that statistical learning facilitates access to phonemic awareness and then the acquisition of the alphabetic code. Our arguments are partly based on the comparison between the studies conducted by Vazeux et al. (2020) and Sargiani et al. (2022), whose results might have seemed contradictory at first sight. Finally, we suggest pedagogical implications and some perspectives for future research.

English versus Zambian Languages: Exploring some Similarities and Differences with their Implication on the Teaching of Literacy and Language in Primary Schools

This desk study aimed at comparing English and selected Zambian Languages with a view of identifying some similarities and differences. Data was collected through author introspection and document analysis of existing literature. Publications in English and some Zambian Languages were collected from international databases such JSTOR, Cambridge Journals Online, and Palgrave Macmillan Journals. Searches for literature was extended to Google Scholar, Institutional Repository and visited the University of Zambia library in person. The documents collected were subjected to content analysis where key words, concepts and themes were picked and compared. Findings of the study revealed that English Language has an opaque orthography as there is no grapheme-phoneme correspondence while Zambian Languages have a transparent orthography where each grapheme correspond to individual sounds and that the number of graphemes is almost equal to phonemes. Literacy and language instruction would be much easier for learners in a transparent orthography than opaque. English has certain parts of speech such as articles (determiners) which are not there in Zambian Languages. Unlike English, vowel length is distinctive in all Zambian language. English and Zambian languages use alphabetic writing system with about 93% shared symbols or graphemes. These similarities and variations imply that pedagogically, if learners learn letter knowledge and decoding in a Zambian language, they will transfer such knowledge to English or any other alphabetic language and vice versa. Conversely, in areas where there are differences, literacy and language learners will face difficulties. The study recommended that teachers in early grade classes should understand the variation of English and selected Zambian languages well in their regions to guide learners in schools.