Lexical Quality Research Articles

Examining Reading Comprehension Profiles of Grade 5 Monolinguals and English Language Learners Through the Lexical Quality Hypothesis Lens

This study set out to compare patterns of relationships among phonological skills, orthographic skills, semantic knowledge, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension in English as a first language (EL1) and English language learners (ELL) students and to test the applicability of the lexical quality hypothesis framework. Participants included 94 EL1 and 178 ELL Grade 5 students from diverse home-language backgrounds. Latent profile analyses conducted separately for ELLs and EL1s provided support for the lexical quality hypothesis in both groups, with the emergence of two profiles: A poor comprehenders profile was associated with poor word-reading-related skills (phonological awareness and orthographic processing) and with poor language-related skills (semantic knowledge and, to a lesser extent, listening comprehension). The good comprehenders profile was associated with average or above-average performance across the component skills, demonstrating that good reading comprehension is the result of strong phonological and orthographic processing skills as well as strong semantic and listening comprehension skills. The good and poor comprehenders profiles were highly similar for ELL and EL1 groups. Conversely, poor comprehenders struggled with these same component skills. Implications for assessment and future research are discussed.

Comparing Students’ Perceptions and Their Writing Performance on Collaborative writing: A Case Study

One important strand of research in collaborative writing has been the learners’ attitudes and perceptions toward collaborative writing. This study sets out to compare three pairs of students’ perceptions and their actual collaborative writing practices. Multiple sources of data were collected. Students’ semi-interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and analyzed for their perceptions. Their collaborative writing tasks are also recorded and analyzed for quantity, type and resolution of language related episodes (LREs). The study further examined the collaborative texts using both quantitative and qualitative measures for students’ language improvement. Our finding suggest that most participants expressed positive attitudes towards collaborative writing but only half of them were aware of language improvement. An analysis of pairs’ discussion revealed that participants were overly concerned with vocabulary and all LREs were successfully resolved. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of collaborative texts demonstrated that two pairs received considerable language improvements in terms of lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, fluency and text quality. These findings can be used to encourage students to reflect on their own perceptions and practices in collaborative writing tasks.

Semantic diversity, frequency and the development of lexical quality in children’s word reading

Abstract Frequency exerts a powerful influence on lexical processing but it is possible that at least part of its effect is caused by high frequency words being experienced in more diverse contexts over an individual’s language experience. To capture this variability, we applied Latent Semantic Analysis on a 35-million-word corpus of texts written for children, deriving a measure of semantic diversity that quantifies the similarity of all the contexts a word appears in. Across three experiments with 6–13-year-old children involving reading aloud and lexical decision, we found a main effect of semantic diversity: high diversity words were responded to faster and read more accurately than low diversity words. Frequency, document count and age of acquisition were also significant predictors of reading behaviour. These findings demonstrate that contextual variability contributes to word learning and the development of lexical quality, beyond the effect of frequency.

Morphological Processing Before and During Children’s Spelling

ABSTRACTOur understanding of spelling development has largely been gleaned from analysis of children’s accuracy at spelling words under varying conditions and the nature of their errors. Here, we consider whether handwriting durations can inform us about the time course with which children use morphological information to produce accurate spellings of root morphemes. Six- to 7-year-old (n = 23) and 8- to 11-year-old (n = 25) children produced 28 target spellings in a spelling-to-dictation task. Target words were matched quadruplets of base, control, inflected, and derived words beginning with the same letters (e.g., rock, rocket, rocking, rocky). Both groups of children showed evidence of morphological processing as they prepared their spelling; writing onset latencies were shorter for two-morpheme words than control words. The findings are consistent with statistical learning theories of spelling development and theories of lexical quality that include a role of morphology.

Relating Reading Comprehension to Oral Reading Performance in the NAEP Fourth‐Grade Special Study of Oral Reading

AbstractIn this secondary analysis study, the authors explored the relations between reading comprehension and oral reading performance in fourth‐grade students, using a data set from the U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) special study of oral reading. The data set consisted of 1,713 students randomly selected from the 140,000 fourth graders who participated in the 2002 main NAEP reading assessment. Oral reading was measured by word‐reading accuracy, rate, and prosody. The authors investigated how these variables related to NAEP comprehension across the ability distribution, with a focus on students with low comprehension scores. The results add to the literature in several ways. First, indicators of oral reading fluency continue to explain variation in reading comprehension, even when students had been given multiple opportunities to familiarize themselves with the passage that they read aloud. Second, word‐reading accuracy and reading rate independently explained comprehension scores. Third, the authors observed qualitatively different profiles of fourth‐grade readers with low comprehension scores. Nearly all students with reading rates lower than one standard deviation below the mean also had problems with word recognition, as evidenced by the relatively higher number of word‐reading errors and low prosody ratings. The authors interpret these findings in light of the lexical quality hypothesis and the verbal efficiency theory, which emphasize the importance of word‐level accuracy and automaticity to reading comprehension.

Computer-based assessment of reading ability and subtypes of readers with reading comprehension difficulties: a study in French children from G2 to G9

Reading difficulties in school are very challenging for teachers due to many different reader subtypes in one and the same class. Moreover, there are few easy-to-use tools enabling teachers to assess reading ability. According to the Simple View of Reading (Hoover and Gough in Reading and Writing, 2(2), 127–160, 1990), efficient reading comprehension is the result of an interaction between word reading (through three word representation levels: orthographic, phonological, and semantic) and comprehension (through three processing types: literal, text-connecting, and gap-filling inferences). Difficulties in one of these components, or in both, should lead to difficulties in reading comprehension and bring about different reader subtypes. This study aims, first, to examine the validity of the tool and, second, to explore performance reading patterns of children with reading difficulties. A population of 485 typically developing French children from grade 2 to grade 9 was tested using three computerized tasks that recorded accuracy and speed: lexical quality to examine the three levels of word representation; silent reading and listening comprehension to examine both literal and inferential processing. Results showed the appropriateness of the tool but also identified a number of limits. It was possible with the results to detect 76 children with reading comprehension difficulties and to divide them into 5 clusters essentially according to their word reading performances. The results are discussed in relation to the theoretical frameworks used to build the tool.

Language experience shapes relational knowledge of compound words.

Prior studies of noun-noun compound word processing have provided insight into the human capacity for conceptual combination (Gagné and Shoben Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 23(1), 71 1997; Spalding, Gagné, Mullaly & Ji Linguistische Berichte Sonderheft, 17, 283-315 2010). These studies conclude that relational interpretations of compound words are proposed and appraised by the language system during online word recognition. However, little is known about how the capacity for creating new meanings from existing conceptual units develops within an individual mind. Though current theories imply that individual relational knowledge about the combinability of concepts develops as language experience accumulates, this hypothesis has not been previously tested experimentally. Here, we addressed this hypothesis in a task that assesses individual relational knowledge of English compound words. We report that greater experience with printed language shapes relational knowledge of compound words in two ways. Firstly, individuals with more experience with printed language were able to select a greater number of possible relational meanings for individual compound words. Secondly, individuals with greater experience with printed language were also more precise about which relational meaning was the most semantically plausible out of all possible meanings. Our results confirm that language experience affects an individual's ability to use relational knowledge in order to combine conceptual units. Our findings offer further support for the Lexical Quality Hypothesis (Perfetti, 2007), which states that lexical representations of words become simultaneously more flexible and precise as a result of repeated exposure to their orthographic forms in language usage.

The Role of Orthographic and Semantic Learning in Word Reading and Reading Comprehension

ABSTRACTWe tested the theoretically driven hypotheses that children’s orthographic and semantic learning are associated with their word reading and reading comprehension skills, even when orthographic and semantic knowledge are taken into account. A sample of 139 English-speaking Grade 3 children completed a learning task in which they read stories about new inventions. Then they were tested on their learning of the spelling and meaning of the inventions (i.e., orthographic and semantic learning, respectively). Word reading and reading comprehension were assessed with standardised tasks, and orthographic and semantic knowledge were assessed with choice tasks targeting the spelling and meaning of existing words. The results of our structural equation modeling indicated that orthographic learning predicted word reading directly and reading comprehension indirectly via word reading. We also found that semantic learning predicted reading comprehension directly. These findings support integration of the self-teaching hypothesis and the lexical quality hypothesis.

Beyond the simple view of early first and second language reading: The impact of lexical quality

Abstract According to the simple view of reading (SVR), reading comprehension is the product of word decoding and listening comprehension. Against this background, we examined the additional role of early lexical quality in the prediction of reading comprehension, either directly or indirectly via word decoding or listening comprehension. Following a longitudinal design, 566 children learning to read Dutch as L1 and 463 children learning to read Dutch as L2 in the Netherlands were tested on indicators lexical quality (LQ) in kindergarten (speech decoding, morphological knowledge and vocabulary); word decoding and listening comprehension in first grade; and then reading comprehension in second grade. The results showed L2 learners to consistently lag behind L1 readers on all measures except for word decoding. Both word decoding and listening comprehension predicted later reading comprehension for not only L1 but also L2 learners. However, later reading comprehension was also directly predicted by the children's early morphological and vocabulary knowledge, on the one hand, and indirectly by speech decoding and morphological knowledge via word decoding and indirectly by morphological and vocabulary knowledge via listening comprehension. These results show the beginning reading achievement of both L1 and L2 learners to be largely predicted by the quality of their early lexicons.

Word skipping: Effects of word length, predictability, spelling and reading skill.

Readers’ eyes often skip over words as they read. Skipping rates are largely determined by word length; short words are skipped more than long words. However, the predictability of a word in context also impacts skipping rates. Rayner, Slattery, Drieghe and Liversedge reported an effect of predictability on word skipping for even long words (10-13 characters) that extend beyond the word identification span. Recent research suggests that better readers and spellers have an enhanced perceptual span. We explored that whether reading and spelling skill interact with word length and predictability to impact word skipping rates in a large sample (N = 92) of average and poor adult readers. Participants read the items from Rayner et al., while their eye movements were recorded. Spelling skill (zSpell) was assessed using the dictation and recognition tasks developed by Sally Andrews and colleagues. Reading skill (zRead) was assessed from reading speed (words per minute) and comprehension accuracy of three 120 word passages each with 10 comprehension questions. We fit linear mixed models to the target gaze duration data and generalized linear mixed models to the target word skipping data. Target word gaze durations were significantly predicted by zRead, while the skipping likelihoods were significantly predicted by zSpell. Additionally, for gaze durations, zRead significantly interacted with word predictability as better readers relied less on context to support word processing. These effects are discussed in relation to the lexical quality hypothesis and eye movement models of reading.

Lexical entrenchment and cross-language activation: Two sides of the same coin for bilingual reading across the adult lifespan

We used eye movement measures of paragraph reading to examine whether two consequences of bilingualism, namely, reduced lexical entrenchment (i.e., reduced lexical quality and accessibility arising from less absolute language experience) and cross-language activation (i.e., simultaneous co-activation of target- and non-target-language lexical representations) interact during word processing in bilingual younger and older adults. Specifically, we focused on the interaction between word frequency (a predictor of lexical entrenchment) and cross-language neighborhood density (a predictor of cross-language activation) during first- and second-language reading. Across both languages and both age groups, greater cross-language (and within-language) neighborhood density facilitated word processing, indexed by smaller word frequency effects. Moreover, word frequency effects and, to a lesser extent, cross-language neighborhood density effects were larger in older versus younger adults, potentially reflecting age-related changes in lexical accessibility and cognitive control. Thus, lexical entrenchment and cross-language activation multiplicatively influence bilingual word processing across the adult lifespan.

Listening while reading promotes word learning from stories

Reading and listening to stories fosters vocabulary development. Studies of single word learning suggest that new words are more likely to be learned when both their oral and written forms are provided, compared with when only one form is given. This study explored children’s learning of phonological, orthographic, and semantic information about words encountered in a story context. A total of 71 children (8- and 9-year-olds) were exposed to a story containing novel words in one of three conditions: (a) listening, (b) reading, or (c) simultaneous listening and reading (“combined” condition). Half of the novel words were presented with a definition, and half were presented without a definition. Both phonological and orthographic learning were assessed through recognition tasks. Semantic learning was measured using three tasks assessing recognition of each word’s category, subcategory, and definition. Phonological learning was observed in all conditions, showing that phonological recoding supported the acquisition of phonological forms when children were not exposed to phonology (the reading condition). In contrast, children showed orthographic learning of the novel words only when they were exposed to orthographic forms, indicating that exposure to phonological forms alone did not prompt the establishment of orthographic representations. Semantic learning was greater in the combined condition than in the listening and reading conditions. The presence of the definition was associated with better performance on the semantic subcategory and definition posttests but not on the phonological, orthographic, or category posttests. Findings are discussed in relation to the lexical quality hypothesis and the availability of attentional resources.

Lexical quality and executive control predict children\u2019s first and second language reading comprehension

This study compared how lexical quality (vocabulary and decoding) and executive control (working memory and inhibition) predict reading comprehension directly as well as indirectly, via syntactic integration, in monolingual and bilingual fourth grade children. The participants were 76 monolingual and 102 bilingual children (mean age 10 years, SD = 5 months) learning to read Dutch in the Netherlands. Bilingual children showed lower Dutch vocabulary, syntactic integration and reading comprehension skills, but better decoding skills than their monolingual peers. There were no differences in working memory or inhibition. Multigroup path analysis showed relatively invariant connections between predictors and reading comprehension for monolingual and bilingual readers. For both groups, there was a direct effect of lexical quality on reading comprehension. In addition, lexical quality and executive control indirectly influenced reading comprehension via syntactic integration. The groups differed in that inhibition more strongly predicted syntactic integration for bilingual than for monolingual children. For a subgroup of bilingual children, for whom home language vocabulary data were available (n = 56), there was an additional positive effect of home language vocabulary on second language reading comprehension. Together, the results suggest that similar processes underlie reading comprehension in first and second language readers, but that syntactic integration requires more executive control in second language reading. Moreover, bilingual readers additionally benefit from first language vocabulary to arrive at second language reading comprehension.

The role of semantic retrieval in children's reading comprehension development in the upper primary grades

BackgroundThe lexical quality hypothesis proposes that successful reading comprehension requires high quality lexical representations, which allow for efficient retrieval. These retrieval operations have however not been specified.MethodsWe investigated the contribution of semantic retrieval to reading comprehension in 119 Dutch children in the upper grades of primary school, while taking decoding skills and vocabulary size into account in a longitudinal design. By using verbal fluency tasks, we measured retrieval in line with the structural organisation of the mental lexicon and additionally, a more controlled search through the mental lexicon.ResultsSemantic retrieval assessed in grade 5 accounted for variance in reading comprehension in grade 6, in addition to variance accounted for by vocabulary size and reading comprehension in grade 5.ConclusionsThe ability to search through the mental lexicon, along the lines of its hierarchical structure, is important for children's reading comprehension development in the upper primary grades.

Cognitive precursors of the developmental relation between lexical quality and reading comprehension in the intermediate elementary grades

In a longitudinal study, we investigated how cognitive precursors (short-term memory, working memory, and nonverbal reasoning) influence the developmental relation between lexical quality (decoding and vocabulary) and reading comprehension skill in 282 Dutch students in the intermediate elementary grades (mean age at start Grade 4 was 9; 7years) as these grades mark an important transition point in the development of reading comprehension skill. Analyses revealed strong autoregressive effects for the linguistic measures. Moreover, evidence was found for a reciprocal relation between vocabulary and reading comprehension. Direct concurrent relations were evidenced between short-term memory and decoding, and between working memory and reasoning, on the one hand, and reading comprehension and vocabulary, on the other hand. Finally, we found direct and indirect influences of nonverbal reasoning and working memory capacity on reading comprehension and vocabulary development. The results highlight the importance of both lexical and cognitive factors in reading comprehension development.

Individual differences in automatic semantic priming.

This research investigated whether masked semantic priming in a semantic categorization task that required classification of words as animals or nonanimals was modulated by individual differences in lexical proficiency. A sample of 89 skilled readers, assessed on reading comprehension, vocabulary and spelling ability, classified target words preceded by brief (50 ms) masked primes that were either congruent or incongruent with the category of the target. Congruent primes were also selected to be either high (e.g., hawk EAGLE, pistol RIFLE) or low (e.g., mole EAGLE, boots RIFLE) in semantic feature overlap with the target. "Overall proficiency," indexed by high performance on both a "semantic composite" measure of reading comprehension and vocabulary and a "spelling composite," was associated with stronger congruence priming from both high and low feature overlap primes for animal exemplars, but only predicted priming from low overlap primes for nonexemplars. Classification of high frequency nonexemplars was also significantly modulated by an independent "spelling-meaning" factor, indexed by the discrepancy between the semantic and spelling composites, because relatively higher scores on the semantic than the spelling composite were associated with stronger semantic priming. These findings show that higher lexical proficiency is associated with stronger evidence of automatic semantic priming and suggest that individual differences in lexical quality modulate the division of labor between orthographic and semantic processing in early lexical retrieval. (PsycINFO Database Record

Individual variation in children's reading comprehension across digital text types

The present study examined children's digital text comprehension of digital text types linear digital text vs hypertext, with or without graphical navigable overviews. We investigated to what extent individual variation in children's comprehension could be explained by lexical quality (word reading efficiency and vocabulary knowledge), cognitive load factors (prior knowledge and working memory), text type and graphical overview. Participants were 93 sixth graders in a within‐subject design. Word reading efficiency, vocabulary knowledge and prior knowledge predicted children's digital comprehension scores, while working memory did not. Reading comprehension was equal for linear text or hypertext. However, the presence of an overview facilitated reading comprehension for readers with lower prior knowledge. It can be concluded that hypertexts with basic digital text features and accompanying comprehension questions are not more difficult for children than linear digital texts, that similar individual factors predict reading comprehension of linear text and hypertext, and that a graphical overview helps when prior knowledge is low.

The Effect of Handwriting Training on Language Learning Among Deaf Children and Their Matched Hearing Peers in China.

Comparing deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children with their hearing peers in learning Chinese, the study tested the lexical quality hypothesis (Perfetti, 1992, 2007), which asserts the importance of building orthographic, phonological, and semantic connections in high-quality lexical representations. DHH children and hearing peers matched on reading age were randomly assigned to one of two groups: One received writing training on both Day 1 and Day 2; the other received pinyin typing training on Day 1 and writing training on Day 2. Compared with younger hearing controls, DHH children showed equivalent vocabulary acquisition and appeared to benefit from orthography training. The study demonstrated, for the first time, the writing effect in DHH children's acquisition of Chinese. It suggests that a combination of character handwriting and phonology training can promote the ability of children to read Chinese, including children who are DHH.

The Impact of Task Complexity on Cognitive Processes of L2 Writers and Writing Quality: The Case of Writing Expertise, L1, and Lexical Retrieval

Abstract This study scrutinized the effect of task complexity on cognitive processes of L2 writers with respect to L2 writing expertise, speed of lexical retrieval, L1, and text quality. Sixty TEFL students with different writing expertise completed a computerized Written Productive Translation, as well as three L1 and L2 argumentative writing tasks, manipulated in regard to resource-dispersing dimensions followed-up by retrospective questionnaires. The texts were analysed in terms of accuracy, fluency, and syntactic complexity. Running MANOVA indicated that task complexity had no effect on fluency, accuracy, and syntactic complexity. However, the speed of retrieval was remarkably affected by writer's expertise. Moreover, there was no difference between L2 and L1 writing processes. The upshot essentially substantiated Cummins⿿ (1978) Interdependence Hypothesis, and Kellogg's (1990) Overload hypothesis while laying a great stress on the rate of lexical retrieval for improvement of writing expertise.

Contextual Word Learning with Form-Focused and Meaning-Focused Elaboration

Contextual L2 word learning may be facilitated by increasing readers’ engagement with form and meaning of novel words. In the present study, two adult L2 populations, Chinese and Dutch speakers, read English sentences that contained novel vocabulary. These contextual exposures were accompanied either by form-focused elaboration (i.e. word-writing) or by meaning-focused elaboration (i.e. actively deriving word meaning from context). Immediate and delayed offline and online measures of word knowledge showed superior learning outcomes for the word-writing treatment. This finding is aligned with the predictions of the lexical quality hypothesis (Perfetti and Hart 2002), highlighting the added value of more precise encoding of a word’s form, in addition to learning its meaning. The key pedagogical implication of this study is that a simple act of copying novel words, while processing meaningful L2 input, may significantly boost quality of lexical knowledge.