Orthographic Rime Research Articles

Is reading-aloud performance in megastudies systematically influenced by the list context?

To examine megastudy context effects, 585 critical words, each with a different orthographic rime, were placed at the beginning or end of a 2614-word megastudy of reading aloud. Sixty participants (30 participants in each condition) responded to these words. Specific predictors examined for change between beginning and end conditions were frequency, length, feedforward rime consistency, feedforward onset consistency, orthographic neighbourhood size, age of acquisition (AoA), and imageability. While it took longer to respond to items at the end of the experiment than items at the beginning of the experiment, there was very little change in the effects of the specific variables assessed. Thus, there is little evidence of list context effects influencing the estimates of the predictor variables in large-scale megastudies.

Why do deaf participants have a lower performance than hearing participants in a visual rhyming task: a phonological hypothesis

During a visual rhyming task, deaf participants traditionally perform more poorly than hearing participants in making rhyme judgements for written words in which the rhyme and the spelling pattern are incongruent (e.g. hair/bear). It has been suggested that deaf participants’ low accuracy results from their tendency to rely on orthographic similarity. To test this interpretation more directly, we compared profoundly and prelingually deaf, orally educated participants and hearing participants’ accuracy during a visual rhyming judgement task in which the two words of a pair share the orthographic rime, in order to discourage usage of a purely orthographic strategy. Accuracy was lower in deaf than in hearing participants. The gradient of difficulty between items, together with the finding of a significant correlation between accuracy and the consistency of the grapheme to rhyme, suggest that difference in accuracy between groups might be explained by an over regularization in deaf people, which is probably linked to less diversified phonological representations.

Orthographic analogies and early reading: Evidence from a multiple clue word paradigm.

Two experiments using a variation of the word analogy task (Goswami, 1986) explored whether children can make orthographic analogies when given multiple words, beyond the known effects of purely phonological activation. In Experiment 1, 42 children (mean age 6 years and 8 months) were first taught 3 clue words (e.g., fail, mail, jail) and then shown target words sharing orthographic and phonological rimes (e.g., hail), phonological rimes (e.g., veil), orthographic and phonological vowel digraphs (e.g., wait), phonological vowel digraphs (e.g., vein), or unrelated controls (e.g., bard). All word types were advantaged at posttest over unrelated controls. A small additional advantage for orthographic and phonological rimes over phonological rimes was evident in by-participant analysis. Finally, regression analysis showed a specific relationship between onset-rime phonological awareness and orthographic rime word task transfer. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 with 30 children (M age = 7 years, 0 months) and added a distinct group of children taught multiple words sharing vowel digraphs (e.g., gait, maim, maid). Results showed advantages for all words over unrelated controls and a small additional advantage for orthographic and phonological vowel digraphs over phonological vowel digraphs in the by-participant analysis. Overall, results suggest that some young children do have the ability to make orthographic analogies when given multiple exemplars but that most improvement in target word reading reflects purely phonological activation. Practical steps for identifying genuine analogy use in a subset of children are thus described

Learning New Words Affects Nonword Pronunciation in Children

In two experiments we examined how children's nonword pronunciations are influenced by learning words. In Experiment 1, children pronounced nonwords before and after learning words sharing orthographic rimes with the nonwords. These rimes varied in spelling-to-sound consistency and regularity. Children's nonword pronunciations were more sensitive to consistency and regularity after instruction than before. Experiment 2 expanded upon Experiment 1 by modifying the instruction to highlight regularity and consistency in rime unit neighborhoods and by including both younger (M age = 7.6) and older (M age = 9.92) participants. After instruction, Experiment 2 participants demonstrated greater sensitivity to rime unit consistency and regularity than Experiment 1 participants. In both experiments, the children, especially the younger participants, made more adultlike pronunciations after instruction than before. We conclude that learning words varying in consistency and regularity increased the children's sensitivity to these properties.

From reading to spelling and spelling to reading: Transfer goes both ways.

This study compares the effects of practice spelling and reading specific words on the orthographic representations in memory involved in reading both practiced words and new, unfamiliar words. Typically developing readers in Grade 2 (mean age = 7 years, 7 months) participated in a training study examining whether transfer can occur between reading and spelling following a series of reading and spelling practice sessions. Practice consisted of either repeated reading or repeated spelling of words with shared orthographic rime patterns. A series of mixed analyses of variance was used to examine generalization within skill and transfer across skill. Following practice, word-specific transfer across skill was found. Specifically, children were better able to spell words they had practiced reading and to read words they had practiced spelling. In addition, generalization to new words with practiced rime units was found both within a skill and across skills. However, transfer from spelling to reading was greater than transfer from reading to spelling. Results indicate that the orthographic representations established through practice can be used for both reading and spelling. Subsequently, reading and spelling curricula should be coordinated to benefit children maximally.

Reading vocabulary influences in phonological recoding during the development of reading skill: a re-examination of theory and practice

Children’s skill at recoding graphemes to phonemes is widely understood as the driver of their progress in acquiring reading vocabulary. This recoding skill is usually assessed by children’s reading of pseudowords (e.g., yeep) that represent “new words.” This study re-examined the extent to which pseudoword reading is, itself, influenced by orthographic rimes (e.g., eep) of words of the child’s reading vocabulary, during the development of reading skill. In Study 1, children with word reading levels of 6–10 years read matched pseudowords that do and do not share an orthographic rime with words of their reading vocabularies. Study 2 was conducted to further examine such a comparison for children of the 6- to 8-year word reading levels. There was a small and constant advantage of shared lexical orthographic rimes for children with reading levels 6–8 years but from 8 to 10 years that advantage increased significantly, as expected by Ehri’s phase account of word reading development. The pseudoword reading of children learning to read English involves use of lexical orthographic components as well as context-free recoding of graphemes to phonemes. This implies a qualification to the common interpretation of pseudoword reading as a measure of context-free grapheme–phoneme recoding. Such a measure should use selected pseudowords that do not share orthographic rime units or other multigrapheme components with words of the children’s reading vocabularies.

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.

Rhyme generation in deaf students: the effect of exposure to cued speech.

This study compares the rhyme-generation ability of deaf participants with severe to profound hearing losses from cued speech (CS) and non-cued speech (NCS) backgrounds with a hearing comparison group for consistent orthography-to-phonology (O-P) rhyming elements, or rimes (e.g., -ail in sail is always pronounced the same), and inconsistent orthography-to-phonology (I-O-P) rhyming elements where the orthographic rime (e.g., -ear) has different pronunciations in words such as bear, and rear. Rhyming accuracy was better for O-P target words than for I-O-P target words. The performance of the deaf participants from CS backgrounds, although falling between that of the hearing and the NCS groups, did not differ significantly from that of the hearing group. By contrast, the performance of the NCS group was lower than that of the hearing group. Hearing and CS participants produced more orthographically different responses (e.g., blue-few), whereas participants from the NCS group produced more responses that are orthographically similar (e.g., blue-true), indicating that the hearing and CS groups rely more on phonology and the NCS group more on spelling to generate rhymes. The results support the use of cued speech for developing phonological abilities of deaf students to promote their reading abilities.

Can orthographic rimes facilitate naming?

Although the orthographic rime (body) is thought to play an important role in reading English, previous priming experiments found little or no evidence for facilitatory body-priming effects in the naming task. That is, hose primes NOSE no better than does a completely unrelated prime. In the present study, the hypothesis that facilitatory body-priming effects are typically masked by strong inhibitory onset effects was investigated. It was shown that when the onset of a prime was removed, facilitatory body priming could be obtained with stimuli that previously had produced no evidence of facilitation. The present study thus reconciles conflicting patterns concerning facilitation versus inhibition in body priming.

A re‐evaluation of the evidence for orthographic analogies: a reply to Goswami (1999)

Recently, Goswami (1999) reviewed available evidence for and against the role of phonological rime awareness and analogy theory, concluding that both rhyme awareness and orthographic rime analogy are causally related to reading acquisition. On inspection, however, much of this evidence best fits an alternative (non‐rime) interpretation. Furthermore, in a number of studies, key facts and analyses were not reported. A fuller re‐analysis of the literature reviewed by Goswami reveals that: 1) the nature of the relationship between phonological rhyme awareness and reading remains controversial; 2) significant doubt remains about the nature and relevance of demonstrations of analogy use in early reading; 3) such training studies as currently exist suggest that rime use is not important compared to the use of phonemes or other sub‐syllabic units. Implications from this evidence for teaching and the role rime analogy should play in the National Curriculum are explored.

No more problems in Coltheart's neighborhood: resolving neighborhood conflicts in the lexical decision task

In the area of visual word recognition, there is considerable disagreement as to whether neighborhood effects for words in the lexical decision task are facilitatory or inhibitory: While they seem to be mostly facilitatory in English, they tend to be absent or inhibitory in French or Spanish. The present study investigated the possibility that the facilitatory neighborhood effect obtained in English is due to the fact that most neighbors in English are body neighbors (i.e. they share the same orthographic rime). Our results showed that when words were matched for orthographic neighborhood (N), the effects of body neighbors (BN) were facilitatory (i.e. shorter reaction times for words with many body neighbors than for words with few body neighbors). In contrast, when words are matched for BN, the effects of N are unreliable with a tendency towards inhibition. In conclusion, it appears that research conducted in English has always found neighborhood effects to be facilitatory because of the dominant role of body neighbors in English. In contrast, neighborhood effects in French and Spanish may have been more ambiguous because these languages either do not confound N and BN, or they do not require a greater sensitivity to the body/rime unit.

Beginning Readers’ Use of Orthographic Analogies in Word Reading

This research re-investigated the claim that beginning readers exploit information from the orthographic rime of clue words to help them to decode unfamiliar words. In Experiment 1, first-grade children were equally able to use orthographic information from the beginning, middle, and end of clue words to identify unfamiliar target words. Moreover, the improvement in reading end- (or orthographic rime-) same target words following clue word presentation reflected phonological priming. In second-grade children, with correction for retesting effects, improvement following clue word presentation for end-same and beginning-same target words was equivalent, although end-same target words improved more than middle-same target words. In Experiment 2, both first- and second-grade children were able to use orthographic information from the beginning, middle, and end of clue words to identify unfamiliar words. Clue word presentation enhanced the reading of beginning-same and end-same target words more than middle-same target words. Improvement was the same for beginning-same and end-same target words. Target word improvement following clue word presentation was greater than that for phonologically primed words only in children reading target words sharing the beginning sequence of the clue word.

Further Evidence That Orthographic Rime Usage in Nonword Reading Increases with Word-Level Reading Proficiency

This research investigated children's use of orthographic rime correspondences in nonword reading in association with word-level reading skills. Experiment 1 demonstrated an increase in the use of orthographic rime correspondences in two independent nonword reading tasks from second to fourth grade. There was no further increase from fourth to sixth grade. In an ambiguous nonword reading task, where grapheme–phoneme and orthographic rime correspondences yielded conflicting pronunciations, the use of orthographic rime correspondences varied with the orthographic onset employed. The use of orthographic rime correspondences in reading ambiguous nonwords was more strongly associated with word-level reading skills than was the use of grapheme–phoneme correspondences. Experiment 2 replicated the main findings of Experiment 1 concerning the association between word-level reading skills and the use of orthographic rime correspondences in nonword reading within second-grade children. These findings suggest that the use of orthographic rime correspondences in the phonological recoding process increases with word-level reading proficiency.

Orthographic onsets as functional units of adult word recognition

Five experiments are described. Experiments 1 to 3 used a case-change methodology to test the hypothesis that orthographic onsets serve as units of visual word recognition. It was assumed that presenting words in mixed case would disrupt processing more strongly when the case change occurred within a subunit of word recognition than when the case change occurred between subunits of word recognition. The orthographic onset hypothesis was supported in two of three experiments. The sensitivity of the case-change methodology as a means of testing the orthographic onset hypothesis was examined in two further experiments using case change to disrupt orthographic rimes. Again, mixed results were observed. Given the abundance of evidence that, for skilled readers, ortho-graphic rimes serve as functional units of print and independent arguments that the case-change methodology represents an inherently conservative test of hypotheses concerning multiletter units of print, the current results provide preliminary evidence for the ortho-graphic onset as a functional unit of print.

Phonological recoding of nonword orthographic rime primes.

The effectiveness of nonword orthographic rime primes as a function of the regularity (as defined by grapheme-phoneme correspondence [GPC] rules) of typical pronunciation was examined in this research. In Experiments 1 and 2, predictions from GPC and orthographic rime unit accounts converged, but in Experiments 3 and 4 they diverged. Experiment 1 showed that when nonword orthographic rimes were used to prime consistent regular words (e.g., mist) and atypically irregular words (e.g., pint), reliable priming was observed for regular words, but priming of atypically irregular words occurred only in the 2nd block of trials, after the orthographic rime prime itself had been primed by the Block 1 presentation of the target word. In subsequent experiments, only the 1st block of trials was examined. Experiment 2 replicated the selective priming of consistent regular words observed in Block 1 of Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, nonword orthographic rimes were as effective at priming typically irregular target words (e.g., grind) as they were in priming inconsistent but typically regular target words (e.g., flint). Parallel results were observed in Experiment 4, in which nonword orthographic rimes were as effective at priming target words with typically irregular orthographic rimes as they were in priming consistent regular target words. The results of these experiments show nonword orthographic rimes are not always phonologically recoded in accordance with GPC rules.

Phonological recoding of nonword orthographic rime primes.

Phonological recoding of nonword orthographic rime primes.

The special role of rimes in the description, use, and acquisition of English orthography.

The links between spellings and sounds in a large set of English words with consonant-vowel-consonant phonological structure were examined. orthographic rimes, or units consisting of a vowel grapheme and a final consonant grapheme, had more stable pronunciations than either individual vowels or initial consonant-plus-vowel units. In 2 large-scale studies of word pronunciation, the consistency of pronunciation of the orthographic rime accounted for variance in latencies and errors beyond that contributed by the consistency of pronunciation of the individual graphemes and by other factors. In 3 experiments, as well, children and adults made more errors on words with less consistently pronounced orthographic rimes than on words with more consistently pronounced orthographic rimes. Relations between spellings and sounds in the simple monomorphemic words of English are more predictable when the level of onsets and rimes is taken into account than when only graphemes and phonemes are considered.

The Development of Orthographic Rimes as Units of Word Recognition

The current study used the orthographic rime frequency effect as a means of investigating the development of, and individual differences in, children′s ability to use orthographic rimes as functional units of reading. Sets of pseudowords were constructed, varying in the frequency of their constituent orthographic rimes. Experiment 1 investigated the orthographic rime frequency effect in a large sample of first-grade children. As expected, the orthographic rime frequency effect was significant only in relatively advanced first-grade readers. Experiment 2 used a reading-level design to further investigate the orthographic rime frequency effect as a function of both age and word identification ability. Pseudoword reading accuracy was examined in poor fourth-grade readers, a younger reading-level-matched group, and a chronological age control group. Strong main effects were observed for reader group and orthographic rime frequency but these factors did not interact. Overall, these two experiments suggest that the size of the orthographic rime frequency effect reflects the operation of two factors that increase with reading ability, the size of children′s sight vocabulary (contributing primarily to the availability of orthographic rime correspondences to read pseudowords constructed from relatively common orthographic rimes), and grapheme-phoneme conversion skill (contributing primarily to the decoding of pseudowords constructed from uncommon orthographic rimes for which orthographic rime correspondences are less likely to be derived from the sight word vocabulary). In addition, Experiment 2 implicated a general phonological recoding deficit as an underlying problem in children′s word reading difficulties.

To what extent do orthographic units in print mirror phonological units in speech?

Three experiments were performed to examine the degree to which the orthographic units in printed syllables reflect the phonological units in speech. Two of the experiments used a pronunciation decision task in which subjects had to determine whether a non-word sounded like a real word when pronounced. The third experiment used a lexical decision task. In all three experiments, evidence was obtained for orthographic units that correspond to onsets and rimes. The evidence was equivocal on whether the phonological category of the consonant that follows the vowel affects the internal structure of the orthographic rime as it does the structure of the phonological rime. The results are discussed in terms of the role of linguistic units in the processing of print.

Orthographic Rime Priming

Three experiments are described, each using a partial priming technique in which a target word was briefly preceded by a masked trigram. The relative strength of priming effects was assessed by comparing the difference in target word naming times between unprimed and primed trials in different priming conditions. Experiment 1 replicated previous work in demonstrating stronger priming when the target word was primed by the orthographic rime than when the prime constituted otherwise comparable word-final trigrams that do not constitute orthographic rimes. Experiment 2 compared orthographic, phonological rime, and control primes. Only orthographic rime primes reliably increased target word naming speed, although the priming effect was less selective with longer prime durations. In Experiment 3 priming was observed for both orthographic rime and phonological rime primes shown for 150 msec. However, stronger priming was observed with orthographic rime primes. These experiments demonstrate that orthographic rime priming effects do not simply reflect the activation of an intact subunit of the target word articulation program.