Reading Aloud Task Research Articles

A classroom study on the perception and production of Basque sibilant fricatives by native speakers of English

This study examines the production and perception of the three Basque sibilant fricatives by L1 English learners in a semester-long university course. Basque has three sibilant fricatives: lamino-alveolar (/s̻/), apico-alveolar (/s̺/), and pre-palatal (/ʃ/) sounds. Acoustically, the first two sounds share similarities with English /s/ and /ʃ/, respectively. L2 phonology theories posit that learners will map the production and perception of L2 sounds to (similar) sounds in their native language. Afterwards, they will create new categories based on the phonetic proximity of the new sounds and those in their native language. Ten students enrolled in a Beginners’ Basque course and two native speakers of Basque serving as control group undertook a read-aloud task (Experiment 1) followed by an ABX discrimination task (Experiment 2) during Week 5 of classes. Center of Gravity and accuracy scores were extracted. Results show that learners tended to merge the two apical sibilants into an English /s/-like sound. Accuracy scores between the two alveolar sibilants in Basque were significantly lower than the other sound contrasts.

Exploring the relationships between ASS indices and CAF and the impact on Chinese college students’ oral English performance

Automatic Speech Scoring (ASS) has increasingly become a useful tool in oral proficiency testing for Second Language (L2) learners. However, limited studies investigate the alignment of ASS indices with the Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency (CAF)—the three dimensions in evaluating L2 speakers’ oral proficiency, and the subsequent impact indices on the oral performance of Chinese college students. To bridge this gap, this study used comparative analysis, Pearson analysis, and linear regression analysis to delve into the relationship and correlations between paired ASS indicators of “pronunciation”, “fluency”, “integrity”, “speed”, “duration”, and “overall”, while also analyzing the relationships between “overall” and other variables. These analyses were conducted using 956 audio clips of freshmen who took the College English Test-Spoken English Test Band 4 (CET-SET-4) in May 2022 in China. The findings reveal that (1) the ASS indicators and evaluation methods are similar but not identical to those employed in prior studies; (2) “pronunciation” encapsulates both the accuracy and fluency dimensions of CAF; (3) “pronunciation” and “integrity” have significant impacts on Chinese college students’ oral English performance in read-aloud tasks. The study suggests that future research should further investigate the specific pronunciation challenges faced by Chinese college students, such as phonetics, stress, and intonation. Additionally, it highlights the need to comprehend teachers’ attitudes and preferences towards ASS to enhance its effectiveness in assessing second language (L2) learners’ oral proficiency. The study would provide some references to teachers for oral English teaching design and students for their self-assessment of oral English proficiencies.

Injection Laryngoplasty of Unilateral Vocal Fold Paralysis Evaluated With Pause and Speech Measurements

ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to examine a number of pause and speech measurements in patients with unilateral vocal fold paralysis, before and after injection laryngoplasty. The non-invasive measurements were selected to investigate and explain the treatment effect on connected speech in these patients. Study designRetrospective study with repeated measurements design. MethodVoice recordings of 24 patients with unilateral vocal fold paralysis from before and after injection laryngoplasty in local anesthesia were analyzed retrospectively with the computer program Praat. Measurements examined were number of pauses, average pause duration, pause ratio (expressing the amount of pausing during a reading aloud task), number of breath groups, average duration of breath groups, articulation rate, speaking rate, maximum phonation time and voice handicap index. ResultsInjection laryngoplasty had a significant improving effect on the number of pauses, pause ratio, number of breath groups, average duration of breath groups, articulation rate, speaking rate, maximum phonation time and voice handicap index. Maximum phonation time before treatment correlated with several pause- and speech measurements. ConclusionThe results showed that treatment with injection laryngoplasty had a clear effect on several pause and speech measurements and that these measurements correlated with maximum phonation time, but not with voice handicap index.

The Role of (Re)Syllabification on Coarticulatory Nasalization: Aerodynamic Evidence from Spanish

Tautosyllabic segment sequences exhibit greater gestural overlap than heterosyllabic ones. In Spanish, it is presumed that word-final consonants followed by a word-initial vowel undergo resyllabification, and generative phonology assumes that canonical CV.CV# and derived CV.C#V onsets are structurally identical. However, recent studies have not found evidence of this structural similarity in the acoustics. The current goal is to investigate anticipatory and carryover vowel nasalization patterns in tautosyllabic, heterosyllabic, and resyllabified segment sequences in Spanish. Nine native speakers of Peninsular Spanish participated in a read-aloud task. Nasal airflow data were extracted using pressure transducers connected to a vented mask. Each participant produced forty target tokens with CV.CV# (control), CVN# (tautosyllabic), CV.NV# (heterosyllabic), and CV.N#V (resyllabification) structures. Forty timepoints were obtained from each vowel to observe airflow dynamics, resulting in a total of 25,200 datapoints analyzed. Regarding anticipatory vowel nasalization, the CVN# sequence shows an earlier onset of nasalization, while CV.NV# and CV.N#V sequences illustrate parallel patterns among them. Carryover vowel nasalization exhibited greater nasal spreading than anticipatory nasalization, and vowels in CV.NV# and CV.N#V structures showed symmetrical nasalization patterns. These results imply that syllable structure affects nasal gestural overlap and that aerodynamic characteristics of vowels are unaffected across word boundaries.

The Use of Prosodic Cues in Resolving Ambiguity of Relative Clause Attachment — Prosodic Disambiguation of Chinese EFL Learners

Studies of prosodic disambiguation in second language production can help to explain the development of a learner’s L2 prosody. Previous studies on prosodic disambiguation have found that Chinese EFL learners are capable of using prosodic cues for both boundary marking and focus encoding, but somewhat differently from native English speakers. No clear understanding has yet been obtained about their use of word prominence and prosodic boundary in their speaking production for RC attachment disambiguation. Thus, by using a read-aloud task at sentence level, the present study investigates whether Chinese EFL learners can produce prosodic boundaries and word prominence to disambiguate RC attachment ambiguous sentences in a way similar to native English speakers when informed of the ambiguities in advance. Also, the study gropes into the relationship between English proficiency level and L2 English prosodic disambiguation. The findings in this study will argue for prosodic disambiguation training in foreign language teaching.

Examining the Impact of Reading Fluency on Lexical Decision Results in French 6th Graders.

How does lexical decision behavior vary in students with the same grade level (all students were in their first year of middle-school), but different levels of reading fluency? Here, we tested a prediction of the dual-route model: as fluency increases, variations in the results may reflect a decreasing reliance on decoding and an increasing reliance on the lexical route. 1,501 French 6th graders passed a one-minute speeded reading-aloud task evaluating fluency, and a ten-minute computerized lexical decision task evaluating the impact of lexicality, length, word frequency and pseudoword type. As predicted, the word length effect varied dramatically with reading fluency, with the least fluent students showing a length effect even for frequent words. The frequency effect also varied, but solely in proportion to overall reading speed, suggesting that frequency affects the decision stage similarly in all readers, while length disproportionately impacts poor readers. Response times and errors were also affected by pseudoword type (e.g., letter substitutions or transpositions), but these effects showed minimal variation with fluency. Overall, lexical decision variables were excellent predictors of reading fluency (r = 0.62). Our results highlight the variability in middle-school reading ability and describe how a simple lexical decision task can be used to assess students' mental lexicon (vocabulary) and the automatization of reading skills.

Fast habituation to semantic interference generated by taboo connotation in reading aloud

ABSTRACT The recognition of taboo words – i.e. socially inappropriate words – has been repeatedly associated to semantic interference phenomena, with detrimental effects on the performance in the ongoing task. In the present study, we investigated taboo interference in the context of reading aloud, a task configuration which prompts the overt violation of conventional sociolinguistic norms by requiring the explicit utterance of taboo items. We assessed whether this form of semantic interference is handled by habituative or cognitive control processes. In addition to the reading aloud task, participants performed a vocal Stroop task featuring different conditions to dissociate semantic, task, and response conflict. Taboo words were read slower than non-taboo words, but this effect was subject to a quick habituation, with a decreasing interference over the course of trials, which allowed participants to selectively attend to goal-relevant information. In the Stroop task, only semantic conflict was significantly reduced by habituation. These findings suggest that semantic properties can be quickly and flexibly weighed on the basis of contextual appropriateness, thus characterising semantic processing as a flexible and goal-directed component of reading aloud.

Modelling individual differences in reading using an optimised MikeNet simulator: the impact of reading instruction.

Reading is vital for acquiring knowledge and studies have demonstrated that phonology-focused interventions generally yield greater improvements than meaning-focused interventions in English among children with reading disabilities. However, the effectiveness of reading instruction can vary among individuals. Among the various factors that impact reading skills like reading exposure and oral language skills, reading instruction is critical in facilitating children's development into skilled readers; it can significantly influence reading strategies, and contribute to individual differences in reading. To investigate this assumption, we developed a computational model of reading with an optimised MikeNet simulator. In keeping with educational practices, the model underwent training with three different instructional methods: phonology-focused training, meaning-focused training, and phonology-meaning balanced training. We used semantic reliance (SR), a measure of the relative reliance on print-to-sound and print-to-meaning mappings under the different training conditions in the model, as an indicator of individual differences in reading. The simulation results demonstrated a direct link between SR levels and the type of reading instruction. Additionally, the SR scores were able to predict model performance in reading-aloud tasks: higher SR scores were correlated with increased phonological errors and reduced phonological activation. These findings are consistent with data from both behavioral and neuroimaging studies and offer insights into the impact of instructional methods on reading behaviors, while revealing individual differences in reading and the importance of integrating OP and OS instruction approaches for beginning readers.

Gestural Timing Patterns of Nasality in Highly Proficient Spanish Learners of English: Aerodynamic Evidence.

Segment-to-segment timing overlap between Vowel-Nasal gestures in /VN/ sequences varies cross-linguistically. However, how bilinguals may adjust those timing gestures is still unanswered. Regarding timing strategies in a second language (L2), research finds that native (L1) strategies can be partially transferred to the L2, and that higher L2 proficiency promotes a more successful phonetic performance. My goal is to answer whether bilingual speakers can adjust their L1 coarticulatory settings in their L2 and to observe whether their L2 accentedness plays a role in ultimate attainment. Ten native speakers of Spanish (L1Sp) who were highly proficient L2 English speakers participated in Spanish and English read-aloud tasks. A control group of 16 L1 English speakers undertook the English experiment. Aerodynamic data were collected using pressure transducers. Each participant produced tokens with nasalized vowels in CVN# words and oral vowels in CV(CV) words. Four linguistically trained judges (two per target language) evaluated a set of pseudo-randomized sentences produced by the participants containing words with nasalized vowels and rated the speech on a 1 (heavily accented) to 9 (native-like) Likert-type scale. Measurements for onset and degree of overall nasality were obtained. Results indicate the L1Sp group can accommodate gestural timing strategies cross-linguistically as they exhibit an earlier nasality onset and increment nasality proportion in L2 English in a native-like manner. In addition, a positive correlation between greater vowel nasality degree and native-like accentedness in the L2 was found, suggesting L2 timing settings might be specified in higher spoken proficiency levels.

Ecologically valid speech collection in behavioral research: The Ghent Semi-spontaneous Speech Paradigm (GSSP)

This paper introduces the Ghent Semi-spontaneous Speech Paradigm (GSSP), a new method for collecting unscripted speech data for affective-behavioral research in both experimental and real-world settings through the description of peer-rated pictures with a consistent affective load. The GSSP was designed to meet five criteria: (1) allow flexible speech recording durations, (2) provide a straightforward and non-interfering task, (3) allow for experimental control, (4) favor spontaneous speech for its prosodic richness, and (5) require minimal human interference to enable scalability. The validity of the GSSP was evaluated through an online task, in which this paradigm was implemented alongside a fixed-text read-aloud task. The results indicate that participants were able to describe images with an adequate duration, and acoustic analysis demonstrated a trend for most features in line with the targeted speech styles (i.e., unscripted spontaneous speech versus scripted read-aloud speech). A speech style classification model using acoustic features achieved a balanced accuracy of 83% on within-dataset validation, indicating separability between the GSSP and read-aloud speech task. Furthermore, when validating this model on an external dataset that contains interview and read-aloud speech, a balanced accuracy score of 70% is obtained, indicating an acoustic correspondence between the GSSP speech and spontaneous interviewee speech. The GSSP is of special interest for behavioral and speech researchers looking to capture spontaneous speech, both in longitudinal ambulatory behavioral studies and laboratory studies. To facilitate future research on speech styles, acoustics, and affective states, the task implementation code, the collected dataset, and analysis notebooks are available.

English reading performance by Spanish speaking children: A phonologically or semantically mediated pathway?

Reading acquisition involves connections between the spoken language and the writing system. The English-language writing system holds an inconsistent alphabetic system, thus encouraging readers to develop representations between the grapheme and the word. Reading in English as a Foreign language supposes a challenge, especially when the reader’s native language is consistent and learners live in a monolingual context, as is the case in Spain. This may cause difficulties in learning the grapheme-phoneme-conversion-rules and using different grain size units. The aim of this study was to address the reading strategies that Spanish children use when reading in English. We considered the influence of word length, lexical frequency, orthographic consistency (in onset, nucleus, coda, and rime), and semantic knowledge on word reading. We analyzed speed and accuracy in a reading aloud task of English words from 94 Spanish-speaking children (fourth, fifth and sixth grade). Participants also completed a translation task into Spanish taken from the previous English ones. Results showed the influence of word length in accuracy, as well as that of children's grade, onset consistency, and semantic knowledge on both accuracy and reading speed. Regarding sublexical units, onset reading accuracy was determined by onset consistency in all grades; nucleus accuracy was determined by rime consistency only in the sixth grade and coda accuracy by rime consistency in the fifth and sixth grades. The present study demonstrates the relevance of Spanish children's semantic knowledge when reading in English. Despite this, and in line with the statistical learning perspective, some regularities are used in correlation with greater reading experience in English.

Emotion from the sound of a word: Statistical relationships between surface form and valence of English words influence lexical access and memory.

It is generally accepted that a word's emotional valence (i.e., whether a word is perceived as positive, negative, or neutral) influences how it is accessed and remembered. There is also evidence that the affective content of some words is represented in nonarbitrary sound-meaning associations (i.e., emotional sound symbolism). We investigated whether more extensive statistical relationships exist between the surface form properties of English words and ratings of their emotional valence, that is, form typicality. We found significant form typicality for both valence and extremity of valence (the absolute distance from the midpoint of the rating scale, regardless of polarity). Next, using behavioral megastudy data sets, we show that measures of emotional form typicality are significant predictors of lexical access during written and auditory lexical decision and reading aloud tasks in addition to recognition memory performance. These findings show nonarbitrary form-valence mappings in English are accessed automatically during language and verbal memory processing. We discuss how these findings might be incorporated into theoretical accounts that implement Bayesian statistical inference. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Factors affecting voice onset time in English stops

Abstract This study investigates the voice onset time (VOT) of L2 English stops produced by native speakers of Chinese at different L2 proficiency levels. Four factors were examined: English proficiency, gender, place of articulation, and vowel context. High and low achievers of English were recruited as the experimental groups and native speakers of English as the control group. Each group consisted of 16 participants, 8 males and 8 females. Each participant took part in a read-aloud task, in which the target words were presented in an embedded sentence. The results showed that the effects of L2 proficiency were significant in that high achievers outperformed low achievers who were affected by L1 negative transfer more seriously when producing native-like English stops. Additionally, when producing English stops, velar stops had significantly greater VOT values than either bilabial or alveolar ones. However, no significant gender differences were found. Male and female participants produced similar VOT values in English stops. Last, the vowel context was also a significant factor. The VOT lengths differed according to the context of a following vowels. More specifically, the VOT of a stop is significantly longer when followed by a tense vowel.

Autocorrection if→of function words in reading aloud: A novel marker of Alzheimer's risk.

The present study investigated cognitive mechanisms underlying the ability to stop "autocorrect" errors elicited by unexpected words in a read-aloud task, and the utility of autocorrection for predicting Alzheimer's disease (AD) biomarkers. Cognitively normal participants (total n = 85; n = 64 with cerebrospinal fluid [CSF] biomarkers) read aloud six short paragraphs in which 10 critical target words were replaced with autocorrect targets, for example, The player who scored that final [paint] for the local team reported [him] experience. Autocorrect targets either replaced the most expected/dominant completion (i.e., point) or a less expected/nondominant completion (i.e., basket), and within each paragraph half of the autocorrect targets were content words (e.g., point/paint) and half were function words (e.g., his/him). Participants were instructed to avoid autocorrecting. Participants produced more autocorrect errors in paragraphs with dominant than with nondominant targets, and with function than with content targets. Cognitively normal participants with high CSF Tau/Aβ42 (i.e., an AD-like biomarker profile) produced more autocorrect total errors than those below the Tau/Aβ42 threshold, an effect also significant with dominant-function targets alone (e.g., saying his instead of him). A logistic regression model with dominant-function errors and age showed errors as the stronger predictor of biomarker status (sensitivity 83%; specificity 85%). Difficulty stopping autocorrect errors is associated with biomarkers indicating preclinical AD, and reveals promise as a diagnostic tool. Greater vulnerability of function over content words to autocorrection in individuals with AD-like biomarkers implicates monitoring and attention (rather than semantic processing) in the earliest of cognitive changes associated with AD risk. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Developing and Testing Audio Data Processing Modules in Python to Connect to and Data Be Scored by ASS Cloud Server

Automatic Speech Scoring (ASS) system developed on a basis of automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology is a powerful computer-assistant tool for oral test scoring. However, due to the limits of high equipment costs and high-tech operating costs of a local ASS, ASS cloud services have become the first choice of most oral English teachers and learners. The purpose of this paper is to develop and test modules in Python to preprocess the audio data, connect to the cloud server, and convert JSON data format into common Excel form. 1056 pieces of audio data were collected from test-takers’ read-aloud task of CEST-4 (College English Speaking Test band 4)) and six variables (i.e., “pronunciation”, “fluency”, “integrity”, “speed”, “duration”, and “overall”) were defined. After analyzing the data of the test results, it is found that the oral test score is mostly affected by the “pronunciation” and “integrity”, and the accuracy of pronunciation is the strongest predictor of oral performance. The modules and functions are helpful for teachers and students to use in daily oral test/practice, and these modules can also be employed in other second language oral test scored by ASS cloud sever, like oral Chinese test. Our results can provide reference and guidance for future oral research and teaching.

Language proficiency modulates L2 orthographic learning mechanism: Evidence from event-related brain potentials in overt naming

AbstractThe present study investigates bilinguals’ capacity to rapidly establish memory traces for novel word forms in a second language (L2), as a function of L2 linguistic proficiency. A group of Chinese-English bilinguals with various English proficiency levels were presented with a reading-aloud task, consisting of 16 pseudowords and 16 English words repeatedly presented across six training exposures. Behavioral and neurophysiological data were collected, and modulations in the word-length effect across repetitions were measured as an index of transition from sublexical to lexical involvement. Results revealed that higher L2 proficiency was associated with decreased word-length effect on novel words, reflected in both naming latencies and early N1 and P200 brain responses. In contrast, lower proficiency learners appeared to engage in effortful letter-to-sound decoding processes, with higher attentional allocation to the letter sequence and greater use of sublexical processing across exposures. Our findings highlight the need to tackle specific grapheme-to-phoneme skills for efficient learning of L2, particularly in populations where the L1 is nonalphabetic.

An Airflow Analysis of Spanish and English Anticipatory Vowel Nasalization among Heritage Bilinguals

Gestural timing overlap between a vowel and subsequent nasal consonant results in the vowel being articulatorily nasalized. Research has shown that such degree of coarticulation varies cross-linguistically (e.g., English exhibits a greater gestural timing overlap than Spanish). This phenomenon has mainly been investigated in monolingual samples, and with only a small number of studies focusing on second and heritage language gestural timing patterns of nasality; the role of bilingualism in this respect is thus an open question, which is the focus of the current study. Sixteen second-generation US-born heritage bilinguals participated in this experiment. Their degree of bilingualism was assessed via the Bilingual Language Profile. They completed two separate read-aloud tasks: one in Spanish (heritage language) and one in English (second language). Simultaneous oral and nasal airflow were collected via pressure transducers from words that included phonetically oral and nasalized vowels. Results indicate that heritage bilinguals increment the degree of vocalic nasalization from Spanish to English. Nevertheless, their degree of bilingualism did not yield statistical significance in phonetic performance. The current study is the first one implementing aerodynamic methods with a heritage bilingual population and presents data for the possibility to possess two segment-to-segment timing strategies in heritage grammars.

The impact of automatic speech recognition technology on second language pronunciation and speaking skills of EFL learners: a mixed methods investigation.

This study employed an explanatory sequential design to examine the impact of utilizing automatic speech recognition technology (ASR) with peer correction on the improvement of second language (L2) pronunciation and speaking skills among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. The aim was to assess whether this approach could be an effective tool for enhancing L2 pronunciation and speaking abilities in comparison to traditional teacher-led feedback and instruction. A total of 61 intermediate-level Chinese EFL learners were randomly assigned to either a control group (CG) or an experimental group (EG). The CG received conventional teacher-led feedback and instruction, while the EG used ASR technology with peer correction. Data collection involved read-aloud tasks, spontaneous conversations, and IELTS speaking tests to evaluate L2 pronunciation and speaking skills. Additionally, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a subset of the participants to explore their perceptions of the ASR technology and its impact on their language learning experience. The quantitative analysis of the collected data demonstrated that the EG outperformed the CG in all measures of L2 pronunciation, including accentedness and comprehensibility. Furthermore, the EG exhibited significant improvements in global speaking skill compared to the CG. The qualitative analysis of the interviews revealed that the majority of the participants in the EG found the ASR technology to be beneficial in enhancing their L2 pronunciation and speaking abilities. The results of this study suggest that the utilization of ASR technology with peer correction can be a potent approach in enhancing L2 pronunciation and speaking skills among EFL learners. The improved performance of the EG compared to the CG in pronunciation and speaking tasks demonstrates the potential of incorporating ASR technology into language learning environments. Additionally, the positive feedback from the participants in the EG underscores the value of using ASR technology as a supportive tool in language learning classrooms.

Automatically measuring speech fluency in people with aphasia: first achievements using read-speech data

ABSTRACT Background Speech and language pathologists (SLPs) often rely on judgements of speech fluency for diagnosing or monitoring patients with aphasia. However, such subjective methods have been criticised for their lack of reliability and their clinical cost in terms of time. Aims This study aims at assessing the relevance of a signal-processing algorithm, initially developed in the field of language acquisition, for the automatic measurement of speech fluency in people with aphasia (PWA). Methods & Procedures Twenty-nine PWA and five control participants were recruited via non-profit organizations and SLP networks. All participants were recorded while reading out loud a set of sentences taken from the French version of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination. Three trained SLPs assessed the fluency of each sentence on a five-point qualitative scale. A forward-backward divergence segmentation and a clustering algorithm were used to compute, for each sentence, four automatic predictors of speech fluency: pseudo-syllable rate, speech ratio, rate of silent breaks, and standard deviation of pseudo-syllable length. The four predictors were finally combined into multivariate regression models (a multiple linear regression — MLR, and two non-linear models) to predict the average SLP ratings of speech fluency, using a leave-one-speaker-out validation scheme. Outcomes & Results All models achieved accurate predictions of speech fluency ratings, with average root-mean-square errors as low as 0.5. The MLR yielded a correlation coefficient of 0.87 with reference ratings at the sentence level, and of 0.93 when aggregating the data for each participant. The inclusion of an additional predictor sensitive to repetitions improved further the predictions with a correlation coefficient of 0.91 at the sentence level, and of 0.96 at the participant level. Conclusions The algorithms used in this study can constitute a cost-effective and reliable tool for the assessment of the speech fluency of patients with aphasia in read-aloud tasks. Perspectives for the assessment of spontaneous speech are discussed.

The role of letter knowledge acquisition ability on children's decoding and word identification: Evidence from an artificial orthography

BackgroundLetter knowledge is crucial in the first stages of reading development. It supports learning letter‐sound mappings and the identification of the letters that make up words. Previous studies have investigated the longitudinal impact of early letter knowledge on children's further word reading abilities. This study employed an artificial orthography learning paradigm to explore whether the rate of letter learning modulates children's reading and word identification skills.MethodsIn an initial training phase, 8‐year‐old Spanish children (N = 30) learned nine artificial letters and their corresponding sounds (two vowels and six consonants). The letter learning rate was set according to the number of attempts needed to name at least seven letters (i.e., 80% correct). These ranged from 1 to 4. In a second training phase, children visualized words made up of the trained letters while listening to their pronunciations. Some words included a context‐dependent syllable (i.e., leading to grapheme‐to‐phoneme inconsistency), and others had an inconsistent syllable (i.e., phoneme‐to‐grapheme inconsistency). The post‐test consisted of a reading aloud task and an orthographic‐choice task in which the target word was presented with a distractor equal to the target except for the substitution of a letter.ResultsChildren showed a high accuracy rate in the post‐test tasks, regardless of whether words contained context‐dependent or inconsistent syllables. Critically, the letter learning rate predicted both reading aloud and identification accuracy of words in the artificial orthography.ConclusionsWe provide evidence for the vital role of letter knowledge acquisition ability in children's decoding and word identification skills. Training children on this ability facilitates serial letter‐sound mapping and word identification skills. Artificial orthography paradigms are optimal for exploring children's potential to achieve specific literacy skills.