English Word Reading Research Articles

The relationship between phonological awareness and word reading accuracy in Oriya and English: A study of Oriya‐speaking fifth‐graders

This study investigated the relationships between phonological awareness and reading in Oriya and English. Oriya is the official language of Orissa, an eastern state of India. The writing system is an alphasyllabary. Ninety‐nine fifth grade children (mean age 9 years 7 months) were assessed on measures of phonological awareness, word reading and pseudo‐word reading in both languages. Forty‐eight of the children attended Oriya‐medium schools where they received literacy instruction in Oriya from grade 1 and learned English from grade 2. Fifty‐one children attended English‐medium schools where they received literacy instruction in English from grade 1 and in Oriya from grade 2. The results showed that phonological awareness in Oriya contributed significantly to reading Oriya and English words and pseudo‐words for the children in the Oriya‐medium schools. However, it only contributed to Oriya pseudo‐word reading and English word reading for children in the English‐medium schools. Phonological awareness in English contributed to English word and pseudo‐word reading for both groups. Further analyses investigated the contribution of awareness of large phonological units (syllable, onsets and rimes) and small phonological units (phonemes) to reading in each language. The data suggest that cross‐language transfer and facilitation of phonological awareness to word reading is not symmetrical across languages and may depend both on the characteristics of the different orthographies of the languages being learned and whether the first literacy language is also the first spoken language.

Predicting English Word Reading Skills for Spanish-Speaking Students in First Grade.

This article describes the word reading skills in English and Spanish for a sample of 244 Spanish-speaking, English-learning (hence, bilingual) students in first grade and presents a predictive model for English word reading skills. The children in the study were assessed at the end of kindergarten and first grade, respectively. Data were gathered with 3 subtests of the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery and a researcher-developed phonological awareness task. Results showed that, on average, children's English word reading skills were similar to monolingual norms whereas their Spanish word reading skills averaged 1 SD below the mean. English vocabulary, English phonological awareness, and Spanish word reading skills in kindergarten were found to be significant predictors of English word reading skills in first grade. Educational implications for screening language and reading skills and promising areas for targeted instruction for this population are discussed.

Language learning

06–451Baquedano-López, Patricia (U California, Berkeley, USA; pbl@berkeley.edu), Jorge L. Solís & Shlomy Kattan, Adaptation: The language of classroom learning. Linguistics and Education (Elsevier) 16.1 (2005), 1–26.06–452Brooks, Patricia, J. (City U New York, USA; pbrooks@mail.csi.cuny.edu), Vera Kempe & Ariel Sionov, The role of learner and input variables in learning inflectional morphology. Applied Psycholinguistics (Cambridge University Press) 27.2 (2006), 185–209.06–453Clahsen, Harald & Claudia Felser (U Essex, UK; harald@essex.ac.uk), Grammatical processing in language learners. Applied Psycholinguistics (Cambridge University Press) 27.1 (2006), 3–42.06–454Cleland, Alexandra A. (U York, UK; a.cleland@psych.york.ac.uk) & Martin J. Pickering, Do writing and speaking employ the same syntactic representations?Journal of Memory and Language (Elsevier) 54.2 (2006), 185–198.06–455Devescovi, Antonella (U Rome, Italy; antonella.devescovi@uniroma1.it), Maria Cristina Caselli, Daniela Marchione, Patrizio Pasqualetti, Judy Reilly & Elisabeth Bates, A cross-linguistic study of the relationship between grammar and lexical development. Journal of Child Language (Cambridge University Press) 32.4 (2005), 759–786.06–456Fomin, Maxim & Gregory Toner (U Ulster, UK; gj.toner@ulster.ac.uk), Digitizing a dictionary of Medieval Irish: The eDIL Project. Literary and Linguistic Computing (Oxford University Press) 21.1 (2006), 83–90.06–457Geeslin, Kimberly L. (Indiana U, USA; kgeeslin@indiana.edu) & Pedro Guijarro-Fuentes, Second language acquisition of variable structures in Spanish by Portuguese speakers. Language Learning (Blackwell) 56.1 (2006), 53–107.06–458Gullberg, Marianne (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, the Netherlands; marianne.gullberg@mpi.nl), Handling discourse: Gestures, reference tracking, and communication strategies in early L2. Language Learning (Blackwell) 56.1 (2006), 155–196.06–459Hickmann, Maya (U René Descartes Paris 5, France) & Henriette Hendriks, Static and dynamic location in French and in English. First Language (Sage) 26.1 (2006), 103–135.06–460Hohlfeld, Annette (U Complutense, Spain; ahohlfeld@isciii.es), Accessing grammatical gender in German: The impact of gender-marking regularities. Applied Psycholinguistics (Cambridge University Press) 27.2 (2006), 127–142.06–461Howard, Martin (U College, Cork, Ireland; mhoward@french.ucc.ie), Isabelle Lemée & Vera Regan, The L2 acquisition of a phonological variable: The case of /l/deletion in French. Journal of French Language Studies (Cambridge University Press) 16.1 (2006), 1–24.06–462Huong, Le Pham Hoai (Hue U of Foreign Languages, Vietnam; quangandhuong@yahoo.com), Learning vocabulary in group work in Vietnam. RELC Journal (Sage) 37.1 (2006), 105–121.06–463Jie, Li (Chinese U Hong Kong, China; lijie@cuhk.edu.hk) & Qin Xiaoqing, Language learning styles and learning strategies of tertiary-level English learners in China. RELC Journal (Sage) 37.1 (2006), 67–90.06–464Kiefer, Kate (Colorado State U, USA; Kate.Kiefer@colostate.edu), Complexity, class dynamics, and distance learning. Computers and Composition (Elsevier) 23.1 (2006), 125–138.06–465Kondo-Brown, Kimi (U Hawaii at Manoa, USA; kondo@hawaii.edu), How do English L1 learners of advanced Japanese infer unknownKanjiwords in authentic texts?Language Learning (Blackwell) 56.1 (2006), 109–153.06–466Leonard, Lawrence B. (Purdue U, USA; xdxl@purdue.edu), Anita M.-Y. Wong, Patricia Deevy, Stephanie F. Stokes & Paul Fletcher, The production of passives by children with specific language impairment: Acquiring English or Cantonese. Applied Psycholinguistics (Cambridge University Press) 27.2 (2006), 267–299.06–467Leong, Che Kan (U Saskatchewan, Canada; leong@sask.usask.ca), Kit Tai Hau, Pui Wan Cheng & Li Hai Tan, Exploring two-wave reciprocal-structural relations among orthographic knowledge, phonological sensitivity, and reading and spelling of English words by Chinese students. Journal of Educational Psychology (American Psychological Association) 97.4 (2005), 591–600.06–468Macizo, Pedro & M. Teresa Bajo (U Granada, Spain; mbajo@ugr.es), Reading for repetition and reading for translation: Do they involve the same processes?Cognition (Elsevier) 99.1 (2006), 1–34.06–469Mackay, Ian R. & James E. Fleger (U Alabama, USA; jeflege@uab.edu) & Satomi Imai, Evaluating the effects of chronological age and sentence duration on degree of perceived foreign accent. Applied Psycholinguistics (Cambridge University Press) 27.2 (2006), 157–183.06–470Pavlik Jr., Philip I. & John R. Anderson (Carnegie Mellon U, USA), Practice and forgetting effects on vocabulary memory: An activationbased model of the spacing effect. Cognitive Science: A Multidisciplinary Journal (Lawrence Erlbaum) 29.4 (2005), 559–586.06–471Ram, Frost (Hebrew U, Israel; frost@mscc.huji.ac.il), Tamar Kugler, Avital Deutsch & Kenneth I. Foster, Orthographic structure versus morphological structure: Principles of lexical organization in a given language. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition (American Psychological Association) 31.6 (2005), 1293–1396.06–472Roberts, Theresa, A. (California State U, USA; robertst@csus.edu), Articulation accuracy and vocabulary size contributions to phonemic awareness and word reading in English language learners. Journal of Educational Psychology (American Psychological Association) 97.4 (2005), 601–616.06–473Treiman, Rebecca (Washington U, USA; rtreiman@wustl.edu), Brett Kessler & Tatiana Cury Pollo, Learning about the letter name subset of the vocabulary: Evidence from US and Brazilian pre-schoolers. Applied Psycholinguistics (Cambridge University Press) 27.2 (2006), 211–227.06–474Vandergrift, Larry (U Ottawa, Canada; lvdgrift@uottawa.ca), Second language listening: Listening ability or language proficiency?The Modern Language Journal (Blackwell) 90.1 (2006), 6–18.

Weak and strong novice readers of english as a foreign language: Effects of first language and socioeconomic status

This study examined individual differences among beginning readers of English as a foreign language (EFL). The study concentrated on the effects of underlying first language (L1) knowledge as well as EFL letter and vocabulary knowledge. Phonological and morphological awareness, spelling, vocabulary knowledge, and word reading in Hebrew L1, in addition to knowledge of EFL letters and EFL vocabulary, were measured. The study also investigated the effect of socioeconomic background (SES) on beginning EFL readers. Participants included 145 fourth graders from three schools representing two socioeconomic backgrounds in the north of Israel. The results indicate that knowledge of English letters played a more prominent role than knowledge of Hebrew L1 components in differentiating between strong and weak EFL readers. The Linguistic Coding Differences Hypothesis was supported by L1 phonological awareness, word reading, and vocabulary knowledge appearing as part of discriminating functions. The presence of English vocabulary knowledge as part of the discriminant functions provides support for English word reading being more than just a decoding task for EFL beginner readers. Socioeconomic status differentiated the groups for EFL word recognition but not for EFL reading comprehension.

Language lateralization of Chinese-English bilingual patients with temporal lobe epilepsy: A functional MRI study.

Functional MRI was used to examine language lateralization of Chinese characters and English words associated with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) in Chinese-English bilinguals with left or right TLE. The results suggest that the neural basis of processing Chinese and English seems to be different, as normal controls demonstrated left hemispheric lateralization in reading English words but bi-hemispheric lateralization in reading Chinese characters. This difference in the neural bases of Chinese and English processing was found to affect the patterns in change-of-language processing associated with TLE. That is, whereas left-TLE patients were more likely than right-TLE patients to demonstrate a bi-hemispheric language involvement in reading English, both left- and right-TLE patients demonstrated primarily bilateral hemispheric involvement for reading Chinese characters.

Crossover of Phonological Processing Skills

This study investigated three questions: Do phonological processes show cross-linguistic transfer? How does the language of instruction influence the relationship between phonological processes and decoding? Does performance on Spanish and English phonological processing tasks similarly predict English decoding for the same English learners (ELs)? We studied first-grade ELs who had been enrolled for 2 years in two programs that differed by language of instruction (English only and bilingual). Phonological processing skills were examined following a theory of core phonological processing deficits that postulates that three related constructs—phonological awareness, phonological coding, and phonological recoding—are the major components of phonological processing. The results indicate that (a) phonological processes do exhibit cross-linguistic transfer in young ELs; (b) phonological awareness might best be conceptualized as comprising two developmentally overlapping components; (c) language of instruction influences English and Spanish word reading and Spanish pseudoword decoding, but not English pseudoword decoding; and (d) phonological awareness is the only theoretical phonological processing construct significantly related to all English and Spanish reading tasks.

Orthography to Phonology and Meaning: Comparisons Across and within Writing Systems

According to the Universal Writing System Constraint, all writing systems encode language, and thus reflect basic properties of the linguistic system they encode. According to a second universal, the Universal Phonological Principle, the activation of word pronunciations occurs for skilled readers across all writing systems. We review recent research that illustrates the implications of these two universal principles both across and within writing systems. Within the family of alphabetic systems, differences between Korean and English arise in the languages, rather than the orthographies, while the reverse appears to be true for German and English differences. Across writing systems, new Event Related Potentials (ERP) experiments show the robustness of phonology across Chinese and English systems and chart the time course of word reading in Chinese and English for Chinese bilinguals and for English speakers learning Chinese. The ERP results show differences between Chinese and English for both groups and suggest that the time course of word processes and the brain areas identified as sources for the ERP components differ both as a result of writing system and the skill of the reader. We propose the System Accommodation Hypothesis, that reading processes and the neural structures that support them accommodate to specific visual and structural features of a new writing system.

Reading processes in L1 and L2 among dyslexic as compared to regular bilingual readers: behavioral and electrophysiological evidence

The present study examined differences between ‘regular’ and dyslexic adult bilingual readers when processing reading and reading related skills in their first (L1 Hebrew) and second (L2 English) languages. Brain activity during reading Hebrew and English words and pseudowords was studied using behavioral and ERP measures. Results indicated discrepancies in the processing profiles of dyslexic and regular bilinguals in both first and second languages. In general, dyslexic readers were significantly slower and less accurate compared to regular readers during processing of information in both L1 and L2. Furthermore, the latencies of the evoked potentials were later among dyslexic readers at all levels of the cognitive processing sequence in both languages, but were more pronounced in English (L2). In contrast, regular readers displayed either similar or significantly shorter ERP latencies in English compared to Hebrew on most of the experimental tasks. The data from the present study supports both the ‘Central Deficit’ and ‘Script Dependent’ Hypotheses by demonstrating universal deficits in L1 and L2 among dyslexic readers along with differential manifestations of these deficits as a function of specific orthographic features. The present results are also in line with the ‘Dyslexic Automatization Deficit Hypothesis’ which purports automatization deficits as a more general and more pervasive cause underlying dyslexic performance. Unlike dyslexic readers, regular bilingual readers not only have the capacity to reach automaticity in their second language, but can also exhibit more effective processing of reading material in English at different levels of the cognitive sequence, despite its irregular nature. Mastery of reading proficiency in English as L2 need not be lower than mastery of Hebrew as L1. Moreover, it may even be higher due to the unique features of the languages and orthographies involved.

Articulation Accuracy and Vocabulary Size Contributions to Phonemic Awareness and Word Reading in English Language Learners.

Relationships among articulation, vocabulary, phonemic awareness, and word reading were examined in 45 children who spoke either Hmong or Spanish as their primary language. A theoretical perspective suggesting that English articulation and vocabulary would influence children's English phonemic awareness and English word reading was developed. Articulation influenced both kindergarten phonemic awareness and 1st-grade word reading. Letter-sound knowledge was also associated with kindergarten phonemic awareness, and 1st-grade phonemic awareness was related to 1st-grade word reading. The results are discussed in relationship to 2nd-language speech, articulation, and beginning reading.

Exploring Two-Wave Reciprocal Structural Relations Among Orthographic Knowledge, Phonological Sensitivity, and Reading and Spelling of English Words by Chinese Students.

In a 2-wave study of a cohort of 108 Chinese students (10- to 11-year-olds) learning English as a second language, the authors examined the relative effects of three Time 1 latent constructs-- orthographic knowledge, phonological sensitivity, and word identification (reading and spelling of regular and exception words)--on the respective Time 2 performance. The authors posited autoregressive effects, in which Time 1 constructs affected their matching Time 2 performance (e.g., Time 1 orthographic knowledge on Time 2 orthographic knowledge), as well as reciprocal cross-domain effects (e.g., orthographic knowledge on word identification and vice versa). The model converged to a proper solution with reasonably good fit. The results suggest (a) strong stability in the children's word identification and phonological sensitivity, (b) substantial effects of word identification on subsequent orthographic knowledge and phonological sensitivity, particularly the former; and (c) greater variations in individuals' growth of orthographic knowledge.

Learning to Read and Spell English Words by Chinese Students

This study examined the structural relationships between (a) the latent independent constructs of orthographic and lexical knowledge and phonological sensitivity and (b) the effect of these constructs on the latent construct of literacy manifested by reading aloud and spelling regular and exception English words in 156 Cantonese-speaking Chinese students (M age = 10.8 years) who were learning English as a second language in Hong Kong. Three carefully designed and item-analyzed indicators subserved the construct of orthographic and lexical knowledge, and another three indicators subserved the construct of phonological sensitivity. Our hypothesis of greater contribution of word-specific orthographic and lexical knowledge than phonological sensitivity to learning to read and spell English words in these Chinese children was supported by results from multiple regression, principal component analyses and especially by structural equation modeling. The various goodness-of-fit dexes showed the appropriateness of the indicators in measuring the latent constructs as well as the relationships among these constructs.

英単語の読みにおける二重経路モデルとトライアングルモデルの統合の試み

In this article, I discuss the implementation of neural network models for reading English words aloud. Since 1989, there has been existing a debate about the models of reading English words aloud. One is the Dual Route Cascaded (DRC) model. The other is the Triangle model, whose original version was developed in 1989. Because there are arbitrary variables of both models, we did not decide which model gives better accounts for the numerous data given by psychological experiments and neuropsychological evidence. Therefore, in order to give a solution of this debate, an attempt to integrate both models was made. Introducing the Mixture of Experts Network, an elegant solution to overcome the arbitrariness of both models could be given. The Mixture of Expert Network can include both the models as a special case of this Network. From the Mixture of Expert Network's point of view, the difference between the Dual Route Cascaded model and the Triangle model would be able to describe as the quantitative difference of the dispersion parameters.

Comparison of the Effects of Spanish and English Constant Time Delay Instruction on Sight Word Reading by Hispanic Learners with Mental Retardation

This study investigated the effectiveness and efficiency of a 4-second time delay instructional package and language of instruction with regard to the percentage correct of English sight words and incidental information by 4 Puerto Rican middle school students with mental retardation. A multiple probe across students with a parallel treatments design that compared Spanish and English constant time delay intervention conditions was employed to teach sight words from local grocery and department stores. Incidental information was provided contingent on correct responding during intervention. Results indicated that both Spanish and English time delay conditions were equally effective and efficient when compared with a no-treatment condition in promoting English sight word reading for 3 of the 4 participants, whereas Spanish time delay was seen to be more effective and efficient than English time delay and no-treatment conditions for the other participant. All 4 participants generalized word reading from the classroom to the natural setting (i.e., stores in the community) and learned most of the incidental information. Implications for practice and directions for future research with respect to language of instruction are discussed.

The Effect of Urdu Vocabulary Size on the Acquisition of Single Word Reading in English

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of Urdu, a phonologically transparent orthography with regular letter-sound correspondences on the development of reading in English. The results showed that children who had high levels of vocabulary knowledge and phonological awareness in Urdu, were more likely to perform well on English reading and reading related tasks, but poorly on visual memory tasks. In contrast, children who had some Urdu word recognition skills, but low levels of Urdu vocabulary knowledge and Urdu phonological awareness tended to perform poorly on English reading and reading related tasks, but better on visual memory tasks. The findings provide further support to the direct impact of Urdu on single word reading in English.

Phonological Awareness and Beginning Reading in Spanish-Speaking ESL First Graders: Research into Practice

In the first study, 30 Spanish-speaking English-as-a-second language (ESL) first graders whose families were Latino immigrants and who received all their school instruction in English completed an assessment battery with both Spanish and English measures of phonological awareness, Verbal IQ (VIQ), oral language proficiency, and single-word reading (real words and pseudowords); they also named English alphabet letters. Phonological awareness in Spanish predicted (a) phonological awareness in English and (b) English word reading; thus, phonological awareness may transfer across first and second languages and across oral and written language. English VIQ and oral language proficiency predicted both English and Spanish word reading, but Spanish VIQ and oral language proficiency did not predict English word reading. In the second study, the 4 males and the 4 females with the lowest reading achievement participated in an instructional design experiment in which empirically supported instructional components for teaching beginning reading to monlingual English speakers were included. These components were phonological awareness training (in both Spanish and English), explicit instruction in alphabetic principle (in English), and repeated reading of engaging English text with comprehension monitoring (in English). Both individual students and the group as a whole increased in real-word reading and pseudoword reading beyond the level expected on the basis of their Spanish or English VIQ or oral proficiency. Implications of this research for school psychology practice are discussed, especially the importance of early reading intervention and progress monitoring for Spanish-speaking ESL first graders.

Orthographic and phonological processing skills in reading and spelling in Persian/English bilinguals

The concurrent development of reading and spelling in English and Persian were examined in a sample of bilingual children. The objective was to compare how phonological and orthographic processing skills contribute to reading and spelling for two alphabetic languages that differ drastically. English orthography is characterised by both polyphony (i.e., a grapheme representing more than one phoneme) and polygraphy (i.e., a phoneme represented by more than one grapheme) which results in a complex script to read and write. In contrast, vowelised-Persian orthography is characterised by polygraphy only, which results in a simple script to read but more complex to write. Fifty-five Iranian children in grades 2 and 3, who had lived in English-speaking Canada for an average of 4 years, were tested on word reading and spelling in English and Persian. We found that the predictors of reading performance were similar across languages: Phonological and orthographic processing skills each predicted unique variance in word reading in English and in Persian once we had controlled for grade level, vocabulary, and reading experience. As expected, the predictors of spelling performance differed across language: Spelling in English was predicted similarly by phonological and orthographic processing skills, whereas spelling in Persian was predicted by orthographic processing skills only. It is possible that the nature of the Persian orthography encourages children to adopt different strategies when reading and spelling words. Spelling Persian words might be particularly conducive to using an analytic strategy which, in turn, promotes the development of and reliance on orthographic skills.

Oral reading in Chinese: evidence from dementia of the Alzheimer's type

The traditional view of oral reading ability in patients with dementia holds that it is a preserved skill even if there is a general impairment to lexico-semantic processing ability. Recently, this view has been challenged by studies showing that the oral reading ability of patients with dementia can deteriorate over the course of the disease. These studies have found that the oral reading of irregular English words is more prone to error than the oral reading of regular words by patients with dementia suggesting that the oral reading of irregular words depends upon support from semantic memory. Relatively little is known about the oral reading abilities of Chinese-speaking dementia patients. This paper reports on the results of a study of the language processing and the oral reading ability of Chinese speakers with probable dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT). DAT patients displayed impairment on tests of oral reading as well as impairment on tests of semantic memory, confrontation naming and word comprehension. The results also show significant effects of regularity, frequency and imageability on the oral reading of DAT patients. It is argued that Chinese-speaking DAT patients display a pattern of language impairment similar to their English-speaking counterparts and, moreover, that normal oral reading of Chinese characters may depend critically upon the integrity of semantic memory.

East meets west: the study of communication disorders in Chinese.

The traditional view of oral reading ability in patients with dementia holds that it is a preserved skill even if there is a general impairment to lexico-semantic processing ability. Recently, this view has been challenged by studies showing that the oral reading ability of patients with dementia can deteriorate over the course of the disease. These studies have found that the oral reading of irregular English words is more prone to error than the oral reading of regular words by patients with dementia suggesting that the oral reading of irregular words depends upon support from semantic memory. Relatively little is known about the oral reading abilities of Chinese-speaking dementia patients. This paper reports on the results of a study of the language processing and the oral reading ability of Chinese speakers with probable dementia of the Alzheimer’s type (DAT). DAT patients displayed impairment on tests of oral reading as well as impairment on tests of semantic memory, confrontation naming and word com...

Left-Handedness and Achievements in Foreign Language Studies

Studies of brain lateralization lend support to the hypothesis that language–motor functions in left-handers are differently organized from those in right-handers. However, the implications of these differences regarding cognitive functioning are as yet subject to controversy. This concerns all hypotheses raised and empirical data collected over the years. Although it was suggested that left-handers are at higher risk of having language and reading deficits, empirical data from clinical and nonclinical populations are inconclusive at the present time. No effort, however, has been invested in examining possible differences in academic studies of foreign languages according to handedness. Here we report data indicating inferior achievements of left-handed native Hebrew speakers in studies of English as a foreign language. Left-handed pupils significantly more than right-handers were placed in lower level English classes and had more difficulties in applying orthographic–phonological mapping rules in reading English words and pseudowords. However, left-handers' difficulties in this task were not correlated with their performance in a word recognition task. It is thus suggested that the “common symptom” of poor word reading in left-handers indicates different processing failures in different left-handers, some of which impede the buildup of an internal representational system of mapping orthography to phonology and some of which concern mainly the precision of word production.

First Language Influences on Second Language Word Reading: All Roads Lead to Rome

This article reports an experiment investigating similarities and differences in basic processing involved in the word reading of second language (L2) readers of English. The investigation specifically targeted phonological and orthographic processes in the context of language transfer from native language (L1) to L2 during reading tasks. Groups of young adults who were native speakers of either Russian or Japanese and low‐intermediate ESL learners were matched on a measure of English word reading and then compared on a number of cognitive and linguistic reading‐related tasks. Despite differences in processing strengths, neither group demonstrated an advantage in nonword reading. The results have implications for theories of reading disability built around the notion of deficits in phonological processing.