Reading and Writing最新文献

Inhibitory control ability may affect the orthographic neighborhood size (ONS) effect by inhibiting the semantic activation of neighbors. However, few studies have explored whether and how inhibitory control plays a role in the ONS effect on recognition of Chinese words. This study screened individuals with high and low inhibitory control abilities, and manipulated the ONS of Chinese words. Event-related potentials were used to explore the differences in ONS effects between individuals with high and low inhibitory control abilities, as well as the dissociation of ONS effects for Chinese real words and pseudowords recognition in lexical decision task. Both the behavioral and ERP results showed that ONS effect would be stronger in individuals with low inhibitory control ability. Meanwhile, we found a significant facilitative ONS effect on real words recognition and inhibitory effect on pseudowords recognition. In conclusion, inhibitory control is involved in ONS effect and the ONS effect has a dissociation when recognizing Chinese real words and pseudowords.

Vocabulary teaching has traditionally focused on word meanings to aid reading comprehension, however evidence also suggests that vocabulary knowledge influences phonemic awareness and word reading. Vocabulary instruction concentrating on the sound structure of new words alongside meaning (combined sound-meaning vocabulary instruction) improves vocabulary for learners with speech and language difficulties. Emerging research suggests it may deliver similar results as a classroom strategy for young children. Researchers have questioned whether combined instruction would additionally enhance phonemic awareness and phonic decoding. A teaching intervention with 273 children aged 5–6 in the United Kingdom compared meaning-based instruction, combined instruction and usual classroom instruction (age-matched controls) over 24 weeks with three testing points. A daily vocabulary lesson incorporating evidence-based principles was delivered by classroom teachers. After intervention both instructional groups performed significantly higher than controls on taught vocabulary, and all groups performed equally on phonemic awareness and nonword reading. Delayed post-test results require more cautious interpretation due to the lack of a hierarchical design. Combined instruction resulted in the highest taught vocabulary and phonic reading outcomes; phonemic awareness in the combined condition was significantly higher than controls. Results tentatively suggest that combined instruction is an inclusive approach for whole-class use in early schooling.

This study proposes and identifies two levels of word reading at which good comprehenders can obtain a similar understanding of written and spoken narrative texts: The oral-written matching functional and efficient thresholds. These thresholds are compared with the level of word reading over which a relationship between listening comprehension and reading comprehension is evident (a basic word recognition threshold) and with the level after which better word recognition does not result in improvements in reading comprehension (an upper word recognition threshold). The three first thresholds were calculated in a sample of 344 first to third-grade Spanish students who read and listened to two narrative texts of different difficulty and who were assessed on measures of comprehension and word recognition. Listening and reading comprehension were related when participants accurately read more than 73% of pseudowords in a list (basic word recognition threshold). For participants with good listening comprehension, reading comprehension performance matched listening comprehension once a moderate reading speed of ~ 66 decontextualized words per minute was achieved (oral-written matching functional threshold) or when the rate of reading the text was ~ 140 words per minute (oral-written matching efficient threshold). The value of the oral-written matching efficient threshold was, in this study, similar to the upper word recognition threshold identified by prior research. The thresholds calculated in this study delineate a sequence of increasingly challenges to the developing reader, allowing a nuanced description of the initial stages of reading development.

This study investigated the relationships between metalinguistic skills, including phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness, and Hangul-word spelling in Korean first through third graders, encompassing both deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children and children with typical hearing (TH). The participants comprised 24 children with cochlear implants (CIs), 24 children with hearing aids (HAs), and 24 TH children, matched for chronological age, vocabulary age, and nonverbal intelligence. Results indicated that DHH children with CIs and HAs exhibited delays in spelling accuracy and in all metalinguistic skills compared to their TH peers, with no significant differences observed between children with CIs and those with HAs. In DHH children, vocabulary showed a strong and negative correlation with spelling and morphological awareness, whereas these correlations were not significant in TH children. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that phonological, orthographic, and morphological awareness independently contributed to the unique variance in spelling accuracy beyond vocabulary knowledge in DHH children, while phonological and orthographic awareness remained significant in TH children. These findings suggest that metalinguistic skills and vocabulary knowledge play different roles in Korean word spelling during the initial three years of elementary school for DHH and TH children in Korea.

Research suggests that bilinguals often have weaker vocabulary in their second language compared to that of monolinguals (e.g., Hoff, 2013). It is thus important to identify factors that may facilitate vocabulary learning for bilinguals. One suggested factor is the presence of orthography while learning new oral vocabulary. The current study aims to examine the orthographic facilitation effect on vocabulary learning and evaluate whether this effect is larger for children who are simultaneous or emergent bilinguals, compared to monolinguals. A group of 33 bilingual and 38 English monolingual Year 2–4 students participated in an online novel word learning study. Novel words were paired with pictures of vintage tools and taught by presenting the pictures and repeating their names, either with the spelling of the words or picture only. Learning was measured using a picture-naming task, and a 4AFC word-picture matching task. The results showed a significant effect of orthographic facilitation in both measures. For the picture naming task, there was a significant interaction between orthographic condition and language group, with the monolingual group benefiting more from the presence of orthography. However, no such interaction was found in the 4AFC matching. We conclude that both English monolingual and bilingual children learn more novel words when the spellings of words are present, and that this benefit does not appear to be larger for bilingual children.

The available classifications of self-regulated learners may not be applicable to second or foreign language writing due to the contextual nature of self-regulated learning. This study intended to fill the gap by exploring the profiles of English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ writing self-regulation and their association with writing-relevant individual differences. A total of 391 tertiary students from Southwest China were recruited to participate in the current study, including freshmen, sophomores, and juniors. Their writing self-regulation was measured by the Writing Strategies for Self-Regulated Learning Questionnaire. Latent profile analyses discovered two profiles of self-regulated learners in EFL writing: “highly self-regulated group” and “moderately self-regulated group”. Moreover, ANOVA and Welch’s Test showed that the participants assigned to the two profiles differed significantly in L2 grit, writing achievement goals, and writing self-efficacy rather than language aptitude and working memory. Perseverance of effort, mastery goals, and self-regulatory self-efficacy are found to predict profile membership significantly. Additionally, the results of path analyses revealed that the profiles varied in the predictive effect of individual differences on EFL learners’ writing regulation. These findings contributed to furthering our understanding of classification of self-regulated learners and the role of individual differences in the classification.

Language is essential for making meaning in written communication, and argument writing is a key genre of schooling to which language contributes rich resources for constructing different types of arguments. Despite being a challenging language practice, argument writing research lacks investigation into the language demands of this writing genre. Using an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach, the present study explored the role of language in adolescent students’ argument writing through the lens of the relationship between argumentation features (reasons, counterarguments, rebuttals) and students’ use of epistemic modality devices (EMDs) - linguistic tools that express the author’s knowledge of and belief about the possibility of whether a state of affairs is true (e.g., ‘must’, ‘maybe’). Argument writing samples from 115 upper elementary students were analyzed to explore the relationship between EMDs and written argumentation. Descriptive analysis showed that reasons and modal auxiliaries that indicated certainty (‘will’, ‘would’) were most frequently employed by the students. Multiple regression analyses revealed a positive, significant relationship between number of reasons in students’ writing and their EMD usage. Subsequent qualitative content analysis identified two salient patterns of how EMDs assisted with reason construction, (1) predicting consequences, and (2) speculating causes of behaviors. The findings emphasize the close relation between language and argumentation and hence highlight the importance of the explicit instruction of language features pertinent to argumentative discourse.

This study assessed the effect of adjectives and noun premodifiers on L2 noun phrase comprehension and error types among English Language Learners. We also examined the correlation between L2 noun phrase comprehension and L2 reading comprehension, as well as the contribution of L2 noun phrase comprehension to L2 reading comprehension. One hundred and one Hebrew-speaking 11th graders were tested on the English noun phrase comprehension task, indexing cross-language effects (from L1 to L2). The task included sentences in four conditions, each representing a different noun phrase structure at the syntactic subject position: NN, NNN, AdjNN, and AdjNNN. Participants also completed L1 reading comprehension and L2 vocabulary tests that were controlled for in the correlation and regression analyses. Overall, the results indicate that sentences with noun premodifiers and no adjective premodifiers were more challenging and more susceptible to L1 interference. Partial correlation analyses showed that participants’ performance on all four conditions of the noun phrase comprehension test was significantly and positively correlated with their L2 reading comprehension. Multiple regression analyses revealed that higher accuracy and low error rates in the NN and AdjNNN conditions made a unique contribution to L2 reading comprehension, when we controlled for L1 reading comprehension and L2 vocabulary. This study confirmed the significant effects L1 has on L2 syntactic knowledge, which relates significantly and contributes to L2 reading comprehension abilities among adolescent students.

The relative importance of phonological versus morphological processes in reading varies depending on the writing system's orthographic consistency and morphological complexity. This study investigated the interplay between phonology and morphology in Hebrew reading acquisition, a language offering a unique opportunity for such examination with its rich, complex Semitic morphological system and dual writing versions differing in orthographic consistency—transparent-pointed and deep-unpointed versions. Ninety-eight second graders and 81 fourth graders participated in pseudoword-reading tasks designed to distinguish between the different processes: pointed morphologically based pseudowords (pointed MPW), reflecting phonological and morphological processing; unpointed morphologically based pseudowords (unpointed MPW), reflecting only morphological processing; and pointed non-words (pointed NW), with no internal morphological structure, reflecting only phonological processing. Real pointed-word reading accuracy and fluency were also assessed. Results showed the highest accuracy in reading unpointed MPW, with a similar accuracy level observed between unpointed MPW and pointed MPW in second grade, while a significant difference emerged in fourth grade. An age-by-processing type interaction revealed decreasing accuracy in pointed MPW and increasing accuracy in unpointed MPW with age. Additionally, morphological processing significantly enhanced the accuracy and fluency of reading pointed words beyond phonological processing, despite the comprehensive phonological information provided by the transparent, pointed script. These findings suggest that the contribution of morphology exceeds that of phonology as early as second grade, with this trend strengthening through fourth grade, emphasizing children's early prioritization of morphological transparency over orthographic consistency in learning to read Hebrew Semitic orthography.

A growing number of primary school students experience difficulties with grapho-motor skills involved in handwriting, which impact both form and content of their texts. Therefore, it is important to assess and monitor handwriting skills in primary school via standardized tests and detect specific grapho-motor parameters (GMPs) which impact handwriting legibility. Multiple standardized tools are available to assess grapho-motor skills in primary school, yet little is known on between-test agreement, on impact of specific GMPs on children’s overall performance and on which GMPs may be specifically hard to tackle for children that are starting to consolidate their handwriting skills. These data would be extremely relevant for clinicians, therapists and educators, who have to choose among different assessment tools as well as design tailored intervention strategies to reach adequate performance on different GMPs in cases of poor handwriting. To gain better understanding of currently available standardized tools, we compared overall performance of 39 Italian primary school children (19 second graders and 20 third graders) experiencing difficulties with handwriting on three standardized tests for grapho-motor skills assessment and explored the impact of individual GMPs on child performance. Results showed some agreement between tests considering all children in our sample, but no agreement in second grade and only limited agreement in third grade. Data also allowed highlighting significant correlations between some GMP scores and children’s overall performance in our sample. Finally, children in our sample appeared to experience specific difficulties with some GMPs, such as letter joins and alignment.