The double-deficit hypothesis and difficulties in learning to read a regular orthography.

In 2 large longitudinal studies, we selected 3 subgroups of German-speaking children (phonological awareness deficit, naming-speed deficit, double deficit) at the beginning of school and assessed reading and spelling performance about 3 years later. Quite different from findings with English-speaking children, phonological awareness deficits did not affect phonological coding in word recognition but did affect orthographic spelling and foreign-word reading. Naming-speed deficits did affect reading fluency, orthographic spelling, and foreign-word reading. Apparently, in the context of a regular orthography and a synthetic phonics teaching approach, early phases of literacy acquisition (particularly the acquisition of phonological coding) are less affected by early phonological awareness deficits than by later phases that depend on the build up of orthographic memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phonemes, Rimes, Vocabulary, and Grammatical Skills as Foundations of Early Reading Development: Evidence From a Longitudinal Study.

The authors present the results of a 2-year longitudinal study of 90 British children beginning at school entry when they were 4 years 9 months old (range = 4 years 2 months to 5 years 2 months). The relationships among early phonological skills, letter knowledge, grammatical skills, and vocabulary knowledge were investigated as predictors of word recognition and reading comprehension. Word recognition skills were consistently predicted by earlier measures of letter knowledge and phoneme sensitivity (but not by vocabulary knowledge, rhyme skills, or grammatical skills). In contrast, reading comprehension was predicted by prior word recognition skills, vocabulary knowledge, and grammatical skills. The results are related to current theories about the role of phonological, grammatical, and vocabulary skills in the development of early reading skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Development of Reading in Children Who Speak English as a Second Language.

Patterns of reading development were examined in native English-speaking (L1) children and children who spoke English as a second language (ESL). Participants were 978 (790 L1 speakers and 188 ESL speakers) Grade 2 children involved in a longitudinal study that began in kindergarten. In kindergarten and Grade 2, participants completed standardized and experimental measures including reading, spelling, phonological processing, and memory. All children received phonological awareness instruction in kindergarten and phonics instruction in Grade 1. By the end of Grade 2, the ESL speakers' reading skills were comparable to those of L1 speakers, and ESL speakers even outperformed L1 speakers on several measures. The findings demonstrate that a model of early identification and intervention for children at risk is beneficial for ESL speakers and also suggest that the effects of bilingualism on the acquisition of early reading skills are not negative and may be positive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Literacy and Cognitive Functioning in Bilingual and Nonbilingual Children at or Not at Risk for Reading Disabilities.

The authors determined whether the cognitive processes that underlie second-language acquisition difficulties are the same as those that underlie reading difficulties. First-grade (N = 101) bilingual and nonbilingual children were administered a battery of measures in Spanish and English. English word identification and vocabulary were predicted by a language-general working-memory (WM) factor, whereas English pseudoword reading was predicted by Spanish pseudoword reading and WM. The results also showed that (a) children proficient in language were better able to access resources from WM and (b) children with reading disabilities (RD) performed poorly on Spanish measures of short-term memory. In general, second-language difficulties are related to accessing a language-independent WM system, whereas language-specific phonological memory deficits underlie RD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Subtypes of reading disability: Variability around a phonological core.

Eight measures of cognitive and language functions in 232 children were subjected to multiple methods of cluster analysis in an effort to identify subtypes of reading disability. Clustering yielded 9 reliable subtypes representing 90% of the sample, including 2 nondisabled subtypes, and 7 reading-disabled subtypes. Of the reading-disabled subtypes, 2 were globally deficient in language skills, whereas 4 of the 5 specific reading-disabled subtypes displayed a relative weakness in phonological awareness and variations in rapid serial naming and verbal short-term memory. The remaining disabled subtype was impaired on verbal and nonverbal measures associated with rate of processing, including rate and accuracy of oral reading. Studies showed evidence for discriminative validity among the 7 reading-disabled subtypes. Results support the view that children with reading disability usually display impairments on phonological awareness measures, with discriminative variability on other measures involving phonological processing, language, and cognitive skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional Reactions to the Outcomes of Decisions: The Role of Counterfactual Thought in the Experience of Regret and Disappointment

Children's phonological sensitivity is a strong predictor of the development of reading skills. Recent evidence indicates that phonological sensitivity and reading are reciprocally related. That is, phonological sensitivity facilitates the development of early reading and early reading facilitates the development of phonological sensitivity. Whereas evidence for this reciprocal relation has come from studies with school-age children, this study examined the relation between phonological sensitivity and letter knowledge in 97 middle-income 4- and 5-year-old children in a 1-year longitudinal study. Multiple regression analyses revealed that phonological sensitivity predicted growth in letter knowledge, and letter knowledge predicted growth in phonological sensitivity when controlling for children's age and oral language abilities. These results indicate that the reciprocal relation between reading and phonological sensitivity is present relatively early in the development of literacy skills, prior to the onset of formal reading instruction.     

Short-term memory processes in children with reading and arithmetic learning disabilities.

Examined the role of phonemic coding in short-term memory in 45 children with a reading disability, 38 children with a specific arithmetic disability, and 89 normal children, as measured by the Wide Range Achievement Test. Ss, aged 7–13 yrs, were administered a series of tasks that involved the visual or auditory presentation of rhyming and nonrhyming letters and either an oral or a written response. Younger Ss (7–8 yrs) with a reading disability did not show any difference between the recall of nonrhyming and rhyming letters, whereas normal Ss of the same age did. Older reading-disabled Ss (aged 9–23 yrs), like their normal counterparts, had significantly poorer recall of rhyming as opposed to nonrhyming letters. However, their overall levels of performance were significantly lower than normals. The same pattern was found with Ss with arithmetic disabilities for the visual presentation of stimuli. For the auditory presentation of stimuli, the performance of Ss with arithmetic disabilities resembled that of normals, except at the youngest ages. Whereas a deficiency in phonological coding may characterize younger children with learning disabilities, older children with learning disabilities appear to use a phonemic code but have a more general deficit in short-term memory. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dysfluent reading in the absence of spelling difficulties: A specific disability in regular orthographies.

Two large studies identified substantial numbers of German-speaking children (Grade 3) with marked dissociations between reading and spelling difficulties. These dissociations were expected because German exhibits high regularity in the direction of graphemes to phonemes (forward regularity) but not in the direction of phonemes to graphemes (backward regularity). High forward regularity allows reliance on phonological processing in reading (even in advanced fluent reading), whereas low backward regularity requires reliance on orthographic memory representations in spelling. Dysfluent reading in the absence of spelling difficulties was associated only with a naming speed deficit--assessed at school entrance--but not with phonological memory or phonological awareness deficits. In contrast, a specific spelling deficit was preceded by phonological deficits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phonological memory and vocabulary development during the early school years: A longitudinal study.

The nature of the developmental association between phonological memory and vocabulary knowledge was explored in a longitudinal study. At each of 4 waves (at ages 4, 5, 6, and 8 yrs), measures of vocabulary, phonological memory, nonverbal intelligence, and reading were taken from 80 children. Comparisons of cross-lagged partial correlations revealed a significant shift in the causal underpinnings of the relationship between phonological memory and vocabulary development before and after 5 yrs of age. Between 4 and 5 yrs, phonological memory skills appeared to exert a direct causal influence on vocabulary acquisition. Subsequently, though, vocabulary knowledge became the major pacemaker in the developmental relationship, with the earlier influence of phonological memory on vocabulary development subsiding to a nonsignificant level. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On subtypes of developmental dyslexia: Evidence from processing time and accuracy scores.

Determined the proportion of phonological dyslexics (Ph-DYS) and surface dyslexics (S-DYS) in a population of French dyslexics by applying A. Castles and M. Coltheart's (1993) regression method to 2 diagnostic measures: pseudo-word and irregular-word processing time. 31 dyslexics were matched to 19 average readers of the same age (aged 10 yrs, CA controls) and to 19 younger children of the same reading level (aged 8 yrs, RL controls). Compared to CA controls, there were more Ph-DYS than S-DYS. Compared to RL controls, there were still a high number of Ph-DYS. The reliability of these subtypes across different measures of phonological and orthographic skills was also examined. Compared to RL controls, both groups of dyslexics were found to be impaired only in phonological skills. The moment at which the 2 dissociated profiles emerged in the course of cognitive development was assessed by examining data that was collected when the children were 7 and 8 yrs old. The results show that only the S-DYS's orthographic deficit increased with development. The authors also looked at whether the Ph-DYS and S-DYS profiles were associated with other specific cognitive deficits. Specific deficits in phonemic awareness and in phonological short-term memory were found for both Ph-DYS and S-DYS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The nature of phonological processing and its causal role in the acquisition of reading skills.

Three bodies of research that have developed in relative isolation center on each of three kinds of phonological processing: phonological awareness, awareness of the sound structure of language; phonological recoding in lexical access, recoding written symbols into a sound-based representational system to get from the written word to its lexical referent; and phonetic recoding in working memory, recoding written symbols into a sound-based representation system to maintain them efficiently in working memory. In this review we integrate these bodies of research and address the interdependent issues of the nature of phonological abilities and their causal roles in the acquisition of reading skills. Our review supports a causal role for phonological awareness in learning to read, and suggests the possibility of similar causal roles for phonological recoding in lexical access and phonetic recoding in working memory. Most researchers have neglected the probable causal role of learning to read in the development of phonological skills. It is no longer enough to ask whether phonological skills play a causal role in the acquisition of reading skills. The question now is which aspects of phonological processing (e.g., awareness, recoding in lexical access, recoding in working memory) are causally related to which aspects of reading (e.g., word recognition, word analysis, sentence comprehension), at which point in their codevelopment, and what are the directions of these causal relations? (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Nature of Phonological Awareness: Converging Evidence From Four Studies of Preschool and Early Grade School Children.

Significant controversy exists about the nature of phonological awareness, a causal variable in reading acquisition. In 4 studies that included 202 5- to 6-year-old children studied longitudinally for 3 years, 123 2- to 5-year-old children, 38 4-year-old children studied longitudinally for 2 years, and 826 4- to 7-year-old children, the authors examined the relation of sensitivity to rhyme with other forms of phonological awareness. Rhyme sensitivity was indistinguishable from phonemic awareness, segmemal awareness, and global phonological sensitivity in younger children. Rhyme sensitivity was distinguishable, although highly correlated, with these phonological skills in older children. Rhyme sensitivity was highly predictive of these other phonological skills. Children's sensitivity to different linguistic units seems best conceptualized as a single underlying ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teaching phonics in the context of children's literature or spelling: Influences on first-grade reading, spelling, and writing and fifth-grade comprehension.

First-grade children's reading, writing, and spelling competencies in 2 different instructional contexts for teaching phonics were examined. Reading, writing, and spelling abilities were measured at the beginning, middle, and end of 1st grade. Children were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 treatments designed to teach grapheme-phoneme correspondences, blending, and segmenting. In 1 treatment, children generated spellings for words, and in the other treatment, phonics instruction was embedded in literature. The spelling treatment was significantly better for spelling phonetically regular real and pseudowords, reading phonetically regular pseudowords, and written story length. It was also more beneficial for low-ability children's reading of connected text. There were no treatment effects on reading uncontrolled words in text. At the end of 5th grade, spelling-context children had significantly higher comprehension than did literature-context children. Discussion focuses on phonological processing while spelling and the effects of the instructional press of context-embedded and context-reduced instructional approaches in 1st grade. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transfer among phonological tasks in kindergarten: Essential instructional content.

The construct of phonological awareness was explored by examining the effects of instructional treatments on the development of specific and generalized phonological skills for kindergarten children. Sixty-six children with low phonological manipulation skills were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 treatments or a control condition: (a) auditory blending and segmenting with limited letter–sound correspondences; (b) a global array of phonological tasks, with letter–sound correspondences; or (c) only letter–sound instruction. Children in both treatments showed improved phonological abilities, which transferred to a reading analog task. Treated children achieved a level of phonological awareness comparable to that of higher skilled children. The combination of blending and segmenting instruction encouraged generalized phonological awareness; however, the ability to blend and segment accounted for more variance in reading analog scores than did other phonological tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Korean-English biliteracy acquisition: Cross-language phonological and orthographic transfer.

Cross-language phonological and orthographic relationship in the biliteracy acquisition of children learning to read Korean and English was investigated in this study. Forty-five Korean-English bilingual children were tested in first-language (L1; Korean) and 2nd-language (L2; English) reading skills focusing on 2 reading processes--phonological and orthographic processing. The authors found that phonological skills in L1 and L2 were strongly correlated, and Korean phonological skills explained a unique amount of variance in English pseudoword reading beyond English phonological and orthographic skills. However, there was limited orthographic skill transfer between the 2 systems. Results are discussed within the framework of universal phonological processes in learning to read. The authors conclude that bilingual reading acquisition may be a joint function of general phonological processes and orthographic-specific skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading skills in hyperlexia: A developmental perspective.

Hyperlexia is characterized by advanced word-recognition skills in individuals who otherwise have pronounced cognitive, social, and linguistic handicaps. Language, word recognition, and reading-comprehension skills are reviewed to clarify the nature and core deficits associated with the disorder. It is concluded that hyperlexia should be viewed as part of the normal variation in reading skills, which are themselves associated with individual differences in phonological, orthographic, and semantic processing, short-term memory, and print exposure. A compulsive preoccupation with reading may also be crucial to the development of a hyperlexic reading profile. A theoretical framework, based on recent connectionist models of reading development, is described. This perspective provides a satisfactory account for how individual differences in a number of different skills can lead to a variety of manifestations of reading behavior, including hyperlexia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive profiles of difficult-to-remediate and readily remediated poor readers: Early intervention as a vehicle for distinguishing between cognitive and experiential deficits as basic causes of specific reading disability.

Reading impaired first graders were given daily tutoring as a "first cut" diagnostic to aid in distinguishing between reading difficulties caused by basic cognitive deficits and those caused by experiential deficits. Reading achievement in most of these children was found to be within or above the average range after one semester of remediation. Children who were difficult to remediate performed below both children who were readily remediated and normal readers on kindergarten and first-grade tests evaluating phonological skills, but not on tests evaluating visual, semantic and syntactic skills. The results are consistent with convergent findings from previous research suggesting that reading problems in some poor readers may be caused primarily by phonological deficits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual Differences in the Inference of Word Meanings From Context: The Influence of Reading Comprehension, Vocabulary Knowledge, and Memory Capacity.

Two studies investigated the ability to use contextual information in stories to infer the meanings of novel vocabulary by 9-10-year-olds with good and poor reading comprehension. Across studies, children with poor reading comprehension were impaired when the processing demands of the task were greatest. In Study 2, working memory capacity was related to performance, but short-term memory span and memory for the literal content of the text were not. Children with poor reading comprehension were not impaired in learning novel vocabulary taught through direct instruction, but children with both weak reading comprehension and vocabulary were. Implications for the relation between vocabulary development and text comprehension are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The comprehensive language approach to early literacy: The interrelationships among vocabulary, phonological sensitivity, and print knowledge among preschool-aged children.

This article describes 2 points of view about the relationship between oral-language and literacy skills: The phonological sensitivity approach posits that vocabulary provides the basis for phonological sensitivity, which then is the key language ability supporting reading, and the comprehensive language approach (CLA) posits that varied language skills interact with literacy knowledge and continue to play a vital role in subsequent reading achievement. The study included 533 Head Start preschool-aged children (M=4 years 9 months) in 2 locations and examined receptive vocabulary, phonological awareness, and print knowledge. Partial correlational and regression analyses found results consistent with the CLA approach and evidence of a core deficit in phonological sensitivity, interpreted in a manner consistent with the CLA perspective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)