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)     

Are word-reading processes the same or different in adult literacy students and third–fifth graders matched for reading level?

This study examined whether word-reading processes operate similarly in adult literacy (AL) students and elementary school students matched for reading level. Comparison of mean performances revealed that adults were severely deficient on phonologically complex tasks (segmentation, deletion, and nonword reading). In contrast, on orthographically complex tasks, adults revealed both strengths (sight-word reading) and weaknesses (spelling). Regression analyses revealed that individual differences in word and nonword reading abilities were explained by the same orthographic and phonological processes in AL students and children, despite differences in their levels of performance. Correlations between word reading and spelling measures were weaker among AL students than among children. Inadequate integradon of these skills may explain adults' phonological deficits as well as their reading acquisition difficulties. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of word reading fluency and spelling in a consistent orthography: An 8-year follow-up.

In a longitudinal study, development of word reading fluency and spelling were followed for almost 8 years. In a group of 115 students (65 girls, 50 boys) acquiring the phonologically transparent German orthography, prediction measures (letter knowledge, phonological short-term memory, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, and nonverbal IQ) were assessed at the beginning of Grade 1; reading fluency and spelling were tested at the end of Grade 1 as well as in Grades 4 and 8. Reading accuracy was close to ceiling in all reading assessments, such that reading fluency was not heavily influenced by differences in reading accuracy. High stability was observed for word reading fluency development. Of the dysfluent readers in Grade 1, 70% were still poor readers in Grade 8. For spelling, children who at the end of Grade 1 still had problems translating spoken words into phonologically plausible letter sequences developed problems with orthographic spelling later on. The strongest specific predictors were rapid automatized naming for reading fluency and phonological awareness for spelling. Word recognition speed was a relevant and highly stable indicator of reading skills and the only indicator that discriminated reading skill levels in consistent orthographies. Its long-term development was more strongly influenced by early naming speed than by phonological awareness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparison of reading and spelling in patients with probable Alzheimer's disease.

Patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) are reported to show mild, but reliable, difficulties reading aloud and spelling to dictation exception words, which have unusual or unpredictable correspondence between their spelling and pronunciation (e.g., touch). To understand the cognitive dysfunction responsible for these impairments, 21 patients and 27 age- and education-matched controls completed specially designed tests of single-word oral reading and spelling to dictation. AD patients performed slightly below controls on all tasks and showed mildly exaggerated regularity effects (i.e., the difference in response accuracy between words with regular spellings minus exception words) in reading and spelling. Qualitative analyses, however, did not demonstrate response patterns consistent with impairment in central lexical orthographic processing. The authors conclude that the mild alexia and agraphia in AD reflect semantic deficits and nonlinguistic impairments rather than a specific disturbance in lexical orthographic processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Use of consonant letter names in beginning spelling.

Middle-class American children usually learn the names of letters several years before they begin formal instruction in reading and spelling. How does this knowledge affect their subsequent acquisition of spelling? The results of 4 experiments speak against the idea that children go through a stage of spelling development during which they are equally likely to symbolize any sequence of phonemes that matches the name of a letter with the corresponding letter. Although kindergartners and 1st graders sometimes spell the nonword /var/ as "vr," using the letter r to represent both of the phonemes in its name, they are less likely to spell the nonword /vεs/ as "vs" or the nonword /tib/ as "tb." These differences are interpreted as reflecting the phonological or sound properties of the letters' names. Implications for models of spelling development are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rhyme and alliteration, phoneme detection, and learning to read.

In this article, 3 views of the relation between various forms of phonological awareness (detection of rhyme and alliteration and detection of phonemes) and children's reading were tested. These are (a) that the experience of learning to read leads to phoneme awareness and that neither of these is connected to awareness of rhyme, (b) that sensitivity to rhyme leads to awareness of phonemes, which in turn affects reading, and (c) that rhyme makes a direct contribution to reading that is independent of the connection between reading and phoneme awareness. The results from a longitudinal study that monitored the phonological awareness and progress in reading and spelling of 65 children from the ages of 4 years 7 months to 6 years 7 months produced strong support for a combination of the 2nd and 3rd models and none at all for the 1st model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A longitudinal study of reading development in dyslexic children.

The development of literacy skills was studied in 20 dyslexic children (7 years 7 months to 12 years 7 months). At Time 1, the dyslexic children performed worse on tests of reading, spelling, and phonological processing than chronological age-matched normal readers, but their performance was qualitatively similar to that of younger reading age-matched controls. The dyslexic children made poor progress over the following 2 years and, in comparison with reading age controls at Time 2, showed specific difficulties in nonword reading and repetition and made more dysphonetic spelling errors. The authors argue that this typical dyslexic profile becomes more defined with development and provides support for the theory that phonological deficits in dyslexia compromise the development of reading skills. (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)     

The tongue-twister effect in reading Chinese.

Two studies demonstrate a visual tongue-twister effect (TTE) in Chinese and add support to the assumption that reading in any writing system engages a phonological memory system. Exp 1 showed that for both oral and silent reading, Ss took longer to read texts with repeated initial phonemes (IPs) than to read control stories with mixed IPs. Exp 2 verified the phonemic nature of the TTE in a dual task situation in which Ss had to retain a string of digits while reading a sentence. The results showed a specific-phoneme interference such that Ss took longer to read the texts when digits and words had the same IPs than when they had different phonemes. Both studies provide evidence that the source of the TTE in both Chinese and English is phonological interference rather than visual confusion. They confirm the highly general nature of phonological involvement in skilled sentence reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predictors of reading and spelling abilities in first- and second-language learners.

This study examined the basic literacy skills and related processes of 1st- through 4th-grade children speaking English as a 1st language (L1) and English as a 2nd language (ESL). The performances of the L1 and ESL children on phonological awareness, word and pseudoword reading, and word and pseudoword spelling tasks were highly similar. The ESL children were at an advantage with regard to lexical access but performed more poorly on verbal working memory and syntactic awareness tasks. The results suggest that the main processes underlying L1 children's basic reading ability in Grades 1 and 2, namely phonological awareness and lexical access, are of equal importance for ESL children. Phonological awareness remained the strongest predictor of word reading ability for L1 and ESL children in Grades 3 and 4. However, the processes involved in L1 and ESL word reading and spelling appeared to vary at other points. Verbal working memory and syntactic awareness were found to be of importance for the word reading and spelling abilities of L1 children but not for ESL children. Lexical access was found to be of more importance for ESL children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive processes as predictors of word recognition and reading comprehension in learning-disabled and skilled readers: Revisiting the specificity hypothesis.

Examines how cognitive processes interrelate as well as predict learning-disabled (LD) readers' word recognition and reading comprehension performance. Correlations between phonological, orthographic, semantic, metacognitive, and working memory measures with reading performance were examined in LD and skilled readers (aged 8–12 yrs). LD Ss were deficient on all cognitive processes compared with skilled Ss, but these differences do not reflect IQ scores. Reading ability group differences emerged on a component composed primarily of working memory measures (referred to as "g") as well as unique components, suggesting that these differences emerge on both general and specific (modular) processes. G best predicts reading comprehension for both groups, and phonological awareness best predicts skilled Ss' pseudoword reading, whereas g best predicts LD Ss' pseudoword performance. Overall, LD Ss' information processing difficulties were described within a general working memory model that views such children as having difficulty accessing and coordinating both general and specific processes. Results suggest that the cognitive processes that contribute to reading deficits are best understood in the context of their combination with other operations rather than in isolation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of grammatical-sensitivity, phonological, and short-term memory skills in normally achieving and learning disabled children.

The development of a variety of grammatical-sensitivity and phonological skills was studied in 138 normally achieving, 65 reading-disabled, 63 arithmetic-disabled, and 15 attention deficit disordered (hyperactive) children 7 to 14 years old. Word recognition and phonics skills were highly related, and reading comprehension and phonics skills were less so. Grammatical sensitivity and short-term memory were significantly correlated with a variety of reading skills. Children with a reading disability showed a significant lag in the development of grammatical sensitivity and short-term memory and an even greater deficit in phonological skills. The children with a specific arithmetic disability had adequate grammatical abilities, but below-average memory skills at all ages. Children with an attention deficit but normal achievement scores did not have any major difficulties except on a reading-comprehension task that appears to have significant memory and attention components. The acquisition of reading skills is closely related to the development of grammatical and phonological skills, and deficiencies in these areas are related to difficulties with the acquisition of written language skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning to read and spell in Persian: A cross-sectional study from Grades 1 to 4.

We investigated the reading and spelling development of 140 Persian children attending Grades 1–4 in Iran. Persian has very consistent letter–sound correspondences, but it varies in transparency because 3 of its 6 vowel phonemes are not marked with letters. Persian also varies in spelling consistency because 6 phonemes have more than one orthographic representation. We tested whether lexicality effects—an advantage of words over nonwords—would be affected be reading transparency and spelling consistency. We found that children became more efficient readers and spellers across grades, with the greatest growth occurring between Grades 1 and 2. For reading, lexicality effects were present with transparent words starting in Grade 2, but lexicality effects with opaque words were not yet present in Grade 4. As expected, the size of transparency effects for reading decreased across grades. For spelling, however, there was no lexicality effect for either consistent or inconsistent words. Moreover, consistency effects were large and did not decrease systematically across grades. Most interesting from a developmental perspective was the finding that both reading transparency and spelling polygraphy affected reading as well as spelling in Grades 1 and 2, but the word characteristics had differential effects as a function of literacy task in Grades 3 and 4. This pattern highlights the vulnerability of children's representations and processes during the early phases of acquisition as well as the rapidity with which representations and processes become specialized as a function of the literacy task at hand. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Basic processes in reading: Computation of abstract letter identities.

A speeded classification experiment examined the hypothesis that an early processing stage in reading involves the computation of abstract letter identities. When 20 undergraduates were asked to base their classification on physical criteria, letter strings that differed in case but shared the same letter identities (e.g., HILE/hile) were classified as "different" less efficiently than strings with a common phonological code but different spelling (e.g., HILE/hyle). Letter strings with a common phonological code but different spelling were classified as efficiently as letter strings without a common phonological code (e.g., HILE/hule). Results of the present experiment, along with other experimental findings and some neuropsychological observations, provide converging evidence for a representation and comparison process that is neither visual nor phonological but is based on abstract letter identities. It is suggested that the computation of abstract letter identities is a precursor to lexical access during reading. Implications for the interpretation of certain developmental reading difficulties are noted. (French abstract) (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sensitivity to dynamic auditory and visual stimuli predicts nonword reading ability in both dyslexic and normal readers

BACKGROUND: Developmental dyslexia is a specific disorder of reading and spelling that affects 3-9% of school-age children and adults. Contrary to the view that it results solely from deficits in processes specific to linguistic analysis, current research has shown that deficits in more basic auditory or visual skills may contribute to the reading difficulties of dyslexic individuals. These might also have a crucial role in the development of normal reading skills. Evidence for visual deficits in dyslexia is usually found only with dynamic and not static stimuli, implicating the magnocellular pathway or dorsal visual stream as the cellular locus responsible. Studies of such a dissociation between the processing of dynamic and static auditory stimuli have not been reported previously. RESULTS: We show that dyslexic individuals are less sensitive both to particular rates of auditory frequency modulation (2 Hz and 40 Hz but not 240 Hz) and to dynamic visual-motion stimuli. There were high correlations, for both dyslexic and normal readers, between their sensitivity to the dynamic auditory and visual stimuli. Nonword reading, a measure of phonological awareness believed crucial to reading development, was also found to be related to these sensory measures. CONCLUSIONS: These results further implicate neuronal mechanisms that are specialised for detecting stimulus timing and change as being dysfunctional in many dyslexic individuals. The dissociation observed in the performance of dyslexic individuals on different auditory tasks suggests a sub-modality division similar to that already described in the visual system. These dynamic tests may provide a non-linguistic means of identifying children at risk of reading failure.     

Contributions of morphology beyond phonology to literacy outcomes of upper elementary and middle-school students.

Using structural equation modeling the authors evaluated the contribution of morphological awareness, phonological memory, and phonological decoding to reading comprehension, reading vocabulary, spelling, and accuracy and rate of decoding morphologically complex words for 182 4th- and 5th-grade students, 218 6th- and 7th-grade students, and 207 8th- and 9th-grade students in a suburban school district. Morphological awareness made a significant unique contribution to reading comprehension, reading vocabulary, and spelling for all 3 groups, to all measures of decoding rate for the 8th/9th-grade students, and to some measures of decoding accuracy for the 4th/5th-grade and 8th/9th-grade students. Morphological awareness also made a significant contribution to reading comprehension above and beyond that of reading vocabulary for all 3 groups. (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)     

Moderators of gender effects on parents'' talk to their children: a meta-analysis

We present a longitudinal study of children in the first 2 years of learning to read. A battery of tests of phonological skills administered when the children were prereaders identified two distinct and relatively independent factors, Rhyming (defined by measures of rhyme detection and rhyme production) and Segmentation (defined by measures of phoneme identification and phoneme deletion). Segmentation was strongly correlated with attainment in reading and spelling at the end of the first year at school, while Rhyming was not. In addition, letter name knowledge predicted both reading and spelling skill and showed an interactive effect with children's segmentation skills. By the end of the second year of school, however, rhyming had started to exert a predictive effect on spelling, but not on reading. The results are discussed in the context of current theories of the role of phonological skills in learning to read.     

Growth in reading skills of children from diverse linguistic backgrounds: Findings from a 5-year longitudinal study.

This article reports on the results of a longitudinal investigation of the reading development of a sample of 824 children (406 girls, 418 boys). The sample included 689 native English-speaking (L1) children and 135 English-language learners (ELLs) representing 33 different native languages. In kindergarten and 4th grade, children's word reading, spelling, phonological processing, syntactic awareness, and working memory skills were assessed with standardized and experimental measures. In addition, word reading was assessed from kindergarten through 4th grade, and reading comprehension in 4th grade. Comparisons of reading skills between the ELLs and the L1 speakers demonstrated that despite slightly lower performance of the ELLs on several kindergarten tasks, differences at 4th grade were negligible. Fourth-grade word reading was predicted by the same kindergarten tasks for both language groups, and prediction of reading comprehension differed by only 1 task. Finally, the trajectory of word reading was nonlinear for both groups, although predictors of this trajectory differed between groups. The findings suggest that early identification models established through research with L1 speakers are appropriate for identifying ELLs at risk for reading difficulties. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Two routes or one in reading aloud? A connectionist dual-process model.

A connectionist study of word reading is described that emphasizes the computational demands of the spelling–sound mapping in determining the properties of the reading system. It is shown that the phonological assembly process can be implemented by a two-layer network, which easily extracts the regularities in the spelling–sound mapping for English from training data containing many exception words. It is argued that productive knowledge about spelling–sound relationships is more easily acquired and used if it is separated from case-specific knowledge of the pronunciation of known words. It is then shown how the interaction of assembled and retrieved phonologies can account for the combined effects of frequency and regularity–consistency and for the reading performance of dyslexic patients. It is concluded that the organization of the reading system reflects the demands of the task and that the pronunciations of nonwords and exception words are computed by different processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)