Effects of two types of phonological awareness training on word learning in kindergarten children.

The effects of 2 types of oral-language training programs on development of phonological awareness skills and word learning ability were examined. One of the training programs provided explicit instruction on both analytic (segmenting) and synthetic (blending) phonological tasks; the other program trained synthetic skills only. Effects of these programs were contrasted with a language-experience control group that received no phonologically oriented training. 48 kindergarten children participated in small-group training sessions 3 times per week for 7–8 wks. Children who received both analytic and synthetic training improved significantly on both types of skills, whereas children receiving the synthetic skills training alone improved only on blending skills. Only children receiving training on both types of tasks showed a positive training effect for the word learning or reading analog task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The development of phonological awareness in preschool children.

A short-term longitudinal study was carried out on a group of 67 preschool children. At three points in time over a 12-month period, the children were given tests measuring their syllable, rime, and phoneme awareness, speech and language skills, and letter knowledge. In general, children's rime skills developed earlier than their phoneme skills. Structural equation models showed that articulatory skills and syllable and rime awareness predicted later phoneme awareness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of cross-language transfer on first-language phonological awareness and literacy skills in Chinese children receiving English instruction.

The present investigation consists of two studies examining the effects of cross-language transfer on the development of phonological awareness and literacy skills among Chinese children who received different amounts of English instruction. Study 1 compared Chinese students in regular English programs (92 first graders and 93 third graders) with peers who did not receive English instruction (86 first graders and 91 third graders). Study 2 was a 2-year longitudinal study that followed Chinese children from the beginning of Grade 1 to the end of Grade 2; the children attended either an intensive English program (79 children) or a regular English program (80 children). In both studies, children received phonological awareness tasks in English and Chinese, and literacy measures in Chinese. Results suggest that (a) English instruction accelerates the development of Chinese phonological awareness and Pinyin skills through cross-language transfer; (b) the pattern of cross-language transfer reflects the phonological features of English, the source language; and (c) a threshold level of 2nd language proficiency is required before any positive effects can be detected in the 1st language. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation of phonological awareness to reading disability in children and adults.

Research has shown that for young children, success at learning to read is related to the extent to which they are aware of the phonological structure of spoken language. We determined that this relation is also evident in older children (third graders) and in adults who have had considerable reading instruction. Differences in phonological awareness, measured on three tasks, accounted for much of the variance between good readers and poor readers at both age levels. In contrast, no correspondence was found between reading ability and performance on a nonspeech task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Growth modeling of phonological awareness.

In a longitudinal study following prereading kindergartners through first grade, the variables verbal memory, IQ, and speech perception (SP) together predicted 26% of growth in and 42% of the final status of phonological awareness (PA). The correlation between initial status and growth in PA was .51, suggesting that those who begin with high PA develop that skill more quickly than those who begin with lower PA. Although those low and high in SP in kindergarten had substantially different word-decoding scores by the middle of first grade (low: M?=?6.8 words; high: M?=?18.1 words), this difference was no longer significant once phonological processing was controlled, suggesting that the effect of SP on word decoding is mediated by phonological processing ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cross-language transfer of phonological awareness.

Investigated the factors influencing the English word identification performance of Spanish-speaking beginning readers. Beginning readers were administered tests of letter naming, Spanish phonological awareness, Spanish and English word recognition, and Spanish and English oral proficiency. Multiple-regression analyses revealed that the readers' performance on English word and pseudoword recognition tests was predicted by the levels of both Spanish phonological awareness and Spanish word recognition, thus indicating cross-language transfer. In contrast, neither English nor Spanish oral proficiency affected word-identification performance. Results suggest a specific way in which 1st-language learning and experience can aid children in the beginning stages of reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teaching phonological awareness to young children with learning disabilities

This study examined the feasibility of teaching phonological manipulation skills to preschool children with disabilities. Forty-seven children, 4-6 years old, enrolled in a special education preschool, were randomly assigned to receive training in one of three categories of phonological tasks (rhyming, blending, and segmenting) or a control group. Results indicated that children were able to make significant progress in each experimental category, but that they demonstrated little or no generalization either within a category (e.g., from one type of blending task to another type of blending task) or between categories (e.g., from blending to segmenting). Although the children's level of cognitive development significantly predicted some learning outcomes, it did not appear to limit the learning of phonological tasks.     

Persistence of dyslexics' phonological awareness deficits.

Examined the phonological awareness skills of dyslexic children, adults with childhood diagnoses of dyslexia, and good readers at various age levels. Comparisons of the dyslexics to good readers of the same age or the same reading level indicated that dyslexics do not acquire appropriate levels of phoneme awareness, regardless of their age or reading levels, although they eventually acquire appropriate levels of onset-rhyme awareness. Even adults with fairly high levels of word recognition skill show phoneme awareness deficits. For normal readers, reliable increases in phoneme awareness were associated with age and reading level, whereas for dyslexic Ss these associations were not reliable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prosodic phonological representations early in visual word recognition.

Two experiments examined the nature of the phonological representations used during visual word recognition. We tested whether a minimality constraint (R. Frost, 1998) limits the complexity of early representations to a simple string of phonemes. Alternatively, readers might activate elaborated representations that include prosodic syllable information before lexical access. In a modified lexical decision task (Experiment 1), words were preceded by parafoveal previews that were congruent with a target's initial syllable as well as previews that contained 1 letter more or less than the initial syllable. Lexical decision times were faster in the syllable congruent conditions than in the incongruent conditions. In Experiment 2, we recorded brain electrical potentials (electroencephalograms) during single word reading in a masked priming paradigm. The event-related potential waveform elicited in the syllable congruent condition was more positive 250-350 ms posttarget compared with the waveform elicited in the syllable incongruent condition. In combination, these experiments demonstrate that readers process prosodic syllable information early in visual word recognition in English. They offer further evidence that skilled readers routinely activate elaborated, speechlike phonological representations during silent reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic and phonological codes interact in single word production.

The relationship between semantic–syntactic and phonological levels in speaking was investigated using a picture naming procedure with simultaneously presented visual or auditory distractor words. Previous results with auditory distractors have been used to support the independent stage model (e.g., H. Schriefers, A. S. Meyer, & W. J. M. Levelt, 1990), whereas results with visual distractors have been used to support an interactive view (e.g., P. A. Starreveld & W. La Heij, 1996). Experiment 1 demonstrated that with auditory distractors, semantic effects preceded phonological effects, whereas the reverse pattern held for visual distractors. Experiment 2 indicated that the results for visual distractors followed the auditory pattern when distractor presentation time was limited. Experiment 3 demonstrated an interaction between phonological and semantic relatedness of distractors for auditory presentation, supporting an interactive account of lexical access in speaking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Levels of bilingualism and levels of linguistic awareness.

A framework for relating degree of bilingualism to aspects of linguistic awareness is presented in which metalinguistic tasks are described in terms of their demands for analysis of knowledge or control of processing. Two studies are reported in which children differing in their level of bilingualism were given metalinguistic problems to solve that made demands on either analysis or control. The hypotheses were that all bilingual children would perform better than monolingual children on all metalinguistic tasks requiring high levels of control of processing and that fully bilingual children would perform better than partially bilingual children on tasks requiring high levels of analysis of knowledge. The results were largely consistent with these predictions. The findings are discussed in terms of the implications of bilingualism for cognitive and linguistic development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Abstract phonological structure in language production: Evidence from Spanish.

In this study, 4 experiments were carried out to investigate if segmental and structural information are represented separately in phonological encoding in speech production. In Experiments 1 and 2, a picture-word interference paradigm was used. Participants had to name a picture while a word was auditorily presented 150 ms after the onset of the target. In Experiments 3 and 4, participants had to read aloud lists of printed words (inductors) and then had to name a picture. Results of the first 3 experiments indicate that naming latencies are faster when target and interfering stimulus (in the first 2 experiments) and inductors (in the 3rd) share the same abstract phonological structure. The 4th experiment showed that the priming effect observed previously is due to facilitation of the first-syllable structure, supporting the notion that an abstract syllabic structure is used in phonological encoding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of the phonological neighborhood clustering coefficient on spoken word recognition.

Clustering coefficient—a measure derived from the new science of networks—refers to the proportion of phonological neighbors of a target word that are also neighbors of each other. Consider the words bat, hat, and can, all of which are neighbors of the word cat; the words bat and hat are also neighbors of each other. In a perceptual identification task, words with a low clustering coefficient (i.e., few neighbors are neighbors of each other) were more accurately identified than words with a high clustering coefficient (i.e., many neighbors are neighbors of each other). In a lexical decision task, words with a low clustering coefficient were responded to more quickly than words with a high clustering coefficient. These findings suggest that the structure of the lexicon (i.e., the similarity relationships among neighbors of the target word measured by clustering coefficient) influences lexical access in spoken word recognition. Simulations of the TRACE and Shortlist models of spoken word recognition failed to account for the present findings. A framework for a new model of spoken word recognition is proposed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Defining phonological awareness and its relationship to early reading.

Phonological awareness (PA) has been operationally defined by many different tasks, and task comparisons have been confounded by differing levels of linguistic complexity among items. A sample of 113 kindergartners and first graders completed PA tasks designed to separate task difficulty from linguistic complexity. These measures were, in turn, compared with measures of early literacy. Results indicated that the measures loaded on a single factor and that PA measured by differences in linguistic complexity, rather than by task differences, seemed to be more closely related to the factor. A logical analysis suggested that alphabet knowledge is necessary for children to separate onsets from rimes and that awareness of onsets and rimes is necessary both for word reading and for more complex levels of phonemic analysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Suedohomofoan effects in visual word recognition: Evidence for phonological processing.

Investigated the pseudohomophone effect, which is considered to be evidence that phonological recoding occurs in the lexical decision task in which a letter string like brane is identified as a nonword. 22 undergraduates read 156 letter strings, half of which were words, and identified them as words or nonwords. Half of the nonwords were pseudohomophones like brane, which sounds like a real word but is not spelled like one; half were strings like slint, which neither looks nor sounds like a real word. Response time to pseudohomophones was slower than response time to other nonwords. The interpretation of this result is that the letter string brane is transformed into a phonological code that accesses the entry for brain in a phonological lexicon, thus necessitating a time-consuming spelling check to avoid making a false positive response. Since letter strings like slint have no lexical entries, a postaccess spelling check is not necessary. Thus, the pseudohomophone effect reflects phonological processing. (French abstract) (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual word recognition in bilinguals: Evidence from masked phonological priming.

Bilingual written language representation was investigated with the masked phonological priming paradigm. Pseudohomophonic and control primes of French target words were used to show that Dutch–French bilinguals exhibit the same pattern of phonological and orthographic priming as native French speakers, which suggests that the same processes underlie first- and second-language processing. It was also found that for bilinguals, but not monolinguals, it is possible to prime a target word of the second language with a homophonic stimulus (either word or nonword) of the first language. This interlingual phonological priming effect was of the same size as the intralingual priming effect. Implications for theories of bilingual written language representation and for the interpretation of the masked phonological priming paradigm are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Naming speed and phonological awareness as predictors of reading development.

This article investigates how well kindergarten phonological awareness (PA) and naming speed (NS) account for reading development to Grade 5. The authors use regression analyses to predict reading development, with mental ability and prior achievement controlled, and follow the reading development of children having combinations of adequate or inadequate PA and NS. PA was most strongly related to reading in the first 2 years of school, and NS's initially weaker relationship increased with grade level. Children with weak PA and slow NS were most likely to develop reading difficulties by Grade 5, followed by children with slow NS alone. The authors discuss the roles of NS and PA in reading development and the need to clarify the constructs underlying NS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conceptual and linguistic biases in children's word learning

Four studies examined the influence of essentialist information and perceptual similarity on preschoolers' interpretations of labels. In Study 1, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds were less likely to interpret 2 labels for animals as referring to mutually exclusive categories: when the animals were said to share internal, rather than superficial, properties and when the animals were perceptually similar rather than dissimilar. In Study 2, neither internal nor functional property information influenced 4-year-olds' interpretations of labels for artifacts. Studies 3 and 4 provide baseline data, demonstrating that the domain differences were not due to prior differences in children's lexical knowledge in the 2 domains. These results suggest that children have essentialist beliefs about animals, but not about artifacts, and that these beliefs interact with children's assumptions about word meaning in determining their interpretations of labels.     

Automatic access of semantic information by phonological codes in visual word recognition.

An important issue in reading research is the role of phonology in visual word recognition. This experiment demonstrated that naming time of a target word (e.g., nut) is facilitated more by a homophone of a semantic associate (e.g., beach) than by a visually similar control (e.g., bench). However, this priming effect from the homophone obtained only when the prime word was exposed for 50 msec and was followed by a pattern mask and not when it was exposed for 200 msec before the pattern mask. In contrast, the "appropriate" prime (e.g., beech) provided facilitation at both exposure durations. Because the priming was obtained with a stimulus onset asynchrony of 250 msec, these data provide support for G. C. Van Orden's (1987) verification model, which posits that meaning is accessed through the automatic activation of phonological information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evidence for the use of phonological representations during transsaccadic word recognition.

The authors explored the role of phonological representations in the integration of lexical information across saccadic eye movements. Study participants executed a saccade to a preview letter string that was presented extrafoveally. In Experiment 1, the preview string was replaced by a target string during the saccade, and the participants performed a lexical decision. Targets with phonologically regular initial trigrams benefited more from a preview than did targets with irregular initial trigrams. In Experiment 2, words with regularly pronounced initial trigrams were more likely to be correctly identified from the preview alone. In Experiment 3, participants were more likely to detect a change across a saccade from regular to irregular initial trigrams than from irregular to regular trigrams. The results suggest that phonological representations are activated from an extrafoveal preview and that this phonological information can be integrated with foveal information following a saccade. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)