Language Acquisition and Reading Research

Reading is at the interface between the vision and spoken language domains. An emergent bulk of research indicates that learning to read strongly impacts on non-linguistic visual object processing, both at the behavioral level (e.g., on mirror image processing – enantiomorphy -) and at the brain level (e.g., inducing top-down effects as well as neural competition effects). Yet, many questions regarding the exact nature, locus, and consequences of these effects remain hitherto unanswered.
The current Special Topic aims at contributing to the understanding of how such a cultural activity as reading might modulate visual processing by providing a landmark forum in which researchers define the state of the art and future directions on this issue.

Dans le cadre de la problématique de l’apprentissage de la lecture par des enfants sourds, nous proposons d’étudier la nature des relations morphologiques lexicales entre la Langue des Signes Français (LSF) et le français écrit au travers d’une étude linguistique comparative de 62 familles morphologiques portant sur les différences et les similarités structurelles et distributionnelles des mots de ces deux langues.
La construction d’un tel corpus nécessite d’une part la sélection des familles morphologiques les plus représentatives du français (notamment en termes de fréquences d’usage et de familiarité pour les enfants de CP-CE1), l’analyse de leurs propriétés distributionnelles et structurelles (i. e. taille de la famille, fréquences cumulées, nature morphologique des membres et nature de leurs relations paradigmatiques) et d’autre part, l’analyse de la structure morphologique de leurs correspondants en LSF parmi lesquels on peut distinguer une part importante de mots composés mais également de mots que l’on peut considérer comme dérivés (e. g. Aronoff et al., 2005). L’hypothèse que nous formulons à l’égard de la comparaison des différentes caractéristiques de ces deux langues en contact chez l’apprenti lecteur sourd, est liée à la notion de conscience morphologique (selon Carlisle, 1995). Le corpus présenté se donne pour objectif de constituer une base de données pour l’étude de la conscience morphologique chez ces apprentis lecteurs particuliers qui ne disposent pas – ou dans une très faible proportion – d’accès à la conscience phonologique (e. g. Izzo, 2002).


Several studies showed a role for phonology in reading acquisition in deaf children (Transler, 2005) but few focused on the role of morphology and even less so when talking about sign language’s speakers, taught in sign language from the early age of school (Daigle & al., 2006). The structural characteristics of the sign language suggest however that phonology is highly related to morphology. More precisely, some signs systematically share together a common element and this can be attributed to morphological relationships (as suggested by Aronoff & al., 2005). The role of morphology in reading acquisition in hearing children is nowadays clearly established (see Colé et al., 2004), especially in an early age of acquisition (Carlisle, 2003) but still not in signed language. A thorough examination of French Sign Language (LSF) suggests however that some signs may correspond to morphological composition (Bauer, 2004).
Morphological awarness refers to ‘conscious awareness of the morphemic structure of words and their ability to reflect on and manipulate that structure’ (Carlisle, 1995, p. 194) and accordingly, we postulate that abstract morphemic units could stand as bases for making correspondences between signing and reading, facilitating reading acquisition in deaf children. In the present paper we aimed to study the nature of the morphological relationships between written French and French Sign Language (LSF) through a comparative linguistic analysis of morphological families. More precisely, we examined the distributional and structural similarities and differences of the words shared by these two languages. The construction of such a lexical database required on one hand the selection of the most representative morphological families (in terms of the frequency of use and their familiarity for second grade children), the analyses of their structural and distributional properties (i.e. family size, cumulated frequencies, morphological nature of the family members and of their paradigmatic relationships) and on the other hand, the morphological analysis of the morphological structure of the words of their corresponding words in LSF among which one can distinguish a majority of composed words (i.e. the combination of two lexically independent signs) and some words that can be considered as derived (i.e., a sign + a modifier, as Aronoff (2005) suggested).
We first selected the 100 most representative families of French in Grade 2 (CE1 in French) from EDUSCOL lexical database, proposed by the French Educational Ministry (http://eduscol.education.fr). Then we kept nouns, verbs and adjectives and rejected other grammatical forms. Then we used a second database (MANULEX: database created with scholar books, Lété et al., 2004) to extend our corpus to 62 morphological families, representing 1140 words (whose mean frequency= 330 occ./million). We spread the data according to their morphological structure that is derivative or compound. We observed that 79% of the 1140 words were derived (896 words) and 21% were compound (244 words). Among the 1140 words extracted in written, only 504 were related to LSF. Moreover, the ratio between derivatives and compounds showed that this distribution was more homogeneous in LSF than in written French: 75 % of the analyzed corpus we obtained a distribution composed with 47 % of derived signs and 53 % of compound signs. The distribution of Nfam was nevertheless different with a range of {4-22} and a mean of 11 members. Finally on a total of 1594 studied words (FR= 1140, LSF= 504), 47% shared morphological relationships.
In LSF, correspondences can therefore be established for the majority of the words belonging to the morphological families we selected. Accordingly, common linguistic units can be found between LSF and written French, offering the possibility of use of this overlaps during the process of reading acquisition in deaf children. The present constitutes a first step for studying the role of morphological awareness in these particular reading learners who do not, or for a very few part, have access to phonological awareness (see Izzo, 2002). The second step gives rise to the question: if deaf children do have morphological awareness of their mother tong and if so, are they able to perceive the relationships between signs and written words? As a matter of fact, morphological awareness has been studied in the general context of reading acquisition but need to be explored in various reading learners, from hearing children to deaf children in order to establish if morphological awareness has to be explicitly taught or not to those children.

Eye movement is key to helping us understand how the brain creates meaning with print.  As you read this page your eyes do not move from left to right, letter-to-letter, word-to-word in a straight, steady line. Your brain simply gives the impression that they do. Eye movement research shows that your eyes move unevenly across the page, going back occasionally, skipping some words, and fixating on others.

The main objective of the present study is to determine the type and frequency of reading strategies (RSs) used by Turkish EFL students. Besides, this study aims to find out a) whether there is a gender difference in terms of RS use, b) whether there is a relationship between self-reported RS use and reading self-efficacy. A total of 211 university-level English preparatory class students took part in the study. The participants completed questionnaires on RS use and reading self-efficacy. The obtained data were analyzed using quantitative methods. The results indicated that students reported using RSs at a moderate level, and problem-solving strategies were the most frequently employed RS when compared to global and support strategies. Additionally, the study found that female students reported significantly higher use of RSs than male students. Finally, this study demonstrates that there is a positive relationship between students' RS use and reading selfefficacy.

Abstract This study is focused on the capacity of preliterate children to learn explicit phonetic segmentation. In Experiment 1, subjects were induced through examples to delete the initial consonant in consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) utterances. Performance was very poor ...

Phonological and orthographic processing are reported to be among the strongest predictors of reading development across different Indo-European languages. The relative impact of these factors can be modulated by cross-linguistic script and orthographic differences, as evidenced by many studies in European languages. The present study investigates the effect of phonological and orthographic processing on reading speed in 6- to 12-year-old (1 – 5 grades) Russian-speaking children (N = 117), taking into account age as a factor as well. Phonological and orthographic processing were assessed with behavioral tests. The results revealed that both skills predict reading speed in Russian. Moreover, the age of young readers can also be
a non-linguistic predictor of reading speed in Russian, especially in children between 6 and 10 years old. Children aged 10 to 12 also demonstrated some variability in reading speed, although an increase in reading speed was no longer observed.

O presente artigo apresenta um levantamento sobre a influênciado lar, da comunidade e da escolana manutenção da língua e cultura minoritárias em crianças matriculadas em programas de biletramento (que ensinam a ler e a escrever em duas ou mais línguas) enquanto residentes de comunidades de imigrantes nos Estados Unidos. Este artigo traz o pano histórico, adescrição dos programas dos tipos Two-Way Immersion e Transitional Bilingual Programdisponíveisno país atualmente, e a legislação estadual vigente de um sistema escolar relativamente descentralizado a fim de encontrar um elo entre o papel de cada um de seus participantes –a família, a comunidade e a escola – como uma fundamentação teórica formulada a partir da perspectiva sócio cultural. Um dos temas resultantes mais eminentes é a construção constante de uma identidade bicultural para suportar o biletramento, ou seja, a junção de práticas culturais e sociais em mais de uma língua por todos envolvidos para que a estrutura e o invest...

The simple view of reading is a model that tries to explain the reading comprehension from two variables which are decoding accuracy and oral language comprehension. There is an extensive research on this model in English readers. Although, some studies have been done in other languages with transparent orthographic systems, there are few investigations with Spanish readers. The purpose of this study has been to collect data on the applicability of the simple view of reading to Spanish reading comprehension, so 87 students of a public school from Quito were assessed with the PROLEC-R and CLP tests. The results show that join fluency or reading speed to the model may be more appropriate to explain the Spanish reading comprehension. Oral comprehension was the most related variable to the text reading comprehension; even thought decoding and reading speed made a small additional contribution. On the other hand, reading comprehension of sentences was only related in a significant way to decoding accuracy. These results show that the oral comprehension, the decoding accuracy and the decoding speed are essential in teaching and assessing reading.

Describes theoretical and practical problems facing the field of early reading, examining: readers and texts (reader processes, text difficulty, linguistic and cultural knowledge, and unique learners); home and school (home-school match, communities and reading, preschools as contexts for reading acquisition, and best practices); and policy and profession (preparing teachers for diversity, professional development, policy and assessment, and program initiatives). (SM)

Until at least the end of adolescence, children articulate speech differently than adults. While this discrepancy is often attributed to the maturation of the speech motor system, we sought to demonstrate that the development of spoken language fluency is shaped by complex interactions across motor and cognitive domains. In this study, we specifically tested for a relationship between reading proficiency and coarticulatory organization, a fundamental correlate of spoken language fluency, used for both reading aloud and conversational speech. We conducted reading assessments and ultrasoundbased kinematic measurements of intersegmental coarticulation in a group of 32 German children. In German, a language which supports rather consistent grapheme-to-phoneme relationships, reading aloud uses similar phoneme to speech motor gesture correspondences as well as coarticulatory mechanisms as conversational speech. Using general additive modeling we found that better readers exhibited lower degrees of intersegmental coarticulation than poorer readers. This study therefore provides evidence that reading proficiency interacts with coarticulatory patterns in beginning readers. It suggests that in addition to maturational factors, interactions between speech motor ability and other co-developing skills must be considered to fully account for spoken language fluency.

A New task have been assigned to me from the department of Mechanical Engineering after the approval of it's Scientific Committee to be a senior tutor of "English Language course" for all M.Sc. & PhD students in the department of Mechanical Engineering. This course is divided into two semesters (Part I & Part II). All the details of the course layout are shown in the attached file.

In Turkey, the Ministry of National Education (MONE) changed the reading instruction method in elementary schools from whole language approach to phonics emphasis in 2005. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to examine the impacts of phonics method on reading acquisition in a Turkish sample; to understand what elementary school teachers think and how they practice phonics emphasis method in educational settings and to inquire problems these teachers face with while implementing this new technique. The data were gathered through in-depth interviews from three first grade public elementary teachers in one elementary school and analyzed by using case study techniques. Implications were discussed and recommendations were made for future studies.

Despite a wealth of research data from wide variety of areas supporting a psycholinguistic model of reading, there are still many researchers who choose to understand the reading process only in terms of the phonological processing model. I call them sounder-outers.  The deficits of this approach are examined here.