Implicit Learning of Written Regularities and Its Relation to Literacy Acquisition in a Shallow Orthography.

Some research on literacy acquisition suggests that implicit learning processes may be related to reading and writing proficiency in English, which is a deep orthography. However, little research has been done to determine if the same is true in shallow orthographies. Here, we investigated whether the implicit learning ability of third grade Spanish speaking children was related to their reading and writing abilities. Twenty eight children viewed pseudowords which all adhered to untaught graphotactic rules and were later assessed to determine their implicit learning of these rules. The children's reading and writing abilities were also assessed using standardized tests. No correlations were found between the participants' level of implicit learning and their performance on reading tasks or on a pseudoword writing task, suggesting that implicit learning is not strongly related to the acquisition of phonological regularities in a shallow orthography. A correlation was found between recognition of previously seen exemplars and the ability to spell inconsistent words which require word specific knowledge to resolve the spelling inconsistencies. This result suggests that implicit learning mechanisms may play a role in the acquisition of lexical knowledge and thus, in writing proficiency.

Different patterns, but equivalent predictors, of growth in reading in consistent and inconsistent orthographies.

All alphabetic orthographies use letters in printed words to represent the phonemes in spoken words, but they differ in the consistency of the relationship between letters and phonemes. English appears to be the least consistent alphabetic orthography phonologically, and, consequently, children learn to read more slowly in English than in languages with more consistent orthographies. In this article, we report the first longitudinal evidence that the growth of reading skills is slower and follows a different trajectory in English than in two much more consistent orthographies (Spanish and Czech). Nevertheless, phoneme awareness, letter-sound knowledge, and rapid automatized naming measured at the onset of literacy instruction did not differ in importance as predictors of variations in reading development among the three languages. These findings suggest that although children may learn to read more rapidly in more consistent than in less consistent orthographies, there may nevertheless be universal cognitive prerequisites for learning to read in all alphabetic orthographies.

A letter visual-similarity matrix for Latin-based alphabets.

Indicators of letter visual similarity have been used for controlling the design of empirical and neuropsychological studies and for rigorously determining the factors that underlie reading ability and literacy acquisition. Additionally, these letter similarity/confusability matrices have been useful for studies examining more general aspects of human cognition, such as perception. Despite many letter visual-similarity matrices being available, they all have two serious limitations if they are to be used by researchers in the reading domain: (1) They have been constructed using atypical reading data obtained from speeded reading-aloud tasks and/or under degraded presentation conditions; (2) they only include letters from the English alphabet. Although some letter visual-similarity matrices have been constructed using data gathered from normal reading conditions, these either are based on old fonts, which may not resemble the letters found in modern print, or were never published. For the first time, this article presents a comprehensive letter visual-similarity/confusability matrix that has been constructed based on untimed responses to clearly presented upper- and lowercase letters that are present in many languages that use Latin-based alphabets, including Catalan, Dutch, English, French, Galician, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Such a matrix will be useful for researchers interested in the processes underpinning reading and literacy acquisition.

Common patterns of prediction of literacy development in different alphabetic orthographies.

Previous studies have shown that phoneme awareness, letter-sound knowledge, rapid automatized naming (RAN), and verbal memory span are reliable correlates of learning to read in English. However, the extent to which these different predictors have the same relative importance in different languages remains uncertain. In this article, we present the results from a 10-month longitudinal study that began just before or soon after the start of formal literacy instruction in four languages (English, Spanish, Slovak, and Czech). Longitudinal path analyses showed that phoneme awareness, letter-sound knowledge, and RAN (but not verbal memory span) measured at the onset of literacy instruction were reliable predictors, with similar relative importance, of later reading and spelling skills across the four languages. These data support the suggestion that in all alphabetic orthographies, phoneme awareness, letter-sound knowledge, and RAN may tap cognitive processes that are important for learning to read.

Prosodic awareness skills and literacy acquisition in Spanish.

There has been very little research in Spanish on the potential role of prosodic skills in reading and spelling acquisition, which is the subject of the present study. A total of 85 children in 5th year of Primary Education (mean age 10 years and 9 months) performed tests assessing memory, stress awareness, phonological awareness, reading and spelling. In written language tests, errors were classified as phonological (grapheme-to-phoneme conversion rules) or stress-related (placement of the stress mark). Regression analyses showed that, once memory and phonological awareness were controlled, stress awareness partially explained reading and spelling performance as well as error type; however, differences were found between reading and spelling errors. These results show a relationship between prosodic skills--namely stress sensitivity--and the acquisition of reading and spelling skills that seems to be independent of phonological awareness skills.

Linguistic and non-linguistic prosodic skills in Spanish children with developmental dyslexia.

BACKGROUND: The deficit on segmental phonology in developmental dyslexia is well established and according to recent studies this deficit extends to suprasegmental phonology or prosody. However, these studies have focused on word-level prosody. Further research is needed concerning prosodic deficit in dyslexia, especially with a Spanish-speaking population. AIMS: The aim of this study was to investigate the role of linguistic (word and phrase-level) and non-linguistic prosodic skills in Spanish children with developmental dyslexia. METHOD AND PROCEDURE: 48 Spanish children (8-9 years of age) from ten primary education schools were selected (24 children with developmental dyslexia and 24 chronological age-control children). Non-linguistic rhythm, word and phrase-level prosody, phonological awareness, nonverbal intelligence and reading aloud were assessed. RESULTS: The results obtained show that children with developmental dyslexia scored lower than typically developing readers on non-linguistic rhythm and word and phrase-level prosody tasks. The differences remained statistically significant at the phrase level after controlling for word-level processing (phonological or prosodic), phonological awareness, non-linguistic rhythm and reading skills. CONCLUSIONS: Children with developmental dyslexia in Spanish exhibit a core deficit in suprasegmental phonology, at linguistic and non-linguistic levels. The implications of suprasegmental phonology skills for reading acquisition disabilities are discussed.

Oral vocabulary training program for Spanish third-graders with low socio-economic status: A randomized controlled trial.

Although the importance of vocabulary training in English speaking countries is well recognized and has been extensively studied, the same is not true for Spanish-few evidence based vocabulary studies for Spanish-speaking children have been reported. Here, two rich oral vocabulary training programs (definition and context), based on literature about vocabulary instruction for English-speaking children, were developed and applied in a sample of 100 Spanish elementary school third-graders recruited from areas of predominantly low socio-economic status (SES). Compared to an alternative read-aloud method which served as the control, both explicit methods were more effective in teaching word meanings when assessed immediately after the intervention. Nevertheless, five months later, only the definition group continued to demonstrate significant vocabulary knowledge gains. The definition method was more effective in specifically teaching children word meanings and, more broadly, in helping children organize and express knowledge of words. We recommend the explicit and rich vocabulary instruction as a means to fostering vocabulary knowledge in low SES children.

Implicit learning of non-linguistic and linguistic regularities in children with dyslexia.

One of the hallmarks of dyslexia is the failure to automatise written patterns despite repeated exposure to print. Although many explanations have been proposed to explain this problem, researchers have recently begun to explore the possibility that an underlying implicit learning deficit may play a role in dyslexia. This hypothesis has been investigated through non-linguistic tasks exploring implicit learning in a general domain. In this study, we examined the abilities of children with dyslexia to implicitly acquire positional regularities embedded in both non-linguistic and linguistic stimuli. In experiment 1, 42 children (21 with dyslexia and 21 typically developing) were exposed to rule-governed shape sequences; whereas in experiment 2, a new group of 42 children were exposed to rule-governed letter strings. Implicit learning was assessed in both experiments via a forced-choice task. Experiments 1 and 2 showed a similar pattern of results. ANOVA analyses revealed no significant differences between the dyslexic and the typically developing group, indicating that children with dyslexia are not impaired in the acquisition of simple positional regularities, regardless of the nature of the stimuli. However, within group t-tests suggested that children from the dyslexic group could not transfer the underlying positional rules to novel instances as efficiently as typically developing children.

Impaired stress awareness in Spanish children with developmental dyslexia.

The role of segmental phonology in developmental dyslexia (DD) is well established (e.g., deficit in phonological awareness), but the role of suprasegmental phonology (prosody) has been less widely investigated. Stress is one of the main prosodic features and refers to the relative prominence of syllables (strong/weak) within a word. The aim of the present study is to examine stress awareness in children with dyslexia and the possible mediation of phonemic awareness on suprasegmental phonological skills. Thirty-one Spanish children with DD and 31 chronological age-control children participated. Two stress awareness tasks were administrated, one with words and another with pseudowords. Results show that the children with dyslexia performed more poorly on both tasks than control children. The pattern of results in accuracy and reaction time suggest that, while children without difficulties use different strategies depending on the type of item, the children with dyslexia employ the same strategy to resolve the two tasks without any benefit of lexical knowledge about stress. Even so, this strategy did not work so efficiently as it did in the control group, which led the group with dyslexia to make a greater number of mistakes. It was also found that, when phonemic awareness was entered as a covariate, accuracy differences disappeared, but only in the word stress task. However, when lexical knowledge was not necessary (as in the pseudoword stress task) differences still remained statistically significant. Implications on the importance of suprasegmental processing in reading acquisition disabilities are discussed.

Intervention programs in educational psychology: bridging research and practice / Programas de intervención en psicología educativa: tendiendo puentes entre la investigación y la práctica

The term evidence-based intervention has been increasingly used in educational research. Calls for the use of intervention programs based on supportive empirical evidence rely in the recognition that the likelihood of achieving positive results when implementing such programs increases. Nevertheless, the gap between research and practice remains also in Spanish-speaking countries. Using examples from the area of reading research, this work aims at promoting the reflection and discussion about the relationship between scientific evidence and school practice, particularly in the context of Spanish-speaking countries. On the one side, there is the importance of generating evidence through the design of high-quality studies based on both sound theoretical background and high methodological standards. On the other side, there is the value of professional experience gathered by the teachers in very diverse school realities. How can we build a bridge to connect these two indispensable parts in order to be able to better serve the populations of interest? We defend the need of developing a sustainable collaborative system between the research community and the educational centers that enables continuous exchange and reciprocal support in longer lasting relationships

El término intervención basada en evidencia se está utilizando cada vez más en la investigación educativa. La necesidad de llevar a cabo programas de intervención basados en evidencia científica se fundamenta en que la probabilidad de lograr resultados positivos al implementar dichos programas es mayor. Sin embargo, la brecha entre la investigación y la práctica se mantiene en los países de habla hispana. Utilizando ejemplos del área de investigación en lectura, este trabajo tiene como objetivo promover la reflexión y la discusión sobre la relación entre la evidencia científica y la práctica educativa, particularmente en el contexto de los países hispanohablantes. Por un lado, existe la importancia de generar evidencia a través del diseño de estudios de alta calidad basados tanto en sólidos antecedentes te ó ricos como en altos estándares metodológicos. Por otro lado, existe el valor de la experiencia profesional de los profesores en realidades escolares muy diversas. ¿Cómo podemos construir puentes para conectar estas dos partes indispensables y atender mejor a las poblaciones de interés? Defendemos la necesidad de desarrollar un sistema de colaboración sostenible entre la comunidad científica y la educativa que permita el intercambio continuo y un apoyo recíproco mediante relaciones más estables

Phonological development in relation to native language and literacy: variations on a theme in six alphabetic orthographies.

Phonological development was assessed in six alphabetic orthographies (English, French, Greek, Icelandic, Portuguese and Spanish) at the beginning and end of the first year of reading instruction. The aim was to explore contrasting theoretical views regarding: the question of the availability of phonology at the outset of learning to read (Study 1); the influence of orthographic depth on the pace of phonological development during the transition to literacy (Study 2); and the impact of literacy instruction (Study 3). Results from 242 children did not reveal a consistent sequence of development as performance varied according to task demands and language. Phonics instruction appeared more influential than orthographic depth in the emergence of an early meta-phonological capacity to manipulate phonemes, and preliminary indications were that cross-linguistic variation was associated with speech rhythm more than factors such as syllable complexity. The implications of the outcome for current models of phonological development are discussed.

Habilidades fonológicas suprasegmentales y desarrollo lector en niños de Educación Primaria / Phonological suprasegmental skills and reading development in primary school children

En la última década diversos estudios han demostrado que las habilidades fonológicas suprasegmentales o prosódicas (conocimiento de los rasgos prosódicos del lenguaje tales como el acento, las pausas y la entonación) influyen en el desarrollo de la lectoescritura. Sin embargo, la mayoría de los estudios se han realizado en inglés y se han centrado fundamentalmente en el análisis de las habilidades suprasegmentales a nivel léxico. Este estudio analiza las relaciones entre las habilidades suprasegmentales y el desarrollo lector en 92 niños españoles de 5º de Educación Primaria. Se tomaron medidas de vocabulario, conciencia fonológica y habilidades suprasegmentales (conciencia del acento en palabras y pseudopalabras, nombres compuestos y ritmo no lingüístico) así como de lectura de palabras y comprensión lectora. Los resultados muestran que las habilidades suprasegmentales predicen un porcentaje significativo de la varianza en las habilidades lectoras, una vez controlada la influencia de la conciencia fonológica y del vocabulario. Además, las diferentes habilidades prosódicas (conciencia prosódica a nivel léxico, métrico y ritmo no lingüístico) presentan distintos patrones de relación con las habilidades lectoras

Recent literature research has shown the influence of suprasegmental phonology (the awareness of prosodic features such as stress, timing, and intonation) on literacy acquisition. However, the majority of these studies have been carried out in English. Moreover, the lexical level has been the most explored component. The current study analyzes the relationship between suprasegmental phonology skills and reading development in 92 Spanish primary-school children of 5th grade. Vocabulary, phonological awareness, suprasegmental skills (lexical- and metrical-stress sensitivity, and non-linguistic rhythm) along with reading aloud and reading comprehension were assessed. Results suggest that suprasegmental phonology predicts a significative amount of variance in reading once phonological awareness and vocabulary were controlled. Furthermore, the components of suprasegmental skills (lexical- and metrical-stress sensitivity, and non-linguistic rhythm) have different relationships with reading skills

Dyslexic children show deficits in implicit sequence learning, but not in explicit sequence learning or contextual cueing.

Dyslexia is a specific learning disability characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling abilities. The absence of other high level cognitive deficits in the dyslexic population has led some authors to propose that non-strategical processes like implicit learning could be impaired in this population. Most studies have addressed this issue by using sequence learning tasks, but so far the results have not been conclusive. We test this hypothesis by comparing the performance of dyslexic children and good readers in both implicit and explicit versions of the sequence learning task, as well as in another implicit learning task not involving sequential information. The results showed that dyslexic children failed to learn the sequence when they were not informed about its presence (implicit condition). In contrast, they learned without significant differences in relation to the good readers group when they were encouraged to discover the sequence and to use it in order to improve their performance (explicit condition). Moreover, we observed that this implicit learning deficit was not extended to other forms of non-sequential, implicit learning such as contextual cueing. In this case, both groups showed similar implicit learning about the information provided by the visual context. These results help to clarify previous contradictory data, and they are discussed in relation to how the implicit sequence learning deficit could contribute to the understanding of dyslexia.

Dyslexia speed problems in a transparent orthography.

This study was intended to help clarify the nature of dyslexia in Spanish. A sample of 30 children, 8 to 16 years old, participated in this study. Dyslexic children were compared to two control groups, a chronological age-matched control group and a reading level-matched control group. Measures included nonword and pseudohomophone reading (phonological procedure), homophone choice (orthographic procedure), and phonological awareness tasks (syllabic, intrasyllabic, and phonemic level). For each task, accuracy (error percentage) and performance time were measured. Results showed a deficit in the dyslexic group on all the tasks, which was more evident when time was considered. With the results consistent with studies in other transparent orthographies such as Italian and German, speed problems seem to be more evident and relevant than accuracy problems in Spanish dyslexic children.

La conciencia fonémica, aliada de la adquisición del lenguaje escrito / Phonemic awareness and literacy acquisition

Este artículo de revisión se centra en las habilidades de conciencia fonológica (CF) y el papel crucial que tienen en la adquisición y el desarrollo de la lectura y la escritura y en la explicación de sus dificultades, en particular la conciencia fonémica, que se refiere a las unidades más pequeñas del habla. Tratamos diversas cuestiones en torno a esta temática, poniendo de relieve las aportaciones de varias décadas de investigación, en particular las llevadas a cabo en lengua castellana, tanto en niños con desarrollo normal como con dislexia. Tratamos su desarrollo evolutivo y cómo los niños pasan de un conocimiento implícito de los sonidos del habla a otro explícito a través de sus juegos y experiencias con el lenguaje oral y, sobre todo, cuando se enfrentan al aprendizaje de la lectura y de la escritura, lo cual no está exento de dificultad dado el fenómeno de coarticulación. Ese paso significa el desarrollo de las habilidades de CF, en sus distintos niveles, que tienen un valor predictivo respecto al aprendizaje de la lectura y la escritura. Adicionalmente, se señalan las dificultades que tienen los niños disléxicos en las tareas fonológicas, que se ponen más claramente de manifiesto en la velocidad de ejecución que en las medidas de precisión. La última parte se dedica a revisar algunos aspectos relevantes a la hora de diseñar tareas de conciencia fonológica, tanto de evaluación como de intervención, así como a señalar algunas indicaciones prácticas sobre cómo intervenir de forma eficaz para el desarrollo de las habilidades fonológicas (AU)

This review focuses on phonological awareness (PA) skills and their key role both in literacy acquisition and development and in explaining reading and writing difficulties; in particular, we focus on phonemic awareness, which implies awareness of the smallest speech units. Several questions about PA are addressed; we discuss major research findings over the past few decades both in typically developing children and children with dyslexia, mainly carried out in Spanish. We also discuss the development of PA and how children's implicit knowledge of speech sounds progresses into explicit knowledge through kindergarten games and other experiences with oral language and, especially, when children start to learn how to read and write. This process is not free of difficulties, given the phenomenon of coarticulation. This step signifies the development of distinct levels of PA skills, which predict reading and writing acquisition. Additionally, the difficulties of dyslexic children in PA tasks are discussed; these difficulties are more evident in speed processing than in accuracy. Finally, the present article reviews issues that should be taken into account when PA tasks are designed both for assessment and intervention. Practical implications for effective intervention for the development and enhancement of PA skills are discussed (AU)