Reading as a highly advanced cognitive-linguistic skill can be viewed as two-component model (Gou... more Reading as a highly advanced cognitive-linguistic skill can be viewed as two-component model (Gough & Tanmer, 1986). Oral-language-related component includes the lexicon and knowledge of morphosyntax, both of which facilitate comprehension. Linguistic-code-related component is associated with word recognition and depends on initial phonological representations that form the basis of future decoding and encoding. Aside from vocabulary, one of the crucial skills in reading acquistion is phonological awareness (PA) i.e. abstract skill that allows manipulation of individual phonemes within the word structure. PA developmentaly depends on aspects of verbal working memory (VWM), i.e. phonological memory (PM) and working memory (WM) capacity. Success in performing PA tasks depends on either PM or WM capacity. In addition, letter knowledge has been identified as an important factor in early decoding and encoding. Recently, a lot of attention has been given to the role of orthograthy in read...
Early spelling development is an important area of research as it presents an opportunity for our... more Early spelling development is an important area of research as it presents an opportunity for our understanding of how children begin to represent sounds within words through application of letter-sound mapping. The development of spelling is often characterized by stage-like theories, although it has been suggested that children may draw on different patterns of representations (Integration of Multiple Patterns). This study examined early spelling acquisition among monolingual English-speaking and ELL kindergartners with Spanish as L1. ELLs receive all academic instruction, including written language, in English (L2) while continuously using oral L1 for all other communications. As languages differ in their linguistic and structural composition, our aim was to identify possible influences of oral L1 on spelling abilities in L2. We were particularly interested in representation of sublexical units within the words, as English and Spanish differ in their intrasyllabic awareness. Our ...
The majority view of reading development maintains the importance of specific cognitive and lingu... more The majority view of reading development maintains the importance of specific cognitive and linguistic abilities, e.g. phonological awareness (PA) and vocabulary and verbal working memory (VWM). Another factor in attaining literacy may be the language of exposure, e.g. whether it has a transparent or a deep orthography. This study examines the interaction between known predictors for literacy development and the orthography. It focuses on early levels of literacy (decoding and spelling) amongst children with typical language development. English-speaking (deep orthography) and Croatian-speaking (transparent orthography) kindergarteners were assessed on measures of vocabulary, PA, functions of verbal working memory, and early literacy skills at the beginning of the kindergarten year. The results indicate that a transparent orthography (Croatian) increases early decoding and encoding skills and they show expected correlations between PA, vocabulary, and early literacy abilities. Engli...
... In the group of four-year old children a lot of utterances and sequences were omitted, some u... more ... In the group of four-year old children a lot of utterances and sequences were omitted, some utterances were created just from noun phrases (eg Julie. ... Using the protocol of retelling of Tomek i Julka story, we propose to analyse how the 4-, 6-, 8-and 10-year old Polish children ...
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate early reading development among children wi... more Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate early reading development among children with specific language impairment (SLI) as a factor of orthography (shallow vs. deep), examining the interaction between oral language- (lexicon, morphosyntax, semantics) and code-related (phonological awareness and verbal working memory) components considered to be influential in reading acquisition in view of the orthographic depth hypothesis (Katz & Frost, 1992). Method: 30 kindergartners (15 English- and 15 Croatian-speakers) were assessed on measures of PA, VWM, vocabulary, alphabet knowledge, decoding, sight word recognition and spelling. ANOVAs, regression and correlation analyses were utilized to identify the interaction between and predictive power of code- and oral language-related skills on early reading as a factor of orthography. Results: Children with SLI showed similar code- and oral language-related profiles, suggesting that core deficits are the same in this population reg...
Purpose: Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) are at a significant risk for reading d... more Purpose: Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) are at a significant risk for reading deficits. Even with treatment, the early reading profiles of SLI differ from typically developing (TD) peers. The present study examines the effect of orthography (shallow, Croatian vs. deep, English) on early literacy skills among children with SLI in view of the Orthographic Depth Hypothesis (Katz & Frost, 1992) which postulates that the nature of orthography is a considerable factor in the process of reading acquisition. Method: 30 kindergartners (Mage=5.9 ; SD=.29) with SLI participated in this research: 15 in each language group. All children were assessed on the skills considered to be pre-requisites for reading acquisition. The standardized and experimental measures were consistent with the language-specific structures. Results: Children with SLI have similar psycholinguistic profiles, independent of the ambient language, but show the same advantages in early literacy skills as a f...
Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units of language and considered to be building blocks of l... more Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units of language and considered to be building blocks of language in spoken and written modalities. Morphological awareness (MA) refers to the ability to manipulate the structure of the word at the level of morphemes. Morphemes have long been identified as a contributing factor in reading and spelling abilities, as they provide clues to the meaning of the text (Carlisle, 2003; Deacon & Kirby, 2004; Nagy, Berninger & Abbott, 2006). However, MA is not a one-dimensional construct, but is rather a multidimensional factor that consists of different components, such as inflections, derivations and compounding. Each factor serves specific purpose in constructing a meaning. For example, inflectional morphology reflects the relationship between words within the sentence and indicates syntactic awareness. Derivational morphology, on the other hand is a reflection of lexical knowledge, i.e., the ability to generate new words or transform the existing word...
Many studies have examined literacy and related skills among learners of English as a foreign lan... more Many studies have examined literacy and related skills among learners of English as a foreign language (EFL), but little attention has been given to the role of oral language within a cross-linguistic framework despite the fact that English is the most widely spoken additional language today. Oral narratives rely on lexical, morphosyntactic, and conceptual knowledge. An in-depth examination of this modality can shed light on specific associations between cognitive and linguistic L1 and EFL skills and suggest possible mediating variables that assist multilingual speakers in producing complete oral narratives in EFL. The present study examined L1 and EFL contributors to EFL oral narratives produced by native Arabic (n = 85) and Hebrew (n = 86) speaking sixth graders seeking to identify cross-linguistic influences. We assessed general cognitive skills, phonological memory (PM), lexical, morphosyntactic knowledge, and reading comprehension in L1 (Hebrew speakers), Modern Standard Arabic...
Purpose: This study investigated early reading development among TD children and children with SL... more Purpose: This study investigated early reading development among TD children and children with SLI exposed to radically different orthographies. We examined the predictive nature of oral language- (lexicon) and code-related (PA and VWM) skills, as well as alphabet knowledge, on early reading, in view of the orthographic depth hypothesis (Katz & Frost, 1992). Method: 60 kindergartners, 15 in each group of TD and SLI (English- and Croatian-speakers) were assessed on measures of PA, VWM, vocabulary, alphabet knowledge, decoding, sight word recognition and spelling. ANOVAs and regression analyses were utilized to identify the predictive power of code- and oral language-related skills on the development of PA and early reading as a factor of orthography. Results: TD children and children with SLI in both linguistic groups showed similar code- and oral language-related profiles, suggesting the same core deficits in the SLI population regardless of the orthography. However, significant dif...
Reading as a highly advanced cognitive-linguistic skill can be viewed as two-component model (Gou... more Reading as a highly advanced cognitive-linguistic skill can be viewed as two-component model (Gough & Tanmer, 1986). Oral-language-related component includes the lexicon and knowledge of morphosyntax, both of which facilitate comprehension. Linguistic-code-related component is associated with word recognition and depends on initial phonological representations that form the basis of future decoding and encoding. Aside from vocabulary, one of the crucial skills in reading acquistion is phonological awareness (PA) i.e. abstract skill that allows manipulation of individual phonemes within the word structure. PA developmentaly depends on aspects of verbal working memory (VWM), i.e. phonological memory (PM) and working memory (WM) capacity. Success in performing PA tasks depends on either PM or WM capacity. In addition, letter knowledge has been identified as an important factor in early decoding and encoding. Recently, a lot of attention has been given to the role of orthograthy in read...
Early spelling development is an important area of research as it presents an opportunity for our... more Early spelling development is an important area of research as it presents an opportunity for our understanding of how children begin to represent sounds within words through application of letter-sound mapping. The development of spelling is often characterized by stage-like theories, although it has been suggested that children may draw on different patterns of representations (Integration of Multiple Patterns). This study examined early spelling acquisition among monolingual English-speaking and ELL kindergartners with Spanish as L1. ELLs receive all academic instruction, including written language, in English (L2) while continuously using oral L1 for all other communications. As languages differ in their linguistic and structural composition, our aim was to identify possible influences of oral L1 on spelling abilities in L2. We were particularly interested in representation of sublexical units within the words, as English and Spanish differ in their intrasyllabic awareness. Our ...
The majority view of reading development maintains the importance of specific cognitive and lingu... more The majority view of reading development maintains the importance of specific cognitive and linguistic abilities, e.g. phonological awareness (PA) and vocabulary and verbal working memory (VWM). Another factor in attaining literacy may be the language of exposure, e.g. whether it has a transparent or a deep orthography. This study examines the interaction between known predictors for literacy development and the orthography. It focuses on early levels of literacy (decoding and spelling) amongst children with typical language development. English-speaking (deep orthography) and Croatian-speaking (transparent orthography) kindergarteners were assessed on measures of vocabulary, PA, functions of verbal working memory, and early literacy skills at the beginning of the kindergarten year. The results indicate that a transparent orthography (Croatian) increases early decoding and encoding skills and they show expected correlations between PA, vocabulary, and early literacy abilities. Engli...
... In the group of four-year old children a lot of utterances and sequences were omitted, some u... more ... In the group of four-year old children a lot of utterances and sequences were omitted, some utterances were created just from noun phrases (eg Julie. ... Using the protocol of retelling of Tomek i Julka story, we propose to analyse how the 4-, 6-, 8-and 10-year old Polish children ...
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate early reading development among children wi... more Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate early reading development among children with specific language impairment (SLI) as a factor of orthography (shallow vs. deep), examining the interaction between oral language- (lexicon, morphosyntax, semantics) and code-related (phonological awareness and verbal working memory) components considered to be influential in reading acquisition in view of the orthographic depth hypothesis (Katz & Frost, 1992). Method: 30 kindergartners (15 English- and 15 Croatian-speakers) were assessed on measures of PA, VWM, vocabulary, alphabet knowledge, decoding, sight word recognition and spelling. ANOVAs, regression and correlation analyses were utilized to identify the interaction between and predictive power of code- and oral language-related skills on early reading as a factor of orthography. Results: Children with SLI showed similar code- and oral language-related profiles, suggesting that core deficits are the same in this population reg...
Purpose: Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) are at a significant risk for reading d... more Purpose: Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) are at a significant risk for reading deficits. Even with treatment, the early reading profiles of SLI differ from typically developing (TD) peers. The present study examines the effect of orthography (shallow, Croatian vs. deep, English) on early literacy skills among children with SLI in view of the Orthographic Depth Hypothesis (Katz & Frost, 1992) which postulates that the nature of orthography is a considerable factor in the process of reading acquisition. Method: 30 kindergartners (Mage=5.9 ; SD=.29) with SLI participated in this research: 15 in each language group. All children were assessed on the skills considered to be pre-requisites for reading acquisition. The standardized and experimental measures were consistent with the language-specific structures. Results: Children with SLI have similar psycholinguistic profiles, independent of the ambient language, but show the same advantages in early literacy skills as a f...
Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units of language and considered to be building blocks of l... more Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units of language and considered to be building blocks of language in spoken and written modalities. Morphological awareness (MA) refers to the ability to manipulate the structure of the word at the level of morphemes. Morphemes have long been identified as a contributing factor in reading and spelling abilities, as they provide clues to the meaning of the text (Carlisle, 2003; Deacon & Kirby, 2004; Nagy, Berninger & Abbott, 2006). However, MA is not a one-dimensional construct, but is rather a multidimensional factor that consists of different components, such as inflections, derivations and compounding. Each factor serves specific purpose in constructing a meaning. For example, inflectional morphology reflects the relationship between words within the sentence and indicates syntactic awareness. Derivational morphology, on the other hand is a reflection of lexical knowledge, i.e., the ability to generate new words or transform the existing word...
Many studies have examined literacy and related skills among learners of English as a foreign lan... more Many studies have examined literacy and related skills among learners of English as a foreign language (EFL), but little attention has been given to the role of oral language within a cross-linguistic framework despite the fact that English is the most widely spoken additional language today. Oral narratives rely on lexical, morphosyntactic, and conceptual knowledge. An in-depth examination of this modality can shed light on specific associations between cognitive and linguistic L1 and EFL skills and suggest possible mediating variables that assist multilingual speakers in producing complete oral narratives in EFL. The present study examined L1 and EFL contributors to EFL oral narratives produced by native Arabic (n = 85) and Hebrew (n = 86) speaking sixth graders seeking to identify cross-linguistic influences. We assessed general cognitive skills, phonological memory (PM), lexical, morphosyntactic knowledge, and reading comprehension in L1 (Hebrew speakers), Modern Standard Arabic...
Purpose: This study investigated early reading development among TD children and children with SL... more Purpose: This study investigated early reading development among TD children and children with SLI exposed to radically different orthographies. We examined the predictive nature of oral language- (lexicon) and code-related (PA and VWM) skills, as well as alphabet knowledge, on early reading, in view of the orthographic depth hypothesis (Katz & Frost, 1992). Method: 60 kindergartners, 15 in each group of TD and SLI (English- and Croatian-speakers) were assessed on measures of PA, VWM, vocabulary, alphabet knowledge, decoding, sight word recognition and spelling. ANOVAs and regression analyses were utilized to identify the predictive power of code- and oral language-related skills on the development of PA and early reading as a factor of orthography. Results: TD children and children with SLI in both linguistic groups showed similar code- and oral language-related profiles, suggesting the same core deficits in the SLI population regardless of the orthography. However, significant dif...
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