Editorial Developing readers

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2012

This longitudinal study examined the contribution of phonological awareness, phonological memory, and visuospatial ability to reading development in 142 English-speaking children from the start of kindergarten to the middle of grade two. Partial cross-lagged analyses revealed significant relationships between early performance on block design and matching letter-like forms tasks and later reading ability. Rhyme awareness correlated with later reading ability in the earliest stages but onset awareness did not emerge as important until after the children had started reading. Digit span correlated significantly with future reading ability at every stage. These findings indicate that while phonological awareness, phonological memory, and visuospatial ability are all necessary for emergent reading, their relative importance varies across the first two years of reading development.

2015

I certify that this thesis satisfies the requirements as a thesis for the degree of Master of Science in Developmental Psychology.

The European Proceedings of Social & Behavioural Sciences EpSBS, 2017

This research focuses on initial literacy. We conceive reading as a complex cognitive process that involves many skills; it does not only include the capacity of decoding letters but also the ability of selecting, understanding and interpreting a text critically and taking into consideration pragmatic factors. Our study is based on literature about reading acquisition in early childhood and Frith's description (1985) of the steps that the child follows when they learn to read: the logographic, the alphabetic and the grammatical phase. We realized that there are lots of abilities required before children enter the first phase (the logographic, in which they already show interest for letters). In order to study this previous learning process, we have been observing and recording two-year old children interacting with books and we have designed a specific methodology to analyze the evidences of this early literacy. Our main hypothesis is that children acquire lot of relevant competences related to reading (and writing) before they really start decoding letters, words and sentences. We will describe these skills grouping them in three categories: mechanical skills, symbolic skills and narrative skills.

Annals of Dyslexia, 1996

Each of the authors in this section has served for many years at the forefront of research and/or educational policy; each provides a personal perspective on the progress (or lack thereof) made over the last few decades, sharing a bit of their hard-won wisdom in order to spare others a few mistakes in the future. To offset the amnesia that so frequently marks psychology and education, these essays offer the reader an opportunity to take stock, to see where we have come from, and to learn from the past as we look to the future.

A. Introduction Reading is probably one of the most researched topics in education and the primary focus of instruction at the elementary levels. There are many theories of reading and different reading programs (Chall, 1967; Pearson, 1984; Singer & Ruddell, 1976). The topic of reading is of great social importance because it pertains to the issues of literacy and intelligence. From a learning perspective, reading is closely related to many other cognitive processes or domains including: attention, concept formation, imagery, language, memory, and perception. This paper focuses on the different theories and models of reading. It also includes presentation of the stages of developmental reading and reading development. B. Theories on Reading 1. The Traditional View According to Dole et al. (1991), in the traditional view of reading, novice readers acquire a set of hierarchically ordered sub-skills that sequentially build toward comprehension ability. Having mastered these skills, readers are viewed as experts who comprehend what they read. • Readers are passive recipients of information in the text. Meaning resides in the text and the reader has to reproduce meaning. • According to Nunan (1991), reading in this view is basically a matter of decoding a series of written symbols into their aural equivalents in the quest for making sense of the text. He referred to this process as the 'bottom-up' view of reading. • McCarthy (1999) has called this view 'outside-in' processing, referring to the idea that meaning exists in the printed page and is interpreted by the reader then taken in. • This model of reading has almost always been under attack as being insufficient and defective for the main reason that it relies on the formal features of the language, mainly words and structure. Although it is possible to accept this rejection for the fact that there is over-reliance on structure in this view, it must be confessed that knowledge of linguistic features is also necessary for comprehension to take place. To counteract over-reliance on form in the traditional view of reading, the cognitive view was introduced. The traditional bottom-up approach to reading was influenced by behaviorist psychology of the 1950s, which claimed learning was based upon " habit formation, brought about by the repeated association of a stimulus with a response " and language learning was characterized as a " response system that humans acquire through automatic conditioning processes, " where " some patterns of language are reinforced (rewarded) and others are not, " and " only those patterns reinforced by the community of language users will persist " (Omaggio 1993, 45-46). Behaviorism became the basis of the audio-lingual method, which sought to form second language " habits " through drilling, repetition, and error correction. Today, the main method associated with the bottom-up approach to reading is known as phonics, which requires the learner to match letters with sounds in a defined sequence. According to this view, reading is a linear process by which readers decode a text word by word, linking the words into phrases and then sentences (Gray and Rogers, cited in Kucer 1987). According to Samuels and Kamil (1988: 25), the emphasis on behaviorism treated reading as a word-recognition response to the stimuli of the printed words, where " little attempt was made to explain what went on within the recesses of the mind that allowed the human to make sense of the printed page ". In other words, textual comprehension involves adding the meanings of words to get the meanings of clauses (Anderson 1994). These lower level skills

Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2001

This monograph discusses research, theory, and practice relevant to how children learn to read English. After an initial overview of writing systems, the discussion summarizes research from developmental psychology on children's language competency when they enter school and on the nature of early reading development. Subsequent sections review theories of learning to read, the characteristics of children who do not learn to read (i.e., who have developmental dyslexia), research from cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience on skilled reading, and connectionist models of learning to read. The implications of the research findings for learning to read and teaching reading are discussed. Next, the primary methods used to teach reading (phonics and whole language) are summarized. The final section reviews laboratory and classroom studies on teaching reading. From these different sources of evidence, two inescapable conclusions emerge: (a) Mastering the alphabetic principle (...

Pollatsek A and Treiman R eds The Oxford Handbook of Reading, 2015

Writing is one of humankind’s greatest inventions, and modern societies could not function if their citizens could not read and write. How do skilled readers so quickly pick up meaning from squiggles on a page, and how do children learn to do so? These questions have been studied in fields ranging from vision science to cognitive psychology to education. The chapters in this Handbook synthesize the research on these topics, focusing on how studies using a cognitive approach can shed light on how the reading process works in skilled readers and how children learn to read. To set the stage, the first few chapters of the Handbook present information about writing systems and about methods of studying reading, including those that examine speeded responses to individual words and those that use eye movement technology to examine the reading of sentences and texts. The chapters in the following section focus on the identification of single words by skilled readers. Insights that have been gained from studies of adults with reading disabilities due to brain damage are also discussed. Another section of the Handbook considers the silent reading of text by skilled readers. The chapters in this section address such issues as the role of sound in silent reading and how readers’ eyes move through texts, and detailed quantitative models of the reading process are proposed in some chapters. How children learn to read and spell and how they should be taught to do so is the focus of the chapters in the final sections of the Handbook. The chapters review research with learners of different languages and those who speak different dialects of a language; they discuss both typically developing children and children with specific disabilities in reading. These chapters also address questions about how reading should be taught with populations ranging from preschoolers to adolescents, and they show how research findings have influenced education. About the Editors Alexander Pollatsek is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His work in psychology has covered a broad range of topics, including object and scene perception and people’s understanding of probability, statistics, and decision making. “Dr. Pollatsek’s primary interests, however, are in word processing, reading, and investigating how eye movements can be used to understand the reading process.” Rebecca Treiman is the Burke and Elizabeth High Baker Professor of Child Development Psychology at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Treiman’s work focuses on the cognitive and linguistic processes involved in reading and spelling, particularly how children learn these skills. She has studied a variety of topics, including children’s invented spellings, the characteristics of English and other writing systems, and the special difficulties faced by children with dyslexia and those who are deaf.

2014

Chansa-Kabali, Tamara The acquisition of early reading skills: The influence of the home environment in Lusaka, Zambia Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2014, 54 p. (Jyväskylä Studies in Education, Psychology and Social Research ISSN 0075-4625; 502) ISBN 978-951-39-5798-8 (nid.) ISBN 978-951-39-5799-5 (PDF) Reading is essential for children’s educational success and communication in a technologically advancing society. This position has provoked researchers to investigate the process of reading acquisition. Although a number of factors inhibit and facilitate the process of its acquisition, many studies in Zambia focus on the schools, classroom and the language of instruction. Hence, this study explored other contexts that might be responsible for influencing the process. Addressed in the present study are factors that influence acquisition of reading skills (orthographic awareness and decoding) in the home environment. The present study was part of larger project called Reading Su...

Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 2005

What are the cognitive and neurobiological building blocks necessary for children to acquire literacy, a skill that is crucial for academic and life achievement? In this review we discuss the behavioral and neurobiological evidence concerning the bases of reading development and impairment. The means by which reading achievement may be influenced by the background and experiences that a child brings to the classroom are discussed. Finally, we review a series of experimental studies that have examined the cognitive and neurobiological response prior to and following reading intervention in struggling readers. The importance of appropriate control groups is stressed, as well as the ultimate goal of designing reading interventions that target individual needs.

1975

These'short summaries of the reports from the National Institute of 7ducation's Conference on Studies in Reading are intended to reflect accurately the general areas of research recommended by each of the 1n panels taking part in the conference. Each panel focused on a particular problem in reading, identifying general approaches, suggesting programs of research, and-within these programs-generating specific research .projects. Subjects of the panels are: semantics, concepts,.and culture; the structure and use of language; attention and-motivation; modeling the reading procesi) assessment of reading comprehension; applications of existing reading comprehension research; reading comprehension and the high school graduate; learning and motivation in early reading; reading strategies for different cultural and linguistic groups; and essential skills and skill hierarchies in reading instruction; Complete reports for each of the ten panels are available in separate dOcuments. (JM) * *