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The present study examined the process of L2 orthographic learning in bilinguals with distant L1–L2 orthographies. Chinese–English bilinguals with various English proficiency levels were trained with novel L2 words during a reading task. In contrast to higher proficient learners, those with lower L2 proficiency exhibited increased effects of length, frequency, and lexicality across exposures and at-chance recognition of trained words. Importantly, an additional post-training task assessing the lexical integration of trained words evidenced the engagement in different L1–L2 reading strategies across different levels of L2 proficiency, hence suggesting the L1 holistic processing at the base of the effortful establishment of L2 orthographic representations shown by lower-proficient learners. Overall, these findings indicate the role of L2 proficiency in the influence that cross-linguistic variation exerts on L2 orthographic learning and highlight the need for English education programmes to tackle specific grapheme-to-phoneme skills in non-alphabetic target communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is common to see mirror errors in letters in early stages of reading due to the mirror-generalization process that allows a visual stimulus to be identified independently of its orientation. To avoid such errors, this process must be inhibited. A special case would be children with dyslexia since their difficulties with the alphabetic code may also delay the acquisition of correct letter orientation. We investigated the relationship between reversible errors in reading and dyslexia. Twenty-seven Spanish-speaking children with dyslexia (7–12 years old) and 27 chronological-age-matched controls performed a 'same-different' letter decision task on reversible and non-reversible letters. Results showed that all participants required more time and committed more errors in discriminating reversible letters. In addition, worse execution was observed in the dyslexic group, which seems to indicate that this group is delayed in the acquisition of correct letter orientation. Therefore, our results indicated that overcoming reading errors in mirrors depends to some extent on the reading competence of the children and the ability to inhibit the process of generalization of mirrors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated which components of the writing production process are impaired in Spanish children with developmental dyslexia (DD) aged 8 to 12 years. Children with and without dyslexia (n = 60) were assessed in their use of the lexical and the sublexical routes of spelling as well as the orthographic working memory system by manipulating lexical frequency, phonology-to-orthography (P-O) consistency, and word length in a copying task and a spelling-to-dictation task. Results revealed that children with dyslexia produced longer written latencies than chronological age-matched (CA) controls, more errors than CA and reading age-matched (RA) controls, and writing durations similar to CA controls. Latencies were more affected by frequency, consistency, and length in the DD group and the RA group than in CA controls. Children in the DD and RA groups produced longer written latencies in the copying than in the spelling-to-dictation task, while controls in the CA group were not affected by the task. Results indicate that spelling impairments in Spanish children with dyslexia affect the relative involvement of lexical and sublexical information during handwriting. Meanwhile, effects on writing speed seem to be related to deficits in reading ability, and accuracy scores seem to be poorer than expected by children's reading skill. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expressive reading is considered one of the subprocesses involved in reading fluency, and good readers show greater changes in tone and fewer unnecessary pauses than bad ones. Given the high frequency of reading difficulties in specific language impairment (SLI), there may be certain differences in the use of prosody among children with SLI. The purpose of this study was to research whether prosody in the reading of children with Spanish SLI differs from that in the reading of typical readers. To do so, 44 children (SLI and control) read aloud a text which contained declarative, interrogative and exclamatory sentences. Different prosodic parameters referring to length, tone and intensity were measured. The results showed that the children with SLI read slower, commit more errors and make more inappropriate pauses. Furthermore, fewer pitch variations were found in the interrogative sentence and in the final features of the sentence. These results confirm the relationship between decoding and prosody; therefore, interventions with these children should bear in mind the practice of expressive reading while learning reading fluency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although several studies have found that the sublexical route of spelling has an effect on handwriting movements, the ability of lexical variables to modulate peripheral processes during writing is less clear. This study addresses the hypothesis that word frequency affects writing durations only during writing acquisition, and that at some point of development, the handwriting system becomes a relatively autonomous system unaffected by lexical variables. Spanish children attending Grades 2, 4, and 6 performed a spelling-to-dictation and a copy task in which word frequency was manipulated. Results revealed that written latencies decreased with age, especially between Grades 2 and 4, and that writing durations decreased between these two groups. All these measures were longer during copying but the effect of task on written latencies and in-air pen trajectories was smaller for older children. Crucially, a significant word frequency effect on writing durations was observed only in Grade 2. This effect was marginally significant in Grade 4 and disappeared in Grade 6. However, all groups showed a similar effect of word frequency on written latencies. These findings suggest that lexical processes impact peripheral processes during writing acquisition and that this influence diminishes to eventually disappear at some point in development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do skilled readers of opaque and transparent orthographies make differential use of lexical and sublexical processes when converting words from print to sound? Two experiments are reported, which address that question, using effects of letter length on naming latencies as an index of the involvement of sublexical letter–sound conversion. Adult native speakers of English (Experiment 1) and Spanish (Experiment 2) read aloud four- and seven-letter high-frequency words, low-frequency words, and nonwords in their native language. The stimuli were interleaved and presented 10 times in a first testing session and 10 more times in a second session 28 days later. Effects of lexicality were observed in both languages, indicating the deployment of lexical representations in word naming. Naming latencies to both words and nonwords reduced across repetitions on Day 1, with those savings being retained to Day 28. Length effects were, however, greater for Spanish than English word naming. Reaction times to long and short nonwords converged with repeated presentations in both languages, but less in Spanish than in English. The results support the hypothesis that reading in opaque orthographies favours the rapid creation and use of lexical representations, while reading in transparent orthographies makes more use of a combination of lexical and sublexical processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orthographic representations of words are indispensable for reading fluency. The ways in which these representations are developed and their resistance to decay are hotly debated topics. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of semantic and phonological representations on the formation of orthographic representations in a transparent orthography. In order to achieve this objective, an experiment with three conditions was carried out. In the first condition, a group of university students were asked to repeatedly read 10 new words after semantic and phonological training, in the second condition another group of participants read the new words after phonological training, and in the third condition participants read without previous training. Finally, a follow-up session was performed to test the resistance to decay of the orthographic representations. The results showed that participants who had received semantic training formed the representations faster than participants in the other conditions, as indicated by the decrease in length effect. These results indicate the important role of previous knowledge when people face new written words. A month later these orthographic representations still remained in the lexicon of the participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the similar transparency of their orthographies, reading in Italian has been found to be affected by frequency but not age of acquisition (AoA) [Barca, L., Burani, C., & Arduino, L. S. (2002). Word naming times and psycholinguistic norms for Italian nouns.Behaviour Research Methods, Instruments and Computers,34, 424–434] while reading in Spanish is affected by AoA but not frequency [Cuetos, F., & Barbón, A. (2006). Word naming in Spanish.European Journal of Cognitive Psychology,18, 415–436]. We examined this cross-linguistic difference, firstly, through a reanalysis of the Italian and Spanish reading latencies. After eliminating several between-experiment differences, we replicated the AoA effect in Spanish but not in Italian and the frequency effect in Italian but not in Spanish. The cross-linguistic comparison could not equate stimulus imageability; therefore, secondly, we compared the Italian reading latencies with new Spanish reading latencies for imageability-matched words. We found frequency effects but neither an AoA effect nor a language by AoA interaction. We argue that the previously reported cross-linguistic difference in the AoA effect resulted from a between-study difference in stimulus imageability. More imageable words induced more semantic involvement in reading, yielding an AoA effect in Spanish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of word frequency in lexical access during the production of homophones remains unresolved. In the current study, we address whether specific-word (the frequency of occurrence of the word “nun”) or homophone frequency (the summed frequency of words with the pronunciation /nΛn/) determines the production latencies of homophones. In Experiments 1a, 2a, and 3a, participants named pictures of high-frequency (e.g., “banco”-a bank: financial institution) and low-frequency (e.g., “banco”-park bench) Spanish (Experiments 1a and 2a) or French (Experiment 3a) homophones and control pictures of nonhomophone words matched in frequency with each of the two uses of the homophones. The naming latencies for low-frequency homophones were longer than those for high-frequency homophones. Furthermore, the naming latencies for homophones were indistinguishable from those for nonhomophone controls matched in specific-word frequency. In Experiments 1b, 2b, and 3b, the participants performed either object decision or picture-word matching tasks with the stimuli used in the corresponding Experiments 1a, 2a, and 3a. There were no reliable differences between high- and low-frequency homophones. The findings support the hypothesis that specific-word and not homophone frequency determines lexical access in speech production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Word reading fluency is a key component in the process of reading. In order to understand its acquisition it is crucial to conduct longitudinal studies. The aim of this work was to describe the development of word recognition in Spanish, considering accuracy and speed, from a longitudinal perspective. A group of 31 children were followed for six years. Reading performance was assessed with a list of 72 stimuli in which lexicality, frequency and length were manipulated. Results show that initial gains in reading accuracy occurred very rapidly. However, the growth of reading speed was found to be more difficult and complex, and automatic word recognition remains low at the end of Grade 6. Low frequency, long words were the most difficult stimuli. High stability in reading speed was observed and it was a relevant indicator that differentiates between good and poor readers. The findings also highlighted the need to develop training programs with the specific aim of improving word reading fluency throughout primary education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

La posibilidad de predecir el aprendizaje de la lectura y la escritura ha sido objeto de numerosas investigaciones. Las habilidades de procesamiento fonológico y velocidad de denominación aparecen entre los mejores predictores en la mayor parte de los estudios. Sin embargo, muchos de los resultados se han obtenido en lenguas diferentes del castellano y con estudios que evalúan esas capacidades cuando los niños ya saben leer, por tanto la relación de la lectura y escritura con otras habilidades podría ser fruto del aprendizaje. El objetivo de este estudio fue determinar qué variables permiten predecir la adquisición de la lectura mecánica, así como de la escritura, en castellano. Se aplicaron tareas de conciencia fonémica, repetición de pseudopalabras, amplitud de memoria, fluidez verbal y denominación rápida y automatizada, a un grupo de 50 niños prelectores. Dieciocho meses después, cuando ya sabían leer y escribir, se les evaluó en lectura y escritura. Con los datos obtenidos, se realizaron análisis de correlación de Pearson, análisis factorial y análisis de regresión lineal. La conciencia fonológica fue la variable que mejor predijo la exactitud lectora y la escritura, mientras que la denominación rápida de dibujos predijo la velocidad lectora. Estos datos indican que es posible pronosticar la adquisición de la lectura y escritura antes de su enseñanza. Así mismo, nos sugieren que es posible intervenir tempranamente, especialmente en aquellos niños que presenten riesgo de dificultades de aprendizaje.The prediction of reading and writing acquisition has been the subject of numerous research studies, given the importance of the issue. Phonological processing skills and rapid automatic naming are among the best predictors in most research studies. However, many of the results have been obtained in languages other than Spanish, and from studies that assess these skills in children who are already readers. Therefore, the relationship between reading and writing and other skills could be the result of learning these skills. The aim of this study was to identify variables that predict the acquisition of mechanical reading and writing in Spanish. A group of 50 pre-reading children participated in different tasks (phonemic awareness, pseudoword repetition, memory span, verbal fluency and Rapid Automatic Naming), and eighteen months later, when they could read and write, literacy skills were evaluated. Pearson correlations, factor analysis, and linear regression analysis were carried out on the data. Phonological awareness was the variable that best predicted reading accuracy and writing, while rapid automatized naming of pictures predicted reading speed. These data indicate that it is possible to predict the acquisition of reading and writing skills before they are taught. Furthermore, these results suggest that early intervention is possible, especially in those children who are at risk of learning difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Las estrategias que emplean los aprendices lectores dependen en buena medida de la consistencia de los sistemas ortográficos pues, mientras en las ortografías transparentes los aprendices se basan más en estrategias subléxicas, en las opacas tienen que recurrir a un uso flexible de estrategias de tipo subléxico y léxico. No obstante, algunas investigaciones recientes en ortografías transparentes han destacado el uso de estrategias léxicas ya en las primeras fases del aprendizaje. El objetivo de este artículo fue determinar si los aprendices españoles emplean diferentes estrategias en las primeras etapas o mantienen únicamente una lectura subléxica basada en las reglas de conversión grafema-fonema. Para ello se aplicó un diseño basado en bloques a una muestra de 37 alumnos de 7 y 9 años de edad en una tarea de lectura de palabras. Los análisis de modelos lineales de efectos mixtos mostraron un efecto de cambio de estrategia ya a los 7 años. Se confirma así que desde las primeras etapas los aprendices de ortografías transparentes también emplean la vía léxica y recurren a la flexibilidad en el uso de estrategias. Se discuten las consecuencias de los resultados en la concepción del aprendizaje de las ortografías transparentes.Strategies used by reading learners depend largely on the consistency of orthographic systems. Thus, whereas learners of languages with transparent orthographies rely mainly on sublexical strategies, learners of deep orthographic systems have to resort to the use of flexible lexical and sublexical strategies in order to achieve a good command of word recognition. Nevertheless, some recent research on transparent orthography have pointed out that lexical strategies are used from the early stages of learning. The aim of this study was to determine whether learners of Spanish –a transparent language– alternate between different lexical and sublexical strategies, or stick to sublexical reading based on grapheme-phoneme conversion rules only. A block-based reading experiment was conducted with 37 students aged 7 and 9 years. Mixed-effects analyses showed an effect of strategy change even at age 7. We thus confirm that from the first stages, learners of transparent orthographies also employ the lexical route and resort to a flexible use of strategies. The implications of these results in the conception of learning transparent orthographic systems are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies performed on deep orthography systems reveal variables that influence writing latencies that occur over the course of learning. In transparent orthographies such as Spanish there are very few studies on writing that measure latencies and duration. The aim of this present study was to take a more in-depth look at knowledge of the writing mechanisms used by Spanish children in primary education, by studying the errors, latencies and duration of the writing of words. To do this, sixty children performed a copying task and a dictation task with regular words of different frequency and length. The obtained results show changes in the writing mechanisms used by the children as they became more expert, as indicated by the greater effect of word length in the first years of primary. This word length effect is a more determining factor with regard to the number of letters in words than for the number of syllables. These results hold important implications for the teaching of writing in Spanish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]