Comparing and validating methods of reading instruction using behavioural and neural findings in an artificial orthography.

Abstract

There is strong scientific consensus that emphasizing print-to-sound relationships is critical when learning to read alphabetic languages. Nevertheless, reading instruction varies across English-speaking countries, from intensive phonic training to multicuing environments that teach sound- and meaning-based strategies. We sought to understand the behavioral and neural consequences of these differences in relative emphasis. We taught 24 English-speaking adults to read 2 sets of 24 novel words (e.g., /buv/, /sig/), written in 2 different unfamiliar orthographies. Following pretraining on oral vocabulary, participants learned to read the novel words over 8 days. Training in 1 language was biased toward print-to-sound mappings while training in the other language was biased toward print-to-meaning mappings. Results showed striking benefits of print–sound training on reading aloud, generalization, and comprehension of single words. Univariate analyses of fMRI data collected at the end of training showed that print–meaning relative to print–sound relative training increased neural effort in dorsal pathway regions involved in reading aloud. Conversely, activity in ventral pathway brain regions involved in reading comprehension was no different following print–meaning versus print–sound training. Multivariate analyses validated our artificial language approach, showing high similarity between the spatial distribution of fMRI activity during artificial and English word reading. Our results suggest that early literacy education should focus on the systematicities present in print-to-sound relationships in alphabetic languages, rather than teaching meaning-based strategies, in order to enhance both reading aloud and comprehension of written words.

Reconsidering the Evidence That Systematic Phonics Is More Effective Than Alternative Methods of Reading Instruction

“…The claim that grapheme-phoneme correspondences should be taught prior to any morphological instruction is widespread (e.g., Adams 1994;Ehri and McCormick 1998;Henry 1989;Larkin and Snowling 2008;Taylor et al 2017).…”

Evidence for cross-script abstract identities in learners of Japanese kana

“…However, investigating L1 children's acquisition of abstract letter identities is challenging, because other aspects of children's cognitive abilities (e.g., visual attention) are rapidly developing. With adults this is of lesser concern, and researchers in visual word recognition have used adults to gain a handle on the acquisition of new (artificial) orthography (e.g., Taylor, Davis, & Rastle, 2017;Taylor, Plunkett, & Nation, 2011). Here we studied adults learning a new language (and orthography), Japanese.…”

Rapid changes in brain activity during learning of grapheme-phoneme associations in adults

“…modal features (Hä mä lä inen et al 2019; Calvert et al 2001) to combine and direct attention to the relevant learning cues. In addition, parietal regions also receive visual inputs (of letters) from the occipital regions and might be involved in storing the corresponding phonological representation of the letters by interacting with the multisensory superior temporal cortex during the early stages of learning.As learning progress, changes have been reported to occur in vOT(Quinn et al 2017; Madec et al 2016;Hashimoto and Sakai 2004;Brem et al 2018; Brem et al 2010) and dorsal pathway(Taylor et al 2014;Hashimoto and Sakai 2004;Taylor et al 2017;Mei et al 2014;Mei et al 2015) as well as the STC(Hä mä lä inen et al 2019; Karipidis et al 2018; I Karipidis et al 2017; Madec et al 2016) for forming optimal cortical representation and automatic processing of the audiovisual objects.…”