Exploring Two-Wave Reciprocal Structural Relations Among Orthographic Knowledge, Phonological Sensitivity, and Reading and Spelling of English Words by Chinese Students.

Abstract

In a 2-wave study of a cohort of 108 Chinese students (10-to 11-year-olds) learning English as a second language, the authors examined the relative effects of three Time 1 latent constructs-orthographic knowledge, phonological sensitivity, and word identification (reading and spelling of regular and exception words)-on the respective Time 2 performance. The authors posited autoregressive effects, in which Time 1 constructs affected their matching Time 2 performance (e.g., Time 1 orthographic knowledge on Time 2 orthographic knowledge), as well as reciprocal cross-domain effects (e.g., orthographic knowledge on word identification and vice versa). The model converged to a proper solution with reasonably good fit. The results suggest (a) strong stability in the children's word identification and phonological sensitivity, (b) substantial effects of word identification on subsequent orthographic knowledge and phonological sensitivity, particularly the former; and (c) greater variations in individuals' growth of orthographic knowledge.

Chinese-English biscriptal reading: cognitive component skills across orthographies

“…For example, recent studies on Chinese-English biliteracy acquisition have found that phonological awareness and orthographic experience in Chinese influence the process of learning to read English (Cheung, Chan, & Chong, 2007;Gottardo, Chiappe, Yan, Siegel, & Gu, 2006;Leong et al, 2005;Wang & Geva, 2003a;Wang et al, 2005). One of the major findings from Chinese-English biliteracy acquisition is that Chinese phonological skills contribute to English word reading, similar to the findings on Spanish-English or French-English alphabetic language acquisition (Cisero & Royer, 1995;Comeau, Cormier, Grandmaison, & Lacroix, 1999).…”

“…Some studies of Hong Kong Chinese children learning to read English as a second language have suggested possible transfer of Chinese orthographic processing to English word reading (Cheung et al, 2007;Leong et al, 2005). The results were explained in terms of the common process of analytical reading shared by both Chinese and English, as well as mutually reinforced structure sensitivity across the two languages.…”

“…Recent research on word reading has revealed that phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and orthographic knowledge are important factors in word reading across alphabetic languages (e.g., Carlisle, 1995;Foorman, 1994;Wagner et al, 1997) and nonalphabetic languages (e.g., Ho & Bryant, 1997;McBride-Chang & Ho, 2000;McBride-Chang, Shu, Zhou, Wat, & Wagner, 2003), and their importance to word reading might well vary across languages (e.g., Deacon, Wade-Woolley, & Kirby, 2007;Koda, 2000). Evidence from crosslanguage and cross-orthography studies has also suggested that learning two different languages might reinforce children's sensitivity to these metalinguistic or cognitive skills (e.g., Leong, et al, 2005). In this study, we examined the extent to which metalinguistic or cognitive skills specific to a given script can extend their effects to learning to read a sharply contrasting script.…”

“…Learning to read is a process underpinned by a variety of cognitive and metalinguistic skills (Adams, 1990;Ziegler & Goswami, 2005) and its route is shaped by the characteristics of a given writing system (e.g., Bialystok, Majumder, & Martin, 2003;Frith, Wimmer, & Langerl, 1998) and specific educational practices (e.g., Leong, Hau, Cheng, & Tan, 2005;Shu, Chen, Anderson, Wu, & Xuan, 2003). Recent research on word reading has revealed that phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and orthographic knowledge are important factors in word reading across alphabetic languages (e.g., Carlisle, 1995;Foorman, 1994;Wagner et al, 1997) and nonalphabetic languages (e.g., Ho & Bryant, 1997;McBride-Chang & Ho, 2000;McBride-Chang, Shu, Zhou, Wat, & Wagner, 2003), and their importance to word reading might well vary across languages (e.g., Deacon, Wade-Woolley, & Kirby, 2007;Koda, 2000).…”

The Effect of Automatization of the Phonological Component on the Reading Comprehension of ESP Students

“…In line with this perspective, Koda (1992) indicates that lower level verbal processing skills (e.g., phonological processing) is one of the four major reader-related skills. He further adds that little attention has been paid to the relationship between lower level verbal processing skills and reading comprehension, but a number of theorists in cognitive psychology claim that deficiency in lower level processing operations strains the limited capacity of short-term memory and inhibits text integration into a meaningful sequence (e.g., Leong et al 2005;Lesaux & Siegel, 2003;Nation & Snowling, 2004;Perfetti, 1986). Based on his findings, he holds that efficient lower level verbal processing operations are essential for successful performance in FL reading comprehension tasks.…”