Initial Acquisition of Mental Graphemic Representations in Children with Language Impairment

Abstract

Deeper than shallow: Evidence for structure-based parsing biases in second-language sentence processing 419

Children Develop Initial Orthographic Knowledge During Storybook Reading

“…With time and experience, this knowledge rises to a more Downloaded by [McGill University Library] at 08:58 13 December 2014 explicit level of awareness and children use that more explicit awareness actively. The results of our investigation, coupled with those of our past investigations (e.g., Apel, 2010;Apel et al, 2006;Wolter & Apel, 2010), provide some evidence of this first phase of development when children appear to rely implicitly on an understanding of orthographic regularities; their reliance on this knowledge appears to aid initial MGR learning.…”

“…Further, the children's ability to spell the target words correctly was affected by the nonwords' linguistic statistical regularities; nonwords with high orthotactic probability were spelled accurately more often than words with low orthotactic probability. Kindergarten children with language impairment or from low-income homes, both groups considered to be at risk for literacy difficulties, also demonstrated some initial MGR acquisition but to a lesser extent than children not considered to be at risk for literacy difficulties (Apel et al, 2011;Wolter & Apel, 2010). However, these at-risk groups' MGR acquisition abilities were related to their reading and/or spelling skills, and the statistical regularities of the words affected their MGR learning.…”

“…In an effort to document pre-and beginning readers' acquisition of initial MGRs, Apel and colleagues have conducted a series of studies examining young children's implicit initial MGR learning (Apel, 2010;Apel et al, 2011;Apel et al, 2006;Wolter & Apel, 2010). In these studies, preschool or kindergarten-age children were exposed to novel spoken and written nonwords during an adult-led storybook reading context.…”

“…Spelling ability was assessed using a 10-word spelling dictation task used in previous investigations (e.g., Wolter & Apel, 2010). The words were fan, pet, dig, mop, rope, wait, chunk, slip, stick, and shine.…”

“…the specific, stored mental orthographic representations of written words, with relatively few exposures to novel written words within storybook reading contexts (e.g., Apel, 2010;Apel, Thomas-Tate, Wilson-Fowler, & Brimo, 2011;Apel, Wolter, & Masterson, 2006;Wolter & Apel, 2010). The present investigation addressed a gap in the literature by examining children's eye gaze during an experimental, structured storybook reading task designed to assess children's initial acquisition of MGRs.…”