The syllabic bridge: the first step in learning spelling-to-sound correspondences*

Abstract

It is widely agreed that learning to read starts with the establishment of letter-to-phoneme correspondences. However, it is also widely agreed that prereaders do not have access to phoneme units. Here we show that the building of associations between letters and syllables, which we call the ‘syllabic bridge’, might be a faster and more direct way of learning spelling-to-sound correspondences in French. After a few minutes of exposure, prereaders are able to learn the statistical properties of letter co-occurrences. Statistical learning is boosted by explicit instructions about the associations between letter clusters and syllables. Building the syllabic bridge from available phonological syllables and frequent letter clusters may therefore be the first step in learning to read.

Universal Restrictions in Reading: What Do French Beginning Readers (Mis)perceive?

“…However, previous research has confirmed that orthographic statistical properties do not occur in isolation (e.g., in Spanish, Conrad et al, 2009(in English, Rapp, 1992Muncer et al, 2014). For instance, in French, Doignon and Zagar (2006) and Doignon-Camus and Zagar (2014) found that, from the age of six, French children's response patterns indicated more preservation ICs than violation ICs when the orthographic and phonological boundaries matched (e.g., "BI/MIR" and "RON/TA"; the slash indicates that the orthographic boundary coincides with the phonological boundary) but that the response patterns indicated more violation ICs than preservation ICs when the orthographic and phonological boundaries mismatched (e.g., "RO/N * ER" and "BI * M/BU"; the * indicates the orthographic boundary, whereas the slash indicates the phonological boundary). Taken together, these results have led some authors to conclude that children, including those suffering from developmental dyslexia, are sensitive to -and have developed knowledge aboutorthographic statistical distribution, whereas syllable boundary location and segmentation seem to depend strictly on the overlap between statistical properties.…”

“…Research conducted over the last 20 years has suggested that syllables are salient perceptual and segmental units in French newborns and preliterate children (e.g., Bertoncini et al, 1988;Duncan et al, 2006;Nazzi et al, 2006;Goslin and Floccia, 2007). They are also fundamental reading units in French children who are learning to read (e.g., Maïonchi-Pino et al, 2012a,b;Doignon-Camus and Zagar, 2014). To better understand why syllables are crucial reading units, it is worth noting that learning to read follows a smallto-large developmental sequence that progresses from graphophonemic processing to grapho-syllabic processing (e.g., Ehri, 2005).…”

“…Given that we wanted to suppress the orthographic and phonological information to potentiate the sonority-based effects, we decided to use the IC paradigm -which does not tap into the lexical processes -in combination with pseudowords, since these limit the top-down lexical processes (IC paradigm henceforth; e.g., Prinzmetal et al, 1986Prinzmetal et al, , 1991. Since 2003, the IC paradigm has been the subject of renewed interest for investigating whether syllables are activated quickly and automatically, and determining how the statistical (orthographic and/or phonological) distribution influences segmentation strategies in French typically developing and dyslexic children (e.g., Fabre and Bedoin, 2003;Doignon and Zagar, 2006;Maïonchi-Pino et al, 2012a,b;Doignon-Camus et al, 2013;Doignon-Camus and Zagar, 2014). An IC is a misperception of the color of a target-letter under conditions involving high attentional and perceptual demands.…”

Fases iniciais da aprendizagem da leitura e da escrita em português do Brasil: efeitos de fonemas, gestos articulatórios e sílabas na aquisição do mapeamento ortográfico

“…Em francês, vários argumentos favorecem a hipótese de que as correspondências entre escrita e som podem ser adquiridas primeiramente com base em unidades silábicas (Chetail & Content, 2012;Chetail & Mathey, 2010, 2012Doignon-Camus & Zagar, 2014). Crianças pré-escolares falantes do francês têm melhor precisão e consistência em manipular as sílabas do que pré-escolares falantes do inglês.…”

“…Em francês, em que as sílabas também são muito salientes, uma hipótese similar foi denominada de "hipótese de ponte silábica", i.e., a disponibilidade das sílabas permite auxiliar no começo da aprendizagem da linguagem escrita e no desenvolvimento da consciência fonêmica (Doignon-Camus & Zagar, 2014). Nesse sentido, as crianças falantes do português brasileiro poderiam, ao contrário do que prediz o modelo de Ehri (Ehri, 1992(Ehri, , 2005a(Ehri, , 2005b(Ehri, , 2013(Ehri, , 2014, se beneficiar mais da consciência silábica do que da consciência fonêmica para o mapeamento ortográfico logo no começo da aprendizagem da leitura.…”