Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T03:13:27.782Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

From grapheme to word in reading acquisition in Spanish

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2009

FERNANDO CUETOS*
Affiliation:
University of Oviedo
PAZ SUÁREZ-COALLA
Affiliation:
University of Oviedo
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Fernando Cuetos, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Oviedo, Plaza Feijoo, s/n, 33003 Oviedo, Spain. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

The relationship between written words and their pronunciation varies considerably among different orthographic systems, and these variations have repercussions on learning to read. Children whose languages have deep orthographies must learn to pronounce larger units, such as rhymes, morphemes, or whole words, to achieve the correct pronunciation of some words. However, children whose languages have transparent orthographies need only learn to pronounce graphemes to be able to read any word. In this study, the reading evolution of Spanish-speaking children was investigated for the purpose of discovering when and for what types of stimuli lexical information is used in Spanish. Five- to 10-year-old children were presented with lists of stimuli in which lexicality, frequency, and length were manipulated. The results in terms of reading accuracy and speed showed that the influence of stimulus length is great in the early grades and later diminishes, and just the opposite is the case for lexicality and frequency. These data suggest that reading acquisition in Spanish constitutes a continuum that ranges from phonological recoding to the use of lexical strategies, and that this transition is made at a very early stage, at least for the most frequent words.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alameda, J. R., & Cuetos, F. (1995). Diccionario de frecuencias de las unidades lingüísticas del castellano. Oviedo, Spain: Universidad de Oviedo, Servicio de Publicaciones.Google Scholar
Alija, M., & Cuetos, F. (2006). Efectos de las variables léxico-semánticas en el reconocimiento visual de palabras. Psicothema, 18, 485491.Google Scholar
Aro, M., & Wimmer, H. (2003). Learning to read: English in comparison to six more regular orthographies. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 621635.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bates, E., Burani, C., D'Amico, S., & Barca, L. (2001). Word reading and picture naming in Italian. Memory and Cognition, 29, 986999.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brysbaert, M., Lange, M., & van Wijnendaele, I. (2000). The effects of age of acquisition and frequency of occurrence in visual word recognition: Further evidence from the Dutch language. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 12, 6585.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burani, C., Marcolini, S., & Stella, G. (2002). How early does morpho-lexical reading develop in readers of a shallow orthography? Brain and Language, 81, 568586.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cuetos, F., & Barbón, A. (2006). Word naming in Spanish. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 18, 415436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, R., Cuetos, F., & Glez-Seijas, R. M. (2007). Reading development and dyslexia in a transparent orthography: A survey of Spanish children. Annals of Dislexia, 57, 179198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, C. J., & Perea, M. (2005). BuscaPalabras: A program for deriving orthographic and phonological neighborhood statistics and other psycholinguistic indices in Spanish. Behavior Research Methods, 37, 665671.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Defior, S., Cary, L., & Martos, F. (2002). Differences in reading acquisition development in two shallow Oothographies: Portuguese and Spanish. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23, 135148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ehri, L. C. (1999). Phases of development in learning to read words. In Oakhill, J. V. & Bear, R. (Eds.), Reading development and the teaching of reading: A psychological perspective (pp. 79108). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Frith, U. (1985). Beneath the surface developmental dyslexia. In Patterson, K., Marshall, J., & Coltheart, M. (Eds.), Surface dyslexia, neuropsychological and cognitive studies of phonological reading (pp. 301330). London: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Frith, U., Wimmer, H., & Landerl, K. (1998). Differences in phonological recoding in German- and English-speaking children. Scientific Studies of Reading, 2, 3154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Genard, N., Alegría, J., Leybaert, J., Mousty, Ph., & Defior, S. (2005). La adquisición de la lectura y la escritura. Comparación translingüística. Paper presented at the Simposium Procesos fonológicos y lectura: Un enfoque translingüístico, 2nd Congreso Hispano-Portugués de Psicología.Google Scholar
Goswami, U., Gombert, J. E., & de Barrera, L. F. (1998). Children's orthographic representations and linguistic transparency: Nonsense word reading in English, French and Spanish. Applied Psycholinguistics, 19, 1952.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goswami, U., Ziegler, J., Dalton, L., & Schneider, W. (2003). Nonword reading across orthographies: How flexible is the choice of reading units? Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 235247.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goswami, U., Ziegler, J. C., Dalton, L., & Schneider, W. (2001). Pseudohomophone effects and phonological recoding procedures in reading development in English and German. Journal of Memory and Language, 45, 648664.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoxhallari, L., van Daal, V., & Ellis, N. (2004). Learning to read words in Albanian: A skill easily acquired. Scientific Studies of Reading, 8, 153166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Job, R., Peressotti, F., & Cusinato, A. (1998). Lexical effects in naming pseudowords in shallow orthographies: Further empirical data. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24, 622630.Google Scholar
Landerl, K. (2000). Influences of orthographic consistency and reading instruction on the development of nonword reading skills. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 15, 239257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, F., Pratt, C., Claydon, E., Morton, A., & Binns, S. (2003), The development of orthographic and phonological strategies for the decoding of words in children. Journal of Research in Reading, 26, 191204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martínez, J. A., & García, M. E. (2004). Diccionario: Frecuencias del castellano escrito en niños de 6 a 12 años. Salamanca, Spain: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, Servicio de Publicaciones.Google Scholar
Öney, B., & Durgunoglu, A. Y. (1997). Beginning to read in Turkish: A phonologically transparent orthography. Applied Psycholinguistics, 18, 115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Öney, B., Peter, M., & Katz, L. (1997). Phonological processing in printed word recognition: Effects of age and writing system. Scientific Studies of Reading, 1, 6583.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orsolini, M., Fanari, R., Tosi, V., De Nigris, B., & Carrieri, R. (2006). From phonological recoding to lexical reading: A longitudinal study on reading development in Italian. Language and Cognitive Processes, 21, 576607.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paulesu, E., McCrory, E., Fazio, F., Menoncello, L., Brunswick, N., Cappa, S. F. et al. , (2000). A cultural effect on brain function. Nature Neuroscience, 3, 9196.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Petersen, D. K. (2002). Prediction of poor and superior word reading. Working Papers, 50, 1732.Google Scholar
Seymour, P. H. K., Aro, M., & Erskine, J. M. (2003). Foundation literacy acquisition in European orthographies. British Journal of Psychology, 94, 143174.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Share, D. L. (1995). Phonological recoding and self-teaching: Sine qua non of reading acquisition. Cogniton, 55, 151218.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Share, D. L. (1999). Phonological recoding and orthographic learning: A direct test of the self-teaching hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 72, 95129.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spinelli, D., De Luca, M., Di Filippo, G., Manzini, M., Martelli, M., & Zoccolotti, P. (2005). Length effect in word naming in reading: Role of reading experience and reading deficit in Italian readers. Developmental neuropsychology, 27, 217235.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Treiman, R. (1992). The role of intrasyllabic units in learning to read and spell. In Gough, P. B., Ehri, L. C., & Treiman, R. (Eds.), Reading acquisition (pp. 3247). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Treiman, R., Weatherston, S., & Berch, D. (1994). The role of letter names in children's learning of phoneme–grapheme relations. Applied Psycholinguistics, 15, 97122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tressoldi, P., Stella, G., & Faggella, M. (2001). The development of reading speed in Italians with dyslexia: A longitudinal study. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 34, 6778.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Valle, F. (1989). Errores en lectura y escritura: Un modelo dual. Cognitiva, 2, 3563.Google Scholar
Wimmer, H. (1993). Characteristics of developmental dyslexia in a regular writing system. Applied Psycholinguistics, 14, 133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wimmer, H., & Goswami, U. (1994). The influence of orthographic consistency on reading development: Word recognition in English and German children. Cognition, 51, 91103.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wimmer, H., & Hummer, P. (1990). How German-speaking first graders read and spell: Doubts on the importance of the logographic stage. Applied Psycholinguistics, 11, 349368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wise, B., Olson, R., & Treiman, R. (1990). Sub-syllabic units as aids in beginning readers word learning onset-rime versus post-vowel segmentation. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 49, 119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ziegler, J. C., & Goswami, U. (2005). Reading acquisition, developmental dyslexia, and skilled reading across languages: A psycholinguistic grain size theory. Psychological Bulletin, 131, 329.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ziegler, J. C., Perry, C., & Coltheart, M. (2003). Speed of lexical and nonlexical processing in French: The case of the regularity effect. Psychonomic Bulletin Review, 10, 947953.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ziegler, J. C., Perry, C., Jacobs, A. M., & Braun, M. (2001). Identical words are read differently in different languages. Psychological Science, 12, 379384.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zoccolotti, P., De Luca, M., Di Filippo, G., Judica, A., & Martelli, M. (in press). Reading development in an orthographically regular language: Effects of length, frequency, lexicality and global processing ability. Reading and Writing.Google Scholar
Zoccolotti, P., De Luca, M., Di Pace, E., Gasperini, F., Judica, A., & Spinelli, D. (2005). Word length effect in early reading and in developmental dyslexia. Brain and Language, 93, 369373.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zoccolotti, P., De Luca, M., Di Pace, E., Judica, A., Orlandi, M., & Spinelli, D. (1999). Markers of developmental surface dyslexia in a language (Italian) with high grapheme–phoneme correspondence. Applied Psycholinguistics, 20, 191216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar