The processing of morphologically complex words has been studied in many languages, leading to a variety of theoretical accounts. Prime type, individual differences, and cross-linguistic effects have emerged as potential factors in morphological processing, but the findings so far have been inconclusive, especially for young children. This study…

Letter knowledge and word identification are key skills for reading and spelling. Letter knowledge facilitates the application of sublexical letter-sound mappings to decode words. With reading experience, word identification becomes a key lexical skill to support decoding. In transparent orthographies, however, letter knowledge might be an…

Holistic processing has been identified as an expertise marker of face and object recognition. By contrast, reduced holistic processing is purportedly an expertise marker in recognising orthographic characters in Chinese. Does holistic processing increase or decrease in expertise development? Is orthographic recognition a domain-specific exception…

This study investigated the strength of lexical and non-lexical processing among Arabic (L1) English (L3)-speaking children (fourth and fifth grades, N = 532) in two writing systems that vary in terms of transparency. Children were assessed using word reading, phonological and vocabulary measures. In Arabic, the study focused on standard form.…

Background: Research acknowledges the importance of phonological processing and orthographic processing for reading and spelling in both consistently and inconsistently written languages. While the focus has tended to be on the role of phonological processing in languages with consistent orthographies, the role of orthographic processing,…

The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between participating in an online software application focused on phonological processing and working memory and outcomes on foundational reading assessment measures. The online software application utilized was the Sound Reading Program. Students began the intervention working in…

Unfortunately, far too many American adolescents are unable to read proficiently. The science of reading suggests explicit instruction in both word identification and language processing skills should bolster reading proficiency, but most commercial reading interventions for secondary students focus exclusively on the latter skill area. This study…

In light of the dramatic growth of Chinese learners worldwide and a need for a cross-linguistic research on Chinese literacy development, this study investigated (a) the effects of character properties (i.e., orthographic consistency and transparency) on character acquisition, and (b) the effects of individual learner differences (i.e.,…

Morphemes, the smallest meaning-bearing units of language, recur in many words. Therefore, morphological knowledge can facilitate the comprehension of novel words. This study tested the effectiveness of a morphological training program on children's learning and retention of exposed words and morphologically related unexposed words compared with…

Reading is an essential skill for daily life and academic success. According to the connectionist model of reading, word recognition involves orthographic, phonological, and semantic processing, as well as the interactions among them. Language skill such as phonological processing, develops earlier than reading acquisition, and thus likely serves…

Oral language abilities have been reported to be related to reading development. This relationship seems to be determined by orthographic systems and reading development. Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) show reading difficulties, although most studies focus on reading comprehension. The present study has two main objectives: to…

The purpose of this follow-up study was to determine the specific contribution of phonological processing abilities, including phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN) and verbal short-term memory (VSTM), as well as visual perception (VP), in word reading accuracy. A sample of 62 native Arabic speaking children from Grade 1…

The universal role of phonological processing skills for reading acquisition has been established in many different languages including Arabic. However, in Arabic little knowledge exists about the development of wide-range of phonological tasks and about the correlations between them. We longitudinally studied the developmental trends and…

Previous studies have found that phonological processing and vocabulary predict word reading. However, their predictive powers may vary according to reading experience and across scripts with different levels of transparency. In this study, the relationship between phonological processing, decoding, vocabulary and word reading was explored in two…

This study investigates the provision of two types of auditory elaborative automated digital feedback (metalinguistic and informational) in the context of a digital game for reading skills development in English as a foreign language. Nineteen 11-year-old Spanish-Catalan school children played through two digital minigames while their…