The Malay language writing system is alphabetic and orthographically transparent. This study aimed to determine whether phonological processing skills predict Malay word-level literacy acquisition in Chinese children from a national-type Chinese primary school in Malaysia. A correlational study among 113 Year 1 Chinese children who are non-native…

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine whether young learners of varying reading and spelling performance, identified in Grade 2, can be distinguished retrospectively from kindergarten, based on their growth profiles in cognitive (planning, attention, working memory--WM) and linguistic (phonological--PA and naming speed--RAN)…

This article reports a study examining whether foreign language (FL) word learning can be improved with reduction in cognitive load. Cognitive load theory has received substantial supports in various fields of learning but never in FL word learning. Due to the defined poverty in exposure to the FL, hence deprived cognitive pre-requisites for…

This pilot study evaluates the feasibility of an integrated intervention titled "Language and Literacy Together" developed to target semantic and narrative skills in bilingual children at risk for developmental language disorder (DLD). Thirteen first-grade bilingual children who scored in the risk range for DLD on the Bilingual English…

Many assume that cognitive and linguistic processes, such as semantic knowledge (SK) and self-regulation (SR), subserve learned skills like reading. However, complex models of interacting and bootstrapping effects of SK, SR, instruction, and reading hypothesize reciprocal effects. Testing this "lattice" model with children (n = 852)…

As children transition from the early to later grades of elementary school, they become increasingly skilled at employing a variety of techniques -- such as rehearsal and organizational strategies -- for remembering information. Developmental changes in strategy use have been well documented, but little is known about the extent to which these…

We investigated the dimensionality and relations between L1 (a speaker's first language) and L2 (a speaker's second language) writing skills in narrative and informational genres and higher order cognitive skills--inference, perspective taking, and comprehension monitoring--for Spanish-English dual language learners in primary grades. Dimensions…

Better understanding of the mechanisms underlying early reading skills can lead to improved interventions. Hence, the purpose of this study was to examine multivariate associations among reading, language, spoken phonological awareness, and fingerspelling abilities for three groups of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) beginning readers: those who…

We analysed word reading and spelling in French adults with low levels of literacy (A-IL). As well as examining phonological and lexical processes, we explored the relationship between literacy and oral language skills. Fifty-two adult literacy students were compared with reading level-matched pupils in Years 1-3 of primary school on reading tasks…

This investigation examined orthographic and semantic processing during reading acquisition. Children in first to fourth grade were presented with a target word and two response alternatives, and were asked to identify the semantic match. Words were presented in four conditions: an exact match and unrelated foil (STONE-STONE-EARS), an exact match…

This study examined the within-language and cross-language relationships between orthographic processing and word reading in French and English across Grades 1 and 2. Seventy-three children in French Immersion completed measures of orthographic processing and word reading in French and English in Grade 1 and Grade 2, as well as a series of control…

Purpose: The capacity to update and monitor the contents of working memory is an executive function presumed to play a critical role in language processing. The current study used an individual differences approach to consider the relationship between memory updating and accurate reference to story characters in the narratives of typically…

The present study had two aims: (1) to examine kindergarten (Kg) and first grade (G1) children's early word structure knowledge, that is letter, phonological, morphological, and orthographic knowledge, and (2) to provide evidence of specific links between these various types of knowledge and word reading and spelling performance assessed in G1. A…

As children learn to read, they become sensitive to the patterns that exist in the ways in which their language(s) are represented in print. This skill is known as orthographic processing. We examined the nature of orthographic processing in English and French for children in the first grade of a French immersion program, and the relationship…

In the current study, idiom understanding was analyzed in relation to the ability to process the linguistic context in which the idiom is embedded with the hypothesis that there is a strong relationship between text and idiom comprehension. This hypothesis was derived from the global elaboration model. Nonfamiliar idioms, both transparent and…