Because of its regularity, it is relatively easy to learn to read and spell in Finnish. However, a specific hurdle in spelling acquisition seems to be the doubling of consonant letters. In this study on consonant letter doubling spelling in Finnish children (91 Grade 1 and 191 Grade 2 children), we asked two questions. First, are items with double…

Background noise challenges auditory recognition of speech and may reveal the underlying deficits in auditory word recognition skills. Previous studies have reported an association between children's auditory skills and various linguistic skills, including phonology, although in some languages only. However, language-specific features influence…

Rules and regularities of language are typically processed in an implicit and effortless way in the human brain. Individuals with developmental dyslexia have problems in implicit learning of regularities in sequential stimuli, but the neural basis of this deficit has not been studied. This study investigated extraction and utilization of a complex…

Previous studies have showed that early problems with word decoding can lead to poor performance in text reading and comprehension and suggest that poor readers often struggle with reading deficits throughout their school years. Therefore, early detection of those children who are at risk for slow reading development and/or who belong to the…

This study explores Finnish children's word-level spelling by applying a linguistically based multilayered word structure model for assessing spelling performance. The model contributes to the analytical qualitative assessment approach in order to identify children's spelling performance for enhancing writing skills. The children (N = 105)…

In early Finnish reading instruction, hyphens are used to denote syllable boundaries. However, this practice slows down reading already during the 1st grade. It has been hypothesized that hyphenation forces readers to rely more on phonology than orthography. Since hyphenation highlights the phonology of the word, it may facilitate reading during…

In this study, we investigated developmental aspects of eye movements during reading of three languages (English, German, and Finnish) that vary widely in their orthographic complexity and predictability. Grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules are rather complex in English and German but relatively simple in Finnish. Despite their differences in…

Children are known to be fast learners due to their neural plasticity. Learning a non-native language (L2) requires the mastering of new production patterns. In classroom settings, learners are not only exposed to the acoustic input, but also to the unfamiliar grapheme-phoneme correspondences of the L2 orthography. We tested how 9-10-year-old…

We investigated the predictive power of cognitive skills and background variables of 769 first and second grade children learning to read two orthographically different languages Finnish and German in three countries Finland, Germany and Italy. Main results from stepwise regression models showed that in all countries word reading at first grade…

The present study is the first part of a longitudinal research project investigating whether children become more aware of phonemes or rhyming when they learn letters or letter sounds or even begin to read, and if so how. For the present paper, the phonological awareness of young children aged 2-6 years was analyzed, particularly their auditory…

This study reports on the acquisition of quantity contrasts in Guina-ang Bontok, an indigenous language spoken in the Philippines. Four-year-old and 5-year-old children's perception and production of quantity contrasts were examined using a pair of names that contrast in the quantity of the medial nasal. Frequencies of the quantity contrast were…

Research and clinical practitioners have mixed views whether reading and spelling difficulties should be combined or seen as separate. This study examined the following: (a) if double dissociation between reading and spelling can be identified in a transparent orthography (Finnish) and (b) the cognitive and noncognitive precursors of this…

Severe enduring reading- and writing-accuracy difficulties seem a phenomenon largely restricted to nations using complex orthographies, notably Anglophone nations, given English's highly complex orthography (Geva and Siegel, "Read Writ" 12:1-30, 2000; Landerl et al., "Cognition" 63:315-334, 1997; Share, "Psychol Bul"l…

Development of reading skills has been shown to be tightly linked to phonological processing skills and to some extent to speech perception abilities. Although speech perception is also known to play a role in reading development, it is not clear which processes underlie this connection. Using event-related potentials (ERPs) we investigated the…

We examined the longitudinal predictors of nonword decoding, reading fluency, and spelling in three languages that vary in orthographic depth: Finnish, Greek, and English. Eighty-two English-speaking, 70 Greek, and 88 Finnish children were followed from the age of 5.5 years old until Grade 2. Prior to any reading instruction, they were…