To compare the properties of inner and overt speech, Oppenheim and Dell (2008) counted participants' self-reported speech errors when reciting tongue twisters either overtly or silently and found a bias toward substituting phonemes that resulted in words in both conditions, but a bias toward substituting similar phonemes only when speech was…

This study investigates the syllable's role in the normal reading acquisition of French children at three grade levels (1st, 3rd, and 5th), using a modified version of Cole, Magnan, and Grainger's (1999) paradigm. We focused on the effects of syllable frequency and word frequency. The results suggest that from the first to third years of reading…

A central issue in language testing is the choice of norms, and the need to reconcile notions of "standard" English with local language norms and features. Data from studies of international intelligibility indicate that some features of "standard" language descriptions, based on native-speaker language use, are not essential…

The present investigation examines English speakers' ability to identify and discriminate non-native consonant length contrast. Three groups (L1 English No-Instruction, L1 English Instruction, and L1 Finnish control) performed a speeded forced-choice identification task and a speeded AX discrimination task on Finnish non-words (e.g.…

The purpose of this study is to learn about the impact of dictation practice on B1 level Turkish as a foreign language learners' writing skills. In this study, a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design with control group was used. The study was carried out with 24 B1 level students enrolled in Gaziantep University Turkish and Foreign Languages…

This study examines the effectiveness of five spelling strategies used to teach junior secondary school students with dyslexia. Participants were 30 secondary school teachers in Hong Kong. The teachers commented on five spelling strategies: the phonological strategy, an integration of phonological and orthographical strategies, the rule-based…

This study examined the effect of short-term high-variability phonetic training on the perception of English /b/, /v/, /d/, /ð/, /ae/, /? /, /i/, and /i/ by Catalan/Spanish bilinguals learning English as a foreign language. Sixteen English-major undergraduates were tested before and after undergoing a four-session perceptual training program…

Design of a screening test for identifying reading difficult students in Malayalam and validation thereof among boys is made to help schools proactively intervene with such students. A battery of tests developed based on extant literature on screening tests, reviewed difficulties in reading Malayalam, and discrimination power of the draft tests is…

The aim of the present study was to explore and compare systematically the developmental patterns of certain aspects of imitation, longitudinally from 2 to 10 months, in interactions of infants with grandfathers and grandmothers. Sixteen infants were video-recorded at home in the course of spontaneous dyadic interactions with maternal grandfathers…

Traditional African literacy practices have often been ignored in the wake of European colonialism and the educational policies of colonial governments. Nonetheless, literacy had been established in parts of Africa following the introduction of Islam. This paper will examine the developments of literacy in pre-colonial West Africa. In this region,…

This study investigated the roles of phoneme position, stress, and proficiency in L2 spelling development by Taiwanese students learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL), an alphabetic writing system typologically different from the learners' L1 logographic system. Structured nonword spelling tests were administered to EFL sixth-graders with…

This article reports on a quantitative analysis of /s/ in words of different lexical frequencies in a cohesive speech community. Speakers from Barranquilla, Colombia between 20-26 years of age read approximately 100 sentences, containing words with s + consonant sequences. These productions were submitted to auditory acoustical analysis; visual…

The degree to which orthographic knowledge accounts for the link between rapid automatized naming (RAN) and reading is contested, with mixed results reported. This longitudinal study compared two groups of 10- and 11-year-old children, a low RAN group (N = 69) and matched controls (N = 74), on various measures of orthographic knowledge. The low…

Recent studies have emphasized that developmental dyslexia is a multiple-deficit disorder, in contrast to the traditional single-deficit view. In this context, cognitive profiling of children with dyslexia may be a relevant contribution to this unresolved discussion. The aim of this study was to profile 36 Portuguese children with dyslexia from…

This study investigated the growth of word-decoding skills throughout the elementary school years for a representative sample of 2,819 Dutch children. Children's decoding abilities for (a) regular consonant-vowel-consonant words, (b) complex monosyllabic words with consonant clusters in prevocalic and postvocalic position, and (c) polysyllabic…