Learning to Spell in a Language with Transparent Orthography: Distributional Properties of Orthography and Whole-Word Lexical Processing

New insights into bilingual visual word recognition: State of the art on the role of orthographic markedness, its theoretical implications, and future research directions

In the past decade, research on bilingual visual word recognition has given rise to a new line of study focusing on a sublexical orthographic variable referred to as orthographic markedness, derived from the comparison of the two orthotactic distributions known by a bilingual reader. Orthographic markers have been shown to speed up language decisions but also, to some extent, to modulate language nonselectivity during lexical access (i.e., the degree of co-activation of lexical representations of the two languages). In this review, we (1) describe the results available in the literature about orthographic markedness on language membership detection and lexical access and discuss the locus of these effects, which leads us to (2) present theoretical extensions to the bilingual interactive activation models and discuss their respective adequacy to the data, finally leading us to (3) propose future research directions in the study of orthographic markedness, such as extension to different reading tasks and contexts as well as considering developmental and learning dynamics.

Ability to Consolidate Instances as a Proxy for the Association Among Reading, Spelling, and Math Learning Skill

Learning skills (as well as disorders) tend to be associated; however, cognitive models typically focus either on reading, spelling or maths providing no clear basis for interpreting this phenomenon. A recent new model of learning cognitive skills proposes that the association among learning skills (and potentially the comorbidity of learning disorders) depends in part from the individual ability to consolidate instances (taken as a measure of rate of learning). We examined the performance of typically developing fifth graders over the acquisition of a novel paper-and-pencil task that could be solved based on an algorithm or, with practice, with reference to specific instances. Our aim was to establish a measure of individual rate of learning using parameters envisaged by the instance theory of automatization by Logan and correlate it to tasks requiring knowledge of individual items (e.g., spelling words with an ambiguous transcription) or tasks requiring the application of a rule or an algorithm (e.g., spelling non-words). The paper-and-pencil procedure yielded acquisition curves consistent with the predictions of the instance theory of automatization (i.e., they followed a power function fit) both at a group and an individual level. Performance in tasks requiring knowledge of individual items (such as doing tables or the retrieval of lexical representations) but not in tasks requiring the application of rules or algorithms (such as judging numerosity or spelling through sublexical mapping) was significantly predicted by the learning parameters of the individual power fits. The results support the hypothesis that an individual dimension of "ability to consolidate instances" contributes to learning skills such as reading, spelling, and maths, providing an interesting heuristic for understanding the comorbidity across learning disorders.

DUAL-tDCS Treatment over the Temporo-Parietal Cortex Enhances Writing Skills: First Evidence from Chronic Post-Stroke Aphasia

The learning of writing skills involves the re-engagement of previously established independent procedures. Indeed, the writing deficit an adult may acquire after left hemispheric brain injury is caused by either an impairment to the lexical route, which processes words as a whole, to the sublexical procedure based on phoneme-to-grapheme conversion rules, or to both procedures. To date, several approaches have been proposed for writing disorders, among which, interventions aimed at restoring the sub-lexical procedure were successful in cases of severe agraphia. In a randomized double-blind crossover design, fourteen chronic Italian post-stroke aphasics underwent dual transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) (20 min, 2 mA) with anodal and cathodal current simultaneously placed over the left and right temporo-parietal cortex, respectively. Two different conditions were considered: (1) real, and (2) sham, while performing a writing task. Each experimental condition was performed for ten workdays over two weeks. After real stimulation, a greater amelioration in writing with respect to the sham was found. Relevantly, these effects generalized to different language tasks not directly treated. This evidence suggests, for the first time, that dual tDCS associated with training is efficacious for severe agraphia. Our results confirm the critical role of the temporo-parietal cortex in writing skills.

Non-phonological Strategies in Spelling Development

This paper investigated the role that types of knowledge beyond phonology have on spelling development, such as knowledge of morpheme-to-grapheme mappings, of orthographic patterns, and of word-specific orthographic patterns. It is based on the modern view that children do not learn spelling in discrete stages but, rather, they apply different types of strategies from early on. The goals of the paper were threefold: (1) to determine the relative difficulty of different types of non-phonological spelling strategies, (2) to examine the contribution of non-phonological strategies (specifically, morphological, morphophonological, orthographic, and lexical) to conventional spelling scores, and (3) to determine the role of children's educational level and population type (first- vs. second-language learners) on spelling strategy use. A large sample of 982 children (497 boys), speakers of Catalan (a Romance language similar to Spanish but with a less consistent orthography), participated in the study. They were administered a bespoke dictation task aimed to test their conventional and phonographic accuracy skill, as well as to determine their ability to use different types of non-phonological strategies for the spelling of ambiguous phonemes. Data were analyzed with a series of multigroup, multilevel SEMs. Results showed that (1) children across groups found morphological and lexical strategies harder to apply than orthographic and morphophonological strategies and (2) all types of non-phonological strategies contributed greatly to spelling accuracy scores, even after controlling for children's phonographic skills. Efficient strategy use increased as a function of schooling level, while second-language learners had a worse performance throughout, but no group showed a specific pattern of results. In conclusion, the paper offers substantial evidence that non-phonological strategies are paramount to learning to spell at least during the early and intermediate elementary school years. It is suggested that the teaching of writing should therefore be multidimensional in nature and target particularly the strategies with which children struggle the most: knowledge of morpho-graphemic mappings and word-specific lexical representations. Theoretical implications are also discussed.

Predicting individual differences in reading, spelling and maths in a sample of typically developing children: A study in the perspective of comorbidity

We examined reading, spelling, and mathematical skills in an unselected group of 129 Italian fifth graders by testing various cognitive predictors for each behaviour. As dependent variables, we measured performance in behaviours with a clear functional value in everyday life, such as reading a text, spelling under dictation and doing mental and written computations. As predictors, we selected cognitive dimensions having an explicit relation with the target behaviour (called proximal predictors), and prepared various tests in order to select which task had the best predictive power on each behaviour. The aim was to develop a model of proximal predictors of reading (speed and accuracy), spelling (accuracy) and maths (speed and accuracy) characterized by efficacy also in comparison to the prediction based on general cognitive factors (i.e., short-term memory, phonemic verbal fluency, visual perceptual speed, and non-verbal intelligence) and parsimony, pinpointing the role of both common and unique predictors as envisaged in the general perspective of co-morbidity. With one exception (reading accuracy), the proximal predictors models (based on communality analyses) explained a sizeable amount of variance, ranging from 27.5% in the case of calculation (accuracy) to 48.7% of reading (fluency). Models based on general cognitive factors also accounted for some variance (ranging from 6.5% in the case of spelling to 19.5% in the case of reading fluency) but this was appreciably less than that explained by models based on the hypothesized proximal predictors. In general, results confirmed the efficacy of proximal models in predicting reading, spelling and maths although they offered only limited support for common predictors across different learning skills; namely, performance in the Orthographic Decision test entered as a predictor of both reading and spelling indicating that a single orthographic lexicon may account for performance in reading and spelling. Possible lines of research to expand on this approach are illustrated.

The ability to learn new written words is modulated by language orthographic consistency

INTRODUCTION

It is well known that a difficulty in forming lexical representations is a strong predictor of reading and spelling difficulties even after controlling for the effects of other cognitive skills. Our study had two main interrelated aims. First, we wanted to examine whether the ability to learn new written words (lexical learning) varies as a function of the orthographic consistency of the language of the learner. Second, we wanted to evaluate the cognitive abilities involved in orthographic lexical learning and whether they differed as a function of language consistency.

METHOD

163 Italian children and 128 English children performed a lexical learning task as well as tasks assessing several cognitive skills potentially related to the ability to establish orthographic representations.

RESULTS

We found that children learning an orthographic inconsistent orthography (English) were better able to learn novel written words presented in association with pictures than children learning a consistent orthography (Italian). This was true for both younger and older primary school children and also when children were matched for school grade. Lexical learning may be better in English children because the many irregularities of this language promote storing in memory whole-word representations and processing larger orthographic units. In Italian, instead, reading can be accomplished successfully on the basis of grapheme-phoneme conversion rules and on processing smaller orthographic units. This interpretation was supported by the pattern of cognitive skills associated with lexical learning skills in the two languages. Variations in lexical learning were explained by spatial visual memory and phonological awareness tasks in both languages, but phonological STM explained further variance in Italian, while a task tapping visuo-attentional capacity explained further variance in English.

CONCLUSION

Learning a language with inconsistent orthography is associated with better lexical learning skills in children at different stages of primary school; the pattern of cognitive skills associated with lexical learning skills is also partially modulated by orthographic consistency.

Lexical processing and distributional knowledge in sound-spelling mapping in a consistent orthography: A longitudinal study of reading and spelling in dyslexic and typically developing children

This study examined the ability to master lexical processing and use knowledge of the relative frequency of sound-spelling mappings in both reading and spelling. Twenty-four dyslexic and dysgraphic children and 86 typically developing readers were followed longitudinally in 3rd and 5th grades. Effects of word regularity, word frequency, and probability of sound-spelling mappings were examined in two experimental tasks: (a) spelling to dictation; and (b) orthographic judgment. Dyslexic children showed larger regularity and frequency effects than controls in both tasks. Sensitivity to distributional information of sound-spelling mappings was already detected by third grade, indicating early acquisition even in children with dyslexia. Although with notable differences, knowledge of the relative frequencies of sound-spelling mapping influenced both reading and spelling. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and empirical implications.