All dominant models of reading development ascribe a central role to learning about the orthography in reading acquisition, particularly as children transition to fluent word reading (e.g., Ehri, 2014; Share, 1995). And yet, we know far less about the contributions to word reading development of children's learning about the orthographic form of…

Background: Lexical properties such as orthographic neighbours have been shown to have an influence on reading and writing; however, this phenomenon is yet to be explored in the Southern Bantu languages. Objectives: We investigate the role of orthographic neighbourhood density and neighbourhood frequency in reading and spelling in Grade 3 isiXhosa…

Orthographic knowledge (i.e., the knowledge of conventions of a written language) has been identified as a predictor of both basic and higher-level reading processes, however, mostly examined in a cross-sectional design. It remains unclear, whether and how orthographic knowledge contributes uniquely in explaining differences in the acquisition of…

In this theoretical review, evidence for the link between spoken and written word knowledge is summarised, highlighting the specific hypotheses posed in this field and the extent to which they are informative regarding causation. A brief overview of major theories of orthographic learning draws attention to how each characterises the role of oral…

Poor implicit learning was suggested to be associated with poor orthographic knowledge. The current study examined the differences between twenty typical (age 8.68 ±0.15), and twenty poor readers (age 8.45 ±0.22) in implicit learning of novel graphemes. In the first stage, each participant was passively displayed with 80 pairs of real and…

Purpose: Converging evidence demonstrates that robust academic vocabulary and morphology instruction improves literacy outcomes of multilingual adolescents. However, few interventions have focused on teaching word analysis using bound Latin roots, the major meaning-carrying constituents of academic words (e.g. voc meaning "speak" in…

Background: Learning to read is a complex process that involves phonological and orthographic processing abilities, broader language skills and cognitive processes across all writing systems. Although these components remain common, the pace of acquisition of phonological and orthographic processing and reading abilities differ across writing…

Purpose: Research on how much early phonemic awareness (PA) instruction is optimal has produced inconclusive answers. We conducted a nonlinear meta-analysis to estimate the optimal cumulative dosage of early PA instruction on PA outcomes with an associated maximum effect size in preschool through first-grade students. Method: Sixteen experimental…

Background: The present study aimed to examine and compare the relative contributions of three facets of metalinguistic awareness (phonological awareness, orthographic awareness and morphological awareness) and lexical inferencing ability to Chinese reading comprehension across upper elementary grades. Method: Fifty-three third graders, 79 fourth…

In this essay, I outline some of the essential ingredients of a universal theory of reading acquisition, one that seeks to highlight commonalities while embracing the global diversity of languages, writing systems, and cultures. I begin by stressing the need to consider insights from multiple disciplines including neurobiology, cognitive science,…

Purpose: This 2-year longitudinal study examined the unique prediction of a dynamic assessment (DA) of character decoding on Chinese early reading development, and further explored whether learning potential, as assessed by DA, predicts subsequent character reading development in a sample of 135 native Mandarin-speaking Chinese students from first…

The present study investigated the phonological and semantic aspects of written word learning among children with dyslexia, taking into account their use of phonetic and semantic cues embedded in words. Fifty-three Mandarin-speaking fifth graders were taught the pronunciations and meanings of 24 Chinese single-character pseudowords (children with…

This study used eye-tracking to investigate the real-time processing of phonetic and semantic radicals (components of Chinese characters that give clues to their pronunciation and meaning) by intermediate-level university Chinese foreign language (CFL) learners. Additionally, the study examined how knowledge and awareness of radicals affect…

Purpose: Shared reading provides preschool-age children with the opportunity to learn novel, low-frequency words. Abundant empirical evidence demonstrates that children can learn the meanings of such words during shared reading, referred to as "semantic learning." However, less is known about whether children learn the spellings of words…

From phonological processing to brain research to orthographic mapping to self-teaching hypothesis, "Shifting the Balance" cuts through the rhetoric (and the sciencey science) to offer readers a practical guide to decision-making about beginning reading instruction. The authors honor the balanced literacy perspective while highlighting…