Children affected by dyslexia exhibit a deficit in the categorical perception of speech sounds, characterized by both poorer discrimination of between-category differences and by better discrimination of within-category differences, compared to normal readers. These categorical perception anomalies might be at the origin of dyslexia, by hampering…

The role of phonological coding for character identification was examined with the benefit of processing parafoveal characters in eye fixations while reading Chinese sentences. In Experiment 1, the orthogonal manipulation of phonological and orthographic similarity can separate two types of phonological benefits for homophonic previews, according…

Brain activation during reading of phonographic (Hangul) and ideographic (Hanja) words is compared using functional MRI by taking advantage of the bi-scriptal system of the Korean language. To examine the psycholinguistic difference, i.e., phonographic vs. ideographic, separately from other differences due to Hanja being a secondary script, we…

During a school year, samples of words written by three groups of children of successive ages were collected. Two groups of children were in first and second year of Kindergarten (4 and 5 years of age), when alphabetic rules were not taught in a systematic way. The third group was in first year of Primary School (6 years of age), and was being…

The morpho-syllabic Japanese writing system consists of the phonetic scripts of hiragana and katakana, the logographic kanji derived from Chinese characters and the less well researched romaji based on the Roman alphabet. In four experiments we investigated the speed with which Japanese college students read, named, and transcribed romaji as…

This study examines the factors influencing language and script choice in instant messaging (IM), a form of real-time computer-mediated communication, in a multilingual setting. Grounded in the New Literacy Studies, the study understands IM as a social practice involving texts, encompassing a range of literacy practices, within which a subset…

In this article, I examine how transnational students' educational trajectories are shaped by social relations and identity formation as developed in part through the medium of school-based bilingual literacy practices. By examining the educational trajectory of one young woman at an unusual, bilingual high school, I demonstrate that, in critical…

Background/Context: Culturally authoritative texts such as Text Revision of the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual-IV [DSM-IV-TR](American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2004) describe literate impossibility for individuals with disability labels associated with severe developmental disabilities. Our qualitative research challenges the…

The writing performance of 64 elementary school children with a history of specific language impairment was examined to evaluate both the nature of the children's difficulties with writing and the relationship between oral language, reading, and writing. Children were assessed at age 8 on a range of language, literacy, and cognitive measures and…

Much of L2 teacher feedback research is conducted with advanced students in process-oriented classrooms in the United States. There is less published research about how school teachers in EFL contexts respond to student writing. Specifically little is known about why teachers respond to writing in the ways they do, and if discrepancies exist…

Offering fresh alternatives to common instructional practices that fail to get results, this accessible, highly practical guide highlights ways to motivate middle school students while enhancing content-area learning. Each chapter features an enlightening case study of a teacher whose current strategies are not supported by research; describes…

The paper reviewed studies in word-level processing skills and related areas, and profiled how the development of L2 word recognition and integration skills would contribute to autonomous "kango" (Chinese originated words or words created from Chinese originated words) vocabulary learning. Despite the fact that the acquisition of a…

The possibility of teaching communication strategies and the feasibility of incorporating them into school syllabi have been a controversial issue. In the current study, 60 Iranian students were divided into two thirty-member classes; then two different textbooks, one with specific CS and the other without them, were chosen to be taught in the…

Lexical bundles--recurrent sequences of words--are important building blocks of discourse in spoken and written registers. Previous research has shown that lexical bundles are especially prevalent in university classroom teaching, where they serve three major discourse functions: stance expressions, discourse organizers, and referential…

Researchers and educators have developed an interest in language development. Their studies focused on the cultural context in which language is learned and developed and its relationship to cognitive development. This article reviews the researchers' definitions on oracy and its social facets of language learning. Specifically, it reviews studies…