Early literacy experiences constrain L1 and L2 reading procedures

Abstract

Computational models of reading posit that there are two pathways to word recognition, using sublexical phonology or morphological/orthographic information. They further theorize that everyone uses both pathways to some extent, but the division of labor between the pathways can vary. This review argues that the first language one was taught to read, and the instructional method by which one was taught, can have profound and long-lasting effects on how one reads, not only in one’s first language, but also in one’s second language. Readers who first learn a transparent orthography rely more heavily on the sublexical phonology pathway, and this seems relatively impervious to instruction. Readers who first learn a more opaque orthography rely more on morphological/orthographic information, but the degree to which they do so can be modulated by instructional method. Finally, readers who first learned to read a highly opaque morphosyllabic orthography use less sublexical phonology while reading in their second language than do other second language learners and this effect may be heightened if they were not also exposed to an orthography that codes for phonological units during early literacy acquisition. These effects of early literacy experiences on reading procedure are persistent despite increases in reading ability.

Unmasking individual differences in adult reading procedures by disrupting holistic orthographic perception

“…For example, the idea that an atypical orientation forces a more analytical approach in word identification is supported by the emergence of a word length effect for rotated words [6,7], but not upright words. The reasoning is that if a typical left to right decoding is disrupted due to atypical orientation of a word (Coltheart et al, 2001), an analytical approach becomes necessary (i.e., relying more on sub-word units) and longer words should take more time to decode than shorter words [8]. This approach of disrupting the typical presentation has recently been used to measure holistic coding in visual word processing [9,10] and uncover cross-linguistic biases in orthographic coding [11][12][13].…”

“…In all three of these studies, Chinese-English bilinguals exhibited greater holistic orthographic coding and a bias towards lexical-level processing to support word identification, while Korean-English bilinguals exhibited greater analytic orthographic coding and a bias towards sublexical and phonological processing to support word identification. For example, Ben-Yehudah and colleagues (2018) found that Chinese-English bilinguals' naming times were more sensitive to word inversion and lexical frequency, whereas Korean-English bilinguals were relatively unaffected by word inversion and more sensitive to spelling-to-sound consistency [8]. Thus, prior cross-linguistic research provides evidence that individuals can exhibit differing biases for holistic versus analytic orthographic coding of English, and this differing bias is associated with a preference for lexical versus sublexical reading procedures.…”

“…The predicted outcome is that individuals with a bias toward holistic orthographic coding (i.e., high orientation sensitivity) will have a bias toward lexical reading procedures, as indicated by a: 1) heightened sensitivity to frequency, because frequency effects are widely regarded as a measure of lexical-level influences [8,[16][17][18]; 2) greater sensitivity to imageability, because it is a semantic measure that is inherently processed at a larger grain size [e.g., morpheme or whole word; 18, 19], and 3) reduced sensitivity to consistency/regularity effects in addition to bigram and biphone frequency, because they are widely regarded as measures of sublexical influences on orthographic-phonological mapping [8,16,20]. An increased length effect is expected for atypically presented words [6,7] for individuals with a bias toward a lexical-level reading procedure, as an atypical presentation should necessitate a greater reliance on sublexical processing (i.e., their less-preferred reading procedure).…”

“…Alternatively, some variation could result from differences in foundational instructional methods. There is evidence for differences in some reading procedures (e.g., nonword decoding) in children who were taught with a phonics approach vs. a story/text-centered approach that focuses on context cues and analogies rather than sounding words out [8,50]. Future research is needed to determine whether the ability to manipulate reading biases through instruction could benefit individuals with poor phonological decoding who did not naturally rely on a reading procedure that best fits their cognitive abilities.…”

L’apprentissage des correspondances phonème -graphème en français langue étrangère

“…Inversement ceux dont la langue est opaque (e.g., français, anglais) utilisent préférentiellement des représentations plus larges telles que les unités morphémiques et les représentations lexicales globales (Sprenger-Charolles et al 1998). Ces stratégies de lecture semblent s'installer dès le début de l'apprentissage de la lecture, être durablement prépondérantes, et se transmettre à l'apprentissage de la lecture en L2 (Bhide, 2015;Ehri, 2005). Ainsi les apprenants germanophones de FLE vont vraisemblablement chercher à établir une correspondance PG univoque alors même que cette relation ne l'est pas en français.…”