Orthographic and phonological processing effects on the reading abilities of young children learning to read Malayalam alphasyllabary

Abstract

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 systems. Methods: This study aimed to understand the developmental pattern of reading and phonological processing, assess their interrelationship and study the predictors of reading ability among 175 children, learning to read Malayalam and attending Grades 1-3. They completed various reading (akshara reading, word and nonword reading) and phonological processing (rhyme recognition, syllable deletion, syllable segmentation, phoneme deletion, phoneme substitution, rapid naming and nonword repetition) tasks. Results: Grade and reading level-based analysis was performed to collate the results. Results revealed a significant overlap of phonological processing and reading abilities among children in Grades 2 and 3. Reading scores demonstrated a weak-to-moderate significant correlation with the phonological processing tasks. Although skilled readers performed significantly better on all phonological processing tasks, their scores did not reach ceiling. Syllable-level tasks were easier compared to phoneme-level tasks, and they significantly predicted the reading abilities of children.

A Bigger Picture of Early Literacy and Biliteracy Acquisition in Abugidas: Perspectives from Asian and African Languages

“…Cumulative evidence showed that phonological awareness emerged mainly at the syllable level across grade levels, with limited development of phoneme awareness at early grade levels. First to third graders' syllable awareness accuracy was much higher than their phoneme awareness accuracy in Malayalam (Joy et al., 2023), Kannada (Nag, 2007; Nag & Snowling, 2012), and Bengali (Sircar & Nag, 2013). Nag's (2007) comparison between 1st and 3rd graders showed that Kannada readers' phonemic awareness emerged slowly, displaying a floor effect in the 1st grade, while syllable awareness, as in Wijaythilake et al.…”

“…In addition, many also learn to read and write in two written languages. For example, the participants of the included studies in the current review mostly speak more than one language and read more than one script (Joy et al., 2023; Nag et al., 2014; Padakannaya et al., 2016; Patel et al., 2022; Reddy & Koda, 2013; Vasudevan et al., 2023; Wijaythilake et al., 2018, 2019). The sociolinguistic contexts of bilingualism or multilingualism, as well as biscriptality in countries like India, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, are different from the sociolinguistic contexts in western societies, mostly with monolingual and monoscriptal Anglophone learners (Vaid, 2022).…”

“…Akshara recognition is the most predictive factor for word reading in Indic scripts for first to fourth grade. Joy et al (2023) examined the relative contribution of phonological processing and akshara recognition to word reading accuracy among Malayalam-speaking students from 1st to 3rd grades. Their concurrent prediction model with phonological awareness, akshara recognition, and age explained 87.8% of the variance, and akshara recognition alone explained 28.4% of the variance, after accounting for the effect of phonological awareness that explained 24.2% of the variance.…”

“…Phonological memory refers to one's ability to temporarily store verbal representations (Yang & McBride, 2020), measured with nonword repetition or syllable repetition tasks (Joy et al., 2023; Wijaythilake et al., 2019). Phonological awareness, RAN, and phonological memory were all associated with word reading in Indic scripts (Joy et al., 2023; Wijayathilake & Parrila, 2014). Further, phonological processing skills distinguished between skilled readers and struggling readers.…”

“…Skilled readers in oral reading fluency (Nag & Snowling, 2012) or reading comprehension (Wijayathilake & Parrila, 2014) showed better RAN, syllable awareness, and phoneme awareness compared to struggling readers among upper elementary grade levels. Another comparison among 1st to 3rd grades showed that syllable awareness, phoneme awareness, and phonological memory robustly distinguished struggling readers from skilled readers in word reading accuracy, while RAN did not differ across all reading levels for word reading accuracy (Joy et al., 2023).…”