Reading development in upper elementary language minority readers of Hebrew: the specific challenge of fluency

Shahar-Yames, Daphna; Prior, Anat

doi:10.1007/s11145-016-9712-2

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…The current study was part of larger project, which also investigated literacy skills of language minority learners (Shahar-Yames and Prior, in press ). Participants were administered a battery of tests in February through May of 5th grade, in two testing sessions, each lasting ~1 h. The two sessions were administered during the same week.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Separability of Lexical and Morphological Knowledge: Evidence from Language Minority Children

2018

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Lexical and morphological knowledge of school-aged children are correlated with each other, and are often difficult to distinguish. One reason for this might be that many tasks currently used to assess morphological knowledge require children to inflect or derive real words in the language, thus recruiting their vocabulary knowledge. The current study investigated the possible separability of lexical and morphological knowledge using two complementary approaches. First, we examined the correlations between vocabulary and four morphological tasks tapping different aspects of morphological processing and awareness, and using either real-word or pseudo-word stimuli. Thus, we tested the hypothesis that different morphological tasks recruit lexical knowledge to various degrees. Second, we compared the Hebrew vocabulary and morphological knowledge of 5th grade language minority speaking children to that of their native speaking peers. This comparison allows us to ask whether reduced exposure to the societal language might differentially influence vocabulary and morphological knowledge. The results demonstrate that indeed different morphological tasks rely on lexical knowledge to varying degrees. In addition, language minority students had significantly lower performance in vocabulary and in morphological tasks that recruited vocabulary knowledge to a greater extent. In contrast, both groups performed similarly in abstract morphological tasks with a lower vocabulary load. These results demonstrate that lexical and morphological knowledge may rely on partially separable learning mechanisms, and highlight the importance of distinguishing between these two linguistic components.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Separability of Lexical and Morphological Knowledge: Evidence from Language Minority Children

2018

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“…Phonological awareness is a significant predictor of single word reading in beginning readers of Hebrew (Levin & Korat, ) and remains so through Grades 3–5 as well (Bar‐Kochva & Breznitz, ; Katzir, Schiff & Kim, ; Shahar‐Yames & Prior, ), although these more mature readers also rely to a greater degree on morphological knowledge (Share & Bar‐On, ). We were unable to identify studies documenting the factors that support word reading in Hebrew in middle and high‐school students.…”

Section: Learning To Read In Hebrew and In Englishmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adolescent word reading in English as a foreign language

Prior

Zeltsman‐Kulick

Katzir

2020

Journal Research in Reading

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The current study examined the proficiency of Israeli adolescents in reading single words in English, which is taught as a foreign language, and what language skills predict individual variability. Parallel measures of word reading, phonology, decoding, morpho-syntax and vocabulary in Hebrew and English were administered to 217 adolescents in 8th and 11th grade. Following 5-8 years of English as a foreign language instruction, participants achieved reading levels commensurate with those of third to fourth grade native English-speaking children. Decoding and vocabulary knowledge were significant predictors of single word reading across both orthographies. Morpho-syntactic knowledge predicted word reading only in Hebrew. Further, there was pronounced variability in the extent to which phonological awareness and vocabulary predicted word reading across languages. Low levels of reading performance underline the inherent challenge in achieving reading proficiency in the complex English orthography in a foreign language setting, with limited instruction time and suboptimal pedagogy. Decoding and vocabulary are identified as important universal processes in reading, whereas differences in other predictors support scriptdependent processes in reading as well.

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“…In addition, some studies have shown that bilingual children are at risk for underachievement in literacy skills compared to their monolingual peers (Bratlie et al, 2022;Chiappe et al, 2002;Shahar-Yames & Prior, 2017). In the Israeli context, second-generation immigrant bilingual students achieve lower scores than monolingual peers in national verbal exams (Chachashvili-Bolotin & Kreiner, 2022; see also Bialystok et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of derivational morphological knowledge in monolingual and bilingual children: Effects of modality and lexicality

Michaly,

Prior

2024

J. Child Lang.

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This study mapped the trajectory of developing derivational morphological knowledge in Hebrew monolingual and Russian–Hebrew bilingual children. We investigated 2nd and 4th graders, using a two-by-two structure along the dimensions of modality (comprehension, production) and type of word (real-word, pseudo-word). Performance in the morphological analogies comprehension tasks improved with grade, and monolingual and bilingual children performed equally well. A different pattern was evident in production tasks. In real-word production, monolingual children were more accurate than bilingual children, but this group difference narrowed with age. In pseudo-word production, monolingual children used more morphological elements than bilingual children, and there was also a tendency towards group differences narrowing with age. Detailed error analyses across all tasks revealed that monolingual children recruited more morphological elements than bilingual children. We present implications for assessment of morphological knowledge, and suggest that morphological intervention is a promising avenue for promoting bilingual children’s success.

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Reading development in upper elementary language minority readers of Hebrew: the specific challenge of fluency

Cited by 6 publications

References 47 publications

Separability of Lexical and Morphological Knowledge: Evidence from Language Minority Children

Separability of Lexical and Morphological Knowledge: Evidence from Language Minority Children

Adolescent word reading in English as a foreign language

Development of derivational morphological knowledge in monolingual and bilingual children: Effects of modality and lexicality

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