Semantic and phonological influences on visual word learning in a transparent language

Abstract

Orthographic representations of words are indispensable for reading fluency. The ways in which these representations are developed and their resistance to decay are hotly debated topics. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of semantic and phonological representations on the formation of orthographic representations in a transparent orthography. In order to achieve this objective, an experiment with three conditions was carried out. In the first condition, a group of university students were asked to repeatedly read 10 new words after semantic and phonological training, in the second condition another group of participants read the new words after phonological training, and in the third condition participants read without previous training. Finally, a follow-up session was performed to test the resistance to decay of the orthographic representations. The results showed that participants who had received semantic training formed the representations faster than participants in the other conditions, as indicated by the decrease in length effect. These results indicate the important role of previous knowledge when people face new written words. A month later these orthographic representations still remained in the lexicon of the participants.

Orthographic learning in Spanish children: influence of previous semantic and phonological knowledge

“…Our results are also similar to those of a Spanish study conducted with adults (Suárez‐Coalla & Cuetos, ), which used a similar training methodology. They also found that semantic and phonological training facilitated the formation of orthographic representations of new words among Spanish adults.…”

“…To meet this objective, we conducted an experiment that involved giving the children a task of repeatedly reading aloud unknown words under three different conditions: with prior semantic and phonological training (i.e., hearing and repeating the pronunciation while seeing a picture corresponding to the meaning), with only prior phonological training (i.e., only repeating the phonological form) and without training. Orthographic learning was measured using the reduction in the length effect of RTs after six times of repeated reading, a methodology successfully used in previous studies (Kwok & Ellis, ; Suárez‐Coalla et al, ; Suárez‐Coalla, Avdyli, & Cuetos, ; Suárez‐Coalla & Cuetos, ; Suárez‐Coalla, Ramos, et al, ).…”

“…This may result in different contributions of semantic and phonological understanding to the formation of orthographic representations of new words. This connection was studied with Spanish adults (Suárez‐Coalla & Cuetos, ), who performed three reading aloud tasks in order to compare the influences of prior semantic and phonological training, phonological training alone and no training on orthographic learning. The results showed that semantic information favoured the formation of orthographic representations.…”

Reading and Lexicalization in Opaque and Transparent Orthographies: Word Naming and Word Learning in English and Spanish

“…We take this reflect the creation of larger scale orthographic and phonological representations for the novel items, representations that are able to convert trained nonwords from written to spoken form on a more parallel, holistic basis (cf. Coltheart et al, 2001;Kwok & Ellis, 2014Maloney et al, 2009;Suárez-Coalla & Cuetos, 2016;Weekes, 1997).…”

Assessing Foundational Reading Skills in Kindergarten: A Curriculum-Based Measurement in Spanish

“…Furthermore, they could be related to studies in Spanish that have shown that the reading strategies vary throughout development (e.g., Ardila & Cuetos, 2016; Cuetos & Suárez-Coalla, 2009). In Spanish adults, Suárez-Coalla and Cuetos (2016) showed that the readers benefited from both semantic and phonological cues for the formation of new orthographic representations.…”