The Effects of Lexical Tone Awareness on Early Word Recognition, Word Reading, and Spelling From Dictation of Thai Children: A Longitudinal Study

Abstract

In tonal languages such as Thai, lexical tone (the pitch of a syllable) affects word meaning. This study examined the effects of lexical tone awareness (LTA) on early word recognition and the relationship between these abilities and word reading and spelling in subsequent grades. A longitudinal design was used to assess reading-related skills in 259 Thai children, first in kindergarten (130 girls, Mage=67.25months) and later in Grade 3 (Mage=102.25months). In kindergarten, the children were tested on lexical tone identification and differentiation, early literacy skills, non-verbal IQ, and early word recognition. In Grade 3, they were tested on word reading and spelling from dictation. The hierarchical regression analyses showed that the lexical tone identification skills in kindergarten accounted for 2% of the unique variance in early word recognition. However, none of the LTA skills could predict word reading and spelling from dictation after controlling for other literacy-related skills. These findings suggest that LTA skill positively associated with early word recognition at the kindergarten level, but not for word reading and spelling from dictation at a Grade 3 level.

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

“…Last but not the least, as most reading models are developed from research on alphabetic writing system, they might not fully capture the phonological, morphological, orthographic, and sociolinguistic complexities of abugidic writing system or other non‐alphabetic writing systems. For example, Thai is a tonal language, and the lexical tone is a suprasegmental phonological feature not available in many alphabetic language (Thongseiratch et al., 2021). As such, a systematic examination of the linguistic features of each orthography is needed before applying existing reading models.…”