Visual processing of pictures and letters in alphabet books and the implications for letter learning

Vries, Anna C. Both-de; Bus, Adriana G.

doi:10.1016/j.cedpsych.2014.03.005

Cited by 18 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…It seems, children have still been supported to informally learn how print looks and thus to acquire familiarity with the visual characteristics of the letters and their orientation (Lachmann and Geyer, 2003; Robins and Treiman, 2009; Neumann et al, 2013; Both-de Vries and Bus, 2014). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shared Book Reading Promotes Not Only Language Development, But Also Grapheme Awareness in German Kindergarten Children

2017

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Effects of shared book reading on expressive vocabulary and grapheme awareness without letter instruction in German kindergarteners (longitudinal; N = 69, 3;0–4;8 years) were investigated. Expressive vocabulary was measured by using a standardized test; grapheme awareness was measured by asking children to identify one grapheme per trial presented amongst non-letter distractors. Two methods of shared book reading were investigated, literacy enrichment (additional books) and teacher training in shared book reading strategies, both without explicit letter instruction. Whereas positive effects of shared book reading on expressive vocabulary were evident in numerous previous studies, the impact of shared book reading on grapheme awareness has not yet been investigated. Both methods resulted in positive effects on children’s expressive vocabulary and grapheme awareness over a period of 6 months. Thus, early shared book reading may not only be considered to be a tool for promoting the development of expressive vocabulary, but also for implicit acquisition of grapheme awareness. The latter is considered an important precondition required for the explicit learning of grapheme–phoneme conversion rules (letter knowledge).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shared Book Reading Promotes Not Only Language Development, But Also Grapheme Awareness in German Kindergarten Children

2017

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“…However, there is abundant evidence that alphabet books do promote alphabet learning (e.g. Both-de Vries & Bus, 2014;Brabham, Murray, & Bowden, 2006;Evans, Saint-Aubin, & Landry, 2009;Murray, Stahl, & Ivey, 1996;Nowak, 2015).…”

Section: Index Words In Literacy Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Is for Apple: the Role of Letter–Word Associations in the Development of Grapheme–Colour Synaesthesia

Mankin

Simner

2017

Multisens Res

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This study investigates the origins of specific letter-colour associations experienced by people with grapheme-colour synaesthesia. We present novel evidence that frequently observed trends in synaesthesia (e.g. A is typically red) can be tied to orthographic associations between letters and words (e.g., "A is for apple"), which are typically formed during literacy acquisition. In our experiments, we first tested members of the general population to show that certain words are consistently associated with letters of the alphabet (e.g. A is for apple), which we named index words.Sampling from the same population, we then elicited the typical colour associations of these index words (e.g. apples are red) and used the letter  index word  colour connections to predict which colours and letters would be paired together based on these orthographic-semantic influences. We then looked at direct letter-colour associations (e.g., A  red, B  blue…) from both synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes. In both populations, we show statistically that the colour predicted by index words matches significantly with the letter-colour mappings: that is, A  red because A is for apple and apples are prototypically red. We therefore conclude that letter-colour associations in both synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes are tied to early-learned letter-word associations.

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“…In the case of particularly fast head movements (over 25 cm/s), there was a 300‐ms recovery period to full tracking ability. This apparatus has been used in a number of previous studies on storybook reading with children in this age group (e.g., Bavin, Kidd, Prendergast & Baker, ; Both‐de Vries & Bus, ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of topic‐related background knowledge in visual attention to illustration and children's word learning during shared book reading

Kaefer

2017

Journal Research in Reading

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The purpose of this study was to examine how background knowledge of a topic may influence children's attention to different elements of storybook illustrations and how that influences word learning. Forty-one kindergarten students were administered a test about a familiar topic (i.e., birds). Participants were then read either a fictional story about a familiar topic (birds) or a fictional story about a novel topic (wugs) on an eye-tracker monitor. Results suggest that, for children who heard the familiar story, those who knew more about the category were faster to orient to the illustration of the novel word than children with lower background knowledge. Accordingly, children who were faster to orient to the illustration were more likely to learn the word. These results may suggest that one mechanism by which background knowledge improves implicit learning in shared-book reading contexts is by guiding attention to the named elements of the illustrations. HighlightsWhat is already known about this topic • Parents and teachers rely heavily on shared-book reading for vocabulary development in kindergarten-aged children • There is considerable variability in whether and how much vocabulary children learn in shared-reading contexts. • Background-knowledge and visual attention, in particular, may be individual differences that impact children's vocabulary learning from shared-reading What this paper adds • Background knowledge of a particular topic impacts children's vocabulary learning from books. • Children's visual attention to relevant sections of illustrations impacts their vocabulary learning from books • Background knowledge influences children's visual attention to illustrations.

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Visual processing of pictures and letters in alphabet books and the implications for letter learning

Cited by 18 publications

References 23 publications

Shared Book Reading Promotes Not Only Language Development, But Also Grapheme Awareness in German Kindergarten Children

Shared Book Reading Promotes Not Only Language Development, But Also Grapheme Awareness in German Kindergarten Children

A Is for Apple: the Role of Letter–Word Associations in the Development of Grapheme–Colour Synaesthesia

The role of topic‐related background knowledge in visual attention to illustration and children's word learning during shared book reading

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