This longitudinal study examined whether silent reading fluency (SRF) predicts later writing performance among upper-elementary Chinese children and whether the longitudinal association between reading fluency and writing varies as a function of children’s morphological awareness (MA) and functional brain connectivity during story reading. At Time 1, 45 upper-elementary children completed behavioral measures of SRF and MA, and 42 of them also completed an fMRI story-reading task. Approximately one year later, 41 children completed a writing task, and their written responses were evaluated on three dimensions: writing productivity, sentence-level elaboration, and text coherence. Time 1 SRF predicted all three dimensions of Time 2 writing performance. Exploratory interaction patterns suggested that the longitudinal association between SRF and sentence-level elaboration was stronger at higher levels of MA and lower functional connectivity between semantic- and auditory/phonological-related brain networks, whereas the positive association between SRF and text coherence was stronger at higher functional connectivity between the semantic- and perspective-taking-related brain networks. Overall, the findings indicate that silent reading fluency is broadly associated with later writing performance, while the exploratory interaction patterns highlight MA and task-based functional brain connectivity as candidate sources of individual variability in longitudinal reading–writing relations, which deserve further investigation.
To test the separate and combined abilities of the two cerebral hemispheres to activate sub-lexical phonological representations during visual word recognition, Hebrew-English bilinguals performed a visual lexical decision task on Hebrew words (the targets) preceded briefly by English/Latin letter-strings (the primes). The primes – English letter-strings that sounded like real words in Hebrew—were either phonologically related to the targets, or unrelated to the targets. In Experiment 1, the targets were presented in the central visual field to both hemispheres. In Experiment 2, the targets were presented either in the right visual field to the left hemisphere or in the left visual field to the right hemisphere. In both experiments, targets were easier to recognize in the phonologically related condition than in the unrelated condition, indicating automatic and non-selective activation of phonological representations during the initial moments of visual word recognition, even in the case of two languages that do not share the same script. Interestingly, these “pure” cross-lingual phonological priming effects were not modulated by visual field of presentation. Thus, despite the critical role assumed for the left hemisphere in mapping letters to sounds, the results of the current study suggest that sub-lexical orthographic-phonological links may exist in both hemispheres.
This study investigates developmental paths of reading fluency and comprehension among adolescents in lower secondary education. Furthermore, we examined the association between these paths, literacy-related emotions and psychological well-being. This longitudinal study’s sample (n = 1,035, 55
The present study investigates a principal mechanism underlying reading development and individual differences in reading skills, namely sensitivity to orthotactic regularities in lexical processing. This sensitivity can be seen as a reflection of statistical learning (SL), as it pertains to accumulated experience with statistical regularities in print. However, empirical evidence regarding the link between such sensitivity and reading skills remains mixed, and it is particularly unclear what role it plays in orthographically shallow languages. The present study addressed this issue by assessing sensitivity to orthotactic regularities in Finnish pseudowords using a lexical decision task, and examining how this sensitivity depends on vocabulary skill and grade by comparing students from grades 3, 4, and 7 (N = 818). We identified distinct differences between grade levels, with the orthotactic sensitivity effect being significantly stronger in higher grade levels. Furthermore, we observed substantial within-grade individual differences, with higher vocabulary proficiency predicting greater effects of orthotactic regularities in pseudowords. These findings demonstrate a link between sensitivity to orthotactic constraints and linguistic skills. Importantly, our findings indicate that sensitivity to statistical information is critical even in markedly shallow orthographies, challenging earlier literature. We discuss the implications of our findings for SL views of reading. We also discuss whether sensitivity to regularity exists at the level of orthotactics, phonotactics, or both, given that in the shallow writing system of Finnish the distinction between these levels is blurred.
Shared cognitive–linguistic skills support reading and spelling, yet they may dissociate into heterogeneous literacy profiles. This study examined whether Chinese students learning English as a second language (ESL) with poor reading (PR), poor spelling (PS), combined word-reading and spelling difficulties (English learning difficulties; ELD), and typical development (TD) exhibited distinct literacy outcomes and cognitive–linguistic profiles, and which skills uniquely predicted subgroup membership. Participants were 190 Grade 2–3 Hong Kong Chinese students who were classified into predefined literacy profiles based on grade-normed performance on standardized English word reading and word spelling measures. Students completed assessments of vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge, rapid naming, morphological awareness, working memory, and IQ. Multivariate analyses of covariance showed that the predefined literacy profiles were associated with overlapping but differentially expressed cognitive-linguistic patterns. Hierarchical multinomial logistic regression analysis showed that vocabulary knowledge and phonological awareness consistently differentiated all difficulty groups from TD peers. In contrast, orthographic knowledge uniquely predicted PR and ELD but not isolated PS. Rapid naming and morphological awareness did not show unique contributions. These findings are consistent with literacy difficulties reflecting shared but differentially weighted cognitive-linguistic constraints, supporting a multiple-deficit perspective and highlighting vocabulary knowledge and phonological awareness as important targets for assessment and intervention in ESL learners.
