Written Language & Reading Defined

Lecture 2: Written Language Topics

• The lecture covered reading, writing, underlying skills for reading and spelling, and dyslexia.

Informative vs. Communicative Signals

• Informative signals are unintentional but still carry meaning, like yawning in class.
• Communicative signals are intentional and carry meaning, exemplified by saying "this class is boring."
• Written language falls under the category of Intentional and communicative signals.
• The purpose of language is communication.

What Constitutes Language

• Language is not just spoken, but also includes sign language, written language, Braille, and Morse code.

The Definition of Reading

• Reading involves deriving sound and meaning from arbitrary written symbols.
• Reading is a uniquely human process.
• Children are naturally wired for sound, while learning to read requires painstakingly connecting print to speech.

Reading Network: Brain Regions

• Temporo-parietal (dorsal) region integrates ortho-phono, lexical-semantic dimensions.
• Occipito-temporal (ventral) region is a memory-based word form area.
• Anterior region involves fine-grained articulatory recoding, specifically output phonology.

Reading Comprehension Insights

• According to research, the order of letters in a word doesn't matter as long as the first and last letters are in the correct place.
• The human mind reads the word as a whole and not letter by letter.
• For 5 letter words, there are 12,000,000 combinations
• The key is to decode words and understand words.
• Reading is both predictive and automatic, based on prior experiences and orthographic inputs.

Spelling and Word Choice

• Frequency of letters in the language counts when spelling.
• Bigram frequency plays a role, with letter pairs like "th" being high and "ml" being lower.
• Orthographic neighbors, words differing by only one letter, are also important.

Triangle Model of Reading

• The triangle model of reading by Seidenberg & McClelland (1989) describes how context, orthography, semantic meaning, and phonology interconnect in reading comprehension.

Word Consistency

• Consistency involves variations in mappings between graphemes (letters) and phonemes.
• Cat is a consistent word: cat à < kat >
• Gave is an inconsistent word: gave à < ɡeɪv > or < gav (like have)>
• Statistical knowledge is used to apply patterns learned from other words, especially with inconsistent words.

Connections and Patterns in Reading

• Word reading involves learning connections/mappings between orthography, phonology, and meaning.
• Knowledge of patterns helps read consistent, inconsistent, and borrowed words, as well as pseudowords.
• Success in single-word reading (decoding) is crucial for broader reading development.

Dual Route Models of Reading Aloud

• Dual Route Models of Reading Aloud (DRC; Coltheart et al., 2001) outlines lexical and sublexical routes.
• The lexical route is needed for irregular words like "yacht".
• The sublexical route is needed for regular and unfamiliar words such as "cat”.

Writing Insights

• Writing is a very complex skill.
• Writing has received less research than other areas of written language.
• Increasing cognitive load when writing reduces capacity for other processes, decreasing performance.
• Spelling and handwriting are crucial for broader writing development.
• Cognitive Process Model (Hayes & Flower, 1980) models the complex cognitive processes involved in writing.
• Hayes (2012) modeled and remodeled writing to increase understanding.

Alphabetic Principle

• Letters/letter clusters, also known as graphemes, represent phonemes in spoken words.

Foundational Reading and Spelling Skills

• Letter knowledge involves recognizing sounds and names of letters as well as understanding sound-letter mappings according to the alphabet.
  • Such as < a > = /a/, < b > = /b/, < c > = /k/ or /s/ for letter names
  • < a > = /ei/, < b > = /bee/, < c > = /see/ for sounds.
• Phoneme awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate the sounds in language.

Phoneme Skills

• Phoneme deletion: For example, taking < m > from "mice", to leave “ice”.
• Phoneme blending combines sounds to make a word, such as < c > < a> < t > which makes “cat”.

Rapid Automatized Naming

• Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) is related to reading processes and the associations between orthography and phonology.

Caravolas et al (2012) Insights

• Skills like rapid automatized naming, phoneme awareness, and letter knowledge, plus reading skills, explain 62% of variance in word reading in Year 1.
• When combined with spelling skills, these explain 63% of variance in word spelling in Year 1.
• These are key skills for beginning to read and write.

Difficulties with Written Language

• Children might struggle with written language due to reading disorders such as dyslexia, being a second language learner, socio-economic status, physical impairment, neurological impairment or inadequate education.
• Developmental dyslexia involves difficulty learning to read not due to sensory issues or lack of education.

Core Phonological Deficit

• Developmental dyslexia is thought to be due to a core phonological deficit.
• Development dyslexia does not affect other language skills.
• About 10% of the population are affect by developmental dyslexia.
• It persists throughout life and has a high comorbidity.

Rose Review (2009) of Dyslexia

• Dyslexia primarily affects accurate and fluent word reading and spelling.
• Characteristics include difficulties in phonological awareness, verbal memory, and processing speed.
• Dyslexia exists across a arrange of intelligence and is a continuum, not a category, without clear cut-off points.
• Co-occurring difficulties may be seen in many areas, but these are not markers of dyslexia.

Establishing the Cause of Dyslexia

• Dyslexia is associated with deficits in phonological processing and automatization of overlearned tasks.
• To be considered causal, the deficit(s) must be plausible, specific, precede impairment, be universal, and vary with variations in impairment.

Three Level Framework (Frith, 1999)

• Three level frameworks consists of Biological, Cognitive and Behavioural factors.

Causal Theories Behind Dyslexia

• Phonological processing deficits can cause dyslexia.
• Automatization deficits can cause dyslexia.
• Environmental conditions can also cause dylexia.

Causal Theories Behind Phonological Processing Deficit

• Children with dyslexia have difficulties on tasks that require phonological processing (often prior to reading onset).
• Phoneme awareness is needed.
• Rapid naming skills are needed.
• Intervention targeting phonological processing improves reading in children with dyslexia.
• Phonological awareness deficits do not always lead to literacy problems.
• Having phonological awareness does not mean dyslexic literate is impossible.
• It does not explain non-language based difficulties.

Automatization Deficit Insight

• Research explains impairment in automatizing over-learned skills, like balance, motor skills, and phonological skills.
• Lack of reproducibility in test.
• No clear evidence between cerebellum and reading.
• There isn't a relationship between automaticity and later reading accusation.
• Non-language deficits are more likely to result in comorbid ADHD or a coordination disorder.

Multiple Deficit View Of Dyslexia

• The multiple-deficit view proposes that the risk of developing dyslexia depends on additional risk factors and phonological deficit.
• Factors include cognitive (attention and working memory).
• High rates of co-morbidity are seen with disorders like ADHD.