Lecture 16 - Literacy/Reading

Question 1

why is english so hard?

Answer 1

orthographic depth

english’s syllable structure: simple

not value judgments

Question 2

orthographic depth

Answer 2

shallow (transparent) orthography: see “o” and say “oh”

deep orthography: see “o”, say…? Context, random

Question 3

looked at reading development

Seymour 2003

Answer 3

multi-country study of reading development in Europe

looked 12 languages + English

Roughly evenly divided by: syllabic complexity and orthographic depth

- one sound w/multiple spellings: English, French
- one spelling, multiple sounds: English, Danish 

looked at kid’s abilities to read familiar words and nonsense words (things they should be able to read and sound out)

English had the lowest percentage of reading familiar words correctly

English had the lowest percentage of reading pseudowords correctly

Question 4

languages with one sound and multiple spellings

Answer 4

English, French

Question 5

languages with one spelling, multiple sounds

Answer 5

English, Danish

Question 6

Noah Webster

Answer 6

American English spelling is different than British english spelling

argued for spelling reforms: wrote the first (and authoritative) Am. dictionary

he changed certain words:

gaol –> jail

mould –> mold

travelled –> traveled

shows how arbitrary spelling is

Question 7

there’s more than one way to express speech in written form, which affects learning

Answer 7

• alphabetic (English)

- logographic (Mandarin, Cantonese, some Korean writing systems): roughly one or two symbols per word

Question 8

Not everyone does alphabetic text the same way

Answer 8

Hebrew: leaves the vowels out (lvs th vwls t)

Question 9

There	are	logographic	scripts	that	have	lots	of	characters--not	
just	26	(±)	letters

Answer 9

Chinese characters:
• Simplified form has (!!) 6500 characters
• Traditional form has 13500

Question 10

Traditional approach to writing

Answer 10

teach reading first to get grapheme-phoneme correspondences

and THEN teach writing

Question 11

non-tradition approach to learning to write

Answer 11

let kids experiment with writing before formal instruction

active involvment rather than passive copying

awareness of written-spoken language relationship

early awareness of alphabetic principle

can read back what they’ve written

Question 12

early logographic representation in alphabetic systems?

Bowman and Treiman

Answer 12

gave pre-reading children arbitrary or letter-name related spellings

EX: related: AP for ape, MA for may
arbitrary: OM for ape, PO for may

Results: kids were better at reading and spelling related, esp when vowel was first letter

spelling-sound corrspondence even at the beginning

Question 13

invented spelling in early writing

Answer 13

• use letter names (in addition to sounds)

make up stuff they haven’ts seen adults do (pretty phonetic - unlike English itself)

may leave out things like word-final or syllable-final nasals (NOOIGLID for New England)

DOT MAK NOYS = don’t make noise

Question 14

Early attempts vary by dialect

Answer 14

• US English: “bath” = BATH, hurt = HRT
• British: “bath” = BARTH, “hurt” = HUT
  • British has no word-final r’s : R’s disappear at the end of syllables

what they’re spelling reflects what they’re hearing in their spoken language: all very sensible sound-spelling mappings based on one’s native dialect !

Question 15

Development of different genres

Answer 15

• expressive (more like a narrative) vs. expository (more like an essay or position paper)
• science fiction story (more expressive vs. science report (more expository)

when kids try to do expository writing a lot of expressive elements sneak in

• also things like poetry
• very diff standards, conventions for each style of writing
• even within domains people have very strong opinions

Question 16

first genre to develop?

Answer 16

expressive – much like natural story telling that kids would begin producing before they start writing

Question 17

Third-grade science fair

Hi I Perry, the pituitary gland. I control other endocrine glands, growth,
mother’s milk production and I also control the amount of water the
kidneys remove from the blood. … I forgot to tell you but I connect to the
hypothalamus by a stalk. Oh and I’m the size of a pea. Bye.

Answer 17

• still some spelling, grammar errors
• some expressive elements (first person, conversational)
• some expository elements - scientific vocab, conveys info about the pituitary gland

Question 18

Expository writing development,

the ideal?

early tries?

Answer 18

ideally: very organized, hierarchical, presenting key points and arguments clearly, logically, and succinctly

early tries: knowledge telling or knowledge dumping (writing EVERYTHING you know)
• not well organized, not as effective (conclusions hard to find)

Question 19

expository writing development with instruction (it NEEDS instruction)

Answer 19

• learn to PLAN what they write: laying out the argument logically
• can ENACT that plan
• can REVISE as needed (really hard)
• reading a lot of scientific writing helps a lot: see how others do it

Question 20

Narrative writing development

Answer 20

not much instruction, other than creative writing classes

should follow chronological order

Question 21

Writing development

the BIG picture

Answer 21

• matures very slowly into and throughout adulthood
• doesn’t mature fully in all people : some people can’t write
• practice makes better
• it’s the “neglected R”

Question 22

4th - 12th graders

Answer 22

only about 25% of them can write “proficiently”

• “first-rate organization”
• “convincing and elaborated responses”
• “rich, evocative, and compelling language”

Question 23

subtractive bilingualism

Answer 23

can lose a language

• start learning writing system young
• move to another country, forget

Question 24

additive bilingualism

Answer 24

can gain a language

• maybe move to another country
• maybe attend school
• maybe new language often source of social prestige
  • old language may be stigmatized/avoided

Question 25

simultaneous bilingualism

Answer 25

they show the same stages that kids show as they’re acquiring single language

Question 26

critical period hypothesis

Answer 26

can apply to a lot of things but here… for language

there is a critical period for learning language: time of maximal plasticity

may be up to puberty-ish

start seeing drop offs around age 6

maybe you’re biologically more capable of learning a language up to age six

or maybe it’s driven by the information that you know: new language interfering with old language: bias from native language sound categories (by age 6 you’ve had enough exposure that you get this interference)

hot topic: is there even one? if so why?

undeniable that kids are much better at acquiring language but…

they aren’t better at acquiring vocabulary: adults learn new words by hanging it onto the framework of their native language while kid’s are learning from “scratch” so it’s harder to learn new things but they learn them “better” than adults because they don’t have the opportunity to distort