Literacy development

Question 1

What does written English require?

Answer 1

• Written English is an alphabetical script, that requires the understanding of relationships between graphemes (written letters), phonemes (sounds), orthographic units (letter strings) and morphemes (units of grammatical meaning).
• 26 graphemes (letters) and 44 phonemes (sounds).

Question 2

What are the phases of reading and spelling development?

Answer 2

• PHASE MODEL OF DEVELOPMENT proposed by Frith.

* Phases: Pre-literate phrase, logographic, alphabetic, orthographic

Question 3

Describe the pre-literate stage

Answer 3

• PRE-LITERATE – Stackhouse and Wells
• Children demonstrate reading readiness, and awareness of the purpose of written language. Attempts are written language do not look like the adult form, but awareness of how print looks like. Forms basis of motivation to read and write for child.

Question 4

Describe the logographic stage

Answer 4

• LOGOGRAPHIC STAGE: children’s reading is limited to their storage of written words (orthographic lexicon) – they can only recognise words that they know in familiar script (spelling is non-phonetic).
• Phase is dependent of visuo-processing skills and reading errors reflect this e.g. confusing ‘paint’ with ‘pint’.
• Spelling may be incorrect as word has not been learnt. Word may be spelt bizarre – unable to see sound strategy.
• DISASSOCIATION BETWEEN READING AND SPELLING AT THIS AGE; word spelt correctly doesn’t mean it’s read correctly.

Question 5

Describe the alphabetic phase

Answer 5

• ALPHABETIC PHASE: children can apply letter-sound rules to decode unfamiliar words.
• Child may sound out words then blend them.
• Spelling is semi-phonetic – may omit vowels.
• Gradually spelling becomes more phonemic and child fills out gaps. Targets are recognisable if not correct (orange -> orinj). Indicates development of phonological awareness skills.
• Increased knowledge of the alphabet allows the relationship between written letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes) to be learned.
• Children become increasingly skilled at discriminating and recalling letter shapes: Children at this stage can invent spellings, Children starting school with alphabetic experience learn to read earlier than those without - hence nursery schools preoccupation with literacy.
• Spelling errors at this stage show children’s increasing sound awareness.

Question 6

Describe the orthographic stage

Answer 6

• ORTHOGRAPHIC STAGE: children recognise later chucks of words such as prefixes and suffixes, and read more efficiently by analogy to known words.
• Child may adopt more appropriate strategy.
• Phonetic spelling supplements more morphemic spelling (e.g. reading new or non-words)
• Non-phonetic spelling may occur in attempt to read using morphemes (e.g. kitchen -> kittion).
• Spelling may regress at this stage.

Question 7

Basically, give me an overview of what Firths model tells us (e.g. how reading feeds into spelling)

Answer 7

Firths model:
• Accounts for the developmental relationship between reading and spelling
• Accounts for an individual being at different levels of reading and spelling
• Demonstrates an importance of logographic stage first in reading, and of the alphabetic stage in spelling (ie children learn to use letter/sound correspondence through writing first and transfer their knowledge to reading).
• Uses a ‘building blocks’ model that allows a child to use skills from an earlier stage to solve a novel task ie. A child in the orthographic stage of spelling can use alphabetic skills to spell new or non-words.
• Phases are achieved in reading then transfer to spelling.
• Proposes that children with phonological dyslexia are arrested at the logographic phase of development.

Question 8

Discuss phonological awareness and literacy

Answer 8

Goswami & Bryant (1990) Proposed an explanation for the phases of learning to read that centred around phonological awareness.

Suggested that children go through 3 levels of phonological awareness. Awareness and production of:
1. Syllables
2. Onset and rimes
3 Phonemes within a word (phoneme segmentation)

CARROL ET AL: syllable and onset/rime skills developed concurrently, before phoneme segmentation skills. Also found that articulartory and onset/rime skills were predictors of later phoneme awareness skills.

SNOWLING AND HULME: accurate phonological representation crucial factor in development of literacy skills.

Byrne (1998) - children must understand the connections between the printed and the spoken word in order to read and spell effectively (alphabetic principle).

Phoneme awareness and grapheme-phoneme knowledge are needed in combination to acquire the alphabetic principle and to move from the logographic to the alphabetic phase in reading and spelling.