Child and Symbol Factors in Learning to Read a Visually Complex Writing System

In Kannada, visual features are arranged in blocks called akshara, making this a visually more complex writing system than typical alphabetic orthographies. Akshara knowledge was assessed concurrently and 8 months later in 113 children in the first years of reading instruction (aged 4-7 years). Mixe...

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Main Authors: Nag, S, Snowling, M, Quinlan, P, Hulme, C
Format: Journal article
Published: 2014
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author Nag, S
Snowling, M
Quinlan, P
Hulme, C
author_facet Nag, S
Snowling, M
Quinlan, P
Hulme, C
author_sort Nag, S
collection OXFORD
description In Kannada, visual features are arranged in blocks called akshara, making this a visually more complex writing system than typical alphabetic orthographies. Akshara knowledge was assessed concurrently and 8 months later in 113 children in the first years of reading instruction (aged 4-7 years). Mixed effects logistic regression models showed that both symbol-level (visual complexity, phonological complexity, frequency) and child-level (phoneme awareness, vocabulary, rapid automatized naming) measures predicted variations in akshara knowledge. Thus predictors of akshara knowledge appear to be related to aspects of both visual and phonological processing. It is argued that the visual complexity of the Kannada script pose somewhat different challenges to the child learning to read than those reported for visually less complex orthographies. © 2014 Copyright © 2014 Society for the Scientific Study of Reading.
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spelling oxford-uuid:9c60700f-7486-4b5f-9dc0-094ab4b804932022-03-27T00:35:37ZChild and Symbol Factors in Learning to Read a Visually Complex Writing SystemJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:9c60700f-7486-4b5f-9dc0-094ab4b80493Symplectic Elements at Oxford2014Nag, SSnowling, MQuinlan, PHulme, CIn Kannada, visual features are arranged in blocks called akshara, making this a visually more complex writing system than typical alphabetic orthographies. Akshara knowledge was assessed concurrently and 8 months later in 113 children in the first years of reading instruction (aged 4-7 years). Mixed effects logistic regression models showed that both symbol-level (visual complexity, phonological complexity, frequency) and child-level (phoneme awareness, vocabulary, rapid automatized naming) measures predicted variations in akshara knowledge. Thus predictors of akshara knowledge appear to be related to aspects of both visual and phonological processing. It is argued that the visual complexity of the Kannada script pose somewhat different challenges to the child learning to read than those reported for visually less complex orthographies. © 2014 Copyright © 2014 Society for the Scientific Study of Reading.
spellingShingle Nag, S
Snowling, M
Quinlan, P
Hulme, C
Child and Symbol Factors in Learning to Read a Visually Complex Writing System
title Child and Symbol Factors in Learning to Read a Visually Complex Writing System
title_full Child and Symbol Factors in Learning to Read a Visually Complex Writing System
title_fullStr Child and Symbol Factors in Learning to Read a Visually Complex Writing System
title_full_unstemmed Child and Symbol Factors in Learning to Read a Visually Complex Writing System
title_short Child and Symbol Factors in Learning to Read a Visually Complex Writing System
title_sort child and symbol factors in learning to read a visually complex writing system
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AT snowlingm childandsymbolfactorsinlearningtoreadavisuallycomplexwritingsystem
AT quinlanp childandsymbolfactorsinlearningtoreadavisuallycomplexwritingsystem
AT hulmec childandsymbolfactorsinlearningtoreadavisuallycomplexwritingsystem