Introduction

        Previous research findings on Dyslexia (reading disability) showed a strong and constant correlation between phonological abilities and reading ability (achievement), in samples of different ages. However, little is known about whether phonological abilities are the same and have the same role across languages. The process of reading is complex and varies depending on the language. For instance, English is a language with an inconsistent orthography whereas Spanish is relatively constant.

        A number of authors (e.g. Stanovich & Siegel, 1994; Siegel & Ryan, 1984) have postulated that language functioning plays a critical role in the development of reading skills. The development of reading ability is a complex process involving the integration of grammatical, phonological and working memory skills. Therefore, a number of investigators examined the evidence that reading disabled children have deficiencies in a variety of linguistic skills, including basic phonological skills. Stanovich (1988a) has suggested that for diagnosis purposes the phonological-core model is the most certain to predict reading ability. Stanovich concluded that phonological processing is a modular function that is not under the direction of higher level cognitive structures and is not suplemented by real-word knowledge. Siegel (1993)  hypothezized that if phonological processing skills are not under control of higher level structures (intelligence), then individuals with a deficit in phonological processing skills but high level of cognitive function (what is measured by intelligence tests) should not be able to compensate for phonological processing (PP) deficits in tasks where PP is the only most efficient way to do the task. In her research, she found a strong correlation between PP and reading disability (RD). She conclude that the fundamental characteristic of a RD is the PP (measured as pseudoword reading or nonword) and that this characteristic stays as a constant among life-span (adulthood). She also conclude that PP is a modular function, relatively independent of general cognitive ability, as her findings support a low correlation for IQ and RD. Gottardo, et. al (1999), in view of the extensive body of literature existent on the diagnosis and assessment of reading problems in children referring to the core phonological processing deficits, researched the same hypothesis in adults. She found the phonological processing ability to be a consistent and unique statistical predictor of reading in adults regardless of the particular task used to measure this ability. She also refers to the verbal IQ as not predictive for word reading performance. However, she found the vocabulary knowledge (as measured by the WAIS-R intelligence test) as unique statistical predictor of the ability to read familiar words (adults can compensate for weaker decoding skills from their oral vocabulary).

        Although, a strong evidence has been found across life-span in English language, less research has been done in other languages. Differences among languages might be possible in the sense that not in all languages the phonological process appear to be used in the same way. As there are languages with consistent orthography (such as Dutch, German, Hebrew and Spanish) and others with inconsistent orthography (such as English), it is necessary to research whether the phonological processing deficit is a constant across languages. Further, the Asiatic languages do not have the "phoneme" as the unit of language but the "morpheme", and are syllabic instead of alphabetic.

        There is recently evidence across languages (So & Siegel 1997; Jong, et. al. 1999; Chiappe & Siegel 1999; Geva & Siegel, 2000; Jiménez, 1999), and the results are quite consistent. Chiappe & Siegel, investigated whether the similar component processes are involved in reading acquisition for native and non-native speakers of English in first grade. They examined the roles of phonological processing and syntactic awareness in the development of reading skills in English for non-native children. They use a population of native English speaking and Punjabi Speaking Canadian children that were classified as ESL. They found that, word recognition and phonological processing differentiated between the good and poor readers but not between native and non-native groups.  Basically, what that study added is that ESL students use the same strategies as their native peers while learning English, and that PP core is valid to recognized a RD in their second language. Also another study (So & Siegel, 1997) tested the phonological, semantic and syntactic skills of Chinese good and poor readers. The findings demonstrated that a positive relationship between PP and RD exists in a morphemic orthography as it is Chinese.

        However, little is known when comparing consistent and inconsistent languages. Some phonological abilities might be more important for learning to read in languages with relatively consistent grapheme-phoneme relation such as Spanish, Dutch, German and Hebrew. Whereas other abilities might be more influential in languages with an inconsistent orthography such as English. A variety of studies conducted in languages with transparent orthography (Jong & van der Leij, 1999; Jiménez & Hernandez, 1999; Geva & Siegel, 2000), compared the results with opaque languages. All studies suggest that in the phonological processes for languages with a transparent orthography, a slight difference can be noticed. Jong found that only in kindergarten and first grade, the phonological abilities were strong correlated with the reading ability. But as Dutch is a regular language, once the knowledge of the alphabet and the main principles of word reading were stablished, the correlation went down. So, their major conclusions were that phonological abilities for learning to read appeared to be limited to he first year or reading instruction (are only predictors in the early childhood), where their tend to develop by the exposure to reading instruction. After one year of instruction the relationship between phonological abilities and reading tends to stabilized. However he found that non-reading children don’t possess phonological awareness, because it depends on letter knowledge. And those children that do not acquire PA after 2 or 3 moths, were likely to develop reading problems. It appears that transparent orthography readers older than 1-2 grade, tend to show not as much as phonological deficits but slow reading. Jong found the time-limiting as an important variable in measuring the phonological abilities in a consistent language. He found a lower level of PP accurate when time were limited.

        The other two studies (Jiménez & Hernandez, 1999; Geva & Siegel) also found less incidence of phonological mistakes in the word-reading and they attributed that to the transparency of the language. That mean that is easier for consistent languages to decode words, unless time is imposed and non-words or longer words are given. When measuring phonological abilities (by non-words decoding), differences among disabled and normal groups were highly significant.

        The phonological processing core appears to be a good predictor for reading disability across languages with either opaque or transparent orthography. However there is some evidence of variations at different ages, if comparing consistent / inconsistent languages. According to the studies carried out with constant languages, while testing adolescents / adults, "time or speed of decoding" will be a variable to include in the research.

        In view of this evidence, I will focus deeply in the research conducted in the reading process acquisition across languages (such as English, Spanish, French, Cantonese/Mandarin, Hebrew, etc.). The purpose will be to find differences / similarities in the role of phonological abilities  in the normal and deficient process of reading. I expect to find other factors (such as fluency) as important as the phonological abilities, when comparing findings in different languages.
 

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