“Reading is the product of
decoding and comprehension. Decoding, or the ability to decipher the words
represented by print, is certainly not the whole of reading. Comprehension
–the ability to use background knowledge and linguistic knowledge to make
sense out of a message- takes place in addition to ciphering or mapping
the print onto speech. For the beginning reader, no matter what age, the
first and most important task is learning to decipher the print with sufficient
ease and fluency that meaning can be accessed. Reading for meaning depends
on being able to read the words on the page. The necessity of decoding
accuracy and fluency in proficient reading at all levels has been confirmed
by multiple studies. In addition, research has converged across disciplines
and methodologies to demonstrate that critical prerequisite abilities enable
children to learn word recognition skills. The most pivotal of those abilities
is phonological sensitivity, for children and adults” (Moats,
L. , 1998 p.369).
Also a huge body of
research in English speaking individuals have shown that proficient
readers develop early phonological
awareness and reach automaticity in decoding much faster than non-proficient
readers do. This enables them to read text of different complexity levels,
what has direct translation in better comprehension levels and school achievement.
On the contrary, poor readers do not develop phonological awareness at
the same level, therefore, they stay behind their proficient peers not
only in reading but also in achievement -when reading is involved-.
Due to the irregularity of the language where all these studies had been
conducted (English), and the fact that children with learning disabilities
are identified all along the word, many researchers have generated the
question of whether the processes identified as key for reading in English,
are also involved in reading in other languages.
Dual Route Model of Reading (Coltheart et al. , 1993)
This model postulates two functionally different routes in the process of reading: the lexical (or direct-access) route and the non-lexical (or phonological) route.
The orthographic or lexical route implies the visual recognition of a word without intermediate phonological processing. Therefore, only the words visually recognised by the reader and the words that belong to his or her orthographic lexicon can be read using this route, and unknown words and non-words cannot be read.
In the phonological or non-lexical route, the reader initiates a sub-lexical analysis of the word and applies grapheme-phoneme conversion rules. Once the graphemes have been transformed into sounds, the meaning can be extracted from the semantic lexicon.
When orthographic systems fail in the consistency of rules (irregular languages), the reader may be required to use the lexical or visual route in order to recognise irregular words. This explains the difficulties individuals have in reading in inconsistent languages. Therefore, in order to do a good assessment of their reading difficulties, seems important to test both routes lexical and non-lexical. (Coltheart et al. , 1993; Sprenger-Charolles & Siegel, 1997; Jimenez Gonzalez, 1999).
Orthographic procedure: direct lexical access (sight vocabulary) . This can be tested by reading frecuent words (familiar).
Alphabetic Procedure: indirect
non lexical procedure (GP assembling ; PG association). This can be tested
by reading non-words or unfamiliar words.
Home
Reading & Languages