Do Spanish children use the syllable in visual word recognition in learning to read?

  1. Jiménez González, Juan Eugenio 1
  2. García Miranda, Eduardo 12
  3. O'Shanahan Juan, Isabel 1
  4. Rojas, Estefanía
  1. 1 Universidad de La Laguna
    info

    Universidad de La Laguna

    San Cristobal de La Laguna, España

    ROR https://ror.org/01r9z8p25

  2. 2 VU University Amsterdam
    info

    VU University Amsterdam

    Ámsterdam, Holanda

    ROR https://ror.org/008xxew50

Journal:
The Spanish Journal of Psychology

ISSN: 1138-7416

Year of publication: 2010

Volume: 13

Issue: 1

Pages: 63-74

Type: Article

DOI: 10.1017/S113874160000367X DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openOpen access editor

More publications in: The Spanish Journal of Psychology

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether Spanish children that are learning to read use the syllable unit in word reading. We used a visual version of the syllable monitoring technique (Mehler, Dommerges, Freavenfelder & Seguí, 1981). For Experiment I, we selected first grade readers at the end of the first year of reading instruction. In the Experiment II we selected second grade readers at the middle of the second year of reading instruction. Participants responded whenever the structure of the target string (e.g., bal) appeared at the beginning of a subsequently presented printed word (e.g., bala). The target was either a consonant-vowel (CV) or consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) structure and either did or did not correspond to the initial syllable of the target-bearing word. At the end of the first year of reading instruction, children showed significant effects of syllable compatibility (faster detection times when the targets correspond to the initial syllable of target-bearing words than when they did not). When we tested children of the second year of reading instruction, they also showed a syllable compatibility effect. These results suggest that Spanish children use syllabic units at the beginning of reading instruction in the visual word recognition.

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