Becoming an efficient reader: Tracking the emergence of high-quality written word representations in children

成为一名高效的阅读者：追踪儿童高质量书面文字表征的出现

• 批准号: ES/X002012/1
• 负责人: Jo Taylor
• 金额: $ 30.9万
• 依托单位: University College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FX002012%2F1
• 关键词: Becoming; efficient; reader; Tracking; emergence

Literacy is essential for societal success, supporting participation in education, employment, and democracy and promoting well-being. In alphabetic languages, like English or French, we know that it is vital for beginning readers to be taught letter-sounds in order to sound out (phonically decode) written words. However, literacy skills remain highly variable among adolescents and young adults and we now need to know how to help children become efficient readers, who are able to recognise and comprehend thousands of words with ease. Theories of reading propose that becoming an efficient reader involves a transition from phonic decoding to recognising words as wholes and that this requires high-quality representations of written words. This project will use behavioural and brain imaging measures to quantify how reading experience increases children's ability to read words as wholes, as well as the specificity and stability of their written word representations. It will also show how these markers of reading efficiency relate to word spelling and understanding. This aim will be achieved through three projects:Project 1 will measure children's reading, spelling, and understanding of a set of curriculum words before (year 4, age 8-9) and after (end of year 5, age 9-10) they have learned them in school. I will determine whether a year's experience with written words allows children to rely less on phonic decoding during reading, by measuring the extent to which print-to-sound regularity (e.g., dragon is regular but stomach is irregular) and word length influence reading accuracy and speed. I expect regularity and length effects to be smaller at the end of year 5 than year 4 and this should be associated with improvements in children's spelling and/or understanding of the words. Project 2 will measure brain activity as children read words they have learned early (age 5-6) versus late (age 8-9) in their reading development. I expect brain regions that are involved in whole-word reading to be more active for early versus late acquired words, whereas brain regions involved in decoding will be more active for late versus early acquired words. Greater activity in brain regions involved in whole-word reading should be associated with better spelling and/or understanding of these words. Project 3 will use brain imaging methods that go beyond measuring the amount of activity in brain regions involved in whole-word reading to specify how word representations are structured in these regions. I expect that words that children have acquired early will have better specified and more stable neural representations and that this will be associated with better spelling and/or understanding of these words. The outcomes of these projects will advance theories of reading development by showing how and why reading experience increases children's ability to read words as wholes and how this relates to their word spelling and understanding. This will help researchers and practitioners to understand the ways in which education can increase children's reading efficiency.

扫盲对于社会成功，支持参与教育，就业和民主和促进福祉至关重要。在字母语言中，例如英语或法语，我们知道，要教给读者的读者听起来很重要，以便听起来（语音解码）文字。但是，扫盲技能在青少年和年轻人中仍然很大，我们现在需要知道如何帮助儿童成为有效的读者，他们能够轻松地识别和理解成千上万的单词。阅读的理论建议成为有效的读者，涉及从诗解码到识别单词作为批发的过渡，这需要对书面单词的高质量表示。该项目将采用行为和大脑成像措施来量化阅读体验如何提高儿童阅读单词作为批发的能力以及书面单词表示的特殊性和稳定性。这还将显示这些阅读效率标记如何与单词拼写和理解有关。这一目标将通过三个项目来实现：项目1将衡量儿童的阅读，拼写以及对一组课程单词（4年级，8-9岁）以及（5年级，9-10岁）之后的课程单词，他们在学校学习了他们。我将确定一年的书面文字经历是否使孩子在阅读过程中依靠音解的依赖，并通过衡量打印到响声的规律性（例如，龙是规律的，但胃是不规则的）和单词长度影响阅读准确性和速度的程度。我预计在第五年底，规律性和长度效果会比4年级较小，这应该与儿童拼写和/或对单词的理解的改善有关。项目2将衡量大脑活动，因为儿童阅读了他们早期学到的单词（5-6岁）与后期（8-9岁）的阅读开发。我预计全词阅读中涉及的大脑区域对于早期和后期获得的单词会更加活跃，而与早期获得的单词相比，参与解码的大脑区域将更加活跃。在全词阅读中涉及的大脑区域中的更多活动应与更好的拼写和/或对这些单词的理解有关。项目3将使用大脑成像方法，这些方法超出了衡量全词阅读中涉及的大脑区域的活动量，以指定这些区域中的单词表示方式。我希望孩子们早日获得的单词将具有更好的指定和更稳定的神经表现形式，这将与更好的拼写和/或对这些单词的理解有关。这些项目的结果将通过展示如何以及为什么阅读体验来提高阅读发展的理论，这会增加孩子将单词作为批发阅读的能力，以及这与他们的单词拼写和理解之间的关系。这将帮助研究人员和从业人员了解教育可以提高儿童阅读效率的方式。