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

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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.