Nurturing a lexical legacy: understanding the transition from novice-to-expert in children's reading development

文字可以说是最伟大的文化发明。正字法(一种语言的传统书写系统)提供了一套工具，允许我们书写单词，以便其他共享我们工具的人也可以分享我们的想法、想法和梦想。文字使我们能够创造故事，发挥我们的想象力，或教会我们关于世界的知识；文字超越了空间和时间，几乎不可能想象没有它的世界。对于熟练的读者来说，页面上的字母与它们在我们脑海中解读的图像之间的联系是如此迅速、如此丰富和如此自动，以至于我们几乎不会停下来思考我们阅读时所做事情的潜在复杂性。然而，学习阅读是很难的。这需要时间和指导。阅读是一项技能，和其他技能一样，练习对于从新手到专家的转变至关重要。对阅读的科学研究教会了我们许多关于阅读发展的早期阶段。我们知道，孩子们需要掌握“字母原则”--在像英语这样的语言中，字母通过声音来编码意义这一基本观点。这让孩子们能够解码出“发声”的单词，从而发现他们语言中的拼音对应关系。来自大型研究基地的证据已经转化为以语音为基础的阅读课程，这是英国早年阅读教学的特点。然而，关键的是，我们对儿童如何从新手成长为专家知之甚少：儿童如何从费力地解码单个单词的过程转变为我们作为熟练读者在阅读时体验到的毫不费力的感觉？这对于从理论上全面理解阅读系统的工作原理是很重要的。更好地理解这一点将有助于设计促进学习的课程材料和教学方法。这一点至关重要：尽管有丰富的语音课程，但太多的儿童未能从新手过渡到专家，这一点从大量进入中学的儿童来说就是明证，他们的识字水平低得令人无法接受。鉴于识字对教育、文化和经济进步以及社会福祉至关重要，这会产生严重的后果。这项建议中描述的研究旨在填补我们知识的这一空白。模拟自然阅读过程的精心控制的实验将测试一些关于如何通过阅读经验促进儿童学习单词的假设。一系列问题被问到：孩子们在阅读故事时如何处理他们第一次遇到的生词？我们如何最好地组织和组织阅读练习，从而优化单词学习和阅读发展？为了正确地学习新单词，需要多次接触吗？如果需要，需要接触多少次？它们出现的语境应该是变化的还是保持不变的？是少学常学好呢，还是一下子学一次好？在孩子们还在学习的过程中对他们脆弱的知识进行测试，最终会不会带来更好的长期记忆？为什么有些孩子在学习阅读方面没有进步呢？这些问题的答案将为阅读理论的关键方面提供信息，这些方面目前还没有得到充分的说明，即儿童如何从一个轻松的解码者转变为一个毫不费力的熟练读者。我们的实验将提供关于如何最好地优化阅读练习以在课堂上进行长期学习的见解，最终目的是支持更多的孩子成功地从新手过渡到专家。

The written word is arguably the greatest cultural invention. Orthography (the conventional writing system of a language) provides a set of tools that allows us to write words so that others who share our tools can also share our thoughts, ideas, and dreams. The written word allows us to create narratives that play to our imaginations or teach us about the world; the written word transcends space and time and it is almost impossible to imagine the world without it. For skilled readers, the connection between the letters on the page and the image they construe in our minds is so fast, so rich in content and so automatic, we rarely stop to think of the underlying complexities of what we do as we read. Yet, learning to read is hard. It takes time and requires instruction. Reading is a skill and like other skills, practice is critical to making the transition from novice-to-expert.The scientific study of reading has taught us a good deal about the early stages of reading development. We know that children need to acquire the "alphabetic principle" - the fundamental insight that in a language like English, letters code for meaning via sound. This allows children to decode - to "sound-out" words and thus discover the spelling-sound correspondences that characterize their language. Evidence from a large research base has translated to the classroom with a phonics-based reading curriculum characterising the teaching of reading in the early years in the UK. Critically however, we know relatively little about how children develop from novice-to-expert: how do children move from the laborious process of decoding individual words to the sense of effortlessness we, as skilled readers, experience as we read? This is important for a full theoretical understanding of how the reading system works. A better understanding of this will help to devise curriculum materials and instructional approaches that promote learning. This is vital: despite a phonics-rich curriculum, too many children are failing to make the transition from novice-to-expert, as evidenced by the large number of children who enter secondary school with unacceptably low levels of literacy skill. This has serious consequences, given that literacy is crucial to educational, cultural and economic advancement as well as social well-being.The research described in this proposal aims to fill this gap in our knowledge. Carefully controlled experiments that nevertheless mimic the natural reading process will test out a number of hypotheses about how to promote children's learning about words via their reading experiences. A range of questions is asked: How do children deal with new words that they encounter for the first time when reading a story? How do we best structure and organise reading practice so as to optimize word learning and reading development? Do new words need to be encountered many times in order to be learned properly and if so, how many times and should the context in which they occur vary or stay the same? Is it better to learn little and often, or massed into one go? Does testing children's fragile knowledge while they are still in the process of learning ultimately lead to better retention in the longer term? And why is it that some children fail to make progress with learning to read?Answers to these questions will inform critical aspects of reading theory that are currently underspecified, namely how children move from being an effortful decoder to an effortless skilled reader. Our experiments will provide insights on how to best optimize reading practice for long-term learning in the classroom, with the ultimate aim of supporting more children to make a successful transition from novice-to-expert.