Journal of Literacy Research

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The Use of Orthographic Knowledge in Beginning Reading Lauren Leslie and Brenda Thimke Journal of Literacy Research 1986 18: 229 DOI: 10.1080/10862968609547571 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jlr.sagepub.com/content/18/3/229

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Journal of Reading Behavior 1986, Volume XVIII, No. 3

THE USE OF ORTHOGRAPHIC KNOWLEDGE IN BEGINNING READING

Lauren Leslie and Brenda Thimke Marquette University, School of Education, Schroeder Complex, Milwaukee, WI 53233

ABSTRACT The purpose of the present study was to determine the relationship between word recognition ability, knowledge of orthographic structures, and use of orthographic knowledge in word recognition. Fifty-six first and second graders were administered a word recognition test, two tests of orthographic knowledge, and two search tasks. The results indicated that when searching for multiple word targets children with word recognition levels of less than 2-2 searched similarly through all fields, whereas children with word recognition levels of 2-2+ searched faster through pseudowords and nonwords than through words. When searching for members of a category, children with word recognition levels below 2-1 searched faster through nonwords and pseudowords than through words providing no evidence for the use of orthography in word search. Children with word recognition levels above 2-1 searched faster through nonwords than through pseudowords and words, demonstrating a generalized effect of orthographic structure.

Rumelhart's (1977) interactive model of reading proposed that readers utilize several knowledge sources (featural, graphic, phonemic, syntactic, orthographic, lexical, semantic) in word recognition. In contrast to earlier serial processing theories, the interactive model suggested that the knowledge sources were operating simultaneously, independent of level. As such, semantic processes constrain alternatives at the feature analytic level but are themselves constrained by feature analysis. In an extension of the interactive model designed to accommodate individual differences in reading fluency, Stanovich (1980) proposed that a deficit in any knowledge source would result in a heavier reliance on other knowledge sources, regardless of the level in the processing hierarchy. For example, the model predicts that readers who have difficulty with feature extraction may rely more heavily on other sources of information in word recognition. Stanovich found 229

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support for his model from studies which showed that less-skilled readers are more sensitive to the effects of orthographic, syntactic, and semantic information on word recognition than skilled readers. The present study is interested in the acquisition of one source of information: orthographic structure. Massaro ( 1980) suggested that knowledge of orthographic structure affects letter or word recognition in the feature analysis process. For example, if the initial letters in a string have been identified as th, and feature analysis has reduced the next letter to either an e or c, analysis may terminate because the is illegal in English whereas the is legal. Therefore, application of orthographic structure reduces the number of feature tests necessary for word or letter recognition, thus speeding up recognition. In letter search tasks, subjects using orthographic structure should find letters faster and/or more accurately in orthographically regular letter strings than in orthographically irregular strings. The nature of the feature tests, however, does not appear changed by the use of orthographic structure (Massaro, 1979). Stanovich (1980) reviewed research on the relationship of the effects of orthographic structure to age and reading achievement to test his interactivecompensatory model of reading. Notable in his review was that findings differed according to what tasks were used to measure the effects of orthographic structure. When knowledge or orthographic structure is assessed by the ability to discriminate between letter strings which vary in their approximation to English, knowledge of orthographic structure is found to increase across ages 6-8 years (cf. Niles, 1976; Niles, Gründer, & Wimmer, 1977; Niles & Taylor, 1978; Rosinski & Wheeler, 1972). However, when the use of orthographic structure is examined in lexical decision tasks, young children (second grade) showed greater absolute differences across words of varying orthographic structure than older (fourth grade) children (Henderson & Chard, 1980, p. 100). Also, the second graders were more sensitive to vowel presence or absence in nonwords with low single letter positional frequency than fourth graders who were probably able to reject these nonwords on the basis of their illegal consonant structures alone. In contrast, on letter search tasks, no age effects were found between fourth graders and adults (Krueger, Keen, & Rublevich, 1974) or between second graders and adults (Juola, Schadler, Chabot, & McCaughey, 1978) on the use of orthographic information. Similarly, Stanovich, West, and Pollack (1978) found that third graders, sixth graders, and adults searched for target words more slowly through words than through pseudowords and nonwords (averaged). The lack of an age by search-field interaction indicated that these age groups were affected similarly by the fields. However, the findings that search rates were similar for pseudowords and nonwords suggest that orthography was not affecting search because, if it were, words and pseudowords should be processed at more similar rates than pseudowords and nonwords. Only two groups showed this pattern: third graders on a multiple word search task (Experiment 3) and sixth graders on a category search task (Experiment 2).

The Use of Orthographic Knowledge

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Several investigators have recognized that age is probably not the causal variable in the acquisition of orthographic structure but, rather, that the process of learning to read, which occurs for children during the ages of 6-8 years, results in the learning of orthographic structures. Allington (1978) and Niles and Taylor (1978) found that good readers differentiated letter strings which varied in approximation to English better than poor readers across grades one through four. Stanovich and West (1979) found that third-grade poor readers, although slower than good readers on a word search task, showed differences in search rates across the orthographic fields (word = pseudoword > nonword). The poor readers had apparently generalized the rules of orthography because they searched at similar rates across words and pseudowords (orthographically regular) and faster through orthographically irregular nonwords. These results imply that generalization of orthographic structures occurs during the initial stages of learning to read. Good readers showed marginally significant differences between all fields (words > pseudowords > nonwords) suggesting that search rate was affected by lexical information in addition to the effects of orthography (pseudoword vs. nonword). In an attempt to measure early recognition of orthographic structure, Leslie and Shannon (1981) conducted a developmental study of the relationship of age, word recognition ability, and knowledge of orthographic structure. They reported that children (preschool age through third grade) who recognized 70%+ of the words on a second-semester first-grade (1-2) word list performed above chance on a task which asked children to distinguish between letter strings which had vowels or did not have vowels. Furthermore, children who recognized 70%+ of the words on a first-semester second-grade (2-1) word list performed above chance on a task which asked children to distinguish between letter strings which had irregular consonant clusters versus regular consonant clusters. These data are only correlational but the word recognition levels were replicated in a longitudinal (six months) reexamination of different children in the sample. The finding that children with a reading vocabulary of second grade can discriminate legal from illegal consonant clusters does not indicate, however, that these children use this knowledge to speed word recognition. In order to understand when children use orthographic structure in word recognition, tasks which approximate word recognition would have to be utilized. Word search tasks seem to be well suited if children are asked to either (a) search for multiple targets (to reduce the likelihood that a child would adopt an initial letter search strategy), or (b) search for members of a category (to force lexical access). Stanovich, West, and Pollack (1978) reported field effects (word, pseudoword, nonword) on word search using these tasks but found no effects of search field on word search when only one target word was used. The present study was designed to investigate the relationship between word recognition level, knowledge of orthographic structure, and use of orthographic structure in word search tasks. It was reasoned that children would have to be able to discern which words looked most like an English word (knowledge of

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orthographic structure) before they would use this knowledge to speed the word recognition process. It was also expected that a certain level of word recognition ability would be necessary before the children would have generalized the rules of orthography. From Leslie and Shannon (1981), it was predicted that this level would be in the second-grade range. Specifically, it was predicted that children with a first-grade word recognition level would not have generalized the rules of orthography and, thus, would search for target words through pseudowords and nonwords at a similar rate but would search slower through words. In contrast, children with a second-grade word recognition level would search through words and pseudowords at a similar rate (because they are word-like orthographically) but would search faster through nonwords. Thus, an interaction of reading ability and search field was expected. Two word search tasks were used: multiple word search and category search. METHOD Sample All 56 children who were completing the first and second grade in two parochial schools within the inner city of Milwaukee participated in this study. All children were being taught to read from the Ginn series (1982). Materials In order to obtain a precise estimate of beginning reading acquisition, an experimenter-designed word recognition test was developed. Twenty words were selected from each level of the first eight levels (six first-grade levels, two secondgrade levels) of the children's basal reading series. The words were randomly chosen from the list of new words introduced at each level. In addition, words which were to be used as target words in the search tasks were also included on these word recognition tests to ensure that the children recognized them. Two of the orthographic structure tasks used by Leslie and Shannon (1981) were used in this study. The first task (Orthographic 1) was comprised of eight pairs of letter strings where one member contained three consonants which do not occur sequentially in English (e.g., RSD) and the other contained two consonants and a vowel where the letter pairs occur in English (e.g., WOC). The second task (Orthographic 2) was comprised of fifteen pairs of letter strings of four to six letters in length where the distinguishing characteristics of the pairs were consonant clusters which occur at certain positions (e.g., GRISP) or do not occur at those positions (e.g., TSACL) in English. The stimulus materials in the word search task were lists of letter strings. Figure 1 presents abbreviated samples of each field. Each list was typed on a separate sheet of paper and all letters were lowercase. Each sheet contained four

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Multiple Word Search Task Word Field apple block stamp kites table house

found climb after stamp three block

happy right after stamp drink tales shell bones water looks about comes

Pseudoword Field veale hornt stamp asare abics woter

cofer oding leins talbe wonem theer table vaule otalt dhicl coive nealo

colse water caler lbock ceape water

Nonword Field ndoig stamp eetrh uvael lchdi elnoa

esclo rfeoc water leins ercla wmeon obclk stamp ecpae otalt water ecvoi

elvae rhtno table rsaae acsbi rtwoe

Category Word Search Task Word Field apple place whale kites table fence

loser would tales maybe mouse bones shark drink goose tales shell looks speck about bread chick mouse dough

Figure 1.

Pseudoword Field

Nonword Field

kames forlo lbock slasc otalt bouta deask vomed chick goose shark whale sornt klacb ceape grinb daded alinf apper thidr mouse chiwn ganer chick

rsohu whale shark ostdo tsaeg rstfo wspjm veomd ecvoi udsno goose elmsi shark lduwo rstfi erica estta eelvl nnuoi chick omnwa umsci etdri estmr

Sample fields from multiple word search and category word search tasks.

20-line columns, and each letter string contained five letters. Of the 80 letter strings, 20 were occurrences of the target and the remaining letter strings constituted the field. One field consisted of real words selected from the first six levels (PP-1-2) of the children's basal reader. Words at this level were selected so that the very beginning readers in the study would likely recognize these words and, thus, the words would not be pseudowords for them. The other fields were pseudowords (orthographically regular) and nonwords (orthographically irregular). These fields were identical to those used in Stanovich, West, and Pollack (1978). Targets were randomly placed in the list with the constraint that a target occurred once in every four lines. The target words in the multiple word search task were water, stamp, and table. In the category search task, the target words were animals (tiger, shark, goose, mouse, whale). The target words were taken from the first eight levels of the children's basal readers. Procedure Each child was first tested to ascertain his or her word recognition level. Each child was given the first word list and read successively harder lists until he or she misread more than 50% of the words on a list. A total word recognition score was obtained. Subjects were then given the tests of orthographic knowledge. In both

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tests, the child was asked to circle the letter string that "looked most like a word." Subjects then performed the two search tasks. A short practice sheet was given to the students before beginning each search task (i.e., multiple word search and category search). Subjects were told to look down each column and draw a line through the target words working as quickly as they could without making mistakes. In the multiple word search task, subjects were shown a small card with the three five-letter target words typed on it, which was then taken away. Prior to the category search task, subjects were told to look for animal words as they searched through the word, pseudoword, and nonword fields. The order of fields within each search task was randomized. Timing began when the examiner uncovered a stimulus sheet. The number of seconds it took the children to search through each field was measured by a stopwatch. Design The design of the experiment was a two-factor mixed design with level of word recognition score ( pseudoword = nonword) suggested that orthography was not the major source of their field effects, but rather the semantic characteristics of the words. The authors do not address this interpretation of their data but rather conclude that the lack of age differences in the use of orthographic information suggests that the acquisition of the knowledge of orthographic structure and its use in word recognition occurs prior to third grade. From the results of the present study, it appears that the use of orthographic structure develops as a child develops a sight vocabulary of approximately second grade. What this word recognition level may reflect is a large enough sight vocabulary that the child is able to form visual images of the spellings of enough words (Ehri, 1980) that the rules of orthography are generalized. The outcome of integration of the results of the present study with those of Leslie and Shannon's (1981) suggests that children learn the rules of orthography and use that knowledge quickly. That is, Leslie and Shannon found that the best predictor of above chance performance on the two orthography tests used in the present experiment were word recognition levels of 1-2 and 2-1, for the easier and harder tests, respectively. The current results suggest that the structure of orthography was used in word search by children with reading vocabularies of 2-1+. Thus, it appears that children use orthographic structure to speed word recognition when they have a rudimentary concept of "word-like" in English. A longitudinal study would provide a useful test of this hypothesis. Working with children who are in the process of acquiring word recognition skills, repeated administrations of tests of (a) word recognition, (b) orthographic knowledge, and

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(c) category search would discern more precisely the length of the process between recognition of the orthographic structures of English and the use of orthography to speed word search. Such a study could also assess the approximate size and nature of a sight vocabulary necessary for the generalization of orthographic patterns to occur. Regarding the nature of the sight vocabulary, it is possible that presentation of certain word patterns would aid in generalization of orthographic structures. Furthermore, if the generalization of the rules of orthography occurs at a certain point in the development of a rapid recognition of some number and complexity of words, it seems reasonable to predict a concomitant increase in reading rate. That is, a child who uses orthographic information to speed word recognition should read material at his or her reading level faster than a child who does not use orthographic structure to speed word recognition. Further research should also investigate such a hypothesis to determine if the generalization of orthographic rules is as useful to reading in context as it appears to be in word search. REFERENCES Allington, R. L. (1978). Sensitivity to orthographic structure as a function of grade and reading ability. Journal of Reading Behavior, 10. 437-439. Ehri, L. C. (1980). The development of orthographic images. In U. Frith (Ed.), Cognitive processes in spelling (pp. 311-338). London: Academic Press. Hayes, W. L. (1963). Statistics. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Henderson, L., & Chard, J. (1980). The reader's implicit knowledge of orthographic structure. In U. Frith (Ed.), Cognitive processes in spelling (pp. 85-116). London: Academic Press. Juola, J. F., Schadler, M., Chabot, R., & McCaughey, M. (1978). The development of visual information processing skills related to reading. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 25, 459-476. Krueger, L. E., Keen, R. H., & Rublevich, B. (1974). Letter search through words and nonwords by adults and fourth-grade children. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 102, 845-849. Leslie, L., & Shannon, A. J. (1981). Recognition of orthographic structure during beginning reading. Journal of Reading Behavior, 13, 313-324. Massaro, D. W. (1979). Letter information and orthographic context in word perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 5, 595-609. Massaro, D. W. (1980). How does orthographic structure facilitate reading? In R. L. Venezky & J. F. Kavanagh (Eds.), Orthography, reading, and dyslexia (pp. 193-209). Baltimore: University Park Press. McCracken, R. (1966). Standard Reading Inventory. Klamath Falls, OR: Klamath Printing Co. Niles, J. (1976). The use of featural and letter dependency information in word recognition by elementary school children. Reading Research Quarterly, 11, 198-202. Niles, J., Gründer, A., & Wimmer, C. (1977). The effects of grade level and setting on the developmental sensitivity to orthographic structure. In P. D. Pearson (Ed.), Reading: Theory, research, and practice (pp. 183-186). Clemson, SC: National Reading Conference. Niles, J., & Taylor, B. (1978). The development of orthographic sensitivity during the school year by primary grade children. In P. D. Pearson & J. Hansen (Eds.), Reading: Disciplined inquiry in process and practice (pp. 41-44). Clemson, SC: National Reading Conference.


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Rosinski, R., & Wheeler, K. (1972). Children's use of orthographic structure in word discrimination. Psychonomic Science, 26, 97-98. Rumelhart, D. E. (1977). Toward an interactive model of reading. In S. Domic (Ed.), Attention and performance VI (pp. 573-603). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Stanovich, K. E. (1980). Toward an interactive-compensatory model of individual differences in the development of reading fluency. Reading Research Quarterly, 16, 32-71. Stanovich, K. E., & West, R. F. (1979). The effect of orthographic structure on the word search performance of good and poor readers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 28, 258-267. Stanovich, K. E., West, R. F., & Pollack, D. (1978). The effect of orthographic structure on word recognition in a visual search task. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 26, 137-146.

AUTHOR NOTES This article is based on the M.A. thesis of the second author which was conducted under the direction of the first author. Request for reprints should be addressed to the first author. Gratitude is extended to Dr. Keith Stanovich for providing materials used in these experiments, and to an anonymous reviewer for improving the clarity of the manuscript.

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