Excessive crowding in the visual periphery has been demonstrated in children with developmental dyslexia (DD). However, less is known about crowding in the fovea, even though foveal crowding is at least equally important, as reading is mostly accomplished through foveal vision. Here we used a special set of digit stimuli (Pelli fonts) to measure…

We investigated relations between kindergarten precursors and second-grade reading skills in deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children, and aimed to identify subgroups based on reading skills, in order to explore early signs of later reading delays. DHH children (n = 23, M[subscript age] kindergarten = 6.25) participated from kindergarten-second…

The present study examined a six-component theoretical model of word reading acquisition in 449 Spanish-speaking children from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Measures of phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), vocabulary, letter name-sound knowledge, and parent education were obtained at the beginning of kindergarten and a…

The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of a multi-component homograph processing intervention complemented by Executive Function (EF) skills on the performance of struggling readers. The researchers focused on measuring improvements in literacy, metalinguistic abilities, cognitive/EF skills acquired during the intervention, and…

This article explores the critical role of phonological awareness (PA) in early reading development, with a focus on young multilingual children. PA, the ability to detect and manipulate sounds in spoken words, is essential for literacy acquisition and is highly responsive to instruction. The article delves into the complexity of PA, its…

Background: Early morphological awareness skills are well-known predictors of later literacy skills, but little is known on how young children develop this early morphological knowledge without formal instruction. Home literacy environment is considered as a supporting context for several early literacy skills' growth, but no studies have examined…

This paper examines links between perfect rhymes and text readability and decoding using a measure of English rhymes called the Perfect Rhymes Dictionary (PeRDict). PeRDict is based on the Carnegie Mellon University Pronouncing Dictionary (the CMUdict) and provides rhyme counts for ~48,000 words in English and for the most frequent 1,000, 2,500,…

Background: Research acknowledges the importance of phonological processing and orthographic processing for reading and spelling in both consistently and inconsistently written languages. While the focus has tended to be on the role of phonological processing in languages with consistent orthographies, the role of orthographic processing,…

Morphological awareness is the metalinguistic realization that words consist of meaningful roots and affixes that can be isolated and manipulated. Learners at different proficiency levels use various forms of background knowledge such as cultural knowledge, technical knowledge, religious knowledge, vocabulary knowledge, and contextual visuals. The…

This dissertation investigates the impact of cross-modal binding on word reading skills among English Language Learners (ELLs). Using Baddeley's updated working memory model, which includes the Episodic Buffer, this study examines how the ability to bind visual and phonological information in memory influences the reading development of ELL…

Cross-linguistic studies have reported that prosodic pattern awareness (e.g., lexical stress and lexical tone) is more important to reading acquisition than phonological awareness. However, few longitudinal studies have been conducted to explore the relations between these variables. This study examined preschoolers' pitch discrimination, prosodic…

This study analyses the longitudinal relationship between early inhibitory control skills and subsequent emergent literacy. At Time 1, a sample of 50 typically monolingual Italian toddlers aged 28 to 36 months in their last year of day-care was assessed on expressive vocabulary and two inhibitory control measures, tapping specifically response…

Purpose: The purpose of this systematic review was to identify, appraise, and critically synthesize the latest available evidence on the effects of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC)-based interventions on communication skills in children aged between 6 and 10 years with mixed diagnoses. Method: MEDLINE (OVID), PsycINFO (EBSCO), ERIC…

It is widely accepted that general intelligence and phonological awareness contribute to children's acquisition of reading and spelling skills. A further candidate in this regard is orthographic knowledge (i.e., the knowledge about permissible letter patterns). It consists of two components, word-specific (i.e., the knowledge of the spelling of…

This correlational study investigated the direct and indirect relationships derivational morphology had to reading comprehension for Spanish-speaking language minority students in the fifth-grade. It also investigated the direct and indirect effects Spanish phonological awareness had on reading comprehension. Multivariate path analysis was used to…