The influence of spoken language on complex word reading

This project explores whether and how beginning readers benefit from their spoken language knowledge while learning to read. Children are equipped with a wealth of knowledge from their spoken language when they first begin to read, but we still know little about how this knowledge is used and integrated during written language acquisition. It has been previously shown that oral vocabulary knowledge predicts children’s reading acquisition, but it does not explain the mechanisms by which this integration of the information is achieved.

The aim of the current project is to further explore the mechanism by which orthographic expectations are built during oral word training by testing if orthographic expectancy involves setting up a complex set of orthographic predictions for not just whole words but also stems embedded in words with multiple morphemes.