Learning to read in a shallow orthography: the effect of letter knowledge acquisition

ABSTRACT

The present study examined the strategies used by Greek novice readers in the initial phases of reading acquisition. Fifty (50) children were assessed at four successive testing periods throughout 1st grade of Primary School. Thus, 21 boys (42%) and 29 girls (58%) participated in this study. Their mean age at the beginning of the study was 74.43 (s = 3.62) and 74.55 (s = 3.68) respectively. Reading performance measures included reading speed and accuracy scores for letters, words and nonwords. No evidence was found to support the development of a logographic process in learning to read Greek. Yet, the results of the present study indicate that the fast rate of letter knowledge acquisition promotes the development of an alphabetic approach in reading. Correlation analyses suggested that reading progress is depended upon the knowledge of 80% or more of the letters.

KEYWORDS:

• Reading acquisition
• letter knowledge
• orthography

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contribution

Dr. Menealos Sarris is currently working as Laboratory Teaching Staff at the Department of Education & Social Work (University of Patras, Greece). His main research interests are reading development and reading fluency.