Tucker Rebecca, Castles Anne, Laroche Annie, Deacon S Hélène
Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4J1, Canada.
Macquarie University, North Ryde, New South Wales 2109, Australia.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2016 May;145:79-94. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2015.12.007. Epub 2016 Jan 27.
The current study was designed to test how orthographic learning, or the learning of the spelling patterns of words, happens within the self-teaching paradigm. One possibility is that orthographic learning occurs on a word-specific basis. Two other possibilities are that orthographic learning transfers specifically to the processing of novel words that are morphologically related or that it transfers to novel words that are orthographically similar, regardless of morphological relationship. In an orthographic learning paradigm, we asked children in Grades 3 and 5 to read nonwords embedded in short stories. In a between-participants design, some children read nonwords that were base forms, others read nonwords that were morphologically complex forms, and others read nonwords that were orthographically complex forms (e.g., feap, feaper, and feaple, respectively). Children completed an orthographic choice task with the same items as in the stories. To evaluate transfer of learning, children also completed orthographic choices for the two forms of the nonwords not seen in the stories. Results indicated that children's orthographic learning affected processing of novel items that appeared to be morphologically related as well as those that shared only orthographic structure (e.g., both feaper and feaple). Additional analyses showed that these effects were held across cases when children did and did not successfully decode the novel words in the learning experience, although successful decoding did lead to higher levels of orthographic learning and transfer. Together, the findings suggest that children's prior experiences affect their processing of novel words that share orthographic similarity, likely reflecting a role for orthographic analogies in the self-teaching process.
当前的研究旨在测试正字法学习，即单词拼写模式的学习，是如何在自我教学范式中发生的。一种可能性是正字法学习是在特定单词的基础上进行的。另外两种可能性是，正字法学习专门转移到对形态相关的新单词的处理上，或者转移到正字法相似的新单词上，而不考虑形态关系。在一个正字法学习范式中，我们要求三年级和五年级的儿童阅读短篇小说中嵌入的非单词。在一项被试间设计中，一些儿童阅读的非单词是基本形式，另一些儿童阅读的是非单词的形态复杂形式，还有一些儿童阅读的是非单词的正字法复杂形式（例如，分别为feap、feaper和feaple）。儿童用与故事中相同的项目完成了一项正字法选择任务。为了评估学习的迁移，儿童还对故事中未出现的两种非单词形式进行了正字法选择。结果表明，儿童的正字法学习影响了对形态相关的新单词以及那些仅共享正字法结构的新单词（例如，feaper和feaple）的处理。进一步的分析表明，无论儿童在学习过程中是否成功解码新单词，这些影响在各种情况下都存在，尽管成功解码确实导致了更高水平的正字法学习和迁移。总之，研究结果表明，儿童先前的经验会影响他们对具有正字法相似性的新单词的处理，这可能反映了正字法类比在自我教学过程中的作用。
