Learning to Read and Write: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective (Cambridge Studies in Cognitive and Perceptual Development, Series Number 2) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521621844 ISBN 13: 9780521621847

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1999

Synopsis

For many years, the development of theories about the way children learn to read and write was dominated by studies of English-speaking populations. As we have learned more about the way that children learn to read and write other scripts, it has become clear that many of the difficulties that confront children learning to read and write English specifically are less evident, or even nonexistent, in other populations. At the same time, some aspects of learning to read and write are very similar across scripts. The unique cross-linguistic perspective offered in this book, including chapters on Japanese, Greek and the Scandinavian languages as well as English, shows how the processes of learning to read and spell are affected by the characteristics of the writing system that children are learning to master. Researchers in psycholinguistics and educational psychology will welcome this important volume.

About this title

Book Description

This book brings a unique cross-linguistic perspective to our understanding of how children learn to read and write in a wide range of different languages and scripts which vary from each other in important ways. These include both Western European scripts (English, Italian, German, Greek, Portuguese and Scandinavian languages) as well as Hebrew and Chinese-based scripts. Individual chapters describe key aspects of learning to read in each script and differences in the speed with which children learn to read and spell and the strategies they adopt are highlighted.

Review

"This book provides us with abundant evidence that across a wide range of countries and across the full gamut of reading systems, there is a very close relationship between how easy it is to learn to read and how well the writing system being acquired permits nonlexical print-to-sound translation. Why should this be so? The self-teaching hypothesis provides an appealing answer to this question; hence, the data reported in this book provide strong evidence that this hypothesis is correct." Contemporary Psychology, APA Review of Books

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521621844
• ISBN 13: 9780521621847
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 264
• Editor: Harris Margaret, Hatano Giyoo