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

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.

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.