engleski

Does orthography matter? Early reading skills in kindergartners with SLI exposed to deep and shallow orthography.

Purpose: Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) are at a significant risk for reading deficits. Even with treatment, the early reading profiles of SLI differ from typically developing (TD) peers. The present study examines the effect of orthography (shallow, Croatian vs. deep, English) on early literacy skills among children with SLI in view of the Orthographic Depth Hypothesis (Katz & Frost, 1992) which postulates that the nature of orthography is a considerable factor in the process of reading acquisition. Method: 30 kindergartners (Mage=5.9 ; SD=.29) with SLI participated in this research: 15 in each language group. All children were assessed on the skills considered to be pre-requisites for reading acquisition. The standardized and experimental measures were consistent with the language-specific structures. Results: Children with SLI have similar psycholinguistic profiles, independent of the ambient language, but show the same advantages in early literacy skills as a factor of orthography as their TD peers (Zaretsky, et al., 2009). This pattern is independent of the teaching practices: English-speaking kindergartners are exposed to reading instructions and Croatian speakers are not. Conclusion: This study is an important step in understanding the mechanics of reading acquisition as a factor of orthography in children with SLI.

SLI; reading acquisition; orthography; Orthographic Depth Hypothesis

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