Abstract
The assessment of language and literacy skills in the akshara languages pose distinct challenges that are related to the specificities of the orthography, contextual variability and population diversity, which in turn tend to be compounded by generally low levels of achievement. In this book chapter, we discuss an assessment framework linked to a language and literacy framework for the early years for akshara languages. Using assessments for Hindi and Kannada as cross-linguistic illustrative examples, the discussion focuses on psychometric rigor and sensitivity to contextual factors that include demographic diversity (e.g., socioeconomic factors, home language(s), and access to literacy resources), classroom practices and orthography.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Amritavalli, R. (2007). English in deprived circumstances: Maximizing learner autonomy. New Delhi, India: Foundation Books and Cambridge University Press.
Aturupane, H., Glewwe, P., & Wisniewski, S. (2013). The impact of school quality, socioeconomic factors, and child health on students’ academic performance: Evidence from Sri Lankan primary schools. Education Economics, 21(1), 2–37.
Bhattacharjea, S., Wadhwa, W., & Banerji, R. (2011). Inside primary schools. A study of teaching and learning in rural India. Mumbai, India: Pratham.
Clay, M. M. (2000). Concepts about print: What have children learned about the way we print language. Heinemann.
Daniels, P. T. (2009). Two notes on terminology. Written Language and Literacy, 12, 275–279.
Gupta, A. (2004). Reading difficulties of Hindi speaking children with developmental dyslexia. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 17, 79–99.
Husain, S., Vasishth, S., & Srinivasan, N. (2015). Integration and prediction difficulty in Hindi sentence comprehension: Evidence from an eyetracking corpus. Journal of Eye Movement Research, 1(1):1, 1–9.
Jolley, R. (2010). Children and pictures. Drawing and understanding. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
Kalia, V., & Reese, E. (2009). Relations between Indian children’s home literacy environment and their English oral language and literacy skills. Scientific Studies of Reading, 13(2), 122–145.
Kandhadai, P., & Sproat, R. (2010). Impact of spatial ordering of graphemes in alphasyllabic scripts on phonemic awareness in Indic languages. Writing Systems Research, 2(2), 105–116.
Keenan, J. M., Betjemann, R. S., & Olson, R. K. (2008). Reading comprehension tests vary in the skills they assess: Differential dependence on decoding and oral comprehension. Scientific Studies of Reading, 12(3), 281–300.
Krishnamurti, B. (2003). The Dravidian languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kurland, B. F., & Snow, C. E. (1997). Longitudinal measurement of growth in definitional skill. Journal of Child Language, 24(3), 603–625.
Nag, S. (2007). Early reading in Kannada: The pace of acquisition of orthographic knowledge and phonemic awareness. Journal of Research in Reading, 30, 7–22.
Nag, S. (2008). Kannada vocabulary test. Bangalore, India: The Promise Foundation.
Nag, S. (2013). Low literacy attainments in school and approaches to diagnosis: An exploratory study. Contemporary Education Dialogue, 10(2), 197–221.
Nag, S. (2014a). Akshara-phonology mappings: The common yet uncommon case of the consonant cluster. Writing Systems Research, 6, 105–119.
Nag, S. (2014b). Expressive vocabulary test-Hindi. Bangalore, India: The Promise Foundation.
Nag, S. (2017a). Assessment of literacy and foundational learning in developing countries: Final Report. Health and Education Advice and Resource Team, xiii, 94p.
Nag, S. (2017b). Learning to read alphasyllabaries. In K. Cain, D. Compton, & R. Parrila (Eds.), Theories of reading development (pp. 75–98). John Benjamins.
Nag, S., Chiat, S., Torgerson C., & Snowling, M. J. (2013). Literacy, foundation learning and assessment in developing countries. Report of a rigorous review. Department of International Development, UK.
Nag, S., & Snowling, M. J. (2011a, June). Reading comprehension, decoding and oral language. The EFLU Journal, English and Foreign Languages University, 2, 75–93.
Nag, S., & Snowling, M. J. (2011b, July). Cognitive profiles of poor readers of Kannada. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 24, 657–676.
Nag, S., Snowling, M. J., & Asfaha, Y. (2016). Classroom literacy practices in low- and middle-income countries: An interpretative synthesis of ethnographic studies. Oxford Education Review, 42(1), 36–54.
Nag, S., & Snowling, M. J. (2012). Reading in an alphasyllabary: Implications for a language-universal theory of learning to read. Scientific Studies of Reading, 16, 404–423.
Nag, S., Snowling, M. J., & Mirkovic, J. (2017). The role of language production mechanisms in children’s sentence repetition: Evidence from an inflectionally rich language. Applied Psycholinguistics. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716417000200.
Nag, S., Snowling, M. J., Quinlan, P., & Hulme, C. (2014a). Child and symbol factors in learning to read a visually complex writing system. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18, 1–16.
Nag, S., Ramkumar, S., Miranda, R., Sutar, L., Krishna, M., Aravind, S., Kala, B., & Arulmani, G. (October, 2014b). Home and school learning environment: Field notes from eight urban, public-funded nursery and primary schools. Working paper. Bangalore: The Promise Foundation.
Nag, S., Treiman, R., & Snowling, M. J. (2010). Learning to spell in an Alphasyllabary: The case of Kannada. Writing Systems Research, 2, 41–52.
Nakamura, P. R., Joshi, R. M., & Ji, X. R. (n.d.). Investigating the assymetrical roles of syllabic and phonemic awareness role in akshara processing. Retrieved from http://www.linguaakshara.org/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/Nakamura_et_al_Final.58220626.pdf.
Nation, K., & Snowling, M. (2017). Assessing reading difficulties: The validity and utility of current measures of reading skill. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 67(3), 359–370.
Patel, P. G. (2004). Reading acquisition in India: Models of learning and dyslexia. New Delhi: Sage Publishers.
Pinto, C. (2010). Literacy boost Kailali, Nepal year 1 report. Save the Children.
Purushothama, G. (1990). Reading vowels in Kannada script. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 23(3), 198–200.
Salomon, R. (2000). Typological observations on the Indic script group and its relationship to other alphasyllabaries. Studies on the Linguistic Sciences, 30(1), 88–103.
Sharma, R. (1997). Dynamics of learning three R’s in Madhya Pradesh. Economic and Political Weekly, 32(17), 891–901.
Singh, A. (2014). Test score gaps between private and government sector students at school entry age in India. Oxford Review of Education, 40(1), 30–49.
Snow, C. E. (1991). The theoretical basis for relationships between language and literacy in development. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 6(1), 5–10.
Snow, C. E. (2017). The role of vocabulary versus knowledge in children’s language learning: A fifty-year perspective. Infancia y Aprendizaje, 40(1), 1–18.
Teale, W. H., & Sulzby, E. (1986). Introduction: Emergent literacy as a perspective for examining how children become writers and readers. In W. H. Teale & E. Sulzby (Eds.), Emergent literacy: Writing and reading (pp. vii–xxv). New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation.
Treiman, R., & Kessler, B. (2013). Learning to use an alphabetic writing system. Language Learning and Development, 9(4), 317–330.
Vagh, S. B. (2009). Learning at home and at school: A longitudinal study of Hindi language and emergent literacy skills of young children from low-income families in India. Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences, 70(11-A), 4183.
Vagh, S. B., & Biancarosa, G. (2011, July). Early literacy in Hindi: The role of oral reading fluency. Poster presented at the 12th International Congress for the Study of Child Language, Montreal, Canada.
Vagh, S. B., & Nag, S. (2014). A template for the analysis of primary school language textbooks in Indian languages. Retrieved from http://www.linguaakshara.org/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/Textbook_Analysis_Template_Vagh_and_Nag.58235348.pdf.
Vagh, S. B., & Sharma, D. (2018). How can localized assessments enhance our understanding of learning at the ‘bottom of the pyramid’? Insights from Pratham’s collaborative, longitudinal action research program. In D. A. Wagner, S. Wolf, & R. B. Boruch (Eds.), Learning at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Science, measurement and policy in low-income countries (pp. 121–140). Paris, France: UNESCO-IIEP.
Vagh, S. B., Nag, S., & Banerji, R. (2017). India: The policy and practice of early literacy acquisition in the akshara languages. In N. Kucirkova, C. E. Snow, V. Grover, & C. McBride (Eds.), The Routledge international handbook of early literacy education: A contemporary guide to literacy teaching and interventions in a global context (pp. 233–246). New York: Routledge.
Vaid, J., & Gupta, A. (2002). Exploring word recognition in a semi-alphabetic script: The case of Devanagari. Brain and Language, 81, 679–690.
Wijayathilake, M. A. D. K., & Parrila, R. (2014). Predictors of word reading skills in good and struggling readers in Sinhala. Writing Systems Research, 6(1), 120–131.
Winskel, H., & Iemwanthong, K. (2010). Reading and spelling acquisition in Thai children. Reading and Writing, 23(9), 1021–1053.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Vagh, S.B., Nag, S. (2019). The Assessment of Emergent and Early Literacy Skills in the Akshara Languages. In: Joshi, R.M., McBride, C. (eds) Handbook of Literacy in Akshara Orthography. Literacy Studies, vol 17. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05977-4_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05977-4_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-05976-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-05977-4
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)