Abstract
The study reported here investigated the relationship between phonological skills and literacy development in German. It focuses on poor phonological skills and difficulties in reading and spelling. Previous findings showed that for English children there is a substantial predictive relationship between phonological awareness and later success in learning to read (see reviews by Goswami & Bryant, 1990; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987). Our findings with German-speaking children were disappointing. Wimmer, Landerl, Linortner, and Hummer (1991) used a vowel substitution task at the beginning of first grade and found only moderate correlations in the range of .30 to .40 with reading and spelling measures at the end of first grade. Wimmer, Landerl, and Schneider (1994) relied on Bradley and Bryant’s (1985) alliteration and rhyme oddity detection task, but again the correlations with reading and spelling at the end of first grade were low (between.20 and.30). However, there was a gain in predictive importance of the rhyme detection task for reading and spelling differences in third and fourth grade.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bowers, P. G., & Wolf, M. (1993). Theoretical links among naming speed, precise timing mechanisms and orthographic skill in dyslexia. Reading and Writing, 5, 69–85.
Bradley, L. L., & Bryant, P. E. (1985). Rhyme and reason in reading and spelling. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Brady, S. A., Mann, V. A., & Schmidt, R. (1987). Errors in short-term memory for good and poor readers. Memory and Cognition, 15, 444–453.
Catts, H. W. (1991). Early identification of dyslexia: Evidence from a follow-up study of speech-language impaired children. Annals of Dyslexia, 41, 163–177.
Das, J. P., & Mishra, R. K. (1991). Relation between memory span, naming time, speech rate, and reading competence. Journal of Experimental Education, 59, 129–139.
Denckla, M. B., & Rudel, R. G. (1976). Naming of object-drawings by dyslexic and other learning disabled children. Brain and Language, 3, 1–15.
Fowler, A. E., & Liberman, I. Y. (1995). Morphological awareness as related to early reading and spelling ability. In L. B. Feldman (Ed.), Morphological aspects of language processing (pp. 157–188 ). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Gathercole, S. E., & Baddeley, A. D. (1993). Phonological working memory: A critical building block for reading development and vocabulary acquisition? European Journal of Psychology of Education, 8, 259–272.
Goswami, U., & Bryant, P. E. (1990). Phonological skills and learning to read. Hove, U.K.: Erlbaum.
Huttenlocher, J., & Cohen Levine, S. (1990). Primary Test of Cognitive Skills. Monerey, California: Macmillan/McGraw-Hill.
Klicpera, Ch., & Schabmann, A. (1993). Do German-speaking children have a chance to overcome reading and spelling difficulties? A longitudinal survey from the second until the eighth grade. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 8, 307–323.
Landerl, K., Wimmer, H., & Frith, U. (1997). The impact of orthographic consist- ency on dyslexia: A German-English comparison. Cognition, 63, 315–334.
Marx, H., Jansen, H., Mannhaupt, G., & Skowronek, H. (1993). Prediction of difficulties in reading and spelling on the basis of the Bielefeld Screening. In H. Grimm & H. Skowronek (Eds.), Language acquisition problems and reading disorders: Aspects of diagnosis and intervention (pp. 219–241 ). Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Näslund, J. C. (1990). The interrelationships among preschool predictors of reading acquisition for German children. Reading and Writing, 2, 327–360.
Näslund, J. C., & Schneider, W. (1993). Emerging literacy from kindergarten to second grade: Evidence from the Munich Longitudinal Study on the Genesis of Individual Competencies. In H. Grimm & H. Skowronek (Eds.), Language acquisition problems and reading disorders: Aspects of diagnosis and intervention (pp. 295–318 ). Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Schneider, W., & Näslund, J. C. (1993). The impact of early metalinguistic competencies and memory capacity on reading and spelling in elementary school: Results of the Munich Longitudinal Study on the Genesis of Individual Competencies (LOGIC). European Journal of Psychology of Education, 8, 273–287.
Shankweiler, D. P., Crain, S., Katz, L., Fowler, A. E., Liberman, A. M., Brady, S. A., Thornton, R., Lundquist, E., Dreyer, L., Fletcher, J. M., Stuebing, K. K., Shaywitz, S. E., & Shaywitz, B. A. (1995). Cognitive profiles of reading-disabled children: Comparison of language skills in phonology, morphology, and syntax. Psychological Science, 6, 149–156.
Snowling, M., Goulandris, N., Bowlby, M., & Howell, P. (1986). Segmentation and speech perception in relation to reading skill: A developmental analysis. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 41, 489–507.
Wagner, R. K., & Torgesen, J. K. (1987). The nature of phonological processing and its causal role in the acquisition of reading skills. Psychological Bulletin, 101, 192–212.
Wimmer, H. (1993). Characteristics of developmental dyslexia in a regular writing system. Applied Psycholinguistics, 14, 1–33.
Wimmer, H. (1996a). The early manifestation of developmental dyslexia: Evidence from German children. Reading and Writing, 8, 171–188.
Wimmer, H. (1996b). The nonword reading deficit in developmental dyslexia: Evidence from children learning to read German. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 61, 80–90.
Wimmer, H., Landerl, K., Linortner, R., & Hummer, P. (1991). The relationship of phonemic awareness to reading acquisition: More consequence than precondition but still important. Cognition, 40, 219–249.
Wimmer, H., Landerl, K., & Schneider, W. (1994). The role of rhyme awareness in learning to read a regular orthography. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 12, 469–484.
Wolf, M. (1991). Naming speed and reading: The contribution of the cognitive neurosciences. Reading Research Quarterly, 26, 123–141.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1998 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mayringer, H., Wimmer, H., Landerl, K. (1998). Phonological Skills and Literacy Acquisition in German. In: Reitsma, P., Verhoeven, L. (eds) Problems and Interventions in Literacy Development. Neuropsychology and Cognition, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2772-3_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2772-3_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5164-6
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-2772-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive