Modeling the Relationship Between Prosodic Sensitivity and Early Literacy

Holliman, Andrew and Critten, Sarah and Lawrence, Tony and Harrison, Emily and Wood, Clare and Hughes, David (2014) Modeling the Relationship Between Prosodic Sensitivity and Early Literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 49 (4). pp. 469-482. ISSN 0034-0553

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Abstract

A growing literature has demonstrated that prosodic sensitivity is related to early literacy development; however, the precise nature of this relationship remains unclear. It has been speculated in recent theoretical models that the observed relationship between prosodic sensitivity and early literacy might be partially mediated by children's vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness, and morphological awareness, although such models have yet to be confirmed using advanced statistical techniques. The study reported here uses covariance structure modeling to provide the first direct test of the model proposed by Wood, Wade-Woolley, and Holliman. We also test a modified version of this model that was designed to overcome some of the limitations in the original. Seventy-five 5–7-year-old English-speaking children completed a new measure of prosodic sensitivity and were also assessed for their vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, word reading, and spelling. The results showed that Wood et al.'s model did not provide an adequate fit to our sample data; however, the new model, which permitted causal connections between the so-called mediator variables, provided an excellent fit. We argue that prosodic sensitivity should be afforded greater importance in models of literacy development, and offer a new theoretical model of the prosody–literacy relationship for future attempts at replication.

Item Type: Article
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.82
Dates:
DateEvent
17 June 2014Accepted
28 July 2014Published
Subjects: CAH04 - psychology > CAH04-01 - psychology > CAH04-01-01 - psychology (non-specific)
Divisions: Faculty of Business, Law and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences > Dept. Psychology
Depositing User: Silvio Aldrovandi
Date Deposited: 16 Jun 2017 10:29
Last Modified: 03 Mar 2022 15:43
URI: https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/4681

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