Examining the Associations Between Prosodic Awareness and Word Reading for Linguistically Diverse Learners

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 4:55 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Unveiling the Complexity of Bilingual and Biliteracy Development: Quantitative Perspectives (Table 1)

Abstract

Prosodic awareness refers to the speech rhythm in oral language. It is a component of phonological processing that contributes to reading at the word, text, and discourse level. There is a growing body of research focused on prosody and reading in early readers and students in their native language (L1), with fewer studies examining prosodic abilities among linguistically diverse learners who are learning or exposed to two distinct languages. The current study examines prosodic awareness as a unique predictor of real and nonword reading after controlling for known predictors, segmental PA and morphological awareness for Chinese-English learners who are acquiring a stress-based (English) and tonal language (Chinese). Findings illustrate the importance of prosody in word knowledge for linguistically diverse learners.

Author

• Jessica Chan, University of British Columbia - Okanagan