Compensatory strategies across languages during reading acquisition

Description du projet

Modélisation des stratégies de compensation dans l’acquisition de la lecture

De nombreuses langues présentent des orthographes opaques, ce qui rend la prononciation imprévisible et le décodage difficile pour les lecteurs novices. Ces difficultés incitent à développer des stratégies de compensation adaptées aux spécificités de chaque orthographe. Financé par le programme Actions Marie Skłodowska-Curie, le projet EURO Reading étudie deux de ces stratégies: le recours à des unités de traitement plus importantes (théorie de la taille du grain) et le recours au contexte des mots. Tout d’abord, il définira une mesure de l’opacité orthographique valable d’une langue à l’autre pour tester les stratégies. Ensuite, la théorie de la taille du grain sera modélisée de manière informatique et les effets interlinguistiques sur les stratégies basées sur le contexte seront examinés à l’aide de méthodes comportementales et informatiques. Enfin, l’équipe recueillera des données bilingues et développera un modèle d’acquisition de la lecture bilingue axé sur l’utilisation du contexte, en saisissant la manière dont les exigences orthographiques façonnent le développement de la lecture.

Objectif

Reading acquisition primarily relies on acquiring novel orthographic forms. In this process, efficient decoding of orthographically novel words can be difficult due to the unpredictability of the written-spoken language relationship. Thus, children are forced to develop strategies for effectively acquiring novel words. The main goal of my project is to investigate the compensatory strategies employed by novice readers. I will study two compensatory strategies: one suggests employing a larger processing grain during decoding for better accuracy, based on the Grain Size Theory, while the other recommends using contextual cues to learn despite decoding inaccuracies.

Given the predominant focus on English monolinguals in behavioral and computational studies and the central role of language opacity in reading, I will focus on languages with varying degrees of opacity. Additionally, I will also study reading acquisition among bilingual individuals, considering the widespread prevalence of bilingualism in Europe, an area that has been relatively under-explored.

In the study of compensation strategies, I identified both computational and behavioral research needs in the literature. Therefore, in this project, I propose a computational study to define a reliable opacity measure. Building on the computational model of reading acquisition I developed during my PhD, I also aim to simulate the Grain Size Theory, and implement a bilingual reading acquisition model to simulate relevant behavioral data. Additionally, I will conduct cross-linguistic behavioral studies on context effects, including both monolingual and bilingual individuals.

Cross-linguistic comparisons will help improve the generalizability of findings, addressing an urgent need in the literature. This multidisciplinary approach will also strengthen the links between theoretical cognitive mechanisms and behavioral effects, thereby improving our knowledge of compensation strategies during reading acquisition.