Papers by Elinor Saiegh-Haddad
Does phonological distance impact quality of phonological representations? Evidence from Arabic diglossia, 2018
The study tested the impact of the phonological distance between Spoken Arabic (SpA) and Standa... more The study tested the impact of the phonological distance between Spoken Arabic (SpA) and Standard Arabic (StA) on quality of phonological representations among kindergarten, first-, second-, and sixth-grade Arabic-speaking children (N = 120). A pronunciation accuracy judgment task targeted three types of StA words that varied in extent of phonological distance from their form in SpA: (a) identical words, with an identical lexical–phonological form in StA and SpA; (b) cognate words, with partially overlapping phonological forms; items in this category varied in degree of phonological distance too; and (c) unique words with entirely different lexical–phonological forms. Multilevel Regression analysis showed that phonological distance had a significant impact on quality of phonological representations across all grades. Growth in quality of phonological representations was mainly noted between the three younger groups and the sixth-graders. Implications for the impact of phonological distance on phonological representations and on language and literacy development are discussed.
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Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 2011
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Writing Systems Research, 2013
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Literacy Studies, 2014
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Journal of psycholinguistic research, Jan 21, 2016
In the current study, two experiments were carried out: the first tested the development of deriv... more In the current study, two experiments were carried out: the first tested the development of derivational root and word-pattern morphological awareness in Arabic; the second tested morphological processing in Arabic spelling. 143 Arabic native speaking children with normal reading skills in 2nd, 4th and 6th grade participated in the study. The results of the first experiment demonstrated the early emergence of derivational morphological awareness in children, with root awareness emerging earlier than word-pattern awareness. The second experiment supported the implication of morphological processing in spelling words and pseudo words across all grades tested. The results are discussed within a developmental psycholinguistic framework with particular emphasis on the characteristics of the Arabic language and orthography.
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Journal of psycholinguistic research, Jan 28, 2015
The current study investigated the contribution of two linguistic intervention programs, phonolog... more The current study investigated the contribution of two linguistic intervention programs, phonological and morphological to the development of word spelling among skilled and poor native Arabic readers, in three grades: second, fourth and sixth. The participants were assigned to three experimental groups: morphological intervention, phonological intervention and a non-intervention control group. Phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and spelling abilities were tested before and after the intervention. Participants from both linguistic intervention programs and in all grades made significant progress in linguistic awareness and spelling after the intervention. The results showed that both intervention programs were successful in promoting children's spelling skills in both groups. Also, older poor readers showed a stronger response to the morphological intervention than the older skilled readers. A transfer effect was found with the phonological training contributing to...
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Language Learning, 2012
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Reading and Writing
The paper reported an exploratory study that tested (a) the relationship between phonological and... more The paper reported an exploratory study that tested (a) the relationship between phonological and morphological awareness in English (L1)–Arabic (L2) bilingual children in Canada (N=43), and (b) the relevance of these skills to word and pseudoword reading accuracy, and to complex word reading fluency. The results showed a significant correlation between phonological awareness in English and in Arabic. However, morphological awareness in the two languages was not correlated. Phonological awareness predicted reading cross-linguistically, but only Arabic morphological awareness predicted word reading in English. Moreover, while both phonological and morphological awareness in English predicted independent unique variance in English word reading, only phonological awareness in Arabic predicted Arabic word reading. Complex-word reading fluency was predicted by morphological awareness within both languages. Similarly, in both languages, phonological awareness was the single factor predict...
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Reading and Writing
Arabic native speaking children are born into a unique linguistic context called diglossia (Fergu... more Arabic native speaking children are born into a unique linguistic context called diglossia (Ferguson, word, 14, 47–56, [1959]). In this context, children grow up speaking a Spoken Arabic Vernacular (SAV), which is an exclusively spoken language, but later learn to read another linguistically related form, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Forty-two first-grade Arabic native speaking children were given five measures of basic reading processes: two cognitive (rapid automatized naming and short-term working memory), two phonological (phoneme discrimination and phoneme isolation), and one orthographic (letter recoding speed). In addition, the study produced independent measures of phonological processing for MSA phonemes (phonemes that are not within the spoken vernacular of children) and SAV phonemes (phonemes that are familiar to children from their oral vernacular). The relevance of these skills to MSA pseudoword reading fluency (words correct per minute) in vowelized Arabic was tested....
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Journal of Child Language
This study tested the effect of the phoneme's linguistic affiliation (Standard Arabic versus ... more This study tested the effect of the phoneme's linguistic affiliation (Standard Arabic versus Spoken Arabic) on phoneme recognition among five-year-old Arabic native speaking kindergarteners (N=60). Using a picture selection task of words beginning with the same phoneme, and through careful manipulation of the phonological properties of target phonemes and distractors, the study showed that children's recognition of Standard phonemes was poorer than that of Spoken phonemes. This finding was interpreted as indicating a deficiency in the phonological representations of Standard words. Next, the study tested two hypotheses regarding the specific consequences of under-specified phonological representations: phonological encoding versus phonological processing. These hypotheses were addressed through an analysis of the relative power of distractors. The findings revealed that children's difficulty in accessing Standard Arabic phonemes was due to a difficulty in the phonologica...
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First Language
The study tested epilinguistic and metalinguistic phonological awareness in junior kindergarten, ... more The study tested epilinguistic and metalinguistic phonological awareness in junior kindergarten, senior kindergarten and first-grade Hebrew native speaking children (N= 115). The primary aim was to investigate whether children's epilinguistic and metalinguistic phonological awareness was affected by the position of the target phoneme (initial vs. final). Two epilinguistic phonological awareness tasks (initial and final phoneme recognition) and two metalinguistic tasks (initial and final phoneme isolation) were used. The findings showed that, while epilinguistic awareness for initial phonemes was higher than that for final phonemes, the opposite was true for metalinguistic awareness. The results imply that Hebrew native speaking children's metalinguistic awareness is predicated on a language-specific body-coda phonological representation. The phonological organization summoned during epilinguistic awareness tasks appears to be essentially different, however. The disjoint patt...
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Literacy Studies, 2014
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Applied Psycholinguistics, 2008
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Literacy Studies, 2014
ABSTRACT Mother-Child Literacy Activities and Early Literacy in the Israeli Arab Family Abstract ... more ABSTRACT Mother-Child Literacy Activities and Early Literacy in the Israeli Arab Family Abstract Our chapter focuses on the language and literacy development of Israeli Arabic-speaking kindergarten children within the context of their family. We researched two different literacy activities: storybook reading and joint word writing. The chapter presents results of the contribution of these activities, including socioeconomic status (SES) and home literacy environment (HLE), to children's literacy level in kindergarten among Israeli Arabic-speaking families. A total of 109 kindergarten children and their mothers participated. Children’s literacy level was assessed in kindergarten. Mothers and children were videotaped at home in a book reading activity and in a word writing activity, and demographic and HLE data were gathered from the mothers. Mothers showed low to medium levels of mediation in the book-reading activity by focusing mainly on paraphrasing and in the writing activity by mainly naming the letters and providing a model for copying. However, while the writing activity followed Bronfenbrenner’s three-layered ecological model (SES, HLE and parental mediation) as expected, the reading activity showed a contribution only of the two first layers, SES and HLE. We conclude that the linguistic gap between the spoken and the literary language poses difficulties and may be confusing for the mothers in mediating the written language across literacy activities, reading and writing. Our study points to the importance of the family's HLE and SES for children's early literacy. Future studies should emphasize how to best design family intervention programs so as to maximize children's literacy growth within the Arabic-speaking family.
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Current Issues in Bilingualism, 2011
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Current Issues in Bilingualism, 2011
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Reading and Writing, 2010
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Reading and Writing, 2011
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Papers by Elinor Saiegh-Haddad