Effects of lexicality in copying and dictation tasks in first-grade children
(2021) Society for the Scientific Study of Reading — Location: Online (14.July.2021)
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- Purpose. Although performance in dictation has been widely studied in past literature, little is known about copying performance in first-grade children. At the same time, children have to copy every day at school. Therefore, the present research aims to fully understand their copying and dictation skills by analyzing lexicality effects in both tasks. Method. Sixty-one French-speaking children in Grade 1 were asked to perform 24-word dictation and copying tasks on the same target words. Words varied in terms of lexicality: pseudowords, frequent and nonfrequent words were administered, which allowed investigating the lexicality effect on writing outcomes and copying processes. For each word in both tasks, spelling accuracy, handwriting quality, handwriting duration, and number of pauses were taken into account. In the copying task only, the number of gaze lifts was counted. Results. GLMM analyses showed an effect of lexicality on spelling accuracy, handwriting duration, and number of pauses in the dictation task. Children made 15 percent errors in the copying task. Analyses showed an effect of lexicality on handwriting quality, number of pauses, and number of gaze lifts in this latter task. When copying nonfrequent words, children produced more pauses and wrote in a less readable way. When copying pseudowords, children made more gaze lifts to take information. Conclusions. The differences in lexicality effect between the two tasks are related to first-grade children’s spelling knowledge. Overall, these findings provide new insights and encourage future research to deeply study copying processes to help children with copying at school.
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Blampain, E., & Van Reybroeck, M. (2021). Effects of lexicality in copying and dictation tasks in first-grade children. Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Online. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/113648