Apprendre à écrire des informations orthographiques silencieuses en langue seconde : Effets d'un programme d'entraînement sur les performances et suivis intra- et interindividuel du développement des patterns de production du pluriel

Scientific Conference (2018, August 04)

General and Specific Contributions of RAN to Reading and Arithmetic Fluency in First Graders: A Longitudinal Latent Variable Approach

in Frontiers in Psychology (2017)

In the present study, we opted for a longitudinal design and examined rapid automatized naming (RAN) performance from two perspectives. In a first step, we examined the structure of RAN performance from a ... [more ▼]

In the present study, we opted for a longitudinal design and examined rapid automatized naming (RAN) performance from two perspectives. In a first step, we examined the structure of RAN performance from a general cognitive perspective. We investigated whether rapid naming measures (e.g., digit RAN and color RAN) reflect a mainly domain-general factor or domain-specific factors. In a second step, we examined how the best fitting RAN model was related to reading and arithmetic outcomes, assessed several months later. Finally in a third step we took a clinical perspective and investigated specific contributions of RAN measures to reading and arithmetic outcomes. While RAN has emerged as a promising predictor of reading, the relationship between RAN and arithmetic has been less examined in the past. Hundred and twenty-two first graders completed seven RAN tasks, each comprising visually familiar stimuli such as digits, vowels, consonants, dice, finger-numeral configurations, objects, and colors. Four months later the same children completed a range of reading and arithmetic tasks. From a general descriptive perspective, structural equation modeling supports a one-dimensional RAN factor in 6- to -7-year-old children. However, from a clinical perspective, our findings emphasize the specific contributions of RANs. Interestingly, alphanumeric RANs (i.e., vowel RAN) were most promising when predicting reading skills and number-specific RANs (i.e., finger-numeral configuration RAN) were most promising when predicting arithmetic fluency. The implications for clinical and educational practices will be discussed. [less ▲]

The effect of training morphosyntactic markers in German and in French on multilingual fifth-graders' spelling.

Scientific Conference (2017, June 26)

Many studies focussing on spelling in French and German languages show that, even by the end of the primary school, pupils have difficulties to encode morphosyntactic information in their writing ... [more ▼]

Many studies focussing on spelling in French and German languages show that, even by the end of the primary school, pupils have difficulties to encode morphosyntactic information in their writing. Particularly problematic are, for instance, capitalisation of nouns in German (Betzel 2014) or plural markers in French (Fayol et al. 2006), because they are inaudible and require knowledge that goes beyond simple phoneme-grapheme correspondences. Our paper presents how multilingual learners deal with silent morphosyntactic markers in French and German and shows the effects of an intervention training on children's spelling performance. In total our study included 228 multilingual fifth graders (mean age 11 years) with four years instruction in German and two years instruction in French. They were assigned to an intervention (n=137) and to a control group (n=91) based on the results of a spelling test in French and German. This was done by creating performance groups that were, in a second step, attributed to one of the experimental groups taking their performance into account (quasi-randomised procedure). The French test consisted of three word categories of different difficulty (nouns, verbs, adjectives). For adjectives only, position (pre- vs. post-nominal) was also manipulated. The German test focussed on three lexical-semantic characteristics (concrete nouns, abstract nouns, nominalizations) and four syntactical positions (determinant+noun, determinant+adjective+noun, adjective+noun, noun) frequent words and pseudo-words. Additionally, word frequency was manipulated within each language (frequent words vs. pseudowords). These difficulty levels have been based on the literature published on monolingual learners (French: Totereau et al. (2014), German: Funke (2005); Guenther (2007); Betzel (2014)). The children participated in 12 intervention sessions of 20 minutes each (six in German and six in French, the order was counterbalanced). Children of the intervention group were trained to improve their morphosyntactic awareness and thus spelling performance of French plurals and German capitalization. The control group received the same amount of language input than the intervention group, but they were trained on another aspect of language i.e. listening comprehension. Results from the pre-test show that multilingual children acquiring German and French show similar difficulty patterns as German or French monolinguals. The post-test shows that the intervention group improved significantly in both their German and French spelling in comparison to the control group in all word and pseudo-word categories and positions. The intervention group's performance increased especially on pseudo-words, indicating that the training had an effect on children's spelling according to syntactic regularities. The study results are specifically important to better understand the learning processes of morphosyntactic spelling in primary school. The implications on the teaching methods will be discussed. [less ▲]

Producing written noun phrases in French

in Written Language and Literacy (2015), 18(1), 1-24

This research compares the time-course of the written production of bare nouns to that of noun phrases. French adults named pictures of objects either using or not using determiners. Resulting pauses and ... [more ▼]

This research compares the time-course of the written production of bare nouns to that of noun phrases. French adults named pictures of objects either using or not using determiners. Resulting pauses and writing rates were analyzed in relation to word-orthographic frequency, syllabic length, and phoneme-to-grapheme consistency at the end of words. More specifically, we showed that the noun production process begins as soon the determiner production is initiated (word frequency effect on latencies, length and consistency effects on determiner writing rate) and continued during the course of the noun production. When the determiner was absent, the management of writing was different: the writer slowed the production speed, probably in order to realize the lexeme processing that s/he could not do in the absence of the determiner production time. These results provided further evidence that some form of parallel processing occurs in written word production and led us to sketch the time-course of the noun spelling in written denomination of a noun phrase. [less ▲]

Identifying strategies in arithmetic with the operand recognition paradigm: A matter of switch cost?

in Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory and Cognition (2015), 41(2), 541-552

Determining adults’ and children’s strategies in mental arithmetic constitutes a central issue in the domain of numerical cognition. However, despite the considerable amount of research on this topic, the ... [more ▼]

Determining adults’ and children’s strategies in mental arithmetic constitutes a central issue in the domain of numerical cognition. However, despite the considerable amount of research on this topic, the conclusions in the literature are not always coherent. Therefore, there is a need to carry on the investigation, and this is the reason why we developed the operand recognition paradigm (ORP). It capitalizes on the fact that, contrary to retrieval, calculation procedures degrade the memory traces of the operands involved in a problem. As a consequence, the use of calculation procedures is inferred from relatively long recognition times of the operands. However, it has been suggested that recognition times within the ORP do not reflect strategies but the difficulty of switching from a difficult task (calculation) to a simpler one (recognition). In order to examine this possibility, in a series of 3 experiments we equalized switch-cost variations in all conditions through the introduction of intermediate tasks between problem solving and recognition. Despite this neutralization, we still obtained the classical effects of the ORP, namely longer recognition times after addition than after comparison. We conclude that the largest part of the ORP effects is related to different strategy use and not to difficulty-related switch costs. The possible applications and promising outcomes of the ORP in and outside the field of numerical cognition are discussed. [less ▲]

Successful written subject verb agreement: an online analysis of the procedure used by students in Grades 3, 5 and 12

in Reading and Writing (2015), 28

This study was designed to (1) investigate the procedure responsible forsuccessful written subject–verb agreement, and (2) describe how it develops acrossgrades. Students in Grades 3, 5 and 12 were asked ... [more ▼]

This study was designed to (1) investigate the procedure responsible forsuccessful written subject–verb agreement, and (2) describe how it develops acrossgrades. Students in Grades 3, 5 and 12 were asked to read noun–noun–verb sen-tences aloud (e.g., Le chien des voisins mange [The dog of the neighbors eats]) andwrite out the verb inflections. Some of the nouns differed in number, thus inducingattraction errors. Results showed that third graders were successful because theyimplemented a declarative procedure requiring regressive fixations on the subjectnoun while writing out the inflection. A dual-step procedure (Hupet, Schelstraete,Demaeght, & Fayol, 1996) emerged in Grade 5, and was fully efficient by Grade 12.This procedure, which couples an automatized agreement rule with a monitoringprocess operated within working memory (without the need for regressive fixa-tions), was found to trigger a mismatch asymmetry (singular–plural [ plural–sin-gular) in Grade 5. The time course of written subject–verb agreement, the origin of agreement errors and differences between the spoken and written modalities are discussed. [less ▲]

Peut-on améliorer les performances mathématiques en faisant jouer les enfants?

in Developpements (2015), 18-19

Enseigner la ponctuation: comment et avec quels effets?

in Français Aujourd'Hui (Le) (2014), 4(187), 31-40

Nous rapportons ici les résultats d’une brève recherche portant sur l’apprentissage explicite de la ponctuation. Cent-vingt-neuf enfants de CE2 (3ème primaire) ont suivi un enseignement bref (deux ... [more ▼]

Nous rapportons ici les résultats d’une brève recherche portant sur l’apprentissage explicite de la ponctuation. Cent-vingt-neuf enfants de CE2 (3ème primaire) ont suivi un enseignement bref (deux semaines ; six séances de 20 mn) et systématique visant à présenter et expliquer la nature et la fonction textuelle de trois marques de ponctuation (alinéa : A ; point et majuscule : PM ; virgule : V). Ces interventions ont fait l’objet d’une évaluation à court terme (quelques jours) puis à long terme (plusieurs semaines) portant d’abord sur des exercices systématiques (textes à compléter), puis sur la rédaction de l’histoire du « Petit Chaperon Rouge ». Les résultats, modestes, montrent une amélioration de l’emploi des trois marques étudiées. L’absence de groupe contrôle conduit à suggérer de poursuivre les recherches dans cette direction. [less ▲]

Written language : Learning to read and to spell

in Fäcke, C. (Ed.) Manual of language acquisition (2014)