ED 066 736

DOCUMENT RESUME

24 CS 200 071

AUTHOR Calfee, Robert C.; And OthersTITLE Pronunciation of Synthetic Words with Predictable and

Unpredictable Letter-Sound Correspondences. TechnicalReport No. 71.

INSTITUTION Wisconsin Univ., Madison. Research and DevelopmentCurter for Cognitive Learning.

SPONS AGENCY Office of Education (DREW) , Washington, D.C.Cooperative Research Program.

REPCRT NO TR-71BUREAU NO BR-5-0216PUB DATE Feb 69CONTRACT OEC-5-10-154NOTE 22p.

EDRS PRICE MF-$0.65 HC-$3.29DESCRIPTORS *Artificial Speech; College Students; Comparative

Analysis; Gracie 3; Grade 6; Grade 11; LinguisticPerformance; Phonetics; *Pronunciation; *ReadingProcesses; *Reading Research; *Reading Skills;Research Methodology; Research Reviews(Publications); Word Lists; Word Recognition

ABSTRACTThe acquisition of Literacy Project's basic goal is

to determine the processes by which children learn to read, and toidentify reasons many fail to learn. One part of the process is theformation of correspondences between letter patterns and the soundsfor which they stand. To determine the extent of suchcorrespondences, tests of pronunciation of synthetic words wereconducted. A list of these words was prepared to test thepronunciation of predictable patterns, such as (final "e", "c" before"e" and "i", and "c" before "a", "o" and nu"), and unpredictablepatterns (vowel digraph spellings such as "ai" and uou"). Responseswere recorded and transcribed by graduate students trained inphonetics. Participants were third, sixth and eleventh graders, andcollege students. A good third grade reader showed mastery ofpredictable letter-sound correspondences. This mastery increasedthrough high school, but correlation with reading achievementdecreased, presumably because this ability is only one of manynecessary for skilled reading. Poor readers made more and wild errorsin correspondences than good readers. (Author/GR)

PRONUNCIATION OF SYNTHETICWORDS WITH PREDICTABLE ANDUNPREDICTABLE LETTER SOUNDCORRESPONDENCES

U.S DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH,EDUCATION & WELFAREOFFICE OF EDUCATION

THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROMTHE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORMINATING IT POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATEO DO NOT NECESSARILYREPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EOUCATION POSITION OR POLICY

Technical Report No. 71

PRONUNCIATION OF SYNTHETIC WORDS WITH PREDICTABLE AND

UNPREDICTABLE LETTER-SOUND CORRESPONDENCES

By Robert C. Calfee, Richard L. Venezky, and Robin S. Chapman

Report from the Project on Language Concepts and Cognitive SkillsRelated to the Acquisition of Literacy

Robert C. Calfee and Richard L. Venezky, Principal Investigators

Wisconsin Research and Development Centerfor Cognitive Learning <44

The University of WisconsinMadison, Wisconsin

February 1969

The research reported herein was performed pursuant to a contract with the United States*Officeof Education, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, under the provisions of the Ciiopera-tive Research Program. The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflectthe position or policy of the Office of Education and no official endorsement by the Office ofEducation should be inferred.

Center No. C-03 / Contract OE 5-10-154

NATIONAL EVALUATION COMMITTEE

Samuel BrownellProfessor of Urban EducationGraduate SchoolYale University

Launor F. CarterSenior Vico President on

Technology and DevelopmentSystem Development Corporation

Francis S. ChaseProfessorDepartment of EducationUniversity of Chicago

Henry ChaunceyProsidentEducational Testing Service

Martin DeutschDirector, Institute for

Developmental StudiesNow York Medical College

Jack Ed lingDirector, Teaching Research

DivisionOregon State System of Higher

Education

Elizabeth KoontzPresidentNational Education Association

Roderick McPheePresidentPunahou School, Honolulu

G. Wesley SowardsDirector, Elementary EducationFlorida State University

Patrick SupperProfessorDepartment of MathematicsStanford University

*Benton J. UnderwoodProfessorDepartment of PsychologyNorthwestern University

UNIVERSITY POLICY REVIEW BOARD

Leonard Berkowitz John Guy Fowlkes Herbert J. Klausmeier M. Crawford YoungChairman Director Director, R S D Center Associate DeanDepartment of Psychology Wisconsin Improvement Program Professor of Educational The Graduate School

Psychology

Archie A. Buchmiller Robert E. Grinder Donald J. McCartyDeputy State SuperintendentDepartment of Public Instruction

*James W. ClearyVice Chancellor for Academic

Affairs

Leon D. EpsteinDeanCollege of Letters and Science

ChairmanDepartment of Educational

Psychology

H. Clifton HutchinsChairmanDepartment of Curriculum and

Instruction

Clauston JenkinsAssistant DirectorCoordinating Committee for

Higher Education

DeanSchool of Education

Ira SharkanskyAssociate Professor of Political

Science

Henry C. WeinlickExecutive SecretaryWisconsin Education Association

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Edgar F. BorgattaBrittingham Professor of

Sociology

Max R. GoodsonProfessor of Educational Policy

Studies

Russell J. HosierProfessor of Curriculum and

Instruction and of Business

*Herbert J. KlausmeierDirector, R & D CenterProfessor of Educational

Psychology

Wayne OttoProfessor of Curriculum and

Instruction (Reading)

Robert G. PetzoldAssociate Dean of the School

of EducationProfessor of Curriculum and

instruction and of Music

Richard L. VenezkyAssistant Professor of English

and of Com,suter Sciences

FACULTY OF PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS

Ronald R. Allen Gary A. Davis Max R. Goodson Richard G. MorrowAssociate Professor of Speech Associate Professor of Professor of Educational Policy Assistant Professor of

and of Curriculum and Educational Psychology Studies Educational AdministrationInstruction

Vernon L. Allen M. Vere De Vault Warren 0. Hagstrom Wayne OttoAssociate Professor of Psychology Professor of Curriculum and Professor of Sociology Professor of Curriculum andIOn leave 1968-69) Instruction (Mathematics) Instruction (Reading)

Nathan S. Blount Frank H. Farley John G. Harvey Milton 0. PellaAssociate Professor of English Assistant Professor of Associate Professor of Professor of Curriculum and

and of Curriculum andInstruction

Educational Psychology Mathematics and Curriculumand Instruction

Instruction (Science)

Robert C. CalfeeAssociate Professor of Psychology

Robert E. DavidsonAssistant Professor of

Educational Psychology

John Guy Fowlkes (Advisor)Professor of Educational

AdministrationDirector of the Wisconsin

Improvement Program

Lester S. GolubLecturer in Curriculum and

Instruction and in English

Herbert J. KlausmeierDirector, R & D Center

Professor of EducationalPsychology

Burton W. KreitlowProfessor of Educational Policy

Studies and of Agriculturaland Extension Education

Thomas A. RombergAssistant Professor of

Mathematics and ofCurriculum and instruction

Richard L. VenezkyAssistant Professor of English

and of Computer Sciences

MANAGEMENT COUNCIL*Herbert J. Klausmeier

Director, R & D CenterActing Director, Program 1

Mary R. QuillingDirectorTechnical Section

Thomas A. RombergDirectPrograms 2 and 3

3

James E. WalterDirectorDissemination Section

Dan G. WoolpertDirectorOperations and Business

* COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN

STATEMENT OF FOCUS

The Wisconsin Research und Development Center for Cognitive Lowningfocuses on contributing lo u bcllor understanding of cognitive lc:wiling by chil-dren and youth and to the improvement of related ducational practices. Thestrategy lot research und development is comprohc;i6IVC: . It includes basic re-search to genet ate new knowledge about the conditions and processes of learn-ing and about the processes of instruction, and the subsequent development 01research-based ihslructional materials, many of which are designed for use byLeachers and others for use by students. These materials are tested and refinedin school sellings. Throughoul these operations be..z.ivioral scientists, curricu-lum experts, academic scholars, and school people interact, insuring that theresults of Center activities are based soundly on kno,vledge of subject maltorand cognitive learning and that they are applied to the improvement of educa-tional practice.

This Technical Report is from the Language Concepts and Cognitive SkillsRelated lo the Acquisition of Literacy Project in Program 1. General objectivesof the Program are lo generate new knowledge about concept learning and cog-nitive skills, to synthesize existing knowledge, and to develop educationalmaterials suggested by the prior activities. Contributing to these Programobjectives, this project's basic goal is to determine the processes by whichchildren aged four to seven learn to read and to identify the specific reasonswhy many childrrin fail to acquire this ability. Later studies will be conductedto find experimental techniques and tests for optimizing the acquisition ofskills needed for learning to read.

4

CONTENTS

Page

List of Tables and Figures vi

Abs tract ix

I. Letter-Sound Correspondences

II. Method 3

Stimulus Materials 3Procedures 3Subjects 4

III. Results 6

Pronunciations of Predictable Patterns 6Appropriate Responses 6Inappropriate Responses 8

Pronunciation of Unpredictable Patterns 8Vowel Digraphs 8Miscellaneous Comparisons 8

Response Times 10

IV. Discussion 12

References 15

5

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table Page

1 Experimental Words Classed According to Spelling Patterns 3

Background Data on Students 5

3 Spearman Rank-Order Correlations of Pronunciation, Reading,and IQ Scores 7

4 Percentage of Primary Pronunciations of Digraph Vowels 9

5 Examples of Shifts in Pronunciation of Vowel Digraphs as aFunction of Context 10

6 Response Times to Experimental items, Averaged OverAll Students 11

Figure

1 Percentage of Correct Pronunciations of Vowels in Final -ePatterns 6

Percentage of Correct Pronunciations of c Followed by e or i 6

3 Percentage of Correct Pronunciations of c Followed bya, o, or u 6

vi

ABSTRACT

A child learns to read by first learning to translate from visual symbols tosound. One part of this process is the formation of correspondences betweenletter patterns and the sounds for which they stand. Recent linguistic researchhas revealed more regularity in letter-sound correspondences than was pre-viously thought. A major concern of the study reported here was to find theextent to which readers used such correspondences in pronouncing syntheticwords, and how they pronounced synthetic words for which no such regular cor-respondences existed.

A list of synthetic words was prepared for testing the pronunciation of pre-dictable patterns (final -e, c before e and i, and c before a, o, and u), unpre-dictable patterns (vowel digraph spellings such as ai, on), and miscellaneousspellings (III, final -s,). For the predictable patterns, the appropriate responseswere taken to be the long form of the vowel for final -c patterns (rate, mete,bite, rote, cute), c pronounced /s/ before e and i (cell, city), and c pronounced/k/ before a, o, and u (cake, coke, cute). A 40-item list and 5 pretraining items,prepared on slides in capital letters, were presented to Ss in one of two randomorders. Responses were recorded and transcribed by graduate students trainedin phonetics. Participating in the study were third and sixth graders from twoelementary schools, eleventh graders, and college students.

It was found that, to the extent that a child in third grade was identified asa good reader, he showed some mastery of predictable letter-sound correspond-ences. This mastery increased through high school, but the correlation withreading achievement decreased, presumably because this ability is only one ofmany necessary for skilled reading. Poor readers made more and "wilder" errorson predictable patterns and gave less consistent responses to unpredictablespellings.

vii

7

LETTER -SOUND CORRESPONDENCES

Analysis of grapheme-phoneme relation-ships based on the 20,000 most frequentEnglish words has revealed a greater degreeof patterning than was assumed previously(Venezky, 1967). While English orthographyis far from a one-letter, one-sound system,graphemic, morphemic, and phonemic cluesexist or predicting many pronunciations.'Many letters, like d, f, j, 1, q, v, and z, haveinvariant or rearly invariant pronunciations.Others,like b, c, and m, have variant cor-respondences which can be predicted on thebasis of their graphemic environment. Forexample, initial c corresponds to /s/ beforethe spellings e, i, or y; (cell, city, cyst);otherwise, it corresponds to /k,/ (cake, coke,cute).2

Some correspondences, while predictable,occur too infrequently to be classed as rules.Initial gh, for example, is always pronounced/g /, yet it occurs only in ghost, ghoul,gherkin, ghastly, and ghetto. It is unlikelythat most readers would acquire a corres-pondence from so few examples. Often theform class of a word determines the pronun-ciation of some of its letters. For example,final -ate is generally' /- It /:in nouns andadjectives, but /-et/ in verbs; cf. delegate(n): delegate (v): duplicate (adj.): dupli-cate (v):

Each single-letLer vowel spellinga,e, i, y, o, uhas two major pronunciations,usually referred to as the long and shortpronunciations. The long pronunciation gen-erally occurs when the vowel letter is fol-lowed by a simple consonant unit and thenanother vowel spelling (including final, silent

'IPA symbols will be used to indicatepronunciation.

2Cello and a few other rare Italian bor-rowings are exceptions. For medial c, vowelpatterns plus stress determine whether c is

/s/, or /k/, as in social ,recede , oracute.

-e).3 Otherwise, the short pronunciation oc-curs. Compare, for example, rate:rat, mete:met, site: sit, pope: pop, cube: cub, and anal:annals (the first a spelling), and super:supper.The final -e in forms like rate and mete is amarker; that is, it has no pronunciation ofits own, but indicates the pronunciation ofsome other letter or letters. In rage, -e marksboth the long pronunciation of a and the /I/pronunciation of g (cf. rag). Sometimesmarkers mark morphemic rather than phonemicpatterns. For example, in house and moose,-e indicates that the s is not a marker ofplurality.

Digraph vowel spellings generally havea single, high frequency pronunciation, butmay have several other low frequency pronun-ciations. These pronunciations are seldompredictable, except in isolated circumstances.For example, oo is generally pronounced /u/,as in loop and noon. Before final k, however,oo is /u/, as in book, look and shook (spookis an exception).

It has been shown that good readers,even if taught to read by whole word nethods,make some letter-sound generalizations(Bishop, 1964). These generalizations shouldaid the reader in pronouncing words he hasnot seen before. Even though the set of pos-sible letter-sound generalizations is far fromexhaustive for the letter-sound correspondences(LSCs) which occur in English, such generali-zations still aid a reader in approximating thepronunciation of unfamiliar words. Further-more, if the reader knows the allowable rangeof pronunciations for a letter or letter sequence,he may by trial and error connect an unfamiliarvisual sequence with a known pronunciation.

3A simple consonant unit is any singleconsonant except x, and any of the digraphsch, gh, ph, rh, sh, and th. A few exceptionsto the vowel rule do exist (e.g. love , lose,have), but they are infrequent.

1

In the study reported here, the ability ofchildren and adults to employ letter-soundgeneralizations was explored, The questionswe attempted to answer are:

a. How well can readers use certainLSCs in pronouncing unfamiliar words ?

h, When the pronunciation of a letter(or letters) is not predictable, howdo readers respDnd to it?

2

9

c. How do letter-sound generalizationsdevelop?

d. Is there a pattern to the errors madein pronouncing letters which havepredictable correspondenc?s ?

e, What differences are there in the pro-nunciation strategies of good andpoor readers?

METHOD

STIMULUS MATERIALS

A list. of 10 synthetic words and a pre-training list. Jf 5 synthetic words were pre-pared.4 In the absence of any informationabout what comparisons might be most in-teresting, the synthetic words were selectedto cover a variety of spelling patterns, in-cluding the predictable final -e and initialc patterns and the unpredictable vowel di-graph patterns. The experimental items arelisted in Table 1 according to spelling pat-terns. Three of the itemsmien, lelhe, and

4The list presented to college studentsdiffered in certain respects from the one de-scribed, which was used for all other groups.The CSW list contained 135 items, 38 ofwhich were identical or similar to the experi-mental items in Table 1. Non-identical itemswere tide for cipe, cuse for cune, and cepcfor cerp. Missing items in the CSW listwere houm and veeg.

techwere actually low-frequency Englishwords. A 35mm slide was made of each itemtyped in sans-serU capital letters. Two ran..clom orders of the 5 pretraining items and the40-item list were prepared.

PROCEDURE

Each S was brought to an experimentalroom, given a microphone, and instructed inhow to hold it while a proper recording levelwas established on the Uhcr 7000S stereorecorder. He was then told that he would seea series of synthetic words and that he wasto pronounce each of these words as if itwere a regular English word. Half of eachclass was assigned at random to each orderof the list. High school and college studentswere especially warned not to treat the itemsas foreign words. Presentation rate of theslides by a Kodak Carousel remote-controlledprojector was S-paced. Younger children wereencouraged not to take too long.

Table 1. Experimental Words Classed According to Spelling Patterns

Final -e Initial and Medial c Vowel Digraph

cabe cabe* baig theat yookclase cofe kaip peaz shooggale cose* chait veeg vooplethe cune* thaid neem poupcipe cerp dauk leek houmcofe cipe* laum sheipcose acol kaut viebcune acil thaus yiet

rnien

Miscellaneous

s ch

thaus*cose*clase*

th

thaus*theat*thaid

chait*chungchalmoch

gh

ghinghimghal

final -croc

Indicates words entering into more than one spelling pattern comparison.

3

t J0

Latency of response tc each item wasmectsured later from the click of the slideprojector (on one tape channel) to the begin-ning of a complete. response (on the othertape cl-annel) by means of an automated cardpunch device accurate to within .10 second.

A phonetic: transcription of each student'sclot° was made by a trained linguist from thetape recording, and an independent check ofa random sample of the data was mad, by asecond linguist. No major disagreementswere found in the check.

Background information was collected foreach student on reading ability (tests of read-ing skill or teacher ratings), IQ, grade pointaverage, exposure to foreign languages, andwhether or not the student had lived outsidethe upper Midwest region of the country. Highschool and college students were asked afterthe test session !o state those factors whichthey felt influenced their pronunciations onthe test.

4

SUBJ ECTS

Elementary school students were drawnfrom third and sixth grades of Huogel (1-1), amiddle class school in Madison, Wisconsin,and Wilson (W), a lower-middle class schoolin Janesville, Wisconsin. Eleventh and twelfthgrade Ss came from Oconomowoc (HSO), a highschool in Oconomowoc, near MilwaukeeCollege-age subjects (CSW) were drawn froma beginning psychology class at the Univer-sity of Wisconsin in Madison. A total of 247students took part in the study. The studentsin each group were divided into High (or good)and Low (or poor) reading subgroups by a me-dian split on the basis of available readingtest scores, teacher ratings (HSO), or gradepoint average: (CSW). Background data foreach group of students in the study are pre-sented in fable Z.

11.

Tub lo 2.. Background 1.)ota on Students

Code

Grade

School`'

311 61! 3W 6W

t)

1180 C:SW

1 1 . 1.: C:ollegc

lluegel Hui:gel Wilson Wilson Oconomowoc Univeisiti ofWisconsin.Madison

(middle, upper-middle (lower-middle class (middle, LIppQr-class students in students in Jones- middle classModisor) ville. Wisconsin) students, near

Milwaukee)

No, of subjects 37 2.7 60 69 )

High ReadersMales 8 6 17 15 8 4Females 10 8 12 19 8 5

ReadingPercentilob 84 85 73 19 Bi- above 2..75

IQc 118 118 103 112

Low ReadersMales 12 9 18 18 8 6Females 7 4 13 17 8 7

ReadingPercentileb 36 57 28 14 C- below 2.75

IQc 104 107 96 94 --aOn both reading and intelligence tests, students at Huegel School scored higher than those

at Wilson. For reading (but not intelligen-;e) scores, the gap was substantially greater at the sixththan the third grade. The design of the prE:sent study does not permit any strong test of the reli-ability of this finding. However, Coleman (1966) reports a similar trend toward relatively poorerperformance by loner socioeconomic pupils as grade level increases. Note also that the poorreaders at Huegel improve from the third to sixth grade, but the poor readers at Wilson are gettingworse.

bThe reading tests available were: 3H, Gates-MacGinitie; 6H, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills;3W, Stanford Achievement Test (Word Study Subtest); 6W, Stanford Achievement Test (LanguageSubtest); HSO, grade; CSW, grade point average; 2.0 equals C, 3.0 equals B.

cIQ was measured by: 3H, California Mental Maturity Test; 6H, California Mental MaturityTest; 3W, Lorge-Thorndike; 6W, Lorge-Thorndike. For high school and college students, no IQmeasure was available.

5

III

RESULTS

PRONUNCIATION OFPREDICTABLE PATTERNS

Appropriate Responses

Figures 1, 2, and 3 show the percentageof correct responses to spelling patternswhich have predictable pronunciations: thevowel letter in final -e patterns (long form);c before e or i (/s/); and c before 7, o, or(/k/).

Three generalizations can be drawn fromthese pronunciations of predictable patterns.First, the percentage of appropriate pronun-ciations increases from third grade throughhigh school. Only for c before e or i patternsdo college students surpass high school stu-dents. Second, better readers in third andsixth grades are consistently more likelythan poorer readers to give appropriate re-sponses to predictable patterns. Good andpoor readers continue to differ in the final- e pattern even through college. Third, certainpredictable patterns are not totally masteredeven by the better or older readers. For final- e and c before e and i patterns, at least

6

100

75

50

0

3

Huegel, HSO, CSW

--- Wilson

Good Readers

O Poor Readers

6 HSO CSWGrade Level

Fig. I. Percentage of correct pronunciationsof vowels in final -e patterns

13

100

75 1

50

2 5

0

Huegel, HSO, C SW

Wilson

Good Readers

O Poor Readers

g 100 -.0

U

2a. 75e

ej0

73, 50

ca

r0

3 6 HSO CSWGrade Level

Fig. 2. Percentage of correct pronunciationsof c followed by e or i.

Huegel

Wilson

Good Readers

O Poor Readers

3I I I

6 HSO CSWGrade Level

Fig. 3. Percentage of correct pronunciationsof c followed by o, o, or a.

L5% of the responses were inappropriate forthe best subgroups. The high percentage of/k/ pronunciations of c before a, o, or u atall grades suggests a response bias to pro-nounce c as /k/.

Differences among groups were estimatedby a more detailed analysis of errors on final-e patterns and c before e or i patterns. Col-lege Ss were excluded from this analysissince they received a slightly different ver-sion of the test. Eleven test items were in-cluded in the analysis: the eight final -etest items and the three items testing c be-fore c or i. (Items testing c before a, o, or rc

were excluded since correct responses werelikely to arise simply through response bias.)Each S was assigned a score of 0 to 11, de-pending oil the number of appropriate re-sponses.

Analysis of variance of the scores in a5 x 2 design (grade and school x readinggroup) revealed a reliable difference asso-ciated with the five classes (3II, 3W, 6H,6W, hSO), F(4,213) = 14.6, p< .01. Goodand poor readers differed significantly in thescores achieveJ, /7(1 ,Z13) = 45.7, p < .01.

Duncan range tests revealed no signifi-cant differences between Huegel and Wilsonscores (the two elementary schools whichdiffered in socioeconomic level). The poorerthird grade readerg in both schools were sig-nificantly worse than other groups at givingappropriate pronunciations (p <

Spearman rank-order correlations be-tween Ss' scores on the eleven test itemsand their reading scores are reported inTable 3.5 Reliable positive correlations wereobserved (p < .05) for all classes except 6H.Spearman rank-order correlations betweenIQ scores and pronunciation scores and be-tween IQ and reading scores were also cal-culated; they are recorded in Table 3. Re-liable positive correlations were observed(p < .05) for all cases except the pronuncia-tionIQ correlation for 3W. In third grade, Spronunciation scores are more highly corre-lated than IQ scores with reading; in sixthgrade, however, IQ is a better predictor ofreading rank than is the pronunciation score.

The mean pronunciation score for ele-mentary school girls was 5.48; for boys, 4.67.The tendency for girls to receive slightlyhigher scores tl an boys was confirmed bythe significance of the overall comparison(p < .025). Comparisons by t tests of meanpronunciation scores of male and female Ssin each elementary school class, however,revealed no significant differences.

SAnalysis of covariance, which wouldhave combined anova and the correlationalanalysis, was considered inappropriate forseveral reasons, the most important beingthat different reading tests were administeredto each group.

Table 3. Spearman Rank-Order Correlations of Pronunciation, Reading, and IQ Scoresa

School & Grade Nb PronunciationReading PronunciationIQ IQReadingc

Huegel -3 35 .49**Huegel -6 27 .16 .47*Wilson-3 49 .52** .09 .35*Wilson-6 65 .46** .40** .82**

aCorrecting for ties made a negligible difference in the correlation value; the figures reportedhere are uncorrected.

bOnly Ss for whom all three scores were available are included in this analysis.cReading rank was based on the following scores: 3H, Gates-McGinitie Primary C Reading

Test; 6H, the reading subtest of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills; 3W, the word study skills subtestof the Stanford Achievement Test; 6W, the language subtest of the Stanford Achievement Test(the word study skill:. subtest, more closely related to reading tests, was not given to 6W classes).IQ rank was based on the California Mental Maturity Test for 3H and 6H and the Lorge-Thorndikefor 3W and 6W.

4:p<

*p < .01.

7

14

Inappropriate Responses

The preceding analyses have dealt withappropriate responses to predictable patterns.Inappropriate responses may be (a) the ap-propriate pronunciation for that grapheme ina different environment or (b) inappropriatefor any environment. The first type of in-appropriate response, for instance, might bethe pronunciation of c in cerp as /k/ or /s /pronunciations of c which occur in cat andsocial. The second type of inappropriate re-sponse, which we shall call "wild," might bethe pronunciation of c as /m/.

A breakdown of inappropriate pronuncia-tions in this manner showed that, in both theHuegel and Wilson third grades, poor readersgave about twice as many wild pronunciationses good readers; about 25% of the poor readers'inappropriate responses were wild, comparedwith 10% of the good readers' inappropriateresponses.

A curious phenomenon occurring about10% of the time in both good and poor readersat all grade levels was the pronunciation ofthe final -e marker. A final -e is silent what-ever its grapheme context in about 99% ofall English words. In the graphemic context-VCe, where C is a consonant unit, it is pro-nounced only in the French import cafe, orin such low frequency words as chile, Nike,and hebe. Pronunciation of the final -e incofe together with shortening of the medialvowel to yield /kofi/ (coffee) was especiallycommon. Overall, about 30% of the Ss gavethis response.

PRONUNCIATION OFUNPREDICTABLE PATTERNS

Vowel Digraphs

In Table 4 are shown the pronunciationdata on vowel digraphs. Under the category"other" are all actual pronunciations occur-ring less than 10% of the time when averagedover all groups. Two sets of normative indi-cators of digraph pronunciations are given inthe rightmost columns. The first, based on atype count from the 20,000 most frequent Eng-lish words (Venezky, 1963), indicates theproportion of words containing that digraphwhich are realized by a particular vowelpronunciation. The second is also a typecount indicating relative frequency of par-ticular pronunciations among the 1,000 mostfrequent words (Thorndike, 1941).

8

'15

Both type counts are sometimes poorpredictors; e.g., the correspondences atau /3/, au .../au/ appear much more infre-quently in the data than one would expect onthe basis of the type counts. Few readersused the (often false) formula taught in somephonics reading series that the long form ofthe first vowel in the digraph is the properpronunciation of the digraph ("When two vowelsgo walking, the first does the talking," i.e."says its name"). There was some tendencyfor better readers to agree on the preferredpronunciation: in 32 of the 42 sets of datain Table 4, the first-ranked pronunciation ofthe better readers was more frequently chosenthan the first-ranked pronunciation of the poorreaders. The better readers' preferred pro-nunciations, however, were not much betterpredicted by frequency of type occurrencethan the poor readers' pror.unciations.

There are marked idiosyncratic shifts inpronunciation percentages for digraphs as afunction of the context provided by specificsynthetic words. Some examples of the con-text effects are shown in Table 5, togetherwith words which may have mediated the pro-nunciation. In some instances where. predict-able letter-sound correspondences of limitedgenera..ity can be derived (-ook - /uk/ as inlook, -oop - /up/ as in hoop), there was atendency for this pattern to be followed inpronunciation of synthetic words. That theagreement is less than perfect is indicated bythe oo entries in Table 4: 76% /u/ pronun-ciations for -oop but 37% /u/ pronunciationsfor -ook.

Miscellaneous Comparisons

Final -s patterns occurred in two contexts,thaus versus cose and clase. The occurrenceof -s in terminal position immediately pre-ceded by a vowel or vowel digraph is notfrequent, except for plural and possessivepronoun forms (where -s is given the voicedform of the fricative /z/) and the commonsuffix -ous (where -s is given the voicelessform of the fricative /s/). More typical aftera vowel is the spelling -ss. The pattern -seis not unusual, but both voiced and unvoicedpronunciations are found, as in rose versusdose. Which 1 ronunciation occurs is not pre-dictable from tha graphemic environment. Inall groups, -s in thaus was pronounced /s/by 90% of the readers, possibly because ofits similarity to this and thus. In cose, /s/and /z/ were observed about equally often,

Table 4. Percentage of Primary Pronunciations of Digraph Vowels

Probability Probability31-1 6H 3W 6W HSO CSW of Type Pro- of Type Pro-

nunciation in nunciation inHI LO HI LO HI LO HI LO HI LO HI LO 20,000 Words 1000 Words

al (4)a/0/ 57 33 55 56 47 30 64 29 47 41 75 40 85 71

/6/ 17 19 40 17 8 5 17 25 8 8 8 19 1 14

/e/ 20 29 3 17 30 37 15 28 19 27 0 4 1 0

Other

au (4)

6 19 2 10 15 28 4 18 26 24 15 37 13 15

/0/ 49 20 25 27 28 5 26 24 17 19 33 38 92 67

/a/ 21 21 50 33 23 22 35 24 50 38 3 10 0 0

/w/ 8 13 0 0 22 24 6 18 0 10 0 0 3 33Other

ea (2)

22 46 25 40 27 49 33 34 33 33 64b 52b 5 0

/1/ 86 55 82 77 83 60 91 81 78 82 72 65 61 60Other

ee (3)

14 47 18 23 17 40 9 19 22 18 28 35 39 40

/1/ 94 70 86 92 86 77 91 85 85 87 74 79 89 97Other

ie (3)

6 30 14 8 14 23 9 15 15 13 26 21 11 3

/1/ 37 18 38 33 33 16 43 29 56 44 63 59 27 4;/a1/ 32 32 29 33 23 31 24 26 21 17 11 15 21 33

Other 31 50 33 34 44 53 33 45 23 39 26 26 52 11

00 (3)/u/ 65 42 67 51 54 37 57 47 40 58 45 59 62 55

/1-1/ 17 21 22 23 11 4 30 21 40 32 26 28 27 40/0/ 11 21 5 14 23 40 3 20 15 10 15 5 3 0

Other

ou (2)/0/

9

36

16

26

6

29

12

31

12

21

19

35

10

21

12

32

5

28

0

50

14

c

8 8

2

5

5

/u/ 14 26 29 15 50 30 41 29 50 35 6 0

/au/ 22 5 25 27 5 2 20 12 9 12 50 68Other 28 43 17 27 24 33 18 27 13 3 42 27

aNumber of items per comparison.b,,../au/ in all other cases.-Only one item available.

9

1.6

Table 5. Examples of Shifts in Pronunciation of Vowel Digraphsas a Function of Context

Item Potential Mediator Percentage of Pronunciation

ou /u/ /o/poup soup 43 25houm home 33 41

00 /u/ /IVvoop coop 76 14yook look 33 37

is /i/ /s/mien mean 45 10yiel yet 22 29

ai /e/ /E/La i,L,r beg 35 42kaip c ape 54 11

and in clase, /s/ was used about 70% of thetime (most often in the form /kleas/, or class).

The consonant digraph th, when in initialposition, has the voiced pronunciation /6/only in function words such as the, there, andthen, where it is voiced without exception.It is otherwise unvoiced (/0/), as in thinand thermometer. Although there are a rela-tively small number of function words in Englishby type count, these voiced forms of th arefrom 5 to 50 times more frequent by tokencount in written and spoken English than theunvoiced form. These function words form aclosed set; that is, almost none have beenadded or lost in the language in the last 400years. The nonfunction th words, on the otherhand, form an open-ended class. In the syn-thetic words thous, theat, and thaid, the un-voiced form predominated among good (86%)and poor (79%) readers, with no obviouschanges over grade levels.

The digraphs ch and gh in initial posi-tion contrast both in frequency of occurrenceand regularity of pronunciation. The digraphch is relatively common both by type andtoken counts. It has one predominant pro-nunciation, /67 as in cheese and choose, butalso two variant pronunciations, /k/ as inchemical and chorus and /g/ as in cham-pagne. The appropriate pronunciation is notgenerally predictable from context except forthe clusters chr and chl in which ch is pro-nounced /k/. The digraph gh, on the otherhand, is completely regular in pronunciationin initial position (/g/ as in ghost) but rela-tively rare. For both good and poor readers,ch was pronounced /6/ 81% of the time;

10

good readers pronounced gh as /g/ only 58%of the time, and poor readers gave /g/ only50% of the time. There was a tendency forboth good (10%) and poor (20%) readers at thethird- and sixth-grade levels to read CH asGR (all stimuli were typed in capital 'fitters),which would suggest visual confusio,is. Goodand poor readers gave the pronunciation /j/,as in gin, to ghin about 30% of the time at allgrade levels including college.

RESPONSE TIMES

In Table 6 are shown the response timesaveraged over all students f,r each item. Ingeneral the latency data were quite :ariableand gave no evidence of differences asso-ciated with grade, school, or reading ability.That there is some consistency of responseto particular items is evidenced by the moa-erate correlations between the two presenta-tion orders, which when calculated for eachsubgroup ranged from .35 to .45, reliablydifferent from zero (p < .01). Correlationscomputed between groups, using item responsetimes averaged over all subjects in eachgroup, were found to range from .55 to .65.Correlations between good and poor readerswithin each group ranged from .27 to .55; thecorrelation between mean time per item forgood and poor readers, averaged over allschools and grade levels, was .70. Thesecorrelational data indicate that there werereliable differences in response times todifferent items, and that the larger the num-ber of observations included in any mean

. .

response time, the more reliable the differ-ences.

Inspection of Table 6 reveals two pos-sible sources of difference in reaction time.The geminate (double) vowel spellings ooand ee, whether leading to invariant (ee) orvariant (o0) pronunciations, were pronouncedvery quickly; at the other extreme were acoland acil, the only items that were obviouslybisyllabic. Response time differences cannotbe predicted in a systematic way, however,from difficulty indices drawn from complexityor regularity of LSCs. The more regular voweldigraph patterns are not pronounced fasterthan the less regular vowel digraph patterns.The predictable patterns (c, final -e) are notpronounced significantly faster than the un-predictable vowel digraph patterns. Voweldigraphs involving an additional decisionabout pronunciation of a consonant letter arenot pronounced significantly slower than di-graphs with consonants whose pronunciationis invariant. Comparing the means of allitems involving one choice point for pronun-ciation (e.g., dauk, or cerp) with those itemsinvolving two choice points (e.g., theat, cipe)reveals no significant difference.

Table 6. Response Times to 'ExperimentalItems, Averaged over All Students

ItemMeanTime

(Seconds)

RankOrder

neem 2.45 1

voop 2.53 2

leek 2.56 3

yook 2.58 4roc 2 .77 5

dauk 2.79 6moch 2.84 7

veeg 2.87 8cabe 2.90 9theat 2.92 10vieb 2.96 11

cune 2.96 12

rose 2.97 13cerp 3.02 14mien 3.03 15laum 3.05 16-;lase 3.05 17Chung 3.06 18Llaid 3.10 19s.ioog 3.10 20ghin 3.11 21peaz 3.15 22gafe 3.16 23kaip 3.19 24kaut 3.20 25chal 3.21 26yiet 3.22 27houm 3.22 28chait 3.24 29baig 3.27 30ghim 3.30 31cofe 3.30 32lethe 3.31 33cipe 3.32 34thaus 3.36 35sheip 3.36 36acol 3.41 37poup 3.43 38ghal 3.43 39acil 3.61 40

is11

IV

DISCUSSION

The present study stems from the project'sgoal of improving the teaching of beginningreading. For research purposes, we have de-fined the initial reading process as one oftranslation from alphabetical symbols to thatform of language used by the native speakerin communication (Venezky, Calfee and Chap-man, 1968). Since this translation involvessound (or a subvocal representation of sound)as an intermediary to meaning, the formationof LSC generalizations should be an integralPart of early reading acquisition. Further,young children identified as good readersshould show greater mastery of LSC patternsthan poor readers.

The data confirm the expectation of dif-ferences in the responses of good and poorreaders to the pronunciation task. Goodreaders are consistently more likely thanpoor readers to give appropriate responses topredictable patterns; this is true for all agestested on the final -e pattern, and true for theyounger readers on c patterns. Good readersagree more consistently on a preferred pro-nunciation for the unpredictable digraphvowels. The youngest good readers studiedgive only half as many "wild" responses asthe poor readers of that age. Good readersshow only half as many visual confusionswhen these can be identified (GR for GH).

It can be said, then, that good readersgive more consistent and more appropriateresponses to the synthetic words than poorreaders. This could be simply a result ofgeneral intellectual superiority, or the pro-nunciation task may tap skills more specifi-cally related to the reading task. There isevidence in our data that, for young children,the pronunciation task is more closely re-lated to reading rank than is IQ. For thirdgraders, pronunciation scores on the final -eand c before e and i '9tterns correlate .66(3H) and .52 (3W) with reading rank. Thecomparable correlations of IQ with readingrank are .49 and .35. These pronunciation-reading rank correlations are about as high

12

19

as the correlations from several udies re-ported by Chall (1967) between "letter and/orphonics knowledge" and reading achievement.Chall reports substantial correlations at allgrades (about .60 to .70), in constrast to thesteady decrease in the present study to non-significant values in high school.6

In the present data, IQ measures are bet-ter predictors of reading rank for sixth gradeand above than are pronunciation scores. Thismay indicate that the skills necessary to goodperformance on reading achievement and IQtests beco:ne increasingly similar as the testsbecome more advanced. It is interesting tonote that when matched in IQ (good Wilsonthird graders versus poor Huegel third graders),the good readers make the better pronuncia-tion scores.? Although the correlation of pro-nunciation score with reading rank is atten-uated at higher grades, readers show increasingmastery of LSCs through high school. Learn-ing continues long after formal reading trainingis ended. The greatest increment, at least forpoor readers, is observed between third andsixth grades. Studies of second-, fourth-,and sixth-grade readers are currently being

6The "letter and/or phonics" tests citedby Chall, however, were much more broadlybased than the pronunciation scores used inthis study. For older children, both phonicstests and reading tests rely heavily on vo-cabulary and inference, a fact which mayaccount for the nondecreasing correlationsreported by Chall.

7 The slightly poorer performance of theWilson third grade is correlated with a vari-ety of confounded factorssocioeconomiclevel, IQ, number of siblings, and others forwhich no measures were available (amount oflanguage and reading training at home, .peergroup characteristics, classroom reading,training, class size). The effect of socio-economic level, therefore, cannot be deter-mined from this study.

GPO S I I -1114 I -3

conducted in an effort to characterize thisperiod of rapid acquisition more completely.

While good and poor readers are differen-tiated by the appropriateness of the,ir re-sponses to predictable LSC patterns, nojrour 3ven the oldest and best readersgi ppropriate responses all the time.(The case of c before a, o, or u is an excep-tion which is best attributed to responsebias; /k/ pronunciations of c are far morefrequent in English.)

The small number of items used to testthe final -c pattern do not permit a full as-sessment of either appropriate or inappro-priate responses. The items all ended infinal -c, requiring a long pronunciation ofthe vowel; there were no items testing for theshort pronunciation of the vowel in the sameconsonant frame. A second characteristic ofthe final -e test items is that they were drawnfrom -VCe spellings which have very few real-word exemplars; that is, there are few wordsof similar spelling which rhyme with the syn-thetic items. These items are possibly moredifficult, then, than others which might havebeen chosen (e.g., late, with which at least20 similarly spelled monosyllabic wordsrhyme). Unresolved questions include whetherdifferent vowel spellings show different ratesof mastery, whether the appropriate alterna-tion between long and short vowels is present,and whether partial frames (e.g. -Vte) affectthe appropriateness of vowel pronunciations.

If readers can pronounce patterned syn-thetic words appropriately part of the time,what do they do with spellings for which nopredictable pronunciation exists? The itemstesting digraph vowel pronunciation yielddata on this question. One mode of responseis suggested by phonics training programs,which often assert that such patterns shouldbe pronounced with the long form of the lead-ing vowel: when two vowels go walking,the first one does the talking" and the firstone says its name." This inaccurate gen-eralization is one possible basis for response(only for the digraphs ai and ee in our list isit true more than 70% of the time); the dataclearly indicate, however, that children arenot responding in this way.

Two other methods of predicting the dis-tribution of pronunciations were tried. Thewords containing a particular vowel digraphspelling in the 20,000 most common wordswere-determined (Venezky, 1963), and thepercent of those words receiving a particularpronunciation calculated. We then askedwhether readers were using a matching ormaximizing strategy with respect to this

20

probability distribution of possible pronuncia-tions; that is whether they produced responsesin the same proportion as is found in the20,000 most common words or whether theyalways gave the response most frequent inthat distribution. The answer seems to be Noon both counts. Nor are responses predictedby a similar type count over only the 1,000most frequent words.

Tnat responses are not necessarily se-lected from the most probable pronunciationsis strikingly exemplified by the high percent-age of /au/ responses to au from college stu-dents. This pronunciation occurs in Englishonly in the German imports sauerkraut andumlaut (excluding proper names); use of it bycollege students does not seem to be relatedto knowledge of German, however. Nor areresponses necessarily selected from occur-ring pronunciations; our received many /a/(as in top) pronunciations, which do not oc-cur in English except in dialectal variants.With the exception of ca and ce, overall agree-ment on a preferred pronunciation for a voweldigraph was not high; neither was there highagreement on specific items. Shifts in pro-nunciation of a given digraph as a result ofcontext were observed, however, suggestingthat choice of pronunciation may be contextuallybound. Whatever the mediating mechanism,the spread of observed pronunciations for mostdigraph spellings suggests that it tends to beidiosyncratic. That is, the data would fail tosupport any index which predicted a singlepronunciation as the "appropriate" one for agiven item.

Latency measures were used as a de-pendent variable in this experiment on thebasis of studies showing that frequency de-termines latency of word recognition (e.g.,Postman and Rosenzweig, 1957). It was sur-mised that predictable LSCs (i.e., almost in-variant LSCs such as the c before e or ipatterns) might similarly produce short laten-cies of pronunciation for synthetic words,whereas unpredictable vowel digraph spell-ings might be expected to give longer latencies.This expectation was not met. Response-timedifferences were not related to predictabilityof pronunciation. Whether visual processingor motoric organization for articulation gov-erned the observed item differences, however,cannot be determined from the data. Bothpossibilities are suggested; the first by theshort latencies for geminate vowel digraphs,the second by the long latencies for obviouslybisyllabic items.

In summary, the present data show thatto the extent that the child in third grade is

13

judged a competent reader, he has command ofsome basic LSC patterns. In more advancedgrades, the relation between use of these LSCpatterns and reading achievement is atten-uated, presumably because this ability is onlyone of many necessary for skilled reading.The data are correlationalwe cannot yetsay whether instruction leading to acquisition

14

ki

of LSC patterns, by induction or 01.110INVISe,would produce good readers. Nor can westate prech;e.'.y the form of the LSC generali-zations used by young readers, or the basesof LSC: formation. These questions are cur-rently being explored by studies testing thefinal -c, c, and g patterns more fully in thesecond, fourth, and sixth grades.

REFERENCES

Bishop, C. H. Transfer effects of word andletter training in reading. Journal ofVerbal Learning and Verbal Behavior,1964, 3, 215-221,

Chall, Jeanne. Learning to read: The greatdebate. New York: McGraw Hill, 1967.

Coleman, J. S. Equality of educational oppor-tunity. National Center for EducationalStatistics (DREW), Report No. 0E-38001,1966.

Postman, L. & Rosenzweig, M. R. Perceptualrecognition of words. Journal of Speechand Hearing Disorders, 1957, 22, 245-253.

Thorndike, E. Thorndike-century seniordictionary. New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1941.

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Venezky, R. L. Tabulation of spelling-to-sound correspondences in 20,000 EnglishWords. Unpublished computer print-out,Palo Alto, California, 1963.

Venezky, R. L. Ei,glish orthography: Itsgraphical structure and its relation tosound. Reading Research Quarterly,1967, 2, 75-106.

Venezky, R. L., Calfee, R. C.. & Chapman, R. S.Skills required for learning to read: Apreliminary analysis. Working Paperfrom the TVisconsin Research and De-velopment Center for Cognitive Learn-ing, University of Wisconsin, 1968,No. 10.