Getting to know the mechanisms of language learning in order to “improve the educational system and stimulate people with linguistic disorders so that they learn to read and write” is the objective of the work carried out by experts of the University of Granada (UGR, Spain), under the coordination of the psychologist and educationalist Silvia Defior, within the European project Enhancing literacy development in European languages (ELDEL). In this work (financed by the 7th Framework Program) they will study the learning process of reading and writing in different languages to compare them with others and get to know the factors involved, according to Andalucía Investiga.
Every language is a unique combination of letters and sounds. It is not the same to learn English than to learn Spanish, French, Italian… Every language has a series of graphemes (written system units) and phonemes (of the phonic-phonological level), as well as a particular relationship between them.
For example, Defior explains that the Spanish language has an easier writing system than English, as the relationship between graphemes and phonemes in Spanish is very transparent. This is, the graphic representation of sounds is easier than in English, where the relationship between phonemes and graphemes is much more unpredictable and almost all words are written one way and pronounced another.
«That is why Spanish children learn to speak and write earlier than English children», points out the expert, who also says that, nevertheless, Spanish also has some inconsistencies, such the problem of distinguishing between b and v, g and j, or c and z. «For example, you must know the the word bagaje to know how to write it, because, according to its pronunciation, you could write in different ways (vagaje, vagage, bagage)», says the researcher.
Thus, the ELDEL project wants to study all the psycholinguistic and cognitive factors that affect the learning of reading and writing of a language, this is, those connected to the capacity of memory, visual attention or those related to morphological and syntactic aspects, but it also wants to do research into the impact of environmental factors, such as the social and cultural environment where the child learns.
Children aged between 5 and 8 years old
For this reason, the group from Granada works with 5 to 8 year-olds and collaborates with schools both in the city and the province, such as Sierra Nevada, Cristo de la Yedra or Santa Juliana.
Furthermore, Silvia Defior highlights the fact that this study also aims to find out how language acquisition works in people with problems of dyslexia or dysgraphia (writing ability deficiency), as well as in those with Down’s syndrome or other language-specific disorders.
ELDEL has the participation of five languages: English (Germanic), Spanish and French (Romance) and Czech and Slovakian(Slavic) and the collaboration of the Universities of Karlova V Praze Czech (Czech Republic), Poitiers (France), Komenskeho V, Brastislave (Slovakia), Blaise Pascal Clermont-Ferrand II (France) and the University of Cork (Ireland).
Reference: Silvia Defior Citoler. Department of Evolutionary and Educational Psychology of the University of Granada. Phone number: 958 249 408. E-mail: sdefior@ugr.es