Advertisement

Reading and Writing

, Volume 31, Issue 1, pp 35–52 | Cite as

Reading prosody development in Spanish children

  • Marta Álvarez-Cañizo
  • Paz Suárez-Coalla
  • Fernando Cuetos
Article
First Online:

Abstract

Reading prosody is considered one of the essential markers of reading fluency, alongside accuracy and speed. The aim of our study was to investigate how development of reading prosody in Spanish children varies with sentence type and length. We compared primary school children from the third and fifth grades with an adult sample. Participants were recorded reading aloud a narrative text including short and long declarative, exclamatory and interrogative sentences. Recordings were analysed using Praat software to measure several prosodic features (i.e., pauses, duration, pitch and intensity). We found that third-grade children had not yet developed an adult-like prosody: they made more pauses, had a flatter melodic contour and had difficulty anticipating sentence structure. Fifth-graders displayed some features of adult prosody. Both length and type of sentence influenced the expressiveness of reading in the three groups. We conclude that reading expressiveness is closely related to reading experience and develops in a similar way to decoding and reading speed.

Keywords

Reading prosody Spanish children Sentence length Type of sentence 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Notes

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by Grant PSI2015-64174-P from the Spanish Government and supported by the predoctoral grant BP14-038 from the Foundation for the Promotion of Applied Scientific Research and Technology in Asturias (FICYT).

References

  1. Allington, R. L. (1983). Fluency: The neglected reading goal. The reading teacher, 36(6), 556–561.Google Scholar
  2. Álvarez-Cañizo, M., Suárez-Coalla, P., & Cuetos, F. (2015). The role of reading fluency in children’s text comprehension. Frontiers in psychology, 6, 1810. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01810/full.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. Atria, J. J. (2014). Generate pitch object using utterance-specific thresholds: Using Hirst and Delooze’s s two-pass method [Praat script]. Retrieved from: https://github.com/jjatria/plugin_jjatools.
  4. Baayen, R. H. (2008). Analyzing linguistic data: A practical introduction to statistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. Baayen, R. H., Davidson, D. J., & Bates, D. M. (2008). Mixed-effects modeling with crossed random effects for subjects and items. Journal of Memory and Language, 59, 390–412. doi: 10.1016/j.ml.2007.12.005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. Benjamin, R. G., & Schwanenflugel, P. J. (2010). Text complexity and oral reading prosody in young readers. Reading Research Quarterly, 45(4), 388–404. doi: 10.1598/RRQ.45.4.2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  7. Benjamin, R. G., Schwanenflugel, P. J., Meisinger, E. B., Groff, C., Kuhn, M. R., & Steiner, L. (2013). A spectrographically grounded scale for evaluating reading expressiveness. Reading Research Quarterly, 48(2), 105–133. doi: 10.1002/rrq.43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. Binder, K. S., Tighe, E., Jiang, Y., Kaftanski, K., Qi, C., & Ardoin, S. P. (2013). Reading expressively and understanding thoroughly: An examination of prosody in adults with low literacy skills. Reading and Writing, 26(5), 665–680. doi: 10.1007/s11145-012-9382-7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Blaauw, E. (1994). The contribution of prosodic boundary markers to the perceptual difference between read and spontaneous speech. Speech Communication, 14(4), 359–375.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. Blaauw, E. (1995). On the perceptual classification of spontaneous and read speech (Doctoral dissertation). University of Utretch.Google Scholar
  11. Boersma, P., & Weenink, D. (2015). Praat: Doing phonetics by computer (Version 5.4.12) [Computer software]. Available from http://www.praat.org/.
  12. Calet, N., Gutiérrez-Palma, N., Simpson, I. C., González-Trujillo, M. C., & Defior, S. (2015). Suprasegmental phonology development and reading acquisition: A longitudinal study. Scientific Studies of Reading, 19(1), 51–71. doi: 10.1080/10888438.2014.976342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  13. Canellada, M. J., & Madsen, J. K. (1987). Pronunciación del español: lengua hablada y literaria [Spanish pronunciation: spoken and litery language]. Madrid: Editorial Catalia.Google Scholar
  14. Cantero, F. J., De Araújo, M. A., Liu, Y.-H., Wu, Y.-K., & Zanatta, A. (2001). Patrones melódicos de la entonación interrogativa del español en habla espontánea [Melodic patterns of the Spanish interrogative intonation in spontaneuos speech]. Paper presented at the meeting of the II Congreso de Fonética Experimental, Sevilla (Spain).Google Scholar
  15. Clay, M. M., & Imlach, R. H. (1971). Juncture, pitch, and stress as reading behavior variables. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 10(2), 133–139. doi: 10.1016/S0022-5371(71)80004-X.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  16. Crystal, D. (1986). Prosodic development. In P. Fletcher & M. Garman (Eds.), Language acquisition (pp. 33–48). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
  17. Cuetos, F., Rodríguez, B., Ruano, E., & Arribas, D. (2007). Prolec-R. Batería de evaluación de los procesos lectores revisada [Prolec-r: Battery for the reading processess assessment, reviewed]. Madrid: TEA ediciones.Google Scholar
  18. Cunningham, A. E., & Stanovich, K. E. (1990). Assessing print exposure and orthographic processing skill in children: A quick measure of reading experience. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(4), 733–740.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  19. Dowhower, S. L. (1987). Effects of repeated reading on second-grade transitional readers’ fluency and comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, 22(4), 389–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  20. Dowhower, S. L. (1991). Speaking of prosody: Fluency’s unattended bedfellow. Theory Into Practice, 30(3), 165–175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  21. Elvira García, W., & Roseano, P. (2014). Create pictures with tiers v.4.1. (Praat script). Retrieved from: http://stel.ub.edu/labfon/en/praat-scripts.
  22. Fernández Huerta, J. (1959). Medidas sencillas de lecturabilidad. [Simple measures of readability]. Consigna, 214, 29–32.Google Scholar
  23. González-Trujillo, M. C., Calet, N., Defior, S., & Gutiérrez-Palma, N. (2014). Escala de fluidez lectora en español: midiendo los componentes de la fluidez [Scale of reading fluency in Spanish: measuring the components of fluency]. Estudios de Psicología, 35(1), 104–136. doi: 10.1080/02109395.2014.893651.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  24. Howell, P., & Kadi-Hanifi, K. (1991). Comparison of prosodic properties between read and spontaneous speech material. Speech Communication, 10(2), 163–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  25. Jiménez-Fernández, G., Gutiérrez-Palma, N., & Defior, S. (2015). Impaired stress awareness in Spanish children with developmental dyslexia. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 37, 152–161. doi: 10.1016/j.ridd.2014.11.002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  26. Kame’enui, E. J., Fuchs, L., Francis, D. J., Good, R. I., O’Connor, R. E., Simmons, D. C., et al. (2006). The adequacy of tools for assessing reading competence: A framework and review. Educational Researcher, 35(4), 3–11. doi: 10.3102/0013189X035004003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  27. Klatt, D. H. (1975). Vowel lengthening is syntactically determined in a connected discourse. Journal of Phonetics, 3(3), 129–140.Google Scholar
  28. Klatt, D. H. (1976). Linguistic uses of segmental duration in English: Acoustic and perceptual evidence. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 59(5), 1208–1221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  29. Kuhn, M. R., Schwanenflugel, P. J., & Meisinger, E. B. (2010). Aligning theory and assessment of reading fluency: Automaticity, prosody, and definitions of fluency. Reading Research Quarterly, 45, 230–251. doi: 10.1598/RRQ.45.2.4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  30. Kuhn, M. R., & Stahl, S. (2003). Fluency: A review of developmental and remedial practices. The Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 3–21. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.95.1.3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  31. Kyte, C. S., & Johnson, C. J. (2006). The role of phonological recoding in orthographic learning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 93(2), 166–185. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2005.09.003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  32. Lopes, J., Silva, M. M., Spear-Swerling, L., & Zibulski, J. (2014). Evolução da prosódia e compreensão da leitura: Um estudo longitudinal do 2º ano ao final do 3º ano de escolaridade [Prosody growth and reading comprehension: A longitudinal study from 2nd through the end of 3rd grade]. Journal of Psychodidactics. doi: 10.1387/RevPsicodidact.11196.Google Scholar
  33. Martínez Celdrán, E. (2011). La línea melódica de la entonación declarativa e interrogativa absoluta en el español de España [The melodic curve from declarative and absolute interrogative intonation in the Spanish from Spain]. In A. Hidalgo, Y. Cogosto, & M. Quilis (Eds.), El estudio de la prosodia en España en el siglo XXI: perspectivas y ámbitos [The study of Spanish prosody in the XXI century] (pp. 125–140). Valencia (Spain): Universitat de València.Google Scholar
  34. Miller, J., & Schwanenflugel, P. J. (2006). Prosody of syntactically complex sentences in the oral reading of young children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(4), 839–843. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.98.4.839.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  35. Miller, J., & Schwanenflugel, P. J. (2008). A longitudinal study of the development of reading prosody as a dimension of oral reading fluency in early elementary school children. Reading Research Quarterly, 43(4), 336–354. doi: 10.1598/rrq.43.4.2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  36. Myers, F. L., & Myers, R. W. (1983). Perception of stress contrasts in semantic and nonsemantic contexts by children. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 12(3), 327–338.Google Scholar
  37. National Reading Panel (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Reports of the subgroups. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
  38. Navarro Tomás, T. (1944). Manual de entonación española [Manual of Spanish intonation]. New York: Hispanic Institute in the United States.Google Scholar
  39. Pinnell, G., Pikulski, J., Wixson, K., Campbell, J., Gough, P., & Beatty, A. (1995). Listening to children read aloud: Data from NAEP’s integrated reading performance record (IRPR) at grade 4 (NCES Publication No. NCES 1995-726). Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
  40. R Core Team (2016). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing (version 3.3.2) [Computer program]. Retrieved from https://www.R-project.org/.
  41. Rasinski, T. V. (2004). Assessing reading fluency. Honolulu, HI: Pacific Resources for Education and Learning.Google Scholar
  42. Rasinski, T., Rikli, A., & Johnston, S. (2009). Reading fluency: More than automaticity? More than a concern for the primary Grades? Literacy Research and Instruction, 48, 350–361. doi: 10.1080/19388070802468715.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  43. Schwanenflugel, P. J., & Benjamin, R. G. (2012). Reading expressiveness. In T. Rasinski, C. Blachowicz, & K. Lems (Eds.), Fluency instruction: Research-based best practices (pp. 35–54). Ney York (USA): Guilford Publications.Google Scholar
  44. Schwanenflugel, P. J., Hamilton, A. M., Wisenbaker, J. M., Kuhn, M. R., & Stahl, S. A. (2004). Becoming a fluent reader: Reading skill and prosodic features in the oral reading of young readers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96(1), 119–129. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.96.1.119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  45. Schwanenflugel, P. J., Westmoreland, M. R., & Benjamin, R. G. (2015). Reading fluency skill and the prosodic marking of linguistics focus. Reading and Writing. An Interdisciplinary Journal, 28, 9–30. doi: 10.1007/s11145-013-9456-1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  46. Seymour, P. H., Aro, M., & Erskine, J. M. (2003). Foundation literacy acquisition in European orthographies. British Journal of Psychology, 94(2), 143–174. doi: 10.1348/000712603321661859.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  47. Shelton, M., Gerfen, C., & Gutiérrez Palma, N. (2012). The interaction of subsyllabic encoding and stress assignment: A new examination of an old problem in Spanish. Language and Cognitive Processes, 27(10), 1459–1478. doi: 10.1080/01690965.2011.610595.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  48. Smith, C. L. (2004). Topic transitions and durational prosody in reading aloud: production and modeling. Speech Communication, 42(3), 247–270. doi: 10.1016/j.specom.2003.09.004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  49. Suárez-Coalla, P., Álvarez-Cañizo, M., Martínez, C., García, N., & Cuetos, F. (2016). Reading prosody in Spanish dyslexics. Annals of Dyslexia, 66(3), 275–300. doi: 10.1007/s11881-016-0123-5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  50. Szigriszt-Pazos, F. (1993). Sistemas predictivos de legibilidad del mensaje escrito: Fórmula de perspicuidad. [Readability predictive systems of the written message: Formula perspicuity] (Doctoral dissertation). Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Retrieved from http://biblioteca.ucm.es/tesis/19911996/S/3/S3019601.pdf.
  51. Veenendaal, N. J., Groen, M. A., & Verhoeven, L. (2014). The role of speech prosody and text reading prosody in children’s reading comprehension. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 84(4), 521–536. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12036.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  52. Wells, B., Peppé, S., & Goulandris, N. (2004). Intonation development from five to thirteen. Journal of Child Language, 31(4), 749–778. doi: 10.1017/S030500090400652X.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  53. Wightman, C. W., Shattuck-Hufnagel, S., Ostendorf, M., & Price, P. J. (1992). Segmental durations in the vicinity of prosodic phrase boundaries. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 91(3), 1707–1717.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  54. Zutell, J., & Rasinski, T. V. (1991). Training teachers to attend to their students’ oral reading fluency. Theory Into Practice, 30(3), 211–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of PsychologyUniversity of OviedoOviedoSpain

Personalised recommendations

Cite article

Buy options