The relationships between oral language and reading instruction: Evidence from a computational model of reading

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• direct OP pathway was used regardless of training focus. This is because the systematic OP mappings are easier to learn compared to the indirect OSP pathway that requires acquisition of two arbitrary mappings (OS and SP).

• recent implementation of the triangle model of reading developed by Chang and Monaghan (2019) demonstrated that the involvement of the print-to-sound-to-meaning pathway for written word comprehension was heavily reliant on the proficiency of sound-to-meaning mappings in the model, consistent with the SVR.

• implementation of the triangle model, Harm and Seidenberg (2004) demonstrated the cooperative and competitive nature of print-to-meaning and print-to-sound-to-meaning pathways for written word comprehension, with the sound mediated pathway contributing earlier in learning to read, and the print-to-meaning pathway playing an increasingly important role later in reading acquisition.

• Substantial evidence indicates that children’s phonological decoding skills are key predictors of reading acquisition (Adlof et al., 2006, Foorman et al., 2015, Storch and Whitehurst, 2002; also see Castles, Rastle, & Nation, 2018, for a review).

• primary goal of reading is to access the meanings of words and so this ought to be the priority of instructional approaches. Although spelling-to-meaning mappings are hard to learn, they may still be acquired early in reading development (Levy and Lysynchuk, 1997, Nation, 2009, Taylor et al., 2015) and may be amenable to instruction (Suggate, 2016).

• Simple View of Reading (SVR) (Gough & Tunmer, 1986), reading comprehension is a consequence of phonological decoding and oral language skills. During reading training, learners acquire mappings from print to sound, and access meaning based on pre-existing oral language knowledge. There is evidence that both print-to-sound mapping skills (as indexed by pseudoword reading tasks) as well as sound-to-meaning mapping skills (as reflected in oral vocabulary tasks) are predictors of silent reading comprehension performance (e.g., Curtis, 1980, Nation and Snowling, 2004, Hjetland et al., 2019 Ouellette and Beers, 2010, Ricketts et al., 2007).

• virtually all of the variation in reading ability at the age of seven is due to oral language plus decoding skills, thus supporting the distinction proposed in the SVR

• SVR is underspecified; it is not an implemented processing model (Castles et al., 2018, Chang and Monaghan, 2019, Nation, 2019), and the theory does not even commit to whether decoding reflects sublexical (letter-to-sound) or lexical (whole-word) knowledge.

• triangle model of reading is more fully specified, characterising the representations involved in reading, the pathways between representations, and their varying roles in word comprehension and word naming (Harm and Seidenberg, 2004, Plaut et al., 1996, Seidenberg and McClelland, 1989).

• learning to acquire the meaning of written forms of words can be achieved either indirectly, from print to sound and then to meaning, or directly from print to meaning, or via a combination of these routes.

• earning to pronounce a written word can be accomplished via a combination of print-to-sound and print-to-meaning-to-sound mappings.

• modelling results suggest that focusing on written to spoken forms early in training ought to be more effective for children’s early acquisition of reading.

• over the time-course of learning reflects the greater difficulty in acquiring arbitrary mappings between written and meaning forms, than the more systematic, componential mappings that exist between written and spoken forms in alphabetic orthographies (Plaut et al., 1996).

• consistent with the SVR.

• consistent with the SVR

• decoding the phonology of a written word cannot then be mapped onto the word’s meaning if the model has no prior knowledge of the mapping between sound and meaning for this word.

• reading aloud is jointly influenced by the print-to-sound pathway and the print-to-meaning-to-sound pathway, and as such is also influenced by oral language skills (specifically, the quality of meaning-sound mappings).

• mplications for the extent to which different forms of reading training may be successful in supporting children’s early literacy. A key, as yet untested, prediction of the triangle model of reading is that the success of different reading training methods may be modulated by oral language proficiency.

• Taylor et al. (2017) demonstrated that focus on written-to-spoken mappings during training improved both reading aloud and reading comprehension.

• phonics-based training should be most effective for supporting these components of reading in children learning to read for the first time.