Cross-cultural research on reading acquisition

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dc.contributor.authorYanez, J. Leonardoen_US
dc.date.accessioned2024-08-15T20:19:04Z
dc.date.available2024-08-15T20:19:04Z
dc.date.copyright1984en_US
dc.date.issued1984
dc.degree.departmentFaculty of Educationen_US
dc.degree.levelMaster of Arts M.A.en
dc.description.abstractThis thesis examines children's spontaneous use of the technical terms for letters, words and numbers, their understanding of the terms "letter" and "word", their concepts about the nature of the written language and their criteria for determining when a group of graphic symbols is writing. The subjects were 117 children 36 to 70 months old and their parents. Two questionnaires, one for parents and one for children, were designed. The questionnaire for parents explored their views about their children's literate behavior and the time they spent reading to them. The questionnaire for children consisted of three tasks , a) spontaneous use of the terms for letters, words and numbers, b) concepts of reading arid writing, their understandings of the terms "letter" and "word" and their ideas about the nature of writing, c) criteria for determining when a group of graphic sym­bols is writing. The results showed cultural and developmental differences in children's spontaneous use of technical terms for letters,words and numbers, their understandings of the terms "letter" and "word", and their hypotheses about the nature of writing. The responses of the Canadian children were similar to those of older children, while the responses of the Venezuelan children were similar to these of younger children. A significant gender difference was found in the spontaneous use of the term "word", but only for the Canadian sample. There also was a developmental trend in children's expectations that restrictions in quantity and variety of graphic elements prevail in writing. More older children rejected stimuli with few or repeated characters than did younger ones. The results of this study indicated that children possessed a great deal of information about the written language before they enter school. Children's hypoth­eses about the written language demonstrate that they possess their own system of writing which appears to be the result of their cognitive efforts to solve the con­flicts produced by contrasting their hypotheses with models of writing presented to them by the environment. An insight into some family variables indicated that the family's reading behavior was associated with the child's development of the written language.
dc.format.extent128 pages
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1828/20229
dc.rightsAvailable to the World Wide Weben_US
dc.titleCross-cultural research on reading acquisitionen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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