Reading and related skills in Grades 6, 7, 8 and 9: French normative data from EVALEC et al_2016... · 2016. 10. 8. · Revue européenne de psychologie appliquée 66 (2016) 23–37

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Revue européenne de psychologie appliquée 66 (2016) 23–37

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eading and related skills in Grades 6, 7, 8 and 9: French normativeata from EVALEC

ecture et capacités reliées aux grades 6, 7, 8 et 9 : données normatives franç aisesssues d’EVALEC

. Pourcin ∗, L. Sprenger-Charolles , A. El Ahmadi , P. Coléôle 3C (bâtiment 9–case D), centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), laboratoire de psychologie cognitive (UMR 7920), Aix-Marseille université,, place Victor-Hugo, 13331 Marseille cedex 3, France

a r t i c l e i n f o

rticle history:eceived 13 October 2014eceived in revised form 9 November 2015ccepted 10 November 2015

eywords:eading level assessmentexical reading procedureublexical reading procedureexicality effectength effectegularity effectord-level reading skills

honemic awarenesshonological short-term memoryapid naming

a b s t r a c t

Introduction. – To appropriately assess reading difficulties, tests designed according to an appropriatetheoretical framework and based on normative data are required.Objective. – We used EVALEC (Sprenger-Charolles, Colé, Béchennec, & Kipffer-Piquard, 2005) to collectdata on the word-level reading skills and reading-related skills (phonemic awareness, phonological short-term memory, and rapid naming) of middle school children (Grades 6 to 9, about 80 in each grade).Method. – In the tests focused on word-level reading skills, the effects of regularity (regular vs. irregularwords), lexicality, and length (short vs. long irregular words and pseudowords) were examined. Accuracyand processing times were recorded for all tests.Results. – The effects of both regularity and lexicality were significant, whatever the measure and inde-pendently of grade. Both accuracy and speed were lower for longer pseudowords, whereas length didnot have a significant effect on irregular word latencies and, surprisingly, long irregular words were readmore accurately than short ones. Reading level as assessed by a standardized test (Lefavrais, 2005) wasnot predicted by phonological short-term memory; rapid naming (color names) and phonemic awarenesswere both predictors but, in both cases, only response times predicted reading level.Conclusion. – These results, and particularly those from the reading tasks, are discussed in relation tomodels of written-word recognition developed to account for the reading of multisyllabic items (Perry,Ziegler, & Zorzi, 2010) in orthographies shallower than English (Perry, Ziegler, & Zorzi, 2014).

© 2015 Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.

ots clés :valuation du niveau de lecturerocédure lexicalerocédure sublexicaleffet de lexicalitéffet de longueurffet de régularité

r é s u m é

Introduction. – Des tests conç us selon un cadre théorique approprié et sur la base de données normativessont nécessaires pour évaluer correctement les difficultés de lecture.Objectif. – Nous avons utilisé EVALEC (Sprenger-Charolles, Colé, Béchennec, & Kipffer-Piquard, 2005)pour recueillir des données sur les capacités d’identification de mots écrits et celles reliées à la lecture(conscience phonémique, mémoire à court terme phonologique et dénomination rapide) au collège (dugrade 6 au grade 9, environ 80 enfants par grade).Méthode. – Pour les tests évaluant les capacités d’identification de mots écrits, les effets de régularité (mots
apacités d’identification de mots écrits
onscience phonémiqueémoire à court terme phonologiqueénomination rapide

réguliers vs mots irréguliers), de lexicalité, et de longueur (mots irréguliers courts vs longs comparés àpseudomots court vs long) ont été examinés. Pour tous les tests, la précision et le temps de traitementont été enregistrés.Résultats. – Les effets de régularité et lexicalité étaient significatifs, quels que soient la mesure et le grade.Les scores de précision et de vitesse étaient plus faibles pour les pseudomots longs, alors que la longueurn’a pas eu d’effet significatif sur les temps de latences des mots irréguliers et, étonnamment, les motsirréguliers longs ont été lus avec plus de précision que les courts. Le niveau de lecture évalué par un test

∗ Corresponding author.E-mail address: [email protected] (L. Pourcin).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2015.11.002162-9088/© 2015 Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.

dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2015.11.002http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/11629088http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1016/j.erap.2015.11.002&domain=pdfmailto:[email protected]/10.1016/j.erap.2015.11.002

24 L. Pourcin et al. / Revue européenne de psychologie appliquée 66 (2016) 23–37

con standardisé (Lefavrais, 2005) n’a pas été prédit par la mémoire à court terme phonologique ; ladénomination rapide (des noms de couleur) et la conscience phonémique étaient deux prédicteurs maisseulement lorsque les temps de réponse pour ces deux tests ont été analysés.Conclusion. – Ces résultats, et en particulier ceux des tests de lecture, sont discutés en relation avecles modèles de reconnaissance des mots écrits développés pour rendre compte de la lecture d’itemsmultisyllabiques (Perry, Ziegler, & Zorzi, 2010) dans des orthographes moins profondes que celles del’anglais (Perry, Ziegler, & Zorzi, 2014).

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. Introduction

According to the Program for International Student AssessmentPISA-OECD, 2010a, 2014), 19% of French teenagers show difficul-ies in reading comprehension. The longitudinal Canadian Youth inransition Survey of students assessed by PISA in 2000 revealed thathese students “face a disproportionately high risk of poor post-econdary participation [and labor market] outcomes at age 19, andven more so at age 21, the latest age for which data are currentlyvailable” (OECD, 2010b, p. 52). This type of result highlights thetatus of reading as a prerequisite for social integration.

To understand a written text, both oral comprehension skillsnd word-level reading skills are required. The process of com-rehension is considered to be largely amodal: that is, it isimilar regardless of mode of presentation (written or oral). Thiss supported by studies showing that reading and listening com-rehension are highly correlated in readers who have developedfficient word-level reading procedures (Gernsbacher, Varner, &aust, 1990). Studies in both child and adult readers indicate thathe skills that are specific to reading are word-level skills, andhat the processing of written words is largely independent ofhe linguistic context1 (e.g., Ben-Dror, Pollatsek, & Scarpati, 1991;icholson, 1991; Perfetti, Golman, & Hogaboam, 1979; Stanovich

West, 1981). They also indicate that dyslexics’ reading difficul-ies are due not to problems with reading comprehension, but to

deficit in word-level reading skills (Lyon, Shaywitz, & Shaywitz,003) and reading-related skills, particularly phonemic awareness,honological short-term memory (STM), and rapid naming (Ramust al., 2003; Ramus & Szenkovits, 2008; for reviews, see Snowling,001; Sprenger-Charolles, Colé, & Serniclaes, 2006-2013).

To diagnose students with reading difficulties, as well as dyslex-cs, it is thus crucial to establish norms for word-level reading skillsnd reading-related skills in non-impaired readers. The fundamen-al processes in word-level reading that are deficient in dyslexics

ust also be identified, which requires tests designed according ton appropriate theoretical framework. Normative data are all theore important given that identifying children with a low reading

evel allows them to obtain certain exclusive rights (access to spe-ial needs programs or a speech therapist) in middle school as wells at other levels of schooling.

There are currently no tests designed to assess word-level read-ng deficits in middle school students in France. Batteries of Frenchests are available for primary school children (BELEC: Mousty

Leybaert, 1999;2 see also Mousty, Leybaert, Alegria, Content,

Morais, 1994; EVALEC: Sprenger-Charolles, Colé, Béchennec, &ipffer-Piquard, 2005; ODEDYS: Jacquier-Roux, Valdois, & Zorman,002; ODEDYS 2: Jacquier-Roux, Valdois, & Zorman, 2005) and

1 These studies show a decreasing role of contextual facilitation as reading abilityevelops: context effects on word reading are stronger in beginning readers than inore skilled readers, because older readers read words automatically (Perfetti et al.,

979; West & Stanovich, 1978).2 Published in the special issue of the European Journal of Applied Psychology ded-

cated to the assessment of reading and numeracy disorders edited by Grégoire1999).

© 2015 Publié par Elsevier Masson SAS.

for adults (ECCLA: Zagar, Jourdain, & Lété, 1995; ÉCLA 16+: Gola-Asmussen, Lequette, Pouget, & Zorman, 2010), but not for studentsin Grades 6 to 9. Our new battery is thus standardized for studentsat these grade levels. EVALEC also differs from other test batteries,such as BELEC and ODEDYS, in that the reading tests are adminis-tered by computer, enabling the measurement of both accuracy andresponse times, which, as explained below, is crucial to the diag-nosis of dyslexia in languages with a shallower orthography thanEnglish, such as French.

In the next section, we present the theoretical framework of thepresent study, and survey the main results from the literature onword-level reading skills and reading-related skills, with specialattention to the impact of orthographic consistency on these skills.These sections are followed by a short presentation of the EVALECtest battery and the main results obtained with it in primary schoolchildren.

1.1. Word-level reading skills: theoretical framework and mainresults

According to the most widely cited models (Coltheart, Curtis,Atkins, & Haller, 1993; Coltheart, Rastle, Perry, Langdom, & Ziegler,2001; Perry, Ziegler, & Zorzi, 2010, 2014), readers can identifywritten words using one of two procedures: lexical (or ortho-graphic), or sublexical (also called decoding). The lexical procedureis assessed using tasks based on the reading of high-frequencywords, usually irregular words, which cannot be read using thesublexical procedure because they contain irregular (or inconsis-tent) grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPC). The sublexicalprocedure is mainly assessed with tasks based on the reading ofnew words, usually pseudowords that can be decoded only usingGPC because they are not stored in the mental lexicon.

If readers rely primarily on the sublexical procedure, then effectsof regularity (faster and/or more accurate processing of regularwords than irregular words) and length (faster and/or more accu-rate processing of short items than long items) should be found,whereas frequency and lexicality should not have a significanteffect. Alternatively, if readers rely primarily on the lexical pro-cedure, then they should perform better at reading high-frequencywords than low-frequency words (frequency effect) and at readingwords than pseudowords (lexicality effect). In this case, the effectof length should be less marked for words, and there should beno significant effect of regularity, at least for frequent words. Thefirst pattern is expected with first graders, the second with olderstudents.

1.2. Some results

Apart from a small number of words that are learned by heart,during the early stages of learning to read young children mainlyuse the sublexical procedure (in English: Backman, Bruck, Hebert,& Seidenberg, 1984; Waters, Seidenberg, & Bruck, 1984; in Ger-

man: Wimmer & Hummer, 1990; in French: Leybaert & Content,1995; Sprenger-Charolles, Siegel, Béchennec, & Serniclaes, 2003;Sprenger-Charolles, Siegel, & Bonnet, 1998). The results of some

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f these studies (e.g., in English: Waters et al., 1984; in French:eybaert & Content, 1995; Sprenger-Charolles et al., 1998, 2003,005) also indicate that this procedure is gradually replaced by a

exical procedure. For instance, in a study with French children inrades 2, 4, and 6, Leybaert and Content (1995) showed that theffect of regularity (with regular words read faster and more accu-ately than irregular words) decreases with increasing grade level,uggesting that the lexical procedure gradually becomes predomi-ant (for results with French expert readers, see also Content, 1991;iegler, Perry, & Coltheart, 2003).

Leybaert and Content also measured the effects of frequency,exicality, and length (4 vs. 8 letters) with a reading-aloud task.n Grade 2, they found no effect of word frequency, but a signifi-ant effect on naming time and accuracy emerged in Grades 4 and. In these later grades, lexicality also had significant effects onoth naming time and accuracy, and interacted with length: lengthffected pseudoword reading more than word reading (for similaresults with French expert readers, see also Ferrand, 2000).

As explained by Sprenger-Charolles et al. (2003), studies withongitudinal data also indicate that the sublexical procedure plays

central role in reading acquisition, and particularly in the devel-pment of the orthographic lexicon. Evidence suggests that theevelopment of the lexical procedure depends on the successfulcquisition of the sublexical procedure (e.g., for reviews: Share,995, 2008a; Sprenger-Charolles et al., 2006-2013). Out of thewo word-level reading procedures, it is the sublexical procedurehat is the most impaired in dyslexia (in English: Kirby, Silvestri,llingham, Parrila, & La Fave, 2008; Miller-Shaul, 2005; Zabell &veratt, 2002; see also the reviews by Rack, Snowling, & Olson,992; Van Ijzendoorn & Bus, 1994; in German: Wimmer, 1993,996; in French: Sprenger-Charolles, Colé, Lacert, & Serniclaes,000; Ziegler et al., 2008). And, probably as a consequence ofhe role of the sublexical procedure in the development of therthographic lexicon, the lexical reading skills of individuals withyslexia are also impaired (for a review with cross-language com-arisons, see Sprenger-Charolles, Siegel, Jimenez, & Ziegler, 2011).

In this context, EVALEC presents the major advantage ofssessing both the lexical and sublexical procedures by measur-ng the effects of regularity (irregular vs. regular words), lexicalitywords vs. pseudowords), and length (short vs. long items), as wells the interaction between length and lexicality. A large majority ofxisting batteries for the assessment of reading skills do not assesshe effects of all three of these factors.

.3. Impact of orthographic consistency on word-level readingkills

Among alphabetic orthographies, the consistency of grapheme-honeme correspondences (GPCs)—the extent to which a writingystem follows the rule of exactly one phonological mappinger orthographic unit (Frost, Katz, & Bentin, 1987)—varies. Deeprthographies such as English are characterized by complex pat-erns of GPC mappings. In contrast, shallow orthographies suchs Italian, Greek, Dutch, and even French feature consistent GPCsfor statistics on the consistency of French GPCs, see Peereman,été, & Sprenger-Charolles, 2007; Peereman, Sprenger-Charolles, &essaoud-Galusi, 2013). GPC consistency influences reading level:

t is lower in orthographies with less consistent GPCs (Seymour,ro, & Erskine, 2003; for a review, Ziegler & Goswami, 2005, 2006).or instance, at the end of Grade 1, English-speaking children haveery poor word reading skills (34% correct responses in word read-ng and 41% in pseudoword reading), while French children at this

rade level show considerably stronger performance (79% and 98%or words and pseudowords respectively). Furthermore, in con-istent orthographies, accuracy rapidly reaches a ceiling level, asemonstrated in Spanish (Seymour et al., 2003; see also Davies,

chologie appliquée 66 (2016) 23–37 25

Rodríguez-Ferreiro, Suárez, & Cuetos, 2013) and French (Seymouret al., 2003; see also Sprenger-Charolles et al., 2003), even indyslexic speakers of these languages (Sprenger-Charolles et al.,2011). Reading speed is thus the primary useful dependent variablein such orthographies (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005). Even in English,however, while older children and adults with dyslexia can developquite accurate word-level reading skills, their reading speed forthe same items remains extremely slow in comparison to normalreaders (Shaywitz & Shaywitz, 2005; Ziegler & Goswami, 2005).

1.4. Implications for studies in french with middle school students

Given the specific sensitivity of reading speed as a measure ofreading skill, obtaining precise measurements of word-level read-ing speed is of major importance, and it is clear that word-levelreading skills should be assessed on the basis of both accuracy andspeed. In the present study, the measure used to assess responsetimes was not fluency (i.e., the number of words or pseudowordscorrectly read in 45 seconds or one minute, for instance; in English:Adlof, Catts, & Little, 2006; in French: Gentaz, Sprenger-Charolles,Theurel, & Colé, 2013; in Dutch: Verhoeven & Van Leeuwe, 2008) orvoice offset (e.g., Thaler et al., 2004) but vocal response latencies,as in previous studies conducted in languages with a transparentorthography (French: e.g., Martin et al., 2010; Sprenger-Charolleset al., 2000, 2003, 2005, 2011; Ziegler et al., 2008; German: e.g.,Ziegler, Perry, Ma-Wyatt, Ladner, & Schulte-Korne, 2003; Span-ish: e.g., Jiménez, Rodríguez, & Ramírez, 2009). In most of thesestudies, as here, the speed of correct responses was calculatedusing the delay between the appearance of the word on the com-puter screen and the onset of the vocal response. This procedurerequires listening to the recording, and, in case of “false starts,self-corrections, and hesitations,” discarding the correspondingvocal response latencies so they cannot bias the results (con-trary to the suggestion of Share, 2008b). Another advantage of thisreading speed measure is that it provides reading speed indepen-dently for each stimulus. It thus offers a more precise measureof reading speed than methods using overall fluency for a list ofstimuli.

1.5. Phonological reading-related skills

Phonological deficits seem to hinder the proper acquisition ofthe sublexical reading procedure (Sprenger-Charolles et al., 2006-2013). “This procedure requires the ability to connect sublexicalwriting units (graphemes) [to the related] sublexical speaking units(phonemes) and then to assemble the [phonemic units resultingfrom this] decoding process” (Martin et al., 2010, p. 241). The cor-responding word can then be found in the phonological lexicon.As explained by Sprenger-Charolles, Colé, Kipffer-Picard, Pinton,and Billard (2009), the first operation requires fully establishedphonemic categories, the second requires adequate phonologicalSTM, and the third requires rapid access to the phonological lex-icon. A child who is unable to correctly handle phonemes or whosuffers from a phonological STM deficit will have difficulty usingthe sublexical reading procedure (Sprenger-Charolles et al., 2006-2013). Impaired access to the phonological lexicon (as assessed bythe rapid naming of familiar visual items, such as digits or col-ors) can also impede the creation of links between the outcomeof the decoding process and the phonological codes for words inthe lexicon, or between these codes and orthographic word repre-sentations.

1.6. Phonemic awareness

Phonological awareness is defined as the ability to identifyand manipulate the phonological units that make up words (i.e.,

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yllables, rhymes, phonemes; Melby-Lervåg, Lyster, & Hulme,012; Sprenger-Charolles et al., 2006-2013). Phonemic awarenessequires the ability to manipulate phonemic units within spokenords. This is difficult: phonemes cannot easily be isolated, becauseultiple phonemes are pronounced in a single articulatory move-ent within a syllable. Phonemic awareness is the best predictor

f reading acquisition, and it is often found to be impaired inevelopmental dyslexia (for reviews, see Melby-Lervåg et al., 2012;prenger-Charolles et al., 2006-2013).

Many studies have shown that phonemic awareness is linkedo word-level reading in primary school (for a review, see Melby-ervåg et al., 2012). Longitudinal studies have found that earlyhonemic awareness predicts later reading skills (e.g., in English:eacon & Kirby, 2004; Schatschneider, Fletcher, Francis, Carlson, &oorman, 2004; in French: Piquard-Kipffer & Sprenger-Charolles,013). Other studies have shown that phonemic awarenessxplains a decreasing portion of variance in word-level readingith increasing age. For instance, Ouellette and Beers (2010) found

hat phonemic awareness explained 55.5% of variance in firstraders’ pseudoword reading performance and 28% of the variancen their irregular word reading performance, whereas the same twoasks’ calculated contribution in sixth graders dropped to 3.4% and.5% respectively, and was no longer significant.

Results on phonemic awareness and reading skill in middlechool students are contradictory. In Grade 6 students, one studyound phonemic awareness to explain word-level reading skillsVaessen & Blomert, 2010), while another did not (Ouellette &eers, 2010). This difference may be due to the fact that Vaessen andlomert (2010) took speed as well as accuracy into account in theirhoneme deletion task. Moreover, Vaessen and Blomert’s studyas conducted in Dutch, a language with a consistent orthogra-hy, unlike the study of Ouellette and Beers (which was conducted

n English). Children learning to read in more consistent orthogra-hies may develop phonemic awareness earlier.

It should be noted, however, that two other studies with Englishiddle school students (Roman, Kirby, Parrila, Wade-Woolley,

Deacon, 2009; Shaywitz et al., 1999) found that phonologi-al (phonemic and syllabic) awareness contributed to explainingord-level reading performance, while another study (Singson,ahony, & Mann, 2000) found that syllabic awareness alone did

ot. These inconsistencies may be explained by the fact that sometudies have failed to distinguish word and pseudoword readinge.g., Shaywitz et al., 1999), given that phonemic awareness is

ost strongly associated with reading tasks requiring phonologi-al decoding, as in pseudoword reading (in English: Deacon & Kirby,004; Ouellette & Beers, 2010; in Dutch: Vaessen & Blomert, 2010;

n French: Demont & Gombert, 1996; Ziegler et al., 2010).

.7. Phonological STM

Phonological STM is needed to decode newly encounteredords. Its function in reading is to temporarily maintain mem-

ry traces of the phonemic units identified in the decoding processnd merge them, enabling access to the corresponding word viahe phonological lexicon (Baddeley, 1986; Baddeley, Gathercole, &apagno, 1998).

According to the literature (for a review, see Melby-Lervågt al., 2012), phonological STM has less of an impact on readinghan phonemic awareness (Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1994;

agner, Torgesen, Rashotte, Hecht, Barker et al., 1997). Othertudies have even failed to find evidence of any link between

honological STM and reading, reporting instead that only phone-ic awareness contributed to explaining reading level (e.g., in

nglish: McBride-Chang, 1995; in German: Landerl & Wimmer,008). As there are few studies with middle school students, it is

chologie appliquée 66 (2016) 23–37

difficult to draw any conclusions on the role of phonological STMin word-level reading skills in this age range.

1.8. Rapid naming

Rapid naming refers to the ability to quickly name a set of highlyfamiliar visual stimuli, such as digits, letters, colors, or commonobjects (Denckla & Rudel, 1974). Research in this domain, whichhas mainly been conducted with primary school children, has foundthat rapid naming accounts for some of the variance in word-levelreading skills after controlling for the effects of phonemic aware-ness (for a review, see Wolf, Bowers, & Biddle, 2000). Rapid naminghas also been found to predict reading skills independently of otherfactors such as phonological awareness (Kirby, Parrila, & Pfeiffer,2003; Plaza & Cohen, 2003; Powell, Stainthorp, Stuart, Garwood,& Quinlan, 2007), verbal and nonverbal intelligence (e.g., Badian,1993; Cornwall, 1992), speed of processing (e.g., Bowey, McGuigan,& Ruschena, 2005; Powell et al., 2007), and phonological short-termmemory (Powell et al., 2007). However, results from middle schoolstudents are inconsistent: one study with Dutch children found thatrapid naming contributed to explaining word-level reading skills(Vaessen & Blomert, 2010), but some English studies (e.g., Romanet al., 2009; Shaywitz et al., 1999) have not. More specifically,Vaessen and Blomert’s (2010) study with Dutch sixth graders foundthat rapid naming of letters and numbers contributed substantiallyto explaining word reading fluency (with both frequent and rarewords), as well as pseudoword reading fluency, even after control-ling for nonverbal IQ, vocabulary, and reading speed (it accountedfor 27% of the variance in word reading fluency for high-frequencywords, 21% for low-frequency words, and 17% for pseudowords). InGrades 4, 6, and 8, Roman et al. (2009) found that rapid naming ofletters and numbers improved with increasing grade, but did notdirectly influence word or pseudoword reading.

1.9. What could explain the differences between phonemicawareness and rapid naming?

The above results suggest that phonemic awareness is less rele-vant in more consistent orthographies (see also Caravolas, Lervåg,Defior, Seidlová Málková, & Hulme, 2013), and that rapid namingis a better predictor of reading development in these cases (e.g., DeJong & Van der Leij, 1999; Landerl & Wimmer, 2008). In contrast,the results of another study (Ziegler et al., 2010) suggested that,among a set of orthographies that are less opaque than English,lying at differing positions along a transparency continuum (indescending order of transparency: Finnish, Hungarian, Dutch, Por-tuguese, and French), phonemic awareness was the main factorassociated with reading performance in each language. “Its impactwas nevertheless modulated by orthographic transparency (beingstronger in less transparent orthographies). The influence of rapidnaming was rather weak and was limited to reading and decodingspeed” (Ziegler et al., 2010, p. 551).

As underlined by Sprenger-Charolles et al. (2006-2013), thefinding that phonemic awareness and rapid naming are linked todifferent measures of reading skill (the first explaining accuracy andthe second response times) could be due to the fact that most stud-ies have compared non-timed measures of phonemic awareness totimed measures of rapid naming. Accuracy and processing speedwere therefore computed for both phonemic awareness and rapidnaming tasks. Moreover, the rapid naming of letters and digits ismore strongly related to reading than the rapid naming of objects or

colors. As Wagner et al. (1997) suggested, including alphanumericstimuli may make some rapid naming tasks mere proxies for indi-vidual differences in early literacy and print exposure, which wouldexplain why their predictive power vanishes when early reading

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kills are taken into account.3 The rapid naming task thus includednly pictures of frequent words (color patches) and not letters origits.4

.10. Principal results obtained with primary school studentssing EVALEC

Many tools have been developed to assess reading disabilitiesn primary school (INSERM, 2007), including EVALEC (Sprenger-harolles et al., 2005). This French tool was developed in order tostablish standardized norms for reading and related skills fromrade 1 to Grade 4. As explained by Sprenger-Charolles et al. (2005),

his tool allows researchers and speech therapists to accuratelyssess children’s reading skills and related skills (phonemic aware-ess, phonological STM, and rapid naming) and to identify childrenho suffer from a reading deficit.

EVALEC differs from earlier test batteries (e.g., BELEC, Mousty Leybaert, 1999; Mousty et al., 1994) in that it uses computer-dministered reading tests, in order to take into account bothccuracy and response times. This is a crucial point, because failureo take response times into account often leads to diagnostic errorsn assessments of word-level reading skills (see Sprenger-Charollest al., 2000, 2011).

.11. Reading skills assessed with EVALEC

As explained above, the reading difficulties of individuals withyslexia are linked not to a deficit in reading comprehension, buto a deficit in written-word processing (Snowling, 2000; Sprenger-harolles et al., 2006-2013). Thus, in EVALEC, a set of readingests assesses the processing of written words. These include threeeading-aloud tests and one silent reading test. One of the reading-loud tests (LEVORT) assesses the effect of regularity by comparinghe reading of regular and irregular words. The two others assesshe effect of lexicality: differences between pseudowords andither regular words (LEXORT) or irregular words (LEXLENGTH).he two types of items used in LEXLENGTH are either short or long,n order to test for length effects and regularity-length interactions.hese tests are based on reading words aloud, requiring the readero produce an oral response, and therefore draw on the phonologi-al representation of the written word, which can bias the results.he lexical procedure in silent reading is thus also assessed usingn orthographic choice between a correctly written frequent wordnd two pseudowords: one visual foil and one pseudohomophone.

Sprenger-Charolles et al. (2005) collected normative data usinghis test battery from children at the end of Grades 1–4 (about00 children for each level). In the reading-aloud tasks, the resultsor accuracy showed that regular words are always read betterhan irregular words (LEVORT) and pseudowords (LEXORT), withhe effects of both regularity and lexicality decreasing with grade.n contrast to LEXORT, accuracy data from LEXLENGTH indicatedhat the lexicality effect was always to the detriment of irregularords, while greater length negatively affected the reading of pseu-

owords, but not irregular words.

Vocal response latencies were calculated for children who wereble to correctly read at least 50% of the test items. This was thease for a majority of first graders for LEVORT (67/100) and LEXORT

3 In addition, reading skills have been found to be more highly correlated tohonological awareness at the beginning of reading acquisition, whereas readingkills and rapid naming are more correlated in more advanced readers (Parrila, Kirby,

McQuarrie, 2004).4 As explained in the Method section, this is because French includes frequent

olor names that are monosyllabic items with similar syllabic structures: CVC, as inouge [red] and CCV as in bleu [blue].


(67/100), but very few readers at met this criterion for LEXLENGTH(20/100). Therefore, for first graders, these analyses were con-ducted only on the results of LEVORT and LEXORT (n = 67) and notfor LEXLENGTH. As with accuracy, the regularity effect (in LEVORT)and the lexicality effect (in LEXORT) favored regular words, whichwere read faster than irregular words and pseudowords. However,in contrast to accuracy, irregular words were read more rapidlythan pseudowords in LEXLENGTH, a lexicality effect that increasedwith grade. In the same test, length had a detrimental effect on bothpseudoword and irregular word reading, but this effect was moremarked for pseudowords, with no change found between grades,whereas the weaker effect on irregular words decreased with grade.

In the orthographic choice task, the proportion of correctresponses increased about 11% between the first two grades andthe latter two grades (from 85% in the two first grades to 96% inthe two later grades). A latency decrease of almost 3000 ms wasalso observed between Grades 1–2 and Grades 3–4 (7600 ms and6100 ms vs. 3700 ms and 3100 ms respectively). These results indi-cate that the orthographic lexicon is quite well developed by theend of Grade 3.

Altogether, these results indicate that the respective weightsof the sublexical and lexical procedures change as reading skillsimprove. Three main findings point in this direction:

• the decreasing effect of regularity in LEVORT with increasinggrade (for accuracy);

• the increasing effect of lexicality in LEXLENGTH with increasinggrade (for processing times);

• associated with the decreasing effect of length on the reading ofirregular words from the same test and for the same measure.

1.12. Relationships to a “gold standard” test: the Alouette

Sprenger-Charolles et al. (2005) assessed reading level using astandardized test, the Alouette test (Lefavrais, 1967), because it isone of those most used by practitioners (Bertrand, Fluss, Billard,& Ziegler, 2010) to group children by reading level (e.g., Besse,Demont, & Gombert, 2007), to assess the reading level of both typ-ical readers (e.g., Alario, De Cara, & Ziegler, 2007; Besse et al., 2007)and dyslexic children (e.g., Sprenger-Charolles et al., 2009), and toclassify children as either good or poor readers in epidemiologicalstudies (e.g., Billard et al., 2008).

Reading level as assessed by the Alouette was strongly cor-related with the tests from EVALEC focused on written-wordprocessing. The strongest correlations were those with irregularword accuracy and pseudoword response times. Regression anal-yses indicated that, regardless of grade, children’s reading levelwas explained mainly by irregular word reading accuracy and bypseudoword reading latency. As explained by Sprenger-Charolleset al. (2005), these results indicate that the Alouette test assessesthe development of both the sublexical procedure and the lexicalprocedure in children in Grades 1 to 4.

Significant correlations between the Alouette and the EVALECtests of reading-related skills, in contrast, were found only in Grade1 for phonemic awareness, only in Grades 2 and 3 for phonologicalSTM, and never for rapid naming. The results for phonemic aware-ness and phonological STM might result from the fact that onlyaccuracy was examined, not processing times.

2. The current study

Our study had three aims. The first was to develop standard-ized norms for word-level reading and reading-related skills inFrench middle school students (from Grade 6 to Grade 9) with theEVALEC test battery. The second was to examine the evolution of


Table 1Characteristics of the Population: Means (Standard Deviations in Parentheses).

Mean Number of subjectsand gender

Chronological agein months

Nonverbal IQ Vocabulary(picture choice)

Reading level: Alouette test

Total Boys Girls SPM (/60) Vocabulary (/50) Reading age inmonth

CTL level (composite score:speed/accuracy)

Grade 6 80 42 38 140.42 (4.16) 38.46 (5.86) 34.42 (4.47) 135.50 (15.63) 355.23 (60.62)5.29) 5.59) 4.45)

wue(TrloBa

rgprwapftbuhol

3

3

delFsapoEdtT

3

3

Rpdtwa(

usually not pronounced). At each level of regularity, the items arematched for length (number of letters, phonemes, and syllables),bigram frequency (Content & Radeau, 1988) and lexical frequency

Grade 7 73 29 44 152.34 (4.14) 41.21 (Grade 8 81 41 40 161.74 (3.40) 41.90 (Grade 9 81 36 45 173.50 (4.49) 42.59 (

ord-level reading procedures in middle school: the effect of reg-larity (regular vs. irregular word reading) with LEVORT, and theffect of lexicality (irregular words vs. pseudowords) and lengthshort or long irregular words and pseudowords) with LEXLENGTH.he third aim was to identify the subtests of EVALEC (word-leveleading and reading-related skills: phonemic awareness, phono-ogical STM, and rapid naming of color patches) that predict scoresn a French test widely viewed as the “gold standard”: the Alouette.oth accuracy and speed were measured and analyzed for almostll of these tests.

The two main hypotheses focused on the tests of word-leveleading skills. First, because the lexical procedure is thought toradually become predominant, for both measures (accuracy androcessing time), we expected to find a progressive decrease in theegularity effect (regular words read better and faster than irregularords) with increasing grade. Second, we also expected to find

n effect of lexicality (irregular words read better and faster thanseudowords) and a length effect (shorter items read better andaster than longer items), as well as an interaction between thewo: we expected the negative effect of length on pseudowords toe more marked than its effect on irregular words, for both meas-res (accuracy or latencies). Among reading-related skills, we alsoypothesized that phonemic awareness would be more predictivef reading level than either rapid naming or phonological STM, ateast in the analysis of processing times.

. Method

.1. Participants

Students were recruited from eight schools in three Frenchepartments (Bouches du Rhône, Val-de-Marne, and Savoie). Atach level, the students came from at least 16 different classes,imiting any possible effect of teaching. All participants identifiedrench as their first language and were studying at the level corre-ponding to their age. To be included in the study, their nonverbal IQnd reading level had to be within the normal range (these tests areresented in the next section). Students with a diagnosis of dyslexiar attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were excluded.ighty students from Grade 6, 73 students from Grade 7, 81 stu-ents from Grade 8, and 81 students from Grade 9 participated inhe study. The characteristics of the population are presented inable 1.

.2. Measures

.2.1. Pre-testsReading level was assessed via a standardized test, the Alouette-

(Lefavrais, 2005). In this timed reading test (three minutes),articipants read aloud a 265-word nonsense text (which isescribed to them as being like a poem), which they are instructed

o do as quickly and accurately as possible. This text includes rareords and a number of spelling traps: phonologically and visu-

lly similar items (Amie-Annie. . .), items ending with silent lettersd in lourd, ps in temps. . .), graphemes with a context-dependent

35.98 (3.78) 140.80 (14.97) 376.47 (74.92)37.03 (4.49) 154.02 (18.60) 434.93 (79.37)39.00 (3.38) 159.24 (14.17) 459.11 (78.95)

pronunciation (such as g in gai [glad] and geai [jay]), ambiguousgraphemes (such as en in ennui, which has to be pronounced asthe nasal vowel/â/, as in ange [angel], and not as the nasal vowel/î/,as in chien [dog], or as the oral vowel/E/followed by the conso-nant/n/, as in ennemi [enemi]). The text includes altered versionsof idiomatic phrases (au clair de lune instead of au clair de la lune)and words that are contextual traps (e.g., cordeau [cord] and notcorbeau [raven] after moineau [sparrow], poison [poison] and notpoisson [fish] after lac [lake]). In these cases the use of contextualanticipation (which is characteristic of the youngest and least com-petent readers: e.g., Perfetti et al., 1979) could be misleading. Thescore is based on an index (CTL) that incorporates both reading time(TL; maximum TL = 180 s) and accuracy (C): CTL = (C × 180)/TL. Thehigher the index, the better the subject’s performance.

Nonverbal IQ was assessed using the Standard ProgressiveMatrices (SPM; Raven et al., 1998). This test consists of five series(A, B, C, D and E) of 12 pictures, where each picture is missing apiece. The subject must choose the piece that correctly completesthe picture out of a set of six (series A and B) or eight (series C toE). The total testing period was limited to 20 minutes.

Vocabulary was assessed using an adaptation5 of a test, whichis a French version of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised(Dunn & Dunn, 1981). For each item on this test, the subject hears aword pronounced by the examiner, and must circle the picture outof a set of four that best represents its meaning. The scale includesthree trial items followed by 50 items presented in increasing orderof complexity. The total testing period was limited to 10 minutes.

3.2.2. Tests from EVALEC3.2.2.1. Word-level reading tests. For the two reading-aloud tests(LEVORT and LEXLENGTH), the students’ vocal responses wererecorded. The correctness of each response could thus be verifiedand the beginning of the production of each response determinedby analyzing the speech signal. The students had to respond asquickly and accurately as possible. They were instructed only topronounce the word when they had it clearly ready in their heads.Practice items were used to ensure that the subject had understoodthe instructions and to adjust the sound level. The subjects weretold that the pseudowords were not real words.

LEVORT, which evaluates the lexical reading procedure, con-tains 48 frequent words with two levels of orthographic regularity(36 regular words and 12 irregular words). Among the regularwords, 12 are composed of simple graphemes (one letter for onephoneme), 12 contain a digraph, and 12 contain a grapheme whosepronunciation depends on the context. As in earlier studies (e.g.,Sprenger-Charolles et al., 1998), the irregular part of irregularwords is never only in its last consonant (which is often silentin French orthography, mainly because morphological markers are

5 Adapted by Sprenger-Charolles & Colé from EVIP (Échelle de Vocabulaire enImages: Dunn, Theriault-Whalen, & Dunn, 1993)

L. Pourcin et al. / Revue européenne de psychologie appliquée 66 (2016) 23–37 29

Table 2Means (and standard deviations) for LEVORT (regular and irregular words) and orthographic choice: correct responses and latencies.

LEVORT Orthographic choice

Correct responses (mean %) Latencies (ms) Correct responses (%) Latencies (ms)

Regular words Irregular words Regular words Irregular words

Grade 6 99.06 (1.83) 94.49 (6.49) 592.99 (91.58) 623.32 (109.02) 96.94 (6.37) 1935.55 (663.38)) ))

(catpfpa

alpfatlqi

moapotftckhc

3npiflfpigco

tiofntvcr

Grade 7 99.31 (1.17) 94.87 (5.75) 561.45 (71.44Grade 8 99.38 (1.38) 95.48 (7.03) 582.96 (97.07Grade 9 99.52 (1.15) 95.69 (5.76) 560.10 (66.99

Lété, Sprenger-Charolles, & Colé, 2004). In addition, because laten-ies are computed, the items at each level (for instance, regularnd irregular words) are also matched on the type of phonemehat begins the word: for vowels, a word that begins with a vocalichoneme (écharpe vs. aiguille); for consonants, a word that begins,or instance, with a voiceless stop consonant (/p/,/t/or/k/: tache andoudre vs. pied and compte) or a voiced fricative (/f/,/s/or/$/: soupend cheval vs. sept and femme).

The aim of LEXLENGTH is to assess and compare the lexicalnd sublexical procedures using the reading of items of differentengths: 20 frequent irregular words (10 short and 10 long) and 20seudowords (10 short and 10 long). Short items have a mean ofour letters and long items eight, e.g., écho and opha versus orchestrend orphade. The items are matched on the same criteria as those inhe previous test: for words, lexical frequency; for all types of items,ength (in number of letters, phonemes, and syllables), bigram fre-uency, and word-initial phoneme. The pseudoword reading task

s presented after the irregular word reading task.The orthographic choice task assesses the lexical procedure by

easuring the accuracy and speed of the participant’s detectionf a correctly spelled frequent word that is presented along with

pseudohomophone and a visual foil (nine items; e.g., pomme vs.ome and pomne; loup vs. lou and louq). The mean trigram frequencyf the two types of foils is similar (Content & Radeau, 1988). For eachriplet, the correct word is presented at the same time as the twooils, on the same line, in random order. The participant is askedo indicate the correctly written word by pressing a key on theomputer keyboard (the three keys at the lower right side of theeyboard). Practice items are used to make sure that the participantas understood the instructions. The number and latency of correcthoices were analyzed.

.2.2.2. Tests assessing reading-related skills. The phonemic aware-ess tests in EVALEC involve the deletion of the first phoneme of aseudoword with a CVC (e.g., zag) or CCV (e.g., fla) structure. The

nitial consonant of the CVC items is either a plosive (six items) or aricative (six items). For the CCV items, a plosive or a fricative is fol-owed by a liquid (4 × 2 items, respectively) and a plosive is eitherollowed or preceded by a fricative (2 × 2 items, respectively). Thearticipant hears the items one by one through headphones (CVC

tems first). There is no time limit to respond, and no feedback isiven during the test. The dependent variables are accuracy andorrect response times (calculated by the computer from the onsetf the test item to the production of the response).

In the test of phonological STM, the participant has to repeathree- to six-syllable pseudowords (six items for each length: threencluding only CV syllables, three with CVC syllables) presentedne by one (the six three-syllable items first, followed by the sixour-, five-, and six-syllable items) as accurately as possible, witho time constraint. The span is defined as the last series for which

he participant gives at least four correct responses. The dependentariables are span and correct response times (calculated by theomputer from the onset of the test item to the production of theesponse).

589.92 (92.56) 98.33 (4.00) 1652.61(404.09)611.03 (108.05) 98.49 (3.83) 1632.24 (458.82)579.18 (72.10) 98.49 (3.83) 1445.48 (352.33)

Color names are used for the rapid naming test because thenaming of these high-frequency items is thought to depend less onreading level than the ability to name letters or digits (Wagner et al.,1997; see also Parrila et al., 2004). The task requires participants toname each in a set of six successive colors, presented eight times ina different order each time, as quickly and accurately as possible.Three of the items have a CVC structure: rouge (red), jaune (yellow),and vert (green); the other three have a CCV structure: bleu (blue),blanc (white), gris (grey). Before the test, the examiner presentedthe six color patches and asked the child to name them and, in caseof error, gave the correct response and verified that the child hadunderstood. The items are presented on a sheet of paper (six rowsof eight items). Here, the dependent measure was total processingtime in seconds (accuracy was not used due to ceiling effects).

4. Results

The first part presents the results of the ANOVAs on the EVALECmeasures, and the second examines the tests from the EVALECthat account for some of the variance in reading level (as mea-sured by the Alouette-R test). To facilitate the reading of the results,we mainly report differences that were significant at the p < 0.001,p < 0.01, or p < 0.05 (three, two or one stars, respectively) level.

4.1. ANOVAs

4.1.1. Word-level reading skills4.1.1.1. LEVORT: regularity effect. The main goal of LEVORT is toassess the effect of regularity by comparing the reading of regularand irregular words. The results are presented in Table 2. Two-factor ANOVAs were run on accuracy and latencies, with grade(G6–G9) and regularity (regular vs. irregular words) as factors.

For accuracy, contrary to our hypotheses, the effect of regularitywas significant (F(1.311) = 138.70***, partial �2 = .31) and did notinteract with grade (F(3.311) = 0.28). The main effect of grade wasnot significant (F(3.311) = 1.02). These results, and particularly thelast, should be interpreted with caution because of ceiling effectsobtained for regular words.

For latencies, again contrary to our hypotheses, the effect of reg-ularity was significant (F(1.311) = 141.97***, partial �2 = .31), withno change across grades (F(3.311) = 1.31). The effect of grade wassignificant (F(3.311) = 3.34*, partial �2 = .03), with G9 students read-ing words more rapidly than G6 students (−38.51 ms; p = 0.04).

4.1.1.2. LEXLENGTH: lexicality and length effects. The aim of this testis to comparatively assess the sublexical and lexical proceduresand their sensitivity to length using the reading of irregular wordsand pseudowords of different lengths. The results are presented inTable 3. Two three-factor ANOVAs were carried out (grade: G6–G9;lexicality: irregular words vs. pseudowords; length: short vs. longitems), one for accuracy and one for latencies.

All three factors had significant main effects on both accu-racy (grade, lexicality, and length, respectively: F(3.311) = 8.06***,306.9***, and 41.94***, with partial �2 of .07, .25 and .10) and laten-cies (grade, lexicality, and length, respectively: F(3.311) = 3.14*,


Table 3LEXLENGTH: correct responses and latencies for short and long irregular words and pseudowords (means and standard deviations).

Correct responses (mean %) Latencies (ms)

Irregular words Pseudowords Irregular words Pseudowords

Short Long Short Long Short Long Short Long

Grade 6 88.88 (9.41) 92.25 (8.86) 88.88 (8.57) 76.13 (12.06) 660.93 (110.88) 661.50 (127.67) 779.06 (173.60) 974.76 (276.69)Grade 7 89.73 (7.91) 95.34 (6.35) 88.63 (8.58) 75.62 (11.32) 631.75 (104.24) 626.08 (97.60) 757.41 (121.68) 927.44 (210.56)

6ed

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4

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TP

Grade 8 92.22 (9.42) 95.06 (8.01) 90.37 (8.05) 82.35 (13.23)Grade 9 92.96 (6.97) 95.93 (6.48) 87.53 (8.14) 81.85 (11.41)

89.86***, and 319.40***, with partial �2 of .03, .29 and .25). As wexpected, irregular words were read better and faster than pseu-owords.

For accuracy, the Lexicality × Length and Lexical-ty × Length × Grade interactions were significant (respectively,(1.311) = 189.10***, partial �2 = .38; F(3.311) = 5.38**, partial2 = .05). Increased length had a greater negative effect onseudowords (F(1.311) = 152,31***, partial �2 = .33) and itsegative effect decreased with grade (in G6–G9, respectively,12.75%, −13%, −8% and −6% difference between the percent-ges of correct responses for long minus short pseudowords;(1.79) = 60.45***, partial �2 = .43; F(1.72) = 65.75***, partial2 = .48; F(1.80) = 31.89***, partial �2 = .29; F(1.80) = 13.58***,artial �2 = .15). In sharp contrast to pseudowords, the lengthffect actually favored long irregular words (F(1.311) = 39.58***,artial �2 = .11). In G6-9, the differences between long minushort irregular words were as follows: +3.38%, +5.62%, +2.84% and2.96%; F(1.79) = 6.92*, partial �2 = .08; F(1.72) = 18.02***, partial2 = .20; F(1.80) = 7.63**, partial �2 = .09; F(1.80) = 8.76**, partial2 = .10.

For latencies, only the Lexicality × Length interaction was signif-cant (F(1.311) = 462.60***, partial �2 = .60). Length only increasedatencies for pseudowords (F(1.311) = 427.8***, partial �2 = .58),

ith short pseudowords read faster than long pseudowords−192.7 ms), while the effect of length was not significant forrregular words (F(1.311) = 3.7).

.1.1.3. Orthographic choice. Means and SDs for orthographichoice are presented in Table 2. The effect of grade was only signif-cant for processing times (F(3.311) = 13.82***, partial �2 = .12, andot for accuracy (F(3.311) = 2.08). Participants in G6 were slowerhan those in all the other grades (all p < .003), who did not differrom each other (all p > .05). The results for accuracy must be inter-reted with caution because accuracy was already at ceiling level

n G6.

.1.2. Reading-related skillsMeans and SDs for phonological awareness, phonological STM,

nd rapid naming are presented in Table 4. For phonological aware-ess, two ANOVAs were carried out (one for accuracy and one for

peed), with grade (G6–G9) and test (two levels: CVC vs. CCV) asactors. For phonological STM, two ANOVAs were carried out (oneor accuracy and one for speed), and one for the rapid naming taskfor speed), all with grade (G6–G9) as a factor.

able 4honemic awareness, phonological STM, and rapid naming (means and SDs).

Mean Phonemic awareness

CVC accuracy (%) CCV accuracy (%) CVC response time (ms) CCV re

Grade 6 96.88 (5.84) 85.94 (10.82) 1901.70 (419.48) 2234.7Grade 7 97.72 (3.99) 89.50 (8.78) 1741.97 (289.43) 2148.9Grade 8 98.31 (3.88) 91.88 (10.31) 1640.37 (282.34) 1997.2Grade 9 98.87 (3.16) 91.56 (8.79) 1516.09 (252.53) 1829.5

650.10 (119.45) 645.00 (122.45) 768.51 (168.11) 989.00 (332.07)609.82 (85.39) 595.88 (79.59) 724.50 (126.67) 907.17 (204.46)

4.1.2.1. Phonemic awareness. For correct responses, the maineffects were significant (grade, F(3.311) = 8.38***, partial �2 = .07;test, F(1.311) = 195.30***, partial �2 = .37), as was the interaction(Grade × Test, F(3.311) = 2.86*, partial �2 = .03). The participantsfound it less difficult to delete a consonant followed by a vowelthan one followed by another consonant. The difference betweenthe percentages of correct responses for CVC minus CCV itemswas more marked among younger participants (for G6–G9, respec-tively: +10.94%, +8.22%, +6.43%, +7.41%; F(1.79) = 72.59***, partial�2 = .48; F(1.72) = 58.40***, partial �2 = .45; F(1.80) = 25.17***, par-tial �2 = .24; F(1.80) = 50.80***, partial �2 = .39).

For response times, the effects of grade and test were also signif-icant (F(3.311) = 21.42***, partial �2 = .17 and F(1.311) = 390.56***,partial �2 = .56), but not their interaction (F(3.311) = 1.24). What-ever the test session, the students responded more quickly to CVCitems than to CCV items (−352.62 ms; F(1.314) = 389.64***, partial�2 = .55).

4.1.2.2. Phonological STM and rapid naming of color patches. Forphonological STM, grade had a significant effect on accuracy(F(3.311) = 6.21***, partial �2 = .06) and time (F(3.311) = 10.22***,partial �2 = .09). For accuracy, G9 students were more accurate thanG6 and G7 students (respectively, p = .002 and p = .017), and G8 stu-dents were more accurate than G6 students (p = .02). For speed,G9 students were faster than the students in the other grades (allp < .02), who did not differ from each other (all p > .05).

For the rapid naming task, because of ceiling effects for accuracy,only response times were analyzed. The effect of grade was signifi-cant (F(3.311) = 23.88***, partial �2 = .19). Response time decreasedwith grade: both G6 and G7 students were slower than G8 and G9students (all p < .001), with no significant difference between eitherG6 and G7 students or G8 and G9 students.

5. Reading level predictors: correlations and regressions

The correlations between the different tests are presented inFig. 1 for G6 and G7 and in Fig. 2 for G8 and G9. For correla-tions significant at the p < .01 level, a value of .30 is regarded asa medium effect size and .50 as a large effect size (Cohen, 1988).In Grade 6 students, among the 41 significant correlations above

.30, 14 were greater than .50. All of these 14 correlations werebetween response times in different word-level reading conditions.In Grade 7, among the 39 significant correlations above .30, 20were greater than .50. As observed in the previous grade, all of

Phonological STM Rapid naming

sponse time (ms) Span (%) Response time (ms) Response time (s)

7 (439.14) 81.04 (13.45) 2863.05 (299.22) 32.98 (5.46)8 (358.74) 79.45 (14.03) 2797.23 (361.24) 31.53 (4.52)9 (447.70) 85.60 (12.29) 2744.58 (205.79) 27.53 (5.52)9 (371.14) 87.24 (12.44) 2611.36 (301.04) 27.25 (5.45)


F A: accm abula. .33).

tlrpat11riace

Faa

ig. 1. Correlations: grade 6 (below the diagonal) and grade 7 (above the diagonal).edium effect size (.30) and a large effect size (.50). In Grade 6, nonverbal IQ and voc

32 and .31). In Grade 7, nonverbal IQ and vocabulary were moderately correlated (

hese 21 correlations were for response times: 15 between word-evel reading tasks, four between Alouette score and word-leveleading skills (regular word, short and long irregular word, shortseudoword), one between Alouette score and phoneme deletion,nd one between short pseudoword reading and phoneme dele-ion. In Grade 8, among the 36 significant correlations above .30,6 were greater than .50, once again all involving response times:4 between word-level reading tasks and two others (one betweenesponse times in the orthographic choice task and in the task

nvolving long irregular words, and one between Alouette scorend the rapid naming task). In Grade 9, among the 28 significantorrelations above .30, 11 were greater than .50, once again allxclusively involving response times on word-level reading tasks.

ig. 2. Correlations: grade 8 (below the diagonal) and grade 9 (above the diagonal). A: ac medium effect size (.30) and a large effect size (.50). In Grade 8, short pseudoword readnd vocabulary were moderately correlated (.40).

uracy; F: fluency; RT: response time. Grey highlight: significant correlations with ary were moderately correlated (.35) and correlated with reading level (respectively,

Based on the outcomes of the correlation analysis, threeregression analyses were conducted using the stepwise methodto examine the power of reading and reading-related skills asmeasured by EVALEC to predict reading level (assessed by theAlouette-R CTL). These included, for sublexical skills, pseudowordreading from LEXLENGTH; for lexical skills, word reading fromthe orthographic choice task, regular and irregular word readingfrom LEVORT, and irregular word reading from LEXLENGTH; andfor reading-related skills, phonemic awareness for both CVC and

CCV items, phonological STM, and rapid naming. The first analy-sis was conducted with accuracy for all these predictors (exceptfor rapid naming), the second for processing speed, and the thirdwith a combined score for both measures (response times divided

curacy; F: fluency; RT: response time. Grey highlight: significant correlations withing (RT) and vocabulary were moderately correlated (.33). In Grade 9, nonverbal IQ


Table 5Prediction of reading level as assessed by Alouette-R CTL (2005).

Grade 6 Grade 7 Grade 8 Grade 9

Alouette-R CTL R R2 Adjusted R2 R R2 Adjusted R2 R R2 Adjusted R2 R R2 Adjusted R2

Accuracy from EVALEC .44 .19 .17 .37 .14 .11 .27 .07 .06 .35 .12 .11Response times from EVALEC .56 .32 .29 .69 .48 .46 .60 .36 .34 .56 .31 .29Combined score from EVALEC .64 .41 .39 .70 .49 .47 .62 .38 .36 .60 .36 .34

Table 6Tests of EVALEC (accuracy, response times, and combined scores) which predicted Alouette-R CTL scores.

Accuracy Response Time Combined score

Grade level G6 G7 G8 G9 G6 G7 G8 G9 G6 G7 G8 G9

Reading skillsPseudowords (from LEXLENGTH) + + + + + + + +Regular and irregular words (from LEVORT)Irregular words (from LEXLENGTH) + + + +Words (Orthographic choice task) + +

Reading-related skills

bti

r13w3sa

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lppyiatl

6

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speaking children (e.g., Leybaert & Content, 1995; Mousty &Leybaert, 1999; Sprenger-Charolles et al., 2003). For instance,Sprenger-Charolles et al. (2003) observed an effect of regularityon accuracy at the end of G1, G2, G3, and G4, but on latencies

75

80

85

90

95

100

spon

ses (

%)

LEVORT

Regular W ords

Phonemic awareness Rapid naming Phonological STM

y accuracy). Nonverbal IQ and vocabulary were included in allhree analyses. The results (R, R2, and adjusted R2) are presentedn Table 5.

Analyses based on accuracy explained less of the variance ineading level than those based on processing speed (accuracy: 19%,4%, 7% and 12% in Grades 6, 7, 8, and 9 respectively, vs. speed:2%, 48%, 36%, and 31%). The highest level of explained varianceas obtained with analyses based on a combined score (41%, 49%,

8%, and 36%, respectively). These results are not surprising, as thecore on the Alouette is based on a measure that takes fluency intoccount.

Among the predictors linked to reading skills (see Table 6), reg-lar and irregular word reading from LEVORT were not predictivef reading level, whatever the measure. Reading level was mostften predicted either by processing time or composite scores, andither lexical skills (assessed by irregular word reading) or sublex-cal skills (assessed by pseudoword reading). Surprisingly, lexicaleading skills were only predictive of reading level in the youngerarticipants (G6 and G7), and not in the later grades.

Among the reading-related skills (phonemic awareness, phono-ogical STM and rapid naming, see Table 6), phonological STM neverredicted reading level, whatever the measure. Rapid naming andhonemic awareness predicted reading level, but only in the anal-ses of processing speed and combined scores.6 This was the casen G6 and G7 students for both predictors, in G8 for rapid naming,nd in G9 for phonemic awareness. In addition, accuracy on theasks measuring nonverbal IQ and vocabulary predicted readingevel only once, and only for G6 students.

. Discussion

The main goals of the present study were to examine:

the evolution of word-level reading skills and reading-relatedskills in middle school students;

and the contribution of those skills to explaining reading level asassessed by the Alouette-R test.

6 The results for accuracy in rapid naming were not considered because of ceilingffects. The result for phonemic awareness has to be interpreted with care becauseccuracy is close a ceiling level in Grade 6 [G6 = 91.41 (6.54)] and reaches a ceilingevel in others grades [G7 = 93.61 (5.06); G8 = 95.09 (5.33); G9 = 95.22 (4.76)].

+ + + + ++ + + +

In the following section, we discuss our results on these issuesin connection with our hypotheses and with the results in primaryschool children obtained with the same test battery (Sprenger-Charolles et al., 2005).

7. Evolution of reading and reading-related skills

7.1. Evolution of the lexical and sublexical reading procedure:reading-aloud tasks

7.1.1. Regularity effectThe LEVORT test highlighted a regularity effect on accuracy and

response times, always to the detriment of irregular words, whichdid not vary by grade. Regularity was observed to have a significanteffect on accuracy despite the fact that accuracy for regular wordsreaches a ceiling level beginning at the end of G1, as can be seen inFig. 3, which shows both the present results and those obtained forprimary school children by Sprenger-Charolles et al. (2005). Thatstudy, like the present study, found that the effect of regularity wassignificant at all grade levels for both accuracy (Fig. 3) and latencies(Fig. 4).

These results reproduce those of earlier studies with French-

50

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65

70

Gra de 1 Gra de 2 Gra de 3 Gra de 4 Gra de 6 Gra de 7 Gra de 8 Gra de 9

Corr

ect r

e Irregular Words

Fig. 3. Results of LEVORT test (accuracy) from Grade 1 to Grade 9.


400

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Late

ncy

�mes

LEVORT

Regular W ordsIrregular Words

oGneCF

Sbfidmt[i[

asSoitiyt

bu(cad

7w

apmCaiwGl

i

were more rapidly processed from the end of G2 to the end of G4.The positive effect of length on the accuracy of irregular word

reading between the end of G3 and the end of G9 can be understood

Fig. 4. Results of LEVORT test (latencies) from Grade 1 to Grade 9.

nly at the end of G1 and G2, and not in older children (G3 and4). These last results are surprising given the finding of a sig-ificant regularity effect in French expert readers (i.e., adults),ven with frequent words (e.g., Content, 1991; Ziegler, Perry, &oltheart, 2003), suggesting that the regularity effect is strong inrench.

The results obtained with older primary school children byprenger-Charolles et al. (2003) might be due to the fact that,ecause there are few frequent irregular words in French, the mostrequent irregular words are presented very often to children dur-ng what is called in France the “third cycle” of schooling (cyclees approfondissements: G3, G4, and G5). This could be the case forost of the words used in Sprenger-Charolles et al. (2003): atten-

ion [attention], album [album], compte [count/account]; femmewoman], noël [Christmas], noeud [knot], pied [foot], poêle [fry-ng pan], punition [punishment], scie [saw], short [shorts], and septseven].

The literature in English has also produced inconsistent findingsbout the effect of regularity, which has been found to be non-ignificant for frequent words in some studies (e.g., Bruck, 1990;eidenberg, Waters, Barnes, & Tanenhaus, 1984) and significant inthers (e.g., Jared, 2002; see also the meta-analysis of English stud-es by Metsala, Stanovich, & Brown, 1998). Nevertheless, accordingo the studies examined by Metsala et al., the effect of regular-ty is significant in dyslexic children and in reading level-matchedounger readers: both groups read regular words more accuratelyhan irregular words.

The regularity effect found in most studies may be explainedy the fact that regular words benefit from the effect of both reg-larity and frequency of exposure. Frequency of exposure alonefor irregular words) or regularity alone (for pseudowords, as indi-ated by the results of the comparison between irregular wordsnd pseudowords; see the following section) may not suffice (for aiscussion, see Perry et al., 2010).

.1.2. Effect of lexicality in the comparison between irregularords and pseudowords

In the present results from LEXLENGTH the lexicality effectlways favored irregular words, whatever the measure, and inde-endently of grade: irregular words were systematically readore accurately and more rapidly than pseudowords. In Sprenger-

harolles et al. (2005), the effect of lexicality on response times waslso to the detriment of pseudowords, except in G1. For accuracy,n contrast, the lexicality effect was to the detriment of irregular

ords, but decreased with grade until it became non-significant in

4. These results show a developmental change between early and

ater grades.Sprenger-Charolles et al. (2005) argued that the fact that

rregular words were read less accurately than pseudowords from

Fig. 5. Results of LEXLENGTH (accuracy) from Grade 1 to Grade 9.

the end of G1 to the end of G3 might be due to strong relianceon the sublexical procedure in the first stages of reading acqui-sition, a view that the longitudinal data of Sprenger-Charolleset al. (2003) also seemed to support. However, that explanationis not consistent with the fact that, beginning very early (end ofG2), irregular words were read more rapidly than pseudowords.These differences between accuracy and response times might bebecause latencies were only reported for correct responses, andlatencies capture the effect of articulatory codes which are encap-sulated for words (whether regular or not), but not for pseudowords(see Marmurek & Rinaldo, 1992; Rastle, Harrington, Coltheart, &Palethorpe, 2000, see also Perry et al., 2014). This could explainwhy correctly read irregular words were processed more rapidlythan correctly read pseudowords. We will return to this issue afterexamining the effect of length on irregular words versus pseu-dowords.

7.1.3. Impact of item length on the effect of lexicalityThe most striking findings of the present study are twofold:

the interaction between length and lexicality, and the differencesbetween accuracy and latencies for these variables. For pseu-dowords, long items were always penalized regardless of measureor grade level. In contrast, while short irregular words were sys-tematically read less accurately than long irregular words, theywere not read more quickly. These results are very similar tothose obtained in primary school children by Sprenger-Charolleset al. (2005; see also Leybaert & Content, 1995), as can be seen inFigs. 5 (accuracy) and 6 (latencies). In that study, as here, long pseu-dowords were processed less accurately and less rapidly than shortpseudowords. Similarly, short irregular words were read less accu-rately than long irregular words in G3 and G4 (as observed in G6 toG9 in the present study) whereas, unlike in the present study, they

Fig. 6. Results of LEXLENGTH (latencies) from Grade 1 to Grade 9.


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ibroéitét

hlilTnttFitrosdlof

aeltrrdKgi

Fbvs

7n

w

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Tim

e in

seco

nds

Span

Phonological STM an d Rapid nam ing

Phonological STM Span

RAN Color patches (s)

Fig. 8. Results of the phonological STM (span) and rapid naming (time in seconds)tasks from Grade 1 to Grade 9.

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Phonemic awareness

Phoneme de le�on CVC a ccuracyPhoneme de le�on CC V a ccuracy

Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 6 Grade 7 Grade 8 Grade 9

Fig. 7. Results of the orthographic choice task from Grade 1 to Grade 9.

f we acknowledge that the reading of such words is also influencedy regularity. Irregular words are never totally irregular, and theegular portion of long irregular words is usually longer than thatf short ones. For instance, one of the three graphemes in the wordcho has an irregular pronunciation (ch, pronounced/K/and not/$/asn most French words) against only two of the seven graphemes inhe word technique (the first e, which has to be pronounced as the

in écho, and not as/ə/) and the ch, which has to be pronounced ashe ch in écho; for statistics see Peereman et al., 2007, 2013).

The results of the present study—where length was found toave no effect on frequent irregular word reading latencies whereas

ong pseudowords were read more slowly than short ones—are sim-lar to those reported in adults by Ferrand (2000), who found aength effect for pseudowords, but not for high-frequency words.he present results, observed with frequent irregular words, can-ot be explained exclusively in terms of the opposition betweenhe use of the lexical procedure for word reading and the use ofhe sublexical procedure for pseudoword reading, for two reasons.irst, long irregular words were read more accurately than shortrregular words; and second, a regularity effect was observed withhe same participants (regular words read more quickly and accu-ately than irregular words). This difference in the effect of lengthn irregular words and pseudowords cannot be due to biases in theelection of irregular words or in the construction of the list of pseu-owords, at least for the variables taken into account: short and

ong irregular words are matched to short and long pseudowordsn length (number of letters, graphemes, and syllables), bigramrequency, and type of word-initial phoneme.

The explanation of the results on lexicality effects presentedbove (based on the role of articulatory codes) does not suffice toxplain the interaction between lexicality and length. The fact thatong irregular words were read as rapidly as (but more accuratelyhan) short ones, whereas length negatively affect pseudowordeading, could be due to the conjunction of two factors: first, theole of articulatory codes (which exist for words and not for pseu-owords, and which are better encapsulated in the oldest students:ail & Park, 1994), and second, the fact that there are more regularrapheme-phoneme correspondences in long irregular words thann short ones.

The results of the orthographic choice task are presented inig. 7, together with those obtained in primary school childreny Sprenger-Charolles et al. (2005). These results provide no rele-ant information on the reading procedures used by middle schooltudents.

.2. Evolution of reading-related skills: phonological STM, rapid

aming and phonemic awareness

For phonological STM and rapid naming, only the effect of gradeas examined. The only clear finding is the significant decrease

Fig. 9. Phonemic awareness (accuracy) from Grade 1 to Grade 9.

in response times in the rapid naming task, with older students(G8 and G9) responding faster than younger ones (G6 and G7). Theresults for accuracy in the phonological STM task (span, maximum6) and for processing times in the rapid naming task are presentedin Fig. 8, together with those of the previous study with primaryschool children.

In the phonemic awareness task, the middle school studentsenrolled in the present study responded more slowly and less accu-rately to CCV items than to CVC items, with a significant differencebetween the two types of items in each grade, whatever the mea-sure, and in spite of ceiling effects for accuracy in the CVC task fromG6 to G9 (see Fig. 9). As can be seen in the same figure, the samedifference was observed in French primary school children’s accu-racy (Sprenger-Charolles et al., 2005), and in that case as well it wassignificant in each grade. With the same two tasks, similar resultshave been observed in other studies with young French children foraccuracy (Sprenger-Charolles et al., 2009) and, with older children,for processing times (Martin et al., 2010).

These results cannot be explained by the syllabic structure ofthe language to which children are exposed (Caravolas & Landerl,2010), as CCV syllables are more common than CVC syllables inFrench (Delattre, 1965). They could be due to the fact that it is eas-ier to segment a consonant that is followed by a vowel than one thatis followed by another consonant. These findings have importantpractical implications: in older students, if only accuracy is mea-sured, then the most difficult tasks should be administered, or elseresponse times should be considered.

8. Which reading-related skills best predict reading level?

The following discussion is focused on the contribution ofreading-related skills to the explaining reading level as assessed

e psy

biflm

fioPrenoSde

pssettsadpVBmalttawce

9

librtsaoia

D

A

(AWF


y a standardized test (Alouette-R; Lefavrais, 2005). Rapid nam-ng and phonemic awareness were predictive of reading level, but,or both skills, this was the case only for processing times. Phono-ogical STM never emerged as a significant predictor with any

easure.These results on phonological STM are in line with previous

ndings indicating that phonological STM is not a major predictorf future reading level (Bowers, 1995; Landerl & Wimmer, 2008;arrila et al., 2004; Wagner et al., 1994, 1997). Our results alsoeproduce those of Sprenger-Charolles et al. (2005), who found that,xcept in G3, phonological STM never predicted reading level. It isecessary to include a test of phonological STM in an evaluationf reading-related skills, however, since deficits in phonologicalTM are characteristic in dyslexic schoolchildren, and even in adultyslexics (e.g., in English: Ramus et al., 2003; in French: Martint al., 2010).

For phonemic awareness, our results are partially in line withrevious observations. Many studies have presented evidence thatuccess and failure in word-level reading are linked to phonemickills (for reviews see Melby-Lervåg et al., 2012; Sprenger-Charollest al., 2006-2013; Ziegler & Goswami, 2005, 2006). This is becausehe sublexical procedure, which conditions the development ofhe lexical procedure, is based on grapheme-phoneme corre-pondences. Phonemic awareness is therefore linked to readingcquisition, at least in younger children. The results for older stu-ents are less clear-cut: For instance, some studies have found thathonemic awareness predicts reading level in G6 students (e.g.,aessen & Blomert, 2010), while others have not (e.g., Ouellette &eers, 2010). This difference may be because Vaessen and Blomerteasured speed as well as accuracy in a phoneme deletion task,

nd their study was conducted in Dutch, a language with a shal-ower orthography than English. Similarly, in our study, processingimes (and a composite measure including processing times) inhe phonemic awareness task predicted reading level, but accuracylone in the same task did not. However, like Vaessen and Blomert,e found that rapid naming predicted reading level. These results

ast doubt on the validity of the double deficit hypothesis (Wolft al., 2000).

. Conclusion

Tools for diagnosing dyslexia should assess not only readingevel but also the two reading procedures. Even more importantly,t is essential for all assessments not to rely on accuracy alone,ut also to measure and analyze response times, including foreading-related skills. Taking processing times into account is par-icularly necessary when assessing reading and reading-relatedkills in individuals who have moved past the first stage of readingcquisition and who are speakers of a language with a shallowerrthography than English. More generally, it is important to keepn mind that no skill whatsoever can be defined based only onccuracy.

isclosure of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interest.

cknowledgements

This research was supported by a grant from the MDPH - Savoie

Maison départementale des personnes handicapées) and from theNRT (Association nationale de la recherche et de la technologie).e thank Bernard Godiard, the director of the MDPH - Savoie.

urther thanks go to Paul Reeve for proofreading the manuscript.


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