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Grain size in script and teaching: Literacy acquisition in Ge'ez and Latin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2009

YONAS MESFUN ASFAHA ,
JEANNE KURVERS  and
SJAAK KROON
YONAS MESFUN ASFAHA*
Affiliation:
Tilburg University
JEANNE KURVERS
Affiliation:
Tilburg University
SJAAK KROON
Affiliation:
Tilburg University
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Yonas Mesfun Asfaha, Department of Language and Culture Studies, Tilburg University, P.O. Box 90153, Tilburg 5000 LE, The Netherlands. E-mail: y.m.asfaha@uvt.nl
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Abstract

The study investigated reading in four African languages that use either syllabic Ge'ez (Tigrinya and Tigre languages) or alphabetic Latin scripts (Kunama and Saho). A sample of 385 Grade 1 children were given letter knowledge, word reading, and spelling tasks to investigate differences at the script and language levels. Results showed that the syllable based Ge'ez script was easier to learn than the phoneme-based Latin despite the bigger number of basic units in Ge'ez. Moreover, the syllable based teaching of alphabetic Saho produced better results than alphabetic teaching of Kunama. These findings are discussed using the psycholinguistic grain size theory. The outcomes confirm the importance of the availability of phonological units in learning to read.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , October 2009 , pp. 709 - 724
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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