The Influence of Sublexical Fluency on EFL Young Learners'' Early Reading

• Main Authors: Wei-ting Chen, 陳尉婷
• Other Authors: Teng-lung Peng
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/98919495303173240645

碩士 === 雲林科技大學 === 應用外語系碩士班 === 97 === The purpose of this research is to compare the influence of sublexical fluency and sublexical accuracy on EFL young learners’ early reading performance and to see which sublexical skill (i.e., letter name fluency, letter name accuracy, letter sound fluency, letter sound accuracy, phonemic segmentation fluency, and phonemic segmentation accuracy) predicts early reading performance most. The participants were thirty fifth graders from an intact class at an elementary school in central Taiwan. The experimental methods included prediction instruments (quantitative research) and interview. (qualitative research). With regard to prediction instruments, simultaneous regression was applied to analyze the results of Word Identification Test and sublexical measures (sublexical fluency and accuracy measures). In addition, six participants were chosen to be interviewed to understand the difficulties that they encountered in responding to sublexical measures. The findings of the study suggested that sublexical fluency predicts early reading ability of EFL fifth graders beyond the contributions of sublexical accuracy measures, and letter name fluency predicts EFL fifth graders’ early reading ability the most among other sublexical skills. Moreover, the interview data indicate that the participants had more difficulties in responding to sublexical fluency measures and memorizing letter sounds. This study may provide English teachers with a possible way to identify poor learners through the measures of sublexical fluency at early stage. The fluency of sublexical skills may be a helpful remedial instruction for students’ early reading development.