Nature of the representation of written language by beginning readers: An interpretive model

The main objective of this study is to test a knowledge-based simulation mo del, elaborated in a previous longitudinal research in order to explain rea ding errors produced by first-grade children. This model relies on two assu mptions: (1) in the beginning of the grapho-phonological acquisition, the c hild tries to extract, from the series of letters which forms a word, graph ic patterns corresponding to an oral syllable; (2) these patterns are store d either in an ordered representation or in a non-ordered representation. P ermutation errors, often pointed out in this phase of reading acquisition, would then be the mark of a non-ordered representation of the graphic patte rns. Two experiments were proposed to new first-grade children, in the midd le of the school year. In experiment I, they had to detect an oral syllable in written pseudo-words in which the first trigram did or did not correspo nd to the legal order. In experiment 2, they had to read aloud trisyllabic pseudo-words in which the first trigram was presented in four different ord ers. Reading errors correspond to the predictions our model allows. Moreove r, the absence of correlation between the two tasks suggests that the knowl edge activated depends on the type of activity.