Elsevier

Cognitive Development

Volume 19, Issue 3, July–September 2004, Pages 433-449
Cognitive Development

The visuo-haptic and haptic exploration of letters increases the kindergarten-children’s understanding of the alphabetic principle

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2004.05.003Get rights and content

Abstract

This study examined the effect of incorporating a visuo-haptic and haptic (tactual-kinaesthetic) exploration of letters in a training designed to develop phonemic awareness, knowledge of letters and letter/sound correspondences, on 5-year-old children’s understanding and use of the alphabetic principle. Three interventions, which differed in the work on letters identity, were assessed. The letters were explored visually and haptically in “HVAM” training (haptic-visual-auditory-metaphonological), only visually in “VAM” training (visual-auditory-metaphonological) and visually but in a sequential way in “VAM-sequential” training. The three interventions made use of the same phonological exercises. The results revealed that the improvement in the pseudo-word decoding task was higher after HVAM training than after both VAM training and VAM-sequential training (which did not differ). The sequential exploration of the letters (independently of perceptual modalities involved) was not to be sufficient alone for explaining these results. Moreover, similar improvements in the letter recognition test and in the phonological awareness tests were observed after the three interventions. Taken together, the results show that incorporating the visuo-haptic and haptic exploration of letters makes the connections between the orthographic representation of letters and the phonological representation of the corresponding sounds easier, thus improving the decoding skills of young children.

Introduction

This study examined the effects of incorporating a visuo-haptic and haptic (tactual-kinaesthetic) exploration of letters in a training designed to develop phonemic awareness, knowledge of letters and letter/sound correspondences, on the understanding of the alphabetic principle among pre-reading kindergarten children. Studies on reading acquisition had primarily focused on the phonological dimension involved in the understanding of the alphabetic principle. Several studies have shown that one of the factors influencing reading success lies in the development of some skills related to spoken language and broadly referred to as metaphonological abilities (for recent reviews in English, see Ehri et al., 2001, Troia, 1999; for recent reviews in French, see Gombert & Colé, 2000; Sprenger-Charolles & Colé, 2003). These are defined as the abilities which allow children to identify the phonological components of linguistic units and to manipulate them intentionally (Liberman, Shankweiker, Fisher, & Carter, 1974). It appears that the metaphonemic abilities (the abilities to consciously manipulate the phonemes in spoken words) are the best predictor of reading in alphabetic systems (Ehri et al., 2001).

Furthermore, reading acquisition is broadly though to consist, on the one hand, in the development of phonological and orthographic representations and, on the other, in the establishment of connections between (or indeed the fusion of), these two types of representation (Metsala & Ehri, 1998). Then, the body of research devoted to the way in which these connections or this fusion come about is very slight and tends to consider that this is an “implicit” process which is triggered by the learning of letter/sound correspondences (e.g. Plaut, MacClelland, Seidenberg, & Patterson, 1996). Reading training programs adhere strictly to this conception and make use of metaphonological and letter discrimination exercises which are associated with the learning of the letter/sound correspondences (Bus & Van Ijzendoorn, 1999). For example, Byrne and Fielding-Barnsley (1991) evaluated the efficiency of this kind of training program on 5-year-old pre-readers. The performances in phonemic awareness and in a forced-choice word reading tasks improved significantly more after this “experimental” training than after the “control” training which only made use of semantic activities. However, although this type of intervention really has a positive effect on reading, its acquisition generally remains slow and difficult because several months of formal instruction are necessary before young children grasp the logic of the alphabetic principle and use it (Colé, Magnan, & Grainger, 1999; O.N.L., 1998; Sprenger-Charolles, Siegel, & Bonnet, 1998; Sprenger-Charolles, Siegel, Béchennec, & Serniclaes, 2003).

In the light of Bryant and Bradley’s work (1985), we assume that one of the difficulties involved in learning to read relates in part to the task of establishing connections between the orthographic representation of a word and the corresponding phonological representation. More precisely, it lies in a difficulty in establishing a connection between the visual image of a word and its auditory image. In an attempt to overcome this difficulty, a “multisensory” learning method calling not only on the visual and auditory modes as is traditionally the case, but also on the manual haptic modality can be used. Indeed, our hands do not simply possess the motor function of moving or transforming the objects in our environment, but also have a highly efficient active perceptual function (e.g. Gibson, 1962; for recent reviews, see Hatwell et al., 2000, Hatwell et al., 2003; Heller, 2000, Millar, 1994).

Thus, Fernald (1943) employed a “multisensory” technique (largely based on Montessori’s principles) with children exhibiting reading difficulties. This technique, known as the “multisensory trace” involves the children in tracing a written word with their index finger while pronouncing it and looking at it. In line with this, Ofman and Shaevitz (1963) compared the effectiveness of the “multisensory trace” with that of the “visual trace” and “reading only” in a task involving the learning of new words. The “visual trace” task consists in asking the children to track with their eyes a word which is gradually written in front of them. The results revealed that poor readers (aged 13 years) were significantly better able to learn new words using the “multisensory trace” and the “visual trace” techniques (which are identical) than with the “reading only” technique. Using an exploratory movement (visuo-haptic or only visual) in the apprehension of a written word thus seems to facilitate the learning in this type of readers.

In a similar vein, Hulme (1979) examined in younger children (8–9 years) the effect of the haptic exploration of abstract graphical figures on their memorization. The figures were explored either by looking at each of them (“Visual” condition), or by looking while simultaneously tracing them with the finger (“Visuo-Haptic” condition). The results indicated that the children in the “Visuo-Haptic” condition achieved significantly better performances in a subsequent recognition task than those in the “Visual” condition. Similar results were obtained with alphabet letters, in children with reading difficulties and normal-reading children of nine (Hulme, 1981).

Recently, Gentaz, Colé and Bara (2003) investigated, in kindergarten children, the effects of adding a visuo-haptic and haptic exploration of letters in a reading training program, designed to develop phonemic awareness and knowledge of letters and letter/sound correspondences. Two interventions, which differed in the perceptual mode they address, were compared. The haptic-visual-auditory-metaphonological training (HVAM) involved the haptic, visual and auditory mode whereas the visual-auditory-metaphonological training (VAM) only exploited the visual and auditory modes. Both interventions made use of the same phonological exercises. However, whereas the work on letter identity was based on a visuo-haptic and haptic exploration (the shape of the letters was actively traced with the finger) in the HVAM training, only the visual exploration was exploited in the VAM training. Performances were assessed before and after interventions by means of pseudo-word decoding, letter recognition and phonological tasks (rhyme and phoneme identification). The results revealed that the improvement in the pseudo-word decoding task was greater after HVAM training than after VAM training. Similar improvements between HVAM and VAM were observed in the letter recognition and in the phonological tests. These results showed that incorporating the visuo-haptic and haptic exploration of letters increases the positive effects of the interventions on the understanding and use of the alphabetic principle in young children and thus on their decoding level (see also Bara, Gentaz, & Colé, 2004).

This positive effect of the haptic exploration was explained in terms of the functional specificities of the various sensory modalities in question (Gentaz & Rossetti, 1999; Hatwell et al., 2000, Hatwell et al., 2003; Lederman & Klatzky, 1987). Indeed, vision is characterized by its quasi-simultaneity and is therefore more suitable for processing and representing spatial stimuli such as letters. On the other hand, listening is sequential in nature and is more suitable for processing temporal stimuli such as the sounds of speech. This functional difference could explain why young children have some difficulties in establishing the association between letters, which are processed visually, and sounds, which are processed auditorily. In contrast, the haptic modality shares characteristics with both the auditory and the visual modalities. Even though its functioning is highly sequential in nature, the haptic perception is also a spatial perception since the exploration in this modality is not linear and subject to a fixed order.

Within this perspective, research into the development of the visual and haptic apprehension of objects has made it possible to better identify the characteristics of haptic exploration. Since objects are multidimensional, they possess values along a number of different dimensions such as texture, location, size, shape, etc. In the case of sight, all the dimensions are perceived practically simultaneously (separated by only a few milliseconds). The same is not true in the haptic modality because, in this case, the exploration involved makes the perception very sequential (Berger and Hatwell, 1993, Berger and Hatwell, 1996). This is the reason why the haptic perception appears to be less “global” and more “analytical” than the visual perception. Thus, as far as our study is concerned, the incorporation of the haptic exploration should require children to process actively letters in a more sequential and therefore a more analytic way, something which they do not do “naturally” when letters are presented in the visual modality only.

The first goal of the present research was to confirm that incorporating the visuo-haptic and haptic exploration of letters in phonological and letter knowledge exercises, increases their positive effects on the understanding and use of the alphabetic principle in young children and thus on their decoding skills. The second goal was to investigate whether these positive effects observed after HVAM training could be explained by the sequential exploration of letter per se (i.e. independently of perceptual modalities involved) or by the haptic exploration of letter per se. Indeed, the haptic exploration can be distinguished by the fact that the motor system is involved in the exploratory activity of the hand which in turn can activate the whole shoulder–arm–hand system. These haptic exploratory movements are active (they may be generated internally), intentional (they are aimed at a goal) and may use the sensory reafferences produced by their execution.

In order to study these issues, we examined in kindergarten children the effect of three interventions that were different by the sensory modality requested (visual, auditory and haptic) and by the way of exploring the letters (simultaneous or sequential). Thus, we presented children with the two interventions proposed by Gentaz et al. (2003) named HVAM training (incorporating a visuo-haptic and haptic sequential exploration of letters) and VAM training (incorporating a visual simultaneous exploration of letters) respectively and with a third training. In the third training, labelled “VAM-sequential”, the letters were explored visually and sequentially (they take shape gradually on a computer screen).

The VAM-sequential training allowed testing the role of the sequentiality of exploration. On the one hand, the exploration of letters was sequential and supervised by the experimenter (the exploratory order of the letter, corresponding to its writing, was imposed) in the HVAM training and the VAM-sequential training whereas it was simultaneous and without fixed order in the VAM training. This comparison allowed evaluating the role of sequential versus simultaneous exploration of letters, independently of the perceptual modalities involved. On the other hand, the letter was perceived by an active and intentional haptic exploration of children in the HVAM training whereas it was passively explored in the VAM training and in the VAM-sequential training. This comparison allowed evaluating the role of haptic exploration per se. The three interventions have in common the use of exercises involving phonemic awareness and exercises bearing on letter recognition and on the learning of letter/sound correspondences.

Regarding the incorporating of the haptic exploration effect (first goal), we should observe an improvement in performances on both the tasks designed to evaluate the understanding and use of the alphabetic principle (pseudo-word decoding and letter recognition tests) following HVAM and VAM training, but this improvement should be greater after HVAM training than VAM training. Regarding the role of the sequentiality of exploration (second goal), we should observe whether the sequential exploration of letters explained the improvements in reading observed after the HVAM training: (1) similar improvements (in pseudo-word decoding and letter recognition tests) in the HVAM and VAM-sequential training and (2) lower improvements in the VAM training. By contrast, if haptic exploration of letters per se was responsible for these improvements, we should observe greater performances after the HVAM training than after both the VAM-sequential and the VAM training. Finally, we also measured children’s metaphonological abilities and we expected to observe similar improvements after the three interventions.

Section snippets

Participants

Sixty monolingual French children (25 girls and 35 boys) with a mean age of 5 years 7 months (from 5 years 2 months to 6 years 1 month) took part in this study. These children were attending three different kindergarten classes at schools in Grenoble (France). All the children and the whole classes participated in the study. All the children belonged to average socio-economic status. They were pre-readers and had never been trained to phonological tasks in class. Only the children who had

Pseudo-word decoding

The mean number (and standard deviations) of correctly decoded pseudo-words (maximum 12) before and after each of the three interventions are presented in Table 2.

A 3 (training) × 2 (period) ANCOVA, with the pre-test scores in vocabulary, Khos blocks, metaphonological tests and letter recognition as covariates, was performed on the number of correctly decoded pseudo-words. It revealed that the effect of period was significant [F(1,57) = 62.88, P < 0.001]: the performances were higher after the

Discussion

This study attempted to show that the addition of the haptic mode in a preparatory reading training program with kindergarten children can help in their understanding of the alphabetic principle and is likely to induce an improvement in their decoding skills. Moreover, the role of the sequential exploration of letters in these positive effects was investigated. We measured the children’s abilities before and after the HVAM, VAM and VAM-sequential interventions using two tests evaluating the

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, the University of René Descartes (Paris V), the University of Savoie and the Research Ministry’s Cognitique program. We should like to thank Malaurie Onno for helping in the control experiment presented in Appendix A. We also should like to thank the three schools that participated to this study and more particularly the teacher Marilyne Aubry.

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