Apprentissage de la lecture et phonologie : implication du code phonologique dans la reconnaissance de mots écrits chez l'enfant

摘要

We conducted five studies to examine the role of phonological code in visual word recognition in children more or less advanced in learning to read. For that, we used the priming paradigm (in visual, auditory and inter modalities). This paradigm allows to study on-line and in precise manner, phonological and orthographic processes engaged in visual word recognition. The studies 1 and 2 indicate that, in Grade 3 and Grade 5, speech representations are involved in silent reading of pseudowords, in phonetic feature format and in visual familiar word recognition, in phonemic format. The study 3 indicates that phonological code contributes to visual word recognition in stable manner through Grade 3 and Grade 5. Nevertheless, when lexical orthographic representations are not well specified, phonological contribution is greater. The studies 4 and 5, in phonological (O-P+ vs O-P-) and ortho-phonological (O+P+ vs O+P-) visual masked priming, show that familiar visual word recognition involves phonological representations in automatic manner from Grade 3 to Grade 5. In contrast, automatic activation of orthographic representations seems to develop later (Grade 5). These results suggest that when orthographic process is functional but not fully effective (Grade 3), visual word recognition benefits from phonological activation whereas when orthographic process is fully effective (Grade 5), visual word recognition benefits from orthographic activation. That suggests that development of phonological automatic activation and development of orthographic automatic activation are independent. The process of phonological automatic activation is entirely developed earlier than the process of orthographic automatic activation.