The Decoding Development of Korean Children in Word Reading

Kim, Mibae; Pae, Soyeong

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2011;16(2): 143-153.

Mibae Kim^` , and Soyeong Pae^`

김미배(Mibae Kim)| 배소영(Soyeong Pae)

ABSTRACT

Background & Objectives
This study investigated decoding development in Korean children in word reading and provided guidelines for assessing and improving word reading ability.
Methods
Three hundred elementary school children, including three developmental grade groups, participated in this study. Each child was requested to read 68 two-syllable-words, considering meaning familiarity and grapheme-phoneme correspondence. Six representative phonological rules in Korean word reading were measured.
Results
Generally, Korean children read meaning words better than they did nonsense words and grapheme-phoneme correspondent words better than grapheme-phoneme non-correspondent words. First- and second-graders performed poorly compared to third-grade and higher groups. Among the six phonological rules, tensification was acquired early, during the first- and second-grades, with the rules, nasalization, aspiration, and h elision developing later. Interestingly, the lateralization and palatalization rules seemed to still be developing in all of the tested children. Discussion & Conclusions: The word reading ability of Korean children showed universal patterns in meaning dependency and grapheme-phoneme correspondence. Given that the Korean language is highly transparent in spelling, it is interesting that fifth- and sixth-grade children were still developing decoding ability for the application of the lateralization and palatalization rules. These results could be used as guidelines to assess and improve word reading ability.

Keywords: 음운해독 | 의미 | 자소 | 음소 | 음운규칙 | Korean word reading development | decoding