Topic
Welcome to an open seminar about the development of reading skills—skills that set children on trajectories towards life success. In this seminar we will review current evidence into the higher-level processes by which children acquire reading—focusing on two such skills. The first, morphology, refers to the structure of words; these minimal units of meaning are the building blocks of language (e.g., magician = magic + ian). The second is orthography, which refers to the patterns within the written language. We will present findings from recent studies highlighting the importance of morphological knowledge for language development and relating morphological awareness and orthographic learning to children’s reading development.
Program
10:00-10:10: Welcome
10:10-10:30: Preschool morphological awareness skills and early reading
Vasiliki Diamanti, Department of Special Needs Education.
10:30-10:45: Coffe break (free serving)
10:45-11:05: Morphological knowledge of children with a language minority background and monolingual children: A Meta-Analysis
Siri Steffensen Bratlie, Department of Special Needs Education
11:05-11:25: Kaptein Morf: A digital morphology-based vocabulary intervention for primary school children
Janne von Koss Torkildsen, Department of Special Needs Education.
11:25-12:00: Lunch break (can be bought in the cafeteria)
12:00-12:45: Children’s reading development: Mechanisms and outcomes
Hélène Deacon, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Language and Literacy Lab, Dalhousie University.
12:45-13:15: Discussion
Registration
The seminar is open to all and free of charge. The deadline for registration is: May 6, 2019.
About the lecturers
Hélène Deacon is a Killam Professor at the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and Director of the Language & Literacy Lab at Dalhousie University. Her research explores how both monolingual and bilingual children learn to read and write. Her work is highly collaborative at an international level and her empirical articles are published in top peer-reviewed journals. She has also contributed to several books, such as the ‘Handbook of Reading’ (Oxford University Press), and the ‘Reading Acquisition across Languages and Writing Systems: An International Handbook’ (Cambridge University Press).
Vasiliki Diamanti is Associate Professor at the Department of Special Needs Education, UiO and Head of the Oslo Assessment, Intervention and Learning Lab (O-AILL). Diamanti's research interests include language and literacy development from preschool through elementary and secondary education, as well as reading and spelling difficulties across ages and orthographic systems.
Janne von Koss Torkildsen is Professor at the Department of Special Needs Education, UiO. Her academic interests is primarily language development, language impairment, cognitive neuroscience and learning mechanisms. Torkildsen is co-leader of the research group Communicative Processes (ComPros).
Siri Steffensen Bratlie is a PhD fellow at the Department of Special Needs Education, UiO. Her PhD project is titled "Enhancing morphological knowledge in primary school children with language minority backgrounds".
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