• Introduction
• Literacy
  Origin of writing Different spelling systems Learning to read and write Models of literacy processing Opaque vs. transparent orthographic systems Literacy Learning Disorder
• Good practices
• Portraits
• Reflection and exercices
• Advice
• Further readings
• Library
• Functional Multilingual Learning

a) Reading
One of the most widely accepted models currently used to explain reading processing is the Dual Model (Coltheart, Rastle, Perry, Langdon and Ziegler, 2001), which establishes that reading is carried out through two routes: the lexical or direct route and the sub-lexical route, also called the phonological route or grapheme-phoneme conversion mechanism.

Through formal instruction in learning letters and their corresponding sounds, the phonological route begins to develop, which with practice becomes increasingly automated and efficient. This pathway works serially, i.e. the graphemes are decoded from the beginning to the end of the word, making the grapheme-phoneme conversions.

However, as the person gains practice in reading and encounters the same words over and over again, a visual memory begins to develop where the reader stores representations (orthographic traces) of these words. The development of this pathway does not require formal instruction, but occurs with the mere practice of reading and, according to Share’s Self-Learning Hypothesis (1999) and subsequent studies (Suárez-Coalla, Álvarez-Cañizo and Cuetos, 2016), it would be sufficient to read a word about 6 times to incorporate it into the visual lexicon. The lexical route does not work serially, like the phonological route, but in parallel, which means that we perceive the whole word at a glance, without having to decode it letter by letter.

The relevance of these two routes changes according to age and reading experience. Thus, young and inexperienced readers tend to make more use of the phonological route, while expert readers make more use of the lexical route, which is faster and allows direct access to meaning. However, there are some stimuli which, regardless of age and reading experience, can only be read by one or the other route. This is the case with new or invented words (pseudo-words), which have no orthographic representation in visual memory and can therefore only be read by the sublexical route. In the case of irregular words, which do not follow the rules of grapheme-phoneme conversion (in Spanish this would be the case of foreign words only, such as “Google”, “Hollywood”, “boutique” and others), the only way to read them correctly would be through the lexical route, as it would be necessary to have the word stored in memory in order to be able to retrieve its correct pronunciation. The rest of the words, known and regular, can be read by either route.

Figure 1: Dual Model (Coltheart et al., 2001). Source: https://maxcoltheart.wordpress.com/drc/.

b) Writing:
In the case of writing, processing also takes place via two pathways, called lexical or direct and sub-lexical, phonological or phoneme-grapheme conversion mechanism.

Parallel to learning to read, during the formal education stage children learn the correspondences between sounds and letters (i.e. phoneme-grapheme correspondences). These correspondences, together with spelling rules, constitute the sub-lexical route, which becomes automatic with practice. At the same time, a lexicon is created that contains representations of the words we write with a certain frequency. This memory called the orthographic lexicon (or orthographic output lexicon), forms the basis of the lexical route, which is developed through experience and practice in writing.

Both routes coexist, as both are necessary for correct writing. Thus, regular words can be written by either route; irregularly spelt words, however, can only be written correctly through the lexical route, as we must know the orthographic form beforehand in order to be able to write them correctly. Finally, new words or words that we have never seen written before, as well as pseudo-words, can only be written through the phoneme-grapheme conversion mechanism, as they do not have a representation in the orthographic lexicon.

Figure 2: Writing model, Ellis and Young (1992).

GOOD PRACTICES:

• In groups, ask your students to draw up a list of irregular reading words (words that do not conform to the reading rules in your language). Brainstorm together why these are irregular words and how they would be read if the grapheme-phoneme conversion rules were strictly applied.
• Do the same activity as above, but for writing: are there any words in your language that do not conform to the rules of phoneme-grapheme conversion and that we therefore need to know in order to read them correctly? In what other ways could they be written while keeping their pronunciation unchanged?