Using Language Production as a Learning Intervention

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

This project tests a new method for improving reading skill in poor readers, including those with dyslexia, and improving second language learning. Second language learning requires significant time to learn material that has not occurred in the individual's prior experience. While this is obvious for foreign language learning, it is less obvious but also true for learning to read. Written and spoken language differ greatly in both their vocabulary and sentence structure, so becoming a fluent reader requires significant reading experience to learn how written language differs from speech. Because poor readers do not engage in this extensive practice, they fall further behind peers who have higher skill. Current instruction methods in both reading and second language learning are inadequate and intervention in both of these areas is in the national interest. Poor literacy is widespread in the US population and is associated with low employment, poor health outcomes, limited participation in society, and higher rates of incarceration. The project combines memory and learning research to investigate how and why speaking during language learning yields not just better speaking skills but also better written and spoken language comprehension than more traditional reading- and listening-focused curricula. The studies rigorously compare second language learning via speaking vs. listening practice, including whether the learning method influences students' motivation to pay attention, practice, and learn. The studies also examine the link between speaking and short-term or working memory, which is the ability to hold information in mind for short durations. Working memory abilities are thought to be an important component of longer-term learning, including vocabulary learning in a native or foreign language. The same methods will be applied to interventions aimed at improving reading comprehension for poor readers with dyslexia or other sources of low literacy, including inadequate instruction, practice, or barriers from low English skills. The interventions will use spoken language exercises that provide practice with the vocabulary and sentence structure patterns of written language, which are essentially "foreign" to a reluctant reader. The aim is to provide key learning opportunities that are crucial to developing reading fluency without always requiring reading practice in which poor readers are reluctant to engage. Both the second language and the reading interventions also investigate students' response to various educational interventions, where students who begin with more knowledge generally get greater benefit from additional instruction, leaving behind those who most need the help. If the speaking interventions provide essential background skills, they could help people with dyslexia and other struggling learners learn from the novel interventions tested in this project and position struggling learners to take advantage of existing instruction in current school curricula. This project is co-funded by the Perception, Action, and Cognition Program, the Science of Learning Program, and the EHR Core Research Program. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.