George Georgiou PhD Department of Educational Psychology Email: georgiou_ca@hotmail.com

 

My Master’s thesis examined the relationship of Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) components –articulation and pause time- with other pre-literacy measures and their importance in predicting early reading acquisition. RAN, defined as how quickly children can name continuously presented and highly familiar visual stimuli, has been shown to reliably predict early reading acquisition (e.g., Felton & Brown, 1990; Manis, Doi & Bhadha, 2000; Parrila, Kirby & McQuarrie, 2004). RAN has been conceptualized as a complex ensemble of attentional, perceptual, conceptual, memory, phonological, semantic, and motoric sub-processes (e.g., Wolf, Bowers & Biddle, 2000). The multi-componential nature of RAN makes it difficult to study and after years of research, we still don’t fully understand what RAN tasks measure, and how and why they are related to reading (Bowers & Newby-Clark, 2002; Cutting & Denckla, 2001).

In the absence of a comprehensive theory for RAN, Torgesen, Wagner, Rashotte, Burgess, and Hecht (1997) maintained that “our understanding of rapid naming ability’s relation to reading development will be enhanced to the extent that we make progress in dissecting the component skills involved in performance of rapid naming tasks” (p. 183). In my master’s thesis children were administered RAN tasks in kindergarten and at the beginning and end of grade 1. Performance on Color and Letter Naming was recorded and analyzed. Reading accuracy and reading fluency measures were used as the criterion variables. Results indicated that pause time was highly stable from kindergarten to the end of grade 1, developed significantly, and was highly correlated with both reading accuracy and reading fluency measures. Articulation time was less stable, did not develop, and was only weakly correlated with the reading measures. These result are now published in Georgiou, Parrila, and Kirby (2006).

My dissertation research investigates why RAN is related to reading by simultaneously examining the explanatory power of the four major existing hypotheses: the phonological processing hypothesis, the orthographic processing hypothesis, the speed-of-processing hypothesis, and the temporal processing hypothesis. My dissertation will consist of two related studies. Study 1 will examine the RAN-reading relationship with an unselected sample of approximately 200 grade 4 children and Study 2 will examine the RAN-reading relationship with a sample of dyslexic and good readers attending grades 2, 4, and 6.

Knowledge of what RAN measures and why it is related to reading will provide direction for developing better theoretical models of both normal and problematic reading acquisition processes, which can then guide the design of more effective assessment and remediation programs. Early intervention targeting the specific processes involved in RAN will hopefully give children a better chance of achieving functional literacy skills and succeeding in a knowledge-based economy.

     

Some Recent Publications (please send me an email at georgiou_ca@hotmail.com with the title of the paper on it if you would like to receive a pre/reprint).

Georgiou, G. K., Parrila, R., & Papadopoulos, T. C. (in press). Predictors of word decoding and reading fluency across languages varying in orthographic consistency. Journal of Educational Psychology.

Georgiou, G., Parrila, R., & Liao, C,-H., (in press). Rapid naming speed and reading across languages that vary in orthographic consistency. Reading & Writing.

Georgiou, G., Parrila, R., Kirby, J. R. & Stephenson, K. (in press). Rapid naming components and their relationship with phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge, speed of processing, and different reading outcomes. Scientific Studies of Reading.

Georgiou, G. K., Parrila, R., & Kirby, J. R. (2006). Rapid naming speed components and early reading acquisition. Scientific Studies of Reading, 10 (2), 199-220.

Book Reviews

Georgiou, G. (in press). Dyslexia Across Languages: Commonalities and Differences. A review of “International Book of Dyslexia: A cross language comparison and practice guide” edited by Ian Smythe, John Everatt, & Robin Salter, Chichester, UK: Wiley Press, 2004, Xii + 210 pages, ISBN: 0-471-49841-6.Dyslexia.

Georgiou, G. (in press). The Effect of Orthography on Literacy Development: Evidence from Studies in Different Languages. A review of “Handbook of orthography and literacy” edited by Malatesha Joshi & P. G. Aaron, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2006, xiv + 802 pages, ISBN: 0-8058-5467-3. Journal of Research in Reading.

Presentations in Conferences

Georgiou, G., Parrila, R., & Papadopoulos, T. (2005, August). Predictors of word fluency in English and Greek. Paper presented at the 11th Biennial EARLI (European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction) conference in Nicosia, Cyprus.

Georgiou, G. (2005, August). RAN components and early reading acquisition. Paper presented at the Junior Researchers (JURE) EARLI conference in Nicosia, Cyprus.

Georgiou, G., & Parrila, R., & McQuarrie, L. (2005, July). Phonological processing skills of adult compensated dyslexics. A poster presented at the 3rd International Multilingualism and Dyslexia conference in Limassol, Cyprus.

Georgiou, G., & Parrila, R. (2005, June). Rapid naming speed components and reading acquisition from kindergarten until grade 2: A follow-up study. A poster presented in the 12th conference of the Society for the Scientific Studies of Reading (SSSR), Toronto, Canada.

Georgiou, G., & Parrila, R. (2004, June). Rapid Automatized Naming components and reading acquisition in first grade. A poster presented in the 11th conference of the Society for the Scientific Studies of Reading (SSSR), Amsterdam, The Netherlands.