• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.161-177
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• 2009

In this study of the relationship between preschoolers' visual perception and reading Hangul words, the 287 participants showed significant developmental change in visual perception between three to five years of age. The researcher developed the computer-based screening Test of Visual Perception for Reading (TVPR). Factor analysis confirmed three factors of TVPR : perception of number, direction, and form constancy. These factors correlated highly with four factors of motor-reduced visual perception of the Korean Developmental Test of Visual Perception (Moon et al. 2003). All factors of TVPR explained reading real words and pseudo words; direction and form constancy perception predicted reading low frequency letters. These findings confirm that preschoolers' skills in visual perception contribute to the reading of words in Hangul.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.41-54
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to investigate predictors concerning preschoolers' ability to read words, in terms of their sub-skills of alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, and phonological processing. Fourteen literacy sub-tests and three types of reading tasks were administered to 289 kindergartners aged 4 to 6 in Busan. The main results are as follows. Sub-skills that predicted reading ability varied with children's age. Irrespective of children's age groups, knowledge of consonant names and digit naming speed commonly explained the reading of real words. In contrast, skills of syllable deletion and phoneme substitution and knowledge of alphabet composition principles were related to only 4-year-olds' reading skills. Exclusively included was digit memory in predicting 5-year-olds' reading abilities, and knowledge of vowel sounds in 6-year-olds' reading skills. The type of reading task also influenced reading ability. A few common variables such as knowledge of consonant names and vowel sounds, digit naming speed, and phoneme substitution skill explained all types of word reading. Syllable counting skills, however, had predictive value only for the reading of real words. Phoneme insertion skills and digit memory had predictive value for the reading of pseudo words and low frequency letters. Likewise, knowledge of consonant sounds and vowel stroke-adding principles were significant only for the reading of low frequency letters.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.73-95
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• 2007

Causal relationships of kindergarteners' phonological awareness and processing to their ability to read words was investigated with the participation of 289 4- to 6-year-old children attending three kindergartens in Busan. Results showed gradual growth in reading ability with age. Children performed best in reading words and poorest in reading low frequency letters. They showed continuous development in skills of syllable deletion, phoneme substitution, phoneme insertion, phonological memory and naming. Discontinuous development was found in counting syllables. Longer syllables were difficult to count, and middle syllables of 3 syllable words were hard to delete. Children had poor perception of final consonants of Consonant-Vowel-Consonant syllables. Children's phonological awareness and processing were latent variables strongly related to ability to read words written in Hangul.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.125-138
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• 1999

This study explored mother-infant interactions during reading of picture books with and without printed words. The interactions of 40 mother-infant dyads(??) were video-taped while mothers read the books aloud to their 1- or 2-year-old child at home. When reading the books with words, mothers used more "where" questions and gave more feedback to the non-verbal behavior of the infants. Mothers gave more labels, descriptions, predictions, and "what", "function/activity" questions when reading the wordless book. The infants used more nonverbal answers reading the book with words. The mothers of the 2-year-olds used more "what", "function/activity" questions, and gave feedback to their verbal behaviors. The 2-year-olds used more imitation, verbal answers, and comments. For the mothers of the 2-year-olds, the interaction with the wordless book led to more attention-recruiting and bridging. For the children, however, reading the wordless book led to more labels, questions, and comments.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• no.3
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• pp.95-122
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• 1997

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of content and formal schema on reading comprehension. Five hundred fiftynine subjects from high school were assigned to one of the following levels and treatment conditions : (1) Higher level & Schema Activation, (2) Higher level & Non-schema Activation, (3) Lower level & Schema Activation, and (4) Lower level & Non-schema Activation. To evaluate the effects of schema activation. two experiments were conducted : one was related to the content schema and the other to the formal schema. To evaluate the effects of content schema, three different types of tests were conducted : (1) cloze test, (2) guessing the meanings of nonsense words, and (3) immediate recall test. To evaluate the effects of formal schema instruction, four kinds of tests were conducted : (1) sorting the sentences according to the importance, (2) identifying the signal words, (3) immediate recall test, and (4) identifying the specific information. For content schema condition, results indicated that the subjects given the titles or pictures before reading in "Content Schema Activation" treatment had better grades than those of the other treatment in all types of tests. regardless of their levels. Schema activation helped the subjects to increase the cognitive predictability of missing words and to participate in the tasks more actively with risk-taking. And it was also shown that good readers tend to process the words meaningfully, while poor readers tend to process the words phonetically or morphologically. Formal schema activation through teaching the text organization also had a significant influence on three types of tests: sorting the sentences according to the importance, identifying the signal words, and immediate recall test, but not on identifying the specific information. The implications from this study can be briefly noted as follows : (l) In teaching reading, the student's background knowledge should be activated as a pre-reading activity. (2) In reading, it is more important to emphasize the student's schema than the features of the text. (3) Various educational interventions should be introduced, especially for the lower level students. (4) Teaching text structures can be a powerful method for the top-down processing strategy.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.19-34
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• 2010

This study investigates how EFL learners' chunking ability both in oral and silent reading affects reading comprehension, and how the chunking ability in silent reading relates to that of oral reading. The participants of this study consisted of 30 Korean university students taking a required 'English Reading' course. Chunking is a technique of grouping words into meaningful syntactic units for better understanding. Chunking was measured from pauses in oral reading. Results of this study suggest that the participants who can chunk properly both orally and silently display better comprehension of texts in general. However, chunking in silent reading was found to be a stronger indicator of improved reading comprehension. Also, the chunking skills in silent reading showed a statistically strong correlation with those observed in oral reading, suggesting that the chunking ability in silent reading may develop in parallel with that of oral reading. Oral as well as silent reading should be continuously practiced to improve reading comprehension of all levels of EFL learners, including low levels of learners. There is also a need to encourage students to read aloud with appropriate prosodic cues to help them read in meaningful units of words, therefore increasing EFL learners' comprehension not only in reading but also in listening.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.77-86
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• 2009

This study observes how the combined intervention program effects on the acquisition reading pronunciation of Korean phonological process words and the acquisition aspects of each phonological process rules to four Korean learners whose first language is Chinese. The training program is the combination of multisensory Auditory, Visual and Kinethetic (AVK) approach, wholistic approach, and metalinguistic approach. The training purpose is to evaluate how accurately they read the words of the phonological process which have fortisization, nasalization, lateralization, intermediate sound /ㅅ/ (/${\int}iot"$/). We access how they read the untrained words which include the four factors above. The intervention effects are analyzed by the multiple probe across subjects design. The results indicate that the combined phonological process rule explanation and the words activity intervention affects the four Chinese subjects in every type of word. The implications of the study are these: First, it suggests the effect of Korean pronunciation intervention in a concrete way. Second, it offers how to evaluate the phonological process and how to train people who are learning Korean language.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.113-124
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• 2006

Korean children reading Hangul was studied in children between 2 and 5 years of age. Subjects were 400 young children in each age group from kindergartens or day care centers in 6 cities of Jeon-buk Province. Teachers used a checklist based on Lee, Cha-Suk(2003) to assess children's reading ability. Data were analyzed by frequency, percentage, and $x^2$ using SPSS 10.0 program. Results showed age differences in young children's reading of Hangul. Developmental levels consisted of looking at pictures because of absence of linguistic awareness about words, skipping pages of text without pictures, pronouncing phonemes, being aware of phonemes and of the difference between pictures and print, and knowing that the same phonemes can be applied to different words.

• Journal of Korean language education
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.77-100
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• 2012

This study investigates issues in relation to text segmenting, in particular, line breaks in Korean language textbooks. Research on L1 and L2 reading has shown that readers process texts by chunking (grouping words into phrases or meaningful syntactic units) and, therefore, phrase-cued texts are helpful for readers whose syntactic knowledge has not yet been fully developed. In other words, it would be important for language textbooks to avoid awkward syntactic divisions at the end of a line, in particular, those textbooks for beginners and intermediate level learners. According to our analysis of a number of major Korean language textbooks for beginner-level learners, however, many textbooks were found to display line-breaks of awkward syntactic division. Moreover, some textbooks displayed frequent instances where a single word (or eojeol in the case of Korean) is split between different lines. This can hamper not only learners' learning of the rules of spaces between eojeols in Korean, but also learners' development in automatic word recognition, which is an essential part of reading processes. Based on the findings of our textbook analysis and of existing research on reading, this study suggests ways to overcome awkward line-breaks in Korean language textbooks.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.43-65
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• 2004

In the comprehension of English texts, Korean students generally try to translate English into Korean in accordance with the word order of Korean language. As a result, the comprehension of English texts is made in a regressive way, which results in slower reading. In order to enhance the reading speed, it is necessary for students to practice progressive reading. Also, while reading English texts, most readers' eyes tend to look at one word at a time, which actually cuts down on the reading speed. Reading by the sense group of as many words as possible at a glance, however, can help a reader more efficiently in less time. This research aims at developing the Powerpoint program for progressive reading by the sense group according to the student's level. In this program, as for methodology, the technique of rooking it fade-away is introduced to force a reader's eyes to move fast. Through this technique, it is possible to make a line of the texts disappear on the screen and make another line appear, which enables a reader to sweep the words across each and every line of the reading material smoothly without regression.