Content area
Scientific Background
A growing body of evidence supports the contribution of visual processing skills to reading development in different orthographies. Interest has been also shown in visual processing skills related to spelling and orthographic processes. However, to date no comparative research has been conducted on Hebrew orthography with regard to visual processing skills from a developmental perspective, and in relation to reading and spelling of different orthographic structures at different stages of reading and spelling efficiency.
The present research focuses on the contribution of visual processing skills in four main domains to reading and spelling recognition in Hebrew orthography, among first and fourth graders. The first visual processing skill, visual search, refers to the process of using visual information to find an object or target; the second, visual attention span, is defined as the number of distinct visual elements that can be processed in parallel in a multi-element array; the third, global/local processing, refers to two different ways of processing visual information: “global” refers to the ability to perceive the overall structure or layout of an image or a scene, while “local” means attending to specific details; and the last visual processing skill is visual perception,which refers to the ability to identify, organize, attach meaning and provide sense to what is seen.
Previous studies have demonstrated the contribution of visual processing skills in these four main domains to reading, and in part also to spelling. Visual search, for example, was found to predict future reading skills in different orthographies (Carroll, Solity & Shapiro, 2016; Ferreti, Mazzotti, & Brizzolara, 2008; Franceschini, Gori, Ruffino, Pedrolli, & VII Facoetti, 2012; Gori, Seitz, Ronconi, Franceschini, & Facoetti, 2016), and accounted for unique variance in reading (Liu, Chen, & Chung, 2015).
Bosse, Tainturier & Valdois (2007) first suggested that visual attention span (VAS), may have a role in the acquisition of orthographic knowledge beyond its unique contribution to reading rate and accuracy (see also Bosse & Valdois, 2009). This "visual attention span hypothesis" has gained increasing support in different orthographies (e.g., Chen, Zheng, & Suk-Han Ho, 2019; Franceschini et al., 2012; Lallier, Donnadieu, & Valdois, 2013; Lobier, Zoubrinetzky, & Valdois, 2012b; Lobier, Peyrin, Pichat, Le Bas, & Valdois, 2012a; Peyrin, Démonet, N’Guyen-Morel, Le Bas, & Valdois, 2011; Valdois, Bidet-Ildei, Lassus-Sangosse, Reilhac, N’guyen-Morel, Guinet, & Orliaguet, 2011; Valdois, Lassus-Sangosse, & Lobier, 2012), and beyond the known contribution of phonological awareness (Antzaka, Martin, Caffarra, Schlöffel, Carreiras, & Lallier, 2018; Bosse & Valdois, 2009; de Jong & van den Boer, 2021; Germano, Reilhac, Capellini, & Valdois, 2014; van den Boer, van Bergen, & de Jong ,2015). Also, some evidence suggests that visual attention span skills may also play a role in acquiring pre-orthographic knowledge (Bosse, Chaves, Largy, & Valdois, 2013), besides their connection to spelling performance (van den Boer et al.,2015).
Global/local processing of visual information (e.g., von Karolyi, 2001) may be related to reading. A previous study found that global pattern perception and text reading abilities appear to be linked (Franceschini, Trevisan, Ronconi, Bertoni, Colmar, Double, & Gori, 2017b). A recent study also found that although children with reading difficulties show similar global advantage processing to controls, they performed slower on these visual tasks (Schmitt, Lachmann & Leeuwen, 2019).