The Developmental English Lexicon Project
English spelling is described as quasi-regular, meaning a system in which the relationship between input (i.e., orthography) and output (i.e., phonology) is systematic, but with many inconsistencies (often referred to as exceptions). Quasi-regular orthographies, such as English, place added demands on word reading development in children. As a result, English is particularly difficult for developing readers, which requires them to develop a diverse set of decoding strategies. Even with a diverse set of decoding strategies, some words are more difficult for children to learn to read than others (e.g., suede and yacht). However, currently we do not understand all the factors that contribute to differences in word reading difficulty in children.
The developmental English Lexicon Project (d-ELP), a Learning Disabilities Innovation Hub funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, seeks to understand factors associated with word reading development in children (grades 1-5) that result in some words being more difficult to read than others. In addition, the d-ELP will explore important differences in word reading development across typically developing students and students with and at-risk for reading disabilities with a particular focus on children with varied language experiences.
To accomplish this, we will obtain estimates of word reading difficulty for the 10,000 most frequent English words with a representative sample of children in grades 1-5 including over-sampling of children with and at-risk for reading difficulties. This project will expand the scientific infrastructure for research on reading development and provide a much-needed, large-scale dataset for developing readers’ behavior, especially on children from varied backgrounds and differing reading skills. It will also purposely sample, for the first time, readers from varied demographic backgrounds and reading skills (with over-sampling of individuals with and at-risk for reading disabilities), to allow for analyses of individual differences in word reading development. The d-ELP data will be a valuable resource for teachers, school leaders, researchers, and educational publishers and policy makers.
