We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Successful written subject-verb agreement: an online analysis of the procedure used by students in Grades 3, 5 and 12.
- Authors
Alamargot, Denis; Caporossi, Gilles; Flouret, Lisa; Pontart, Virginie; Larocque, Denis; Paduraru, Carmen; Morisset, Pauline; Fayol, Michel
- Abstract
This study was designed to (1) investigate the procedure responsible for successful written subject-verb agreement, and (2) describe how it develops across grades. Students in Grades 3, 5 and 12 were asked to read noun-noun-verb sentences aloud (e.g., Le chien des voisins mange [ The dog of the neighbors eats]) and write out the verb inflections. Some of the nouns differed in number, thus inducing attraction errors. Results showed that third graders were successful because they implemented a declarative procedure requiring regressive fixations on the subject noun while writing out the inflection. A dual-step procedure (Hupet, Schelstraete, Demaeght, & Fayol, ) emerged in Grade 5, and was fully efficient by Grade 12. This procedure, which couples an automatized agreement rule with a monitoring process operated within working memory (without the need for regressive fixations), was found to trigger a mismatch asymmetry (singular-plural > plural-singular) in Grade 5. The time course of written subject-verb agreement, the origin of agreement errors and differences between the spoken and written modalities are discussed.
- Subjects
EYE movements; VERBS; NOUN phrases (Grammar); WRITING; READING research
- Publication
Reading & Writing, 2015, Vol 28, Issue 3, p291
- ISSN
0922-4777
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s11145-014-9525-0