Access to the Lexicon of Words Written in Arabic The Prevalence of the Root

Abstract

In our study on strategies for identifying words written in Arabic, we conducted 3 experiments. The first focused on a population of 690 students in the 1st year, 2nd year and 3rd year of primary school to whom we administered a collective test of identification of words written in vocalized Arabic of the same type as that created by Khomsi (1997). In the second experiment, a sample composed of 240 pupils in the 2nd, 4th and 6th year of primary school took the same test but in the non-vocalized version. Finally, in the third experiment, we gave a sample of 15 good and 15 poor readers a test of reading words and vocalized pseudo-words aloud. The results converge to demonstrate a form of general neglect of vowel signs during identification processes. Access to the lexicon seems to take place according to the phonological assembly model in two cycles: subjects first decode the consonants which form the root of the word and, if cognitive resources are sufficiently available, they secondarily decode the vowels.