Sound and meaning: how native language affects reading strategies
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Updated: Oct 18, 2026

Decomposing the Variance in Reading Comprehension to Reveal the Unique and Common Effects of Language and Decoding
Published on: October 11, 2018
1Department of Psychology, 605 LRDC, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA. fiez+@pitt.edu
Abstract:
In the Italian language, spelling is consistently related to pronunciation, whereas English words that are spelled similarly are often pronounced differently. An imaging study now shows that native language affects the brain regions activated by reading aloud.
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