Literacy and Education

Below you will find suggestions of resources and activities to help develop your knowledge and skills for the Literacy and Education competencies for orthography consultants.

For a fuller list of resources relating to orthography, visit SIL Global’s orthography website (here). You will find resources on a wide range of different orthography-related topics, resources focused on particular geographic areas, and SIL Global’s orthography video series.

Ease of Reading and Writing

Can recognize and apply orthographic factors which affect ease of reading and writing.

- - Recognize over- and under-differentiation, their possible consequences for both readers and writers, and in such instances investigate ease of reading and writing, and the functional load of the relevant contrasts.
  - Understand the balance between factors that contribute to ease of reading and to ease of writing (including diacritics, visual crowding, written word length, visually similar symbols, grapheme complexity, handwritten language, etc) and apply this to specific orthographies.
  - Evaluate reading comprehension for different possibilities for representing tone (including symbols used, amount of tone marking, and orthographic depth of tone marking).
  - Understand the balance between phonological decoding and whole word recognition and investigate this for specific orthographies.

Rationale: Ease of reading and writing can play a major role in how much an orthography is used.

Expand this section to find suggestions of resources and activities to help develop your knowledge and skills in this area.

Here are some resource suggestions to help you develop knowledge and skills relating to ease of reading and writing:

SIL Orthography video 16: Literacy Factors.
Chapters 2, 3, 4, and other chapters as relevant, of
Pollatsek, Alexander and Rebecca Treiman, eds. 2014. The Oxford handbook of reading. Oxford University Press.
Chapters as relevant, of
Joshi, R. Malatesha and P. G. Aaron, eds. 2005. Handbook of orthography and literacy. Routledge.
Chapters as relevant, of
Joshi, R. Malatesha, Catherine McBride, Berstern Kaani and Gad Elbeheri, eds. 2023. Handbook of literacy in Africa. Springer.
Chapters as relevant, of
Frost, Ram and Leonard Katz, eds. 1992. Orthography, phonology, morphology and meaning. North-Holland.
Shechter, A., Medina, S., Share, D. L., & Yashar, A. 2024. "Language-universal and script-specific factors in the recognition of letters in visual crowding: The effects of lexicality, hemifield, and transitional probabilities in a right-to-left script." Cortex, 171, 319-329.
Cohen-Mimran, R., Reznik-Nevet, L., Gott, D., & Share, D. L. 2023. "Preschool morphological awareness contributes to word reading at the very earliest stages of learning to read in a transparent orthography." Reading and Writing, 36(7), 1845-1865.

Here are some examples of activities for developing your ability to apply your knowledge (working with a mentor as appropriate).

Observe a local literacy class and discuss with a mentor the orthographic issues which were contributing to ease or difficulty of reading and writing
Become familiar with a miscue analysis procedure, and try it out in a) your own language and b) a target language, discussing and interpreting the data with a mentor.

Here are some examples of activities for developing your ability to assist teams and local communities.

Advise key stakeholders on implications of choices which affect ease of reading and writing: e.g. at writers’ workshops, orthography workshops, literacy interventions.

Pedagogical Methods

Can apply knowledge of the relationship between pedagogical methods and orthography.

- - Find out the particular pedagogical methods used in the local situation, discussing with relevant education personnel the relationship between the (proposed or existing) orthography and the local pedagogical methods.
  - Assist teams and language communities in considering possible options when aspects of the (proposed or existing) orthography do not fit well with the local pedagogical methods.

Rationale: Choices made in orthography design may interact with pedagogical methods.

Expand this section to find suggestions of resources and activities to help develop your knowledge and skills in this area.

Here are some resource suggestions to help you develop knowledge and skills relating to pedagogical methods:

Schroeder, Leila. 2013. "Teaching and assessing independent reading skills in multilingual African countries: not as simple as ABC." In Language Issues in Comparative Education: Inclusive Teaching and Learning in Non-dominant Languages and Cultures, edited by Carol Benson and Kimmo Kosonen. Sense Publishers.

Here are some examples of activities for developing your ability to apply your knowledge (working with a mentor as appropriate).

Observe a local literacy class and discuss with a mentor the advantages and disadvantages of the pedagogical method used and its relationship with the orthography being used
Interview a local educator about the way of teaching the orthography and how effective it is.

Here are some examples of activities for developing your ability to assist teams and local communities.

Discuss with relevant members of the language community the relationship between local pedagogical methods and the orthography

Script Choice

Can advise on relevant local script issues.

- - In situations where there is a choice of script, investigate how well the relevant scripts work for ease of reading and writing.
  - Recognize social factors having to do with local scripts.
  - Assist teams and language communities in considering factors relating to script decisions.

Rationale: Choice of scripts can affect acceptability of an orthography.

Expand this section to find suggestions of resources and activities to help develop your knowledge and skills in this area.

Here are some resource suggestions to help you develop knowledge and skills relating to script choice:

Chamberlain, Bradford L. 2008. "Script selection for Tibetan-related languages in multiscriptal environments." International Journal of the Sociology of Language 192:117-131.
Clement, Victoria. 2008. "Emblems of independence: script choice in post-Soviet Turkmenistan." International Journal of the Sociology of Language 192: 171-185.
Enwall, Joakim. 2008. "Script choice among the Miao in China." International Journal of the Sociology of Language 192: 153-169.
Hatcher, Lynley. 2008. "Script change in Azerbaijan: acts of identity." International Journal of the Sociology of Language 192:105–116.
Page, Christina. 2017. "Biliteracy across Scripts: Implications for Language Development in Southeast Asia." Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 10.1: 36-44.
Shechter, A., Medina, S., Share, D. L., & Yashar, A. (2024). "Language-universal and script-specific factors in the recognition of letters in visual crowding: The effects of lexicality, hemifield, and transitional probabilities in a right-to-left script." Cortex, 171, 319-329.
Unseth, Peter. 2008. "The sociolinguistics of script choice: an introduction." International Journal of the Sociology of Language 192:1-4.

Here are some examples of activities for developing your ability to apply your knowledge (working with a mentor as appropriate).

Compare the advantages and disadvantages of two scripts in the area, from both an educational and a social standpoint.

Here are some examples of activities for developing your ability to assist teams and local communities.

Facilitate a community event discussing the relevant educational, linguistic, and social factors relating to scripts.

Other Orthographies

Can apply knowledge about national or neighbouring orthographies to a local orthography.

- - Compare a proposed local orthography with other relevant orthographies, discussing the differences and possible implications with local speakers, teachers, literacy workers, etc.
  - In assisting communities with orthographic issues, apply knowledge or other relevant orthographies, and any challenges of transfer to/from these orthographies.

Rationale: How a local orthography relates to regional and national ones not only can affect acceptability, but also helps or hinders a transition to reading those other languages.

Expand this section to find suggestions of resources and activities to help develop your knowledge and skills in this area.

Here are some resource suggestions to help you develop knowledge and skills relating to transfer to/from other orthographies:

SIL Orthography video 16: Literacy Factors.
O'Brien, Beth. 2025. "Learning to read and write in different languages: what's the difference?" YouTube video.
Ahlberg, Aija Katriina. 2020. "How abugida readers learn alphabetic literacy skills: The role of phonological awareness in the transfer process in the Konso language, Southwest Ethiopia." Ph.D. Thesis, University of Jyväskylä.
Hinton, Leanne. 2014. "Orthography Wars" In Developing Orthographies for Unwritten Languages, edited by Michael Cahill and Keren Rice. SIL International.

Here are some examples of activities for developing your ability to apply your knowledge (working with a mentor as appropriate).

Study the challenges of transfer from reading an L1 orthography to reading an L2 orthography (and vice versa) in your area of assignment. List specifics and discuss with your mentor. How might your observations influence your thinking on grapheme choices?
Compare and contrast the sounds and graphemes of a proposed local orthography with those of the national language.

Here are some examples of activities for developing your ability to assist teams and local communities.

Discuss with local communities the similarities and differences between the proposed orthography, the national orthography, and neighbouring orthographies, and their implications.

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