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  • © 2019

Handbook of Literacy in Akshara Orthography

  • Offers a systemic and coherent overview of recent research findings and orientation on akshara, an hitherto underexplored orthography
  • Contains contributions by well-known researchers
  • Covers languages spoken by approximately one third of the world’s population

Part of the book series: Literacy Studies (LITS, volume 17)

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Table of contents (19 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-ix
  2. Introduction

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
    2. Introduction: Handbook of Literacy in Akshara Orthography

      • R. Malatesha Joshi, Catherine McBride
      Pages 3-9
    3. Indic Scripts: History, Typology, Study

      • Peter T. Daniels
      Pages 11-42
    4. What Is an Akshara?

      • Keerthi Ramanujan, Brendan S. Weekes
      Pages 43-52
  3. Akshara Orthographies: A Brief Description

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 53-53
    2. Biliteracy Spelling Acquisition in Akshara and English

      • Pooja Nakamura, R. Malatesha Joshi, Xuejun Ryan Ji
      Pages 103-117
    3. Reading and Writing Sinhala

      • Marasinghe A. D. K. Wijaythilake, Rauno Parrila
      Pages 195-216
    4. Learning to Read and Write in Thai

      • Heather Winskel, Theeraporn Ratitamkul
      Pages 217-231
  4. Assessment

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 233-233

About this book

This volume examines the unique characteristics of akshara orthography and how they may affect literacy development and problems along with the implications for assessment and instruction. Even though akshara orthography is used by more than a billion people, there is an urgent need for a systematic attempt to bring the features, research findings, and future directions of akshara together in a coherent volume. We hope that this volume will bridge that gap. 

Akshara is used in several Indic languages, each calling it by a slightly different name, for example 'aksharamu', in Telugu, 'akshara' in Kannada, and 'akshar' in Hindi. It is the Bhrami-derived orthography used across much of the Indian subcontinent. There is a growing body of research on the psycholinguistic underpinnings of learning to read akshara, and the emerging perspective is that akshara, even though classified as alphasyllabaries, abugida, and semi-syllabic writing systems, is neither alphabetic norsyllabic. Rather, akshara orthography is unique and deserves to be a separate classification and needs further investigation relating to literacy acquisition in akshara. The chapters in this volume, written by leading authors in the field, will inform the reader of the current research on akshara in a coherent and systematic way.



Editors and Affiliations

  • Department of Teaching, Learning, and Culture, College of Education and Human Development, Texas A&M University, College Station, USA

    R. Malatesha Joshi

  • Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Catherine McBride

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Handbook of Literacy in Akshara Orthography

  • Editors: R. Malatesha Joshi, Catherine McBride

  • Series Title: Literacy Studies

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05977-4

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Education, Education (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-05976-7Published: 19 June 2019

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-05977-4Published: 11 June 2019

  • Series ISSN: 2214-000X

  • Series E-ISSN: 2214-0018

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: IX, 388

  • Number of Illustrations: 1035 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Language Education, Literacy, Asian Languages, Bilingualism, Multilingualism

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access