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Lecturer
The Australian Centre for the Advancement of Literacy
Areas of expertise: spelling; regular words; irregular words; spacing effect; semantics; context; orthographic learning; oral vocabulary; reading; orthographic skeletons; mispronunciation correction; eye movements during reading
Phone: +612 9465 9593
Email: Signy.Wegener@acu.edu.au
Location: ACU North Sydney Campus
HDR Supervisor accreditation status: HDR Supervisor (Full)
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-5364-0202
Dr Signy Wegener earned her PhD in Cognitive Science from Macquarie University in 2020 before taking up a position as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, also at Macquarie University. In 2023, Dr Wegener took up a Lectureship at ACU.
Dr Wegener's research investigates how children learn to read and spell words. Her particular interests include: the effect of oral vocabulary knowledge on children's learning of regular and irregular words, with a particular interest in the cognitive mechanisms that support this (orthographic skeletons and mispronunciation correction); the effect of spreading out learning opportunities on the efficiency of written word learning; the influence of meaning and context on reading and spelling; and the incremental process of learning new written words, using eye tracking.
Colenbrander, D., von Hagen, A., Kohnen, S., Wegener, S., Ko, K., Beyersmann, E., Behzadnia, A., Parrila, R., Castles, A. (In Press). The Effects of Morphological Instruction on Literacy Outcomes for Children in English-speaking Countries: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review.
Stoianov, D., Kemp, N., Wegener, S., & Beyersmann, E. (In Press). Emojis and affective priming in visual word recognition. Cognition and Emotion.
Wang, H. C., Salins, A., Murray, L., Wegener, S., & Castles, A. (2024). Orthographic facilitation of English vocabulary learning in monolingual and bilingual children. Reading and Writing, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-024-10561-4
Behzadnia, A., Wegener, S., Bürki, A., & Beyersmann, E. (2023). The role of oral vocabulary when L2 speakers read novel words: A complex word training study. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728923000627
Beyersmann, E., Wegener, S., & Kemp, N. (2023). That's good news ☹: Semantic congruency effects in emoji processing. Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications, 35(1), 17-27. https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105/a000342
Beyersmann, E., Wegener, S., Pescuma, V. N., Nation, K., Colenbrander, D., & Castles, A. (2023). The effect of oral vocabulary training on reading novel complex words. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. 76(6), 1321-1332. https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218221113949
Beyersmann, E., Wegener, S., Spencer, J., & Castles, A. (2023). Acquisition of orthographic forms via spoken complex word training. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 30I, 2, 739-750. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-022-02185-y
Stoianov, D., Kemp, N., Wegener, S., & Beyersmann, L. (2023). Emoji-Induced Positivity Bias in Lexical Processing: Evidence from a Priming Lexical Decision Task. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (Vol. 45, No. 45). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0102m0ds
Wegener, S., Yu, L., Reichle, E., Beyersmann, L., Parrila, R. & Castles, A. (2023). Eye movements during reading. Frontiers for Young Minds. https://kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frym.2023.769381
Wegener, S., Wang, H. C., Beyersmann, E., Reichle, E., Nation, K., & Castles, A. (2023). The effect of spacing versus massing on orthographic learning. Reading Research Quarterly.https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.492
Wegener, S., Wang, H., Beyersmann, L., Nation, K., Colenbrander, D., & Castles, A. (2023). Orthographic expectancies in the absence of contextual support. Scientific Studies of Reading, 27, 187-197. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2022.2127356
Wegener, S., Yu, L., Reichle, E.D., Beyersmann, E., Parrila, R., & Castles, A. (2023). Frontiers for Young Minds.https://kids.frontiersin.org/zh/articles/10.3389/frym.2023.769381-zh
Wegener, S., Parrila, R., Steacy, L., Colenbrander, D., Rigobon, V., Keun, L., Siegelman, N., Kohnen, S., Castles, A., Beyersmann, L., Murray, L., & Compton, D. (2024). Resolving spoken mispronunciations: the role of sentence context. Paper presented at the 31st Annual Scientific Study of Reading Conference, Copenhagen.
Ataman, E., Beyersmann, L., Wegener, S., Castles, A. (2023). Oral vocabulary and learning to read morphologically complex words. Paper presented at the 30th Annual Scientific Study of Reading Conference, Port Douglas.
Colenbrander, C., von Hagen, A., Kohnen, S., Wegener, S., Ko, K., Beyersmann, L., Behzadnia, A., Roebuck-Krautz, A., Parrila, R., Castles, A. (2023). Morphology instruction and literacy outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Paper presented at the 30th Annual Scientific Study of Reading Conference, Port Douglas.
Wegener, S., Castles,A., Beyersmann, L., Wang, H.C., Nation, K., Reichle, E. (2023). Eye tracking and modelling the spacing effect during orthographic learning. Paper presented at the 30th Annual Scientific Study of Reading Conference, Port Douglas.
Wegener, S. (2023). How children learn to read. Presentation given at the Australian Centre for the Advancement of Literacy One Day Evidence to Practice Conference, Ballarat.
Wegener, S. (2023). Vocabulary-reading links. Presentation given at the Australian Centre for the Advancement of Literacy One Day Evidence to Practice Conference, Ballarat.
Wegener, S. (2025-2027). "Bridging the decoding-vocabulary gap: how do readers adjust "TONG-OO" to "tongue"? Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. Funding: $453,981.00
Post Doctoral Research Fellow on "As reading takes off: Tracking and modelling orthographic learning via independent reading". Australian Research Council Discovery Project awarded to Castles, A. Beyersmann, E., Nation, K. & Reichle, E.D. 2020-2023.
Dr Wegener received the Rebecca L. Sandak Young Investigator Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading in 2023. This award is the most prestigious international award available to early career reading researchers and signifies the quality and impact of her research outputs.
Dr Wegener received the Early Career Researcher Award from Learning Difficulties Australia/Australian journal of Learning Difficulties for her paper Oral vocabulary knowledge and learning to read new words: A theoretical review. See here for announcement: https://www.ldaustralia.org/announcements/letter-from-the-president-august-2022/
Lecturer, Australian Centre for the Advancement of Literacy, Australian Catholic University
Voting Member, Society for the Scientific Study of Reading
Member, Australian Psychological Society
Fellow, College of Clinical Neuropsychologists, Australian Psychological Society
Dr Wegener is an active peer reviewer for academic journals, including: Psychonomic Bulletin & Review; Cognitive Science; Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition: Scientific Studies of Reading; Royal Society Open Science; Language Learning; Reading & Writing; Journal of Research in Reading
Wegener, S. (2022). Temporal spacing and written word learning. Talk given at Sharing Best Practice Sydney, Marsden Road Public School, Liverpool, NSW.
How does oral vocabulary knowledge help children learn to read?Teacher. 23 January 2018. (Wegener, S., & Castles, A.)
How boosting your child's spoken word bank can boost their capacity to read. Nomanis. Issue 3, August 2017. (Wegener, S., & Castles, A.)
How building your child's spoken word bank can boost their capacity to read. Daily Bulletin. 18 July 2017. (Wegener, S.)
Children's literacy study links hearing words to reading ability for first time, researchers say. ABC News. 18 July 2017. (Wegener, S., Castles, A.)
How building your child's spoken word bank can boost their capacity to read. The Conversation. 18 July 2017. (Wegener, S., Castles, A.)
New children's literacy study links hearing words to reading ability for first time. ABC Lateline. 18 July 2017. (Wegener, S., Castles, A.)