Reports a study intended to examine whether there is a relationship between reading ability and the size of the visual units attended to during visual word processing. Concludes that both good and poor readers read holistically but that poor readers are deficient in analyzing a word's components. (JAD)

Examines the development of knowledge of orthographic structure among beginning readers by testing their ability to discern which word in a pair looked most like a word. (HOD)

Documents children's acquisition of the following critical aspects of alphabet knowledge: letter recitation, naming, printing, and association of letters with sounds and words. Finds that performance improved with age and at different rates for different tasks. Finds no sex differences. (SR)

Investigates whether prereaders who knew all their letters are better at forming logographic access routes than letter-sound access routes into memory from words read by sight. Concludes that prereaders become capable of forming letter-sound access routes when they learn letters well enough to take advantage of the phonetic cues the letters…