Twelve first-grade children were tested on word-reading and automaticity of letter and word processing. Word-reading speed increased steadily during the year. Apparently, their ability to process letters automatically was acquired prior to the ability to read words rapidly and accurately. (Author/CP)

Mnemonic value of spellings in a paired-associate sound learning task was examined in first and second graders. Learning was fastest when correct spellings were seen or imagined. The preferred interpretation was that spellings are effective because they provide readers with orthographic images for symbolizing and storing sounds in memory.…

Experiments with 81 college students and 48 fifth graders investigated the role of one form of intra-word orthographic redundancy--the characteristic asymmetric spatial distributions of letters of the alphabet across serial positions within words. Adults were sensitive to letter positional distributions, as were fifth graders who were good…

Results agreed with previous findings that good and poor readers did not differ in mean scan rate when words instead of letters had been used as stimuli. (Authors)