To examine whether enantiomorphy (i.e., the ability to discriminate lateral mirror images) is influenced by the acquisition of a written system that incorporates mirrored letters (e.g., b and d), unschooled illiterate adults were compared with people reading the Latin alphabet, namely, both schooled literate adults and unschooled adults…

Two studies were conducted to evaluate the extent to which visual discrimination (VisD) skills play a role in developing letter identification abilities, which are essential in learning to read. Results from a correlational analysis of 73 4- and 5-year-olds revealed a significant association between VisD and letter identification abilities, which…

The stimulus properties of the letters b, d, p, and q were investigated in an attempt to demonstrate that the common reversal of these letters by beginning readers is in part determined by the vertical aspect of the stimulus figure. One hundred eighty kindergarteners were randomly selected from a racially mixed population and randomly assigned to…

Strategies children use when they recognize words were explored. To measure the effectiveness of two different methods of training children to attend to the critical features of letters, 40 first-grade urban children were presented two pairs of letters (similar and dissimilar) simultaneously or successively. Unexpectedly, it was found that with…

Forty kindergarten children were randomly assigned to four conditions to investigate the influence of criterion level on the discrimination of highly confusable letters in beginning reading. Half the subjects were exposed to simultaneous, and half to successive discriminations. The groups were equally divided as to criterion level, i.e., four vs.…

Purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that training the student to note the distinctive features of a stimulus during perceptual learning facilities the hook-up phase in a paired-associate task. (Author)

In this study, eight groups of kindergarten children were trained to discriminate position and order differences in verbal and nonverbal item sequences in the context of a matching task or an associative learning task or both. Transfer was measured by having the subjects sight learn a list of words contrasting in position and order. Subsequently,…

This paper examines the letter recognition difficulties of 322 primary grade students with decoding problems. Each student was asked to name all of the lower case letters, which were presented in non-alphabetical order. Each response was accurately recorded to determine which letters were taken for others. All responses were then tallied, and an…

Four paradoxes appear in research on learning to read: (1) the ability to name letters is a good predictor of reading readiness, yet letter-naming training does not help children learn how to read; (2) visual discrimination is often better in poor readers than in good readers; (3) learning to read two languages is easier than learning to read one;…

Seven reading readiness skills essential for young children's language development are presented in this curriculum guide. Following an introductory overview of the curriculum and its philosophy (including the aims, rationale, and objectives), the seven reading readiness skills are described. These skills are (1) auditory discrimination of sounds…