Previous studies exploring the cost of reading sentences with words that have two transposed letters in adults showed that initial letter transpositions caused the most disruption to reading, indicating the important role that initial letters play in lexical identification (e.g., Rayner et al., 2006). Regarding children, it is not clear whether…

This article reports on an investigation of graphophonological processes in deaf readers of French over a 1-year period. Deaf readers are known to have a phonological deficit compared to hearing peers, and conclusions from studies on this question are often conflicting. Among the different types of phonological processing, we can identify…

Natural reading development gradually builds up to the adult vocabulary over a period of years. This has an effect on lexical processing: early-acquired words are processed more quickly and more accurately than later-acquired words. We present a connectionist model of reading, learning to map orthography onto phonology to simulate this natural…

In transparent alphabetic languages, the expected standard for complete acquisition of letter-speech sound associations is within one year of reading instruction. The neural mechanisms underlying the acquisition of letter-speech sound associations have, however, hardly been investigated. The present article describes an ERP study with beginner and…

Early and late first-grade children, third-grade poor and good readers, and adults named pictures under several interference conditions: with embedded intracategory or extracategory words, pronounceable or nonpronounceable letter strings, and visual noise. (Author/JMB)

Examines the duration of visual persistence and the relative processing rate in poor and normal readers. Subjects were 48 males aged 7 to 13 years. (MP)

Fourth and sixth graders and adults read words preceded by either a congruous, incongruous, or no-sentence context, and then completed another task where they named the color of the target word. Results suggested that context effects are mediated by automatic processes which decrease in importance with age and reading ability. (Author/JMB)

Investigates increased use of metacognition (i.e., monitoring comprehension, developing expectations, learning information sampling strategies) as reading ability develops among sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade pupils and high school students. (Author/RH)

Since E.L. Thorndike's landmark 1917 study of the complexity of reading comprehension, inferential research has generally focused on either inference as a developmental process or the nature of inferences made during reading. In his 1930 study, R. W. Tyler established that inference could be objectively measured. S. G. Paris conducted several…

Examined whether age-related change in naming time reflects automatic access of familiar names because of greater familiarity with the named objects or global change in speed of processing. The path analyses and structural-equation modeling of 8- to 13-year olds were consistent with the second explanation. Time and age were linked to reading…

Examined short-term coding and retention processes in normal and disabled readers at two grade levels (third/fourth grade and sixth grade). Differences were found in processing the identities of letters in briefly exposed multiletter array. No developmental or reader-ability differences were observed in recalling the position of an item in the…

Examined effects of orthographic context on the letter recognition skills of dyslexic children, comparing their performance to that of adults and of chronological and reading age-matched groups. Results showed that the two matched groups showed strong word superiority effect (WSE) for words and pseudowords over nonwords. Dyslexic readers did not…

Employs a well-developed information-processing task to assess the nature of the representation and activitation of letters and geometrical figures and the changes that occur with reading development. (FL)

This study investigated specific processing strengths and weaknesses among 75 readers, ages 6-10, with no oral language deficits. Unsuccessful readers of different ages showed similar information processing patterns, and differed from successful first-grade readers on short-term auditory/working memory and decoding/encoding. Three potential…

This study focused on two questions concerning children's attention to verbal stimulus: How do children of different reading ability attend to repeatedly presented words? Are there differences in children's patterns of attention to words as compared to less meaningful materials? Toward the end of an academic year, 40 first-graders and 40…