Discusses language comprehension and describes a technology for computer-aided text analysis called READWARE and software from the READWARE family called the Research Assistant that measures the relatedness of words or phrases by examining their letters. The theory of Letter Semantics is explained, and paradigms for text processing in information…

This contradicts N. F. Johnson's arguments that word perception does not follow letter perception and that letter analysis awaits identification of the word as a unit. His experiments lack controls, and uncontrolled factors may contribute to his effects. Johnson's implications for prior-letter-processing models are contradicted. (CHK)

G. Wolford's perturbation model of letter identification is designed to account for identification errors of briefly presented characters. Its chief assumptions are that features are extracted in parallel, that some of these features become perturbed or mislocalized, and that mislocalizations are more likely to occur in the direction of the fovea…

Fourteen college students read passages displayed on a cathode-ray tube as their eye movements were monitored in a study that examined (1) whether letters that lie in the center of vision are used earlier in the fixation than letters further to the right, (2) how soon after a stimulus event that event can affect eye movement control, and (3) how…

Language analysis tasks (segmentation and rhyming) and rapid automatized naming tasks (objects, colors, and letters) were found to tap different linguistics-processing components in both kindergarteners and first graders. Children who could analyze letter names were more likely to be among the better readers at the end of first grade. (Author/BS)

The difficulties children face as they are learning to read is the focus of this book, which is a collection of children's work (drawings and handwriting), with statements exploring their implications. The introduction discusses the relationship between early writing and early reading, individual differences, the question of age norms, questions…

Children's phonological processing abilities, reading skills, and vocabulary were assessed annually from kindergarten through grade four. Found that individual differences in phonological awareness were related to subsequent differences in word-level reading, and that individual differences in letter-name knowledge were related to subsequent…

Previous research has demonstrated that readers utilize orthographic structure in their perceptual recognition of letter strings. Two experiments were conducted to assess whether this utilization varied with reading ability. Anagrams of words were made to create strings that orthogonally combined high and low single letter positional frequency and…

The question of whether it is easier to learn to read through an ideographic, syllabic, or alphabetic writing system is posed. The linguistic nature of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and English are examined in relation to differences in information processing and cultural factors related to reading disability. (Author/SEW)

A previous study by Gibson et al. (1972) that investigated the effect of orthographic structure on letter search was replicated and extended in order to identify factors that might explain the apparent discrepancy between their results and those of comparable studies. Experiment one tested whether the discrepancy might be explained by difference…

Schuberth and Eimas (EJ 159 939) reported that context and frequency effects added to determine reaction times in a lexical decision (word v nonword) task. The present reexamination shows that context and frequency do interact, with semantic context facilitating the processing of low-frequency words more than high-frequency words. (Author/CP)

A study is presented which investigated ways Spanish speaking preschool children learn to identify letters of the alphabet, the types of errors made in identifying letters, and whether there is a developmental learning sequence in alphabet learning for Spanish speakers. The question of the influence of socioeconomic level on performance was also…

The reversal errors in the printing of 51 first grade students were examined. These children were asked to print a series of reversible target figures (letters and numbers, such as 2-s, p-q, p-9, and b-d) that were presented alone and with their mirror-image counterparts. To control for the possibility that the mere presence of another figure…

Two criteria for the automatic encoding of learning, instructional manipulation, and stimulus characteristics were studied in subjects who judged the frequency of occurrence of words, letters, and nonwords. In Experiment 1, six word lists were constructed with varying frequency of alphabet letters. A variety of instructions were presented (whether…

Intended for parents, this book offers insights into how children develop as writers and provides practical ideas for introducing writing activities into the home. Chapters in the book deal with the following topics: (1) the benefits of having preschool children write, the timing of initial instruction, and some assumptions about writing at home;…