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.…

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;…