One of the most widely respected features of English orthography is its sequential redundancy. Its psychological reality is evidenced by the relative ease with which good readers can encode sequentially redundant nonwords as compared to arbitrary strings of letters. Its psychological importance is implicated by evidence that this advantage is…

This study investigated the effects on oral reading reversals of various contextual conditions ranging from no context to highly predictable contexts among white, middle-class, male first graders. The study was designed to demonstrate the relationship between language redundancy and reversals in a beginning reading population in order to suggest…

A study examined the relative contributions of semantic and non-semantic sources of redundancy in printed English, which play a central role in information processing models. Subjects, 40 undergraduate college students, were divided into two groups. One group predicted missing characters using English text, and the second group was required to…

A study examined the effect on speed and comprehension performance of one silent rereading following an initial silent reading. Each of 17 fourth grade students silently read two 500-word selections, which were written at the third grade level, and then responded orally to 20 literal and above-literal questions based on the materials. The silent…

Reviews an eclectic collection of research evidence on cohesion and redundancy. Notes that much research is in progress in these areas and that there are presently some conflicts in the findings. Concludes that the author's own tentative findings suggest strongly that cohesion and redundancy are important to the linkage between reader and writer…

Little research has been done to explain just why words are recognized more easily than letters alone; although, this phenomenon has been accepted widely by educators. Therefore, a model of the processes involved in word recognition and suggestions concerning how these processes can be put to use in reading instruction are presented. The model…

It has been customary to simplify texts to increase their readability for young readers. Recent studies suggest that it is the predictability of texts that is the key to their readability and that simplification may actually create problems for the reader. (RBW)

An informal study of four fourth and fifth grade poor readers was undertaken (1) to compare the repeated reading method of instruction with the method of teaching children to recognize lists of words rapidly and (2) to develop an approach that might be helpful in studying the effects of prosodic cues and their contributions to the repeated reading…

Shows that subjects receiving the most "overlearning" (repetitive instruction) remembered the most words, suggesting a linear relationship between overlearning and retention. (RL)

A study investigated the process of information extraction in reading in order to determine whether language constraints in texts reduced the amount of visual detail noticed by the reader during the reading of specific words. A detailed examination was made of 20 college students' eye movement patterns as they read a group of selected passages.…

Starting with a model for explaining comprehension and noncomprehension of verbal material in terms of a match/mismatch principle, this project developed a scale of language usage and explored hypotheses about how comprehension may become possible if a child does not now comprehend some particular oral or written text. Eight separate reports are…

Investigates the usefulness of using grammatical cohesion to evaluate the macro- or discourse-level, and the micro-level reading comprehension of English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) students. Finds a relationship between anaphora and coherence that contributes to reading difficulty. (MG)

A study was conducted into the operation of an interactive-compensatory model of reading. Specifically, it examined the development of context-free word recognition skills, their role in contextual reading, and the degree to which one word recognition skill might compensate another. Four word factors were examined: (1) orthographic redundancy (the…