There is agreement that French typically reading children use syllable-sized units to segment words. Although the statistical properties of the initial syllables or the clusters within syllable boundaries seem to be crucial for syllable segmentation, little is known about the role of consonant sonority in silent reading. In two experiments that…

Recent investigations challenge the construct validity of sustained silent reading tests. Performance of two groups of post-secondary students (e.g. struggling and non-struggling) on a sustained silent reading test and two types of cloze test (i.e. maze and open-ended) was compared in order to identify the test format that contributes greater…

In an eye-tracking experiment, we investigated whether and how a comma influences the reading of Chinese sentences comprised of different types of syntactic constituent such as word, phrase and clause. Participants read Chinese sentences that did or did not insert a comma at the end of a syntactic constituent. The results showed that the fixation…

This study examined word identification, phonological recoding efficiency, familiar word reading efficiency, orthographic choice for familiar words and serial naming speed as potential correlates of orthographic learning following silent reading in third-grade children. Children silently read a series of short stories, each containing six…

Remediation of a serious lack in reading fluency often takes the form of repeated reading exercises. The present study examines whether transfer of training effects to untrained (neighbour) words can be enhanced by training with an orthographic focus as compared with emphasising semantics. The effect of oral versus silent reading during training…

Recent eye movement experiments offer preliminary evidence that skilled readers activate word-level prosodic information when silently reading sentences. This paper reviews the role of eye movements during reading as well as the preliminary evidence for prosodic processing. A new experiment examines whether prosodic processing differs for high and…

Compares the reading comprehension and accuracy and listening comprehension of West Indian and English children living in England and having equivalent intellectual abilities. Finds no significant differences between the cultural groups. (FL)