Unlike other visual objects which are invariant to the left-right orientation, mirror letters (e.g., b and d) represent different object identities. Previous masked priming lexical decision studies have suggested that the identification of a mirror letter involves suppression of its mirror image counterpart reporting as evidence that a pseudoword…

In lexical decision, to date few studies in English have found a reliable pseudohomophone priming advantage with orthographically similar primes (the "klip-plip effect"; Frost, Ahissar, Gotesman, & Tayeb, 2003; see Rastle & Brysbaert, 2006, for a review). On the basis of the Bayseian reader model of lexical decision (Norris,…

This study investigated the relationships between children's home literacy environments and their early hypotheses about printed words in the year prior to entering school. There were 147 children (70 girls and 77 boys: mean age 57 months, range = 47-66 months, standard deviation = 4.5 months) in the study. Results showed that the children had…

Research Findings: Environmental print provides children with their earliest print experiences. This observational study investigated the frequency of mother-child environmental print referencing and its relationship with emergent literacy. A total of 35 mothers and their children (ages 3-4 years) were videotaped interacting in an environmental…

In this study, the relationship between latent constructs of phonological awareness (PA) and rapid automatized naming (RAN) was investigated and related to later measures of reading and spelling in children learning to read in different alphabetic writing systems (i.e., Norwegian/Swedish vs. English). 750 U.S./Australian children and 230…

The genetic factor structure of a range of learning measures was explored in twin children, recruited in preschool and followed to Grade 2 ("N"?=?2,084). Measures of orthographic learning and word reading were included in the analyses to determine how these patterned with the learning processes. An exploratory factor analysis of the…

A program to teach young children about phonological structure was evaluated with 64 experimental group and 62 control group preschoolers in Australia. Results support the efficacy of the program and the principle that phonological awareness and letter knowledge are necessary but not sufficient for acquisition of the alphabetic principle. (SLD)