It has been shown that incidental stimulus attributes are not utilized as much under conditions of high anxiety. It was hypothesized that the nature of this restricted encoding may be interpreted within a levels-of-processing framework. The physical attributes of verbal items (e.g., orthography, sound) may be thought of as shallow features,…

The pattern of errors of second grade pupils in reading isolated words was analyzed, particularly with respect to reversals of letter sequence and letter orientation. These occurred in significant quantity only among the poorer readers in the class. The two types of reversals were uncorrelated and, therefore, cannot reflect a single process.…

The building block theory of language structure, an information processing approach, is applied to the development of a model of the reading process. Specifically, the model is concerned with the amount of time an individual will spend reading and the amount of content he will decode which is determined by a series of cognitive processes involving…

The author summarizes and reviews seven research studies which seek to determine the role of individual modal preference as related to learning to read. The seven studies are by Bateman (1968); Robinson (1968); Jones (1970); Bruininks (1968); Cripe (1966); de Hirsh, Jansky, and Langford (1966); and Bursuk (1971). Of these studies, only Bursuk…

Chomsky and Halle claim that an orthography based on their system of phonological representations of lexical items would be optimal. Their analysis assumes that (1) a reader need read only for meaning and not for sound, (2) an orthography based on their underlying phonological representations would not be exceptionally difficult to learn, and (3)…

It is especially critical within reading programs during the years of middle childhood to identify and to nurture qualities of giftedness: open-mindedness, motivation, tolerance for uncertainty, preference for complexity, high regard for learning, sense of destiny, and the search for meaning. Supporting this view, the work of Frank Smith, Goodman,…

The basic purpose of this study was to determine the relation between word recognition and comprehension achieved when materials were read at various levels of readability. Also investigated were the lowest level of word recognition necessary to achieve a certain level of comprehension and the types of word recognition and comprehension errors…

Language comprehension is an immensely complex process involving the dynamic interaction of diverse sources of knowledge. In order to model this process, tools are needed which allow detailed specification of the process components. In this paper, the essential characteristics of a model of reading comprehension are discussed in the context of the…

Three experiments investigated the hypothesis that, when interpreted in context, general terms are typically encoded on the basis of an instantiation. The results indicated that a particular term naming the expected instantiation of a general term was a better cue for the recall of a sentence than the general term itself, even though the general…

A review of the literature that examined the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) profiles of retarded readers indicates that the populations studied and the criteria used for selection of retarded readers varied greatly from study to study. Rather than concluding that no WISC profile exists for individual retarded readers, researchers…

High school juniors and seniors participated in three studies of the effects of a thematic organizer on passage comprehension. Comprehension was measured using a cloze procedure in the first study and using a passage-reproduction task in the second and third studies. A thematic organizer (material presented to provide a context for the passage)…

In order to understand the process of reading, it is important to determine how strings of letters are perceived. This study tests the hypothesis that units of visual perception may include pairs of letters and perhaps even high-frequency, monosyllabic trigrams (three-letter sequences). Participants were asked to report the names of either single…

Reading is a process in which interactions between the surface and deep structures of the language bring about understanding.

Discusses frequently overlooked faults in the research methodology used to investigate dyslexia and suggests alternative methods for future work. (AA)

Extends and comments upon Valtin's criticisms and suggestions concerning methodological problems in research on dyslexia. (AA)