To examine whether enantiomorphy (i.e., the ability to discriminate lateral mirror images) is influenced by the acquisition of a written system that incorporates mirrored letters (e.g., b and d), unschooled illiterate adults were compared with people reading the Latin alphabet, namely, both schooled literate adults and unschooled adults…

Describes a study of the visual discrimination abilities of children who varied in their ability to recognize words. Indicates that visual discrimination skills of the type needed to discriminate between single artificial graphemes do not seem essential for the word recognition aspect of reading. (TJ)

This study examined the discriminability of lexigrams versus printed words with eight adults with severe mental retardation. A match-to-sample teaching paradigm was used. Subjects discriminated lexigrams better than printed letters and were more successful at matching lexigrams to referent objects than matching printed words to referent objects.…

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.…

In two experiments, a short-term recognition memory task that varied the number of letters distinguishing target and comparison stimuli was used to assess the ability of prereaders and beginning readers to utilize graphic information in a three-letter graphic pattern. (HOD)

A study examined when young children begin processing phonetic cues for reading. Subjects were kindergartners selected and classified by their ability to read preprimer and primer level words on a 40-word list--prereaders (0-1 words known), novices (1-11 words known), and veterans (11-36 words known). Subjects were given reading practice with…

In this study, eight groups of kindergarten children were trained to discriminate position and order differences in verbal and nonverbal item sequences in the context of a matching task or an associative learning task or both. Transfer was measured by having the subjects sight learn a list of words contrasting in position and order. Subsequently,…

In an effort to improve the reading readiness skills of children entering the first grade, a special class was established in a lower socioeconomic area of a large city. Testing procedures were instituted to select appropriate pupils, and pretest and posttest results were used to evaluate the program. The 19 pupils selected for the class were…