Strategies children use when they recognize words were explored. To measure the effectiveness of two different methods of training children to attend to the critical features of letters, 40 first-grade urban children were presented two pairs of letters (similar and dissimilar) simultaneously or successively. Unexpectedly, it was found that with…

A study was conducted to investigate a series of hypothesized cues used in recognizing aural stimuli (Nonsense syllable trigrams) by adapting to the oral mode an experimental technique used successfully in visual word recognition studies. Three classes of cues were studied: (1) a cue for position, (2) a cur for the of cues were studied: (1) a cue…

The purposes of this study were to assess the effect of phoneme-grapheme consistency (PGC) and cue emphasis (CE) on the development of decoding skills in first graders and to determine the relationship of consistency of original lists to the recognition of new words. Subjects were 162 first graders, mean age 6.11 years and scoring above 30 on the…

Bilingual reading can require more than knowing two languages. Learners must acquire also the writing conventions of their second language, which can differ in its deep mapping principles (writing system) and its visual configurations (script). We review ERP (event-related potential) and fMRI studies of both Chinese-English bilingualism and…

Describes an experiment measuring response latency which required subjects to make a word-nonword decision in response to a visually presented item. (AM)

FOUR NULL HYPOTHESES WERE TESTED TO EVALUATE SELECTED READING READINESS TESTS AS PREDICTORS OF FIRST-GRADE READING ACHIEVEMENT. FIVE SCHOOLS IN THE BANGOR, MAINE, CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM WERE RANDOMLY CHOSEN. IN EACH SCHOOL, ONE CLASS USED THE EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM WHICH EMPHASIZED SUPPLEMENTARY VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION WITH READINESS TRAINING. ANOTHER…

To investigate the effects of perceptual training upon selected measures of reading achievement in grade 1, 12 experimental classrooms of randomly selected first graders received a 29-day adaptation of the Frostig Program for the Development of Visual Perception. Thirteen control classes added comparable time to the regular reading instructional…

Two important processes in the acquisition of visually presented information are the ability to maintain discrete perceptual events as separate in time and the ability to abstract information from brief exposures. Five phenomena were measured which appear to reflect these abilities. Critical Flicker Frequency (CFF) is the intermittency rate at…

Two experiments were conducted with children to determine the units of word perception used in recognizing isolated words. In the first experiment, kindergarten children practiced visually discriminating whole words (big, pig, dig), single letters (b, p, d), or geometric forms (triangle, circle, square) before learning to read three words (big,…

This study investigated alternate methods of letter discrimination pretraining and word recognition training in young children. Seventy kindergarten children were trained to recognize eight printed words in a vocabulary list by a mixed-list paired-associate method. Four of the stimulus words had visual response choices (pictures) and four had…

Subjects instructed to circle misspellings while reading prose were less likely to detect misspellings in function than in content words. Misspellings that changed the shape of a word were more likely to be detected. It is not clear whether differences between function and content words are due to familiarity or redundancy. (Author/RD)

Earlier research with the lexical decision task led to the hypothesis that semantic context facilitates the encoding of words related to the context. Six experiments which employed different tasks (e.g., making a lexical decision) and different experimental paradigms (e.g., tachistoscopic exposures with masking stimuli) further investigated this…

A DIAGNOSTIC KIT DESIGNED TO HELP CLASSROOM TEACHERS DIAGNOSE READING DIFFICULTIES MORE ADEQUATELY AND MOTIVATE PUPILS MORE EFFECTIVELY IS PRESENTED. SUGGESTIONS ARE APPLICABLE TO LOWER PRIMARY CHILDREN. DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES ARE OUTLINED FOR SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE OBSERVATION OF LANGUAGE ABILITY, VISUAL PERCEPTION SKILLS, AUDITORY…

This study presented 24 third graders drawn from suburban elementary schools with high frequency, low discriminability words in four conditions. Subjects were randomly assigned to the four tasks individually. It was hypothesized that poor and normal readers would differ in their ability to read high frequency, low discriminability words presented…

The assumption that the learning of letter names in their proper sequence is a prerequisite for literacy can be questioned. There is disagreement over the value of early letter-name training. It is variously said to aid in letter or word discrimination, to aid in attaching sounds to letters, and to interfere with both of these tasks. An analysis…