Levels of phonological representation in skilled reading and in learning to read

This paper refers to and discusses empiricalevidence supporting the general idea that bothskilled reading and learning to read capitalizeon underlying phonological representations.These representations must be specified interms of degree of abstractness, unitsrepresented and degree of conscious access tothese units. In skilled reading, pre-lexicalrepresentations, at different levels ofphonological structure, are unconsciously,mandatorily and automatically activated, inconnection with correspondent orthographicrepresentations. This process is distinct fromthe intentional and controlled phonologicaldecoding assumed by the classic dual-routemodel. Learning to read may be described as theprogression from conscious phonologicaldecoding, in which phoneme awareness plays acritical role, to the unconscious mapping oforthographic and phonological segments.Phonological dyslexia is related to someanomaly in speech perception capacities, makingit difficult both to develop efficientconscious segmentation abilities andgrapho-phonological decoding. It is suggestedthat this conscious speech segmentation deficitis caused by a lack of appropriate segmentationat the unconscious, perceptual level.     

Reading in Arabic orthography: The effect of vowels and context on reading accuracy of poor and skilled native Arabic readers

This study investigated the effect of Arabic vowels and Arabic context on reading accuracy of poor and skilled native Arabic readers reading narrative stories and newspaper articles. Central to this study is the belief that reading theory today should consider additional variables, especially when explaining the reading process in Arabic orthography among poor and skilled readers. This orthography has not been studied: reading theory today is the sum of conclusions from studies conducted in Latin orthography. The subjects were 109 tenth-grade native Arabic speakers, 39 of them poor readers and 70 skilled readers. Subjects had to read Arabic narrative stories and newspaper articles. There were four reading conditions for each text type: vowelized text, unvowelized text, vowelized word naming, and unvowelized word naming. The results showed that vowels and contexts were important variables to facilitate word recognition in poor and skilled readers in Arabic orthography. A new Arabic reading model for skilled readers is suggested.     

Heterogeneity in adult dyslexic readers: Relating processing skills to the speed and accuracy of oral text reading

Subgroups of Finnish dyslexic adults (N = 84)displaying, relative to each other, a distinctivecombination of accuracy and speed of oral text readingwere compared in phonological and orthographicprocessing, verbal short-term memory and readinghabits. Inaccurate phonological decoding appeared todetermine the number of errors made in text reading,while inability to utilize effectively rapid lexicalaccess of words manifested as slow text reading speed.Phonological and orthographic word recognitionprocesses were less tightly integrated among dyslexicthan normal readers. Our results indicate thatadvanced orthographic processing skills might help anumber of the dyslexic readers to compensate for theirserious phonological deficits. The subgroups alsodiffered from each other in reading habits. Arelatively fast reading speed, even with numerouserrors, appears to be more rewarding in everydayreading than a slower but more accurate readingstyle.