Processing of visual and name codes in good and poor readers

Good and poor readers of three different ages (7, 9, and 11 years) were required to respond to stimuli which could be matched by physical similarity (e.g., A-A) or by name (e.g., A-a). It was argued that these two matches allow for the differentiation of two primary levels of processing required of a visual input. Both age and reading competence proved to be significant variables in relationship to the time required for the physical and name matches. The lack of a significant age or reading competence interaction with the type of match (physical or name) made the deficiency present in the name match difficult to interpret. However, data were discussed which indicate that poor readers are less efficient in anticipating the form required in the name match. This inability to reduce required visual processing through anticipation may reflect a general processing deficiency of the poor reader.     

Reading strategies of good and poor readers in word and phrase presentation

This paper reports two experiments which use a micro-computer driven self-paced reading task to examine the reading strategies of good and poor readers. Unlike previous work using this technique the children were able to regress to earlier parts of the texts by pressing the appropriate computer key. The main focus of the experiments is on the relationship between reading strategies, reading ability and the length of the textual units which are presented to the children. Reading ability is found to influence reading strategies differently according to whether text is presented in single words or in phrases. A similar result is found for the time taken to read the texts. The results are discussed in the light of current theories of text processing. However the main point of the paper is to illustrate the use of a potentially powerful diagnostic tool which will operate on computers currently available in schools.     

Pseudohomophone effects in 8 and 11 year old good and poor readers

Eight and 11 year old good and poor readers carried out a lexical decision task, in which the accuracy of responding to nonwords and pseudohomophonic nonwords was assessed. Nonwords such as‘loast', are meaningless but conform to the rules of English spelling. Pseudohomophones, such as‘poast', are a special category of nonword as they sound like real words. In this study, the two classes of nonwords were closely matched for visual similarity,‘poast’and‘loast', for example, differing only in the initial consonant. All the groups were more prone to misclassify pseudo-homophones as words than nonwords. Poor readers of average and below average IQ, and their reading age controls, performed very similarly. It was concluded that the poor readers were equally as able to generate phonological information from nonwords as their reading age controls, and that there was no evidence to suggest that the poor readers suffered primarily from a phonological dysfunction. Both the average and below average intelligence poor readers showed a pattern of performance indicative of a delay or an arrestment in reading development, rather than a deficit in generating and utilising phonological information.     

Cognitive processes separating good and poor readers when IQ is covaried

In this paper we address the issue of separating reading disability from general intelligence in order to identify those cognitive processes which discriminate between poor and good readers when intelligence is covaried. Subjects were 140 Grade 5 and 6 students who were administered Lorge-Thorndike intelligence test (1964), a reading decoding test and cognitive tests which measure planning, attention-arousal and simultaneous-successive processing. The tests which emerged as discriminators between good and poor readers when Lorge-Thorndike full scale IQ was covaried, were three measures of successive processing (Sequence Repetition, Naming Time, Speech Rate) and a measure of selective attention, the familiar Stroop Color-Word test. Subsequently, a comparison of reading disabled high and low average IQ children confirmed that the four tests were performed poorly by both groups. All four tests involve the use of articulatory representation, confirming the important role speech-related processes play in reading (decoding). The results support the notion that deficient speech-related processes may be the central problem of the majority of poor readers, especially those of above-average intelligence. Future directions for research on phonological coding and articulation were suggested.     

The processing of cohesion in fiction and non-fiction by good and poor readers

Halliday and Hasan's (1976) concept of textual cohesion has generated considerable interest among reading educators. However, there has been very little research which has considered how cohesion operates during reading. This paper reports on a study which used a selective deletion procedure to investigate how good and poor readers (N = 44) from a secondary school in England were able to use cohesion while reading fiction and non-fiction. A feature of the analysis of the results thus obtained is the validation of the concept of a reading development continuum (RDC). Results indicate that good readers were more successful in maintaining the global unity of text than were the poor readers. As well, both groups of readers found it easier to perceive cohesion in fiction than they did in non-fiction. Implications of these findings for reading instruction at the elementary and secondary levels are discussed.     

Rapid automatized naming,word-level reading,and oral reading fluency in first-grade Korean readers at risk for reading difficulties

This study was designed to investigate potential reading differences between low-achieving and typically achieving first-grade Korean-speaking children by (1) comparing their speed of lexical access on alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric tests of rapid automatized naming and (2) comparing relationships between the two groups’ performance on alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric tasks with their performance on component measures of reading. Twenty-seven low-achieving readers and 34 typically achieving readers participated in this study. The low-achieving readers performed significantly more slowly than their typically achieving reading peers on the four measures of rapid naming. The response rates for both alphanumeric naming tasks (digits and letters) showed strong negative correlations with oral reading fluency, while their response rates for the non-alphanumeric naming tasks (Color and Object naming) showed relatively weak relationships with reading measures for both groups. In regression equations, Letter naming tasks were uniquely associated with both word recognition and oral reading fluency. The utility of using alphanumeric naming tasks as indicators for identifying Korean Hangul readers who are at risk for reading disabilities is discussed.     

Relationships among rapid digit naming, phonological processing, motor automaticity, and speech perception in poor, average, and good readers and spellers

In this article, we explore the relationship between rapid automatized naming (RAN) and other cognitive processes among below-average, average, and above-average readers and spellers. Nonsense word reading, phonological awareness, RAN, automaticity of balance, speech perception, and verbal short-term and working memory were measured. Factor analysis revealed a 3-component structure. The first component included phonological processing tasks, RAN, and motor balance. The second component included verbal short-term and working memory tasks. Speech perception loaded strongly as a third component, associated negatively with RAN. The phonological processing tests correlated most strongly with reading ability and uniquely discriminated average from below- and above-average readers in terms of word reading, reading comprehension, and spelling. On word reading, comprehension, and spelling, RAN discriminated only the below-average group from the average performers. Verbal memory, as assessed by word list recall, additionally discriminated the below-average group from the average group on spelling performance. Motor balance and speech perception did not discriminate average from above- or below-average performers. In regression analyses, phonological processing measures predicted word reading and comprehension, and both phonological processing and RAN predicted spelling.     

Reading strategy use and motivation among Chinese good and poor readers in Hong Kong

Eighty‐three good readers and 76 poor readers were compared on their ability to use reading strategies in Chinese reading comprehension and on various reading motivation variables. Poor readers scored lower than good readers in using all reading strategies, and especially in using sophisticated cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Poor readers also had lower intrinsic motivation in reading than had good readers. While the ability to use reading strategies had the strongest relation with reading comprehension, intrinsic motivation and strategy attribution might facilitate reading development through their positive relations with strategy use. Implications of these findings for implementing effective reading instruction in Hong Kong Chinese language teaching are discussed.     

Visual and phonological processing of words: a comparison of good and poor readers

At the beginning of the school year, 80 first graders, half receiving phonics instruction and half receiving whole word instruction, were asked to spell, read aloud, and recognize 60 regular and exception words. A standardized reading test and phoneme segmentation test were also administered. Those above grade level in reading excelled in phonological recording and application of grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules and were weaker in utilization of visual-orthographic knowledge. Those below grade level applied visual more than phonological coding and benefited from the visual-orthographic knowledge available in a clue word. Results support a continuum of visual and phonological analysis skills in first-grade reading consistent with Frith's (1985) logographic, alphabetic, and orthographic skill levels.     

Structural invariance in the associations of naming speed,phonological awareness,and verbal reasoning in good and poor readers: A test of the double deficit hypothesis

The associations of multiple measures of speeded naming, phonological awareness, and verbal intelligence with word reading were examined in 51 poor readers and 74 good readers in third and fourth grade. Structural equation modeling was used to determine the extent to which these two groups exhibited structurally invariant patterns of associations among the constructs. Results revealed that for poor readers, both speeded naming and phonological awarencess were significantly associated with word reading, but verbal intelligence had no association with it. In contrast, for good readers, phonological awareness and verbal intelligence were significantly associated with word reading, but naming speed was not. Findings are discussed in light of the double deficit hypothesis.     

IQ vs phonological recoding skill in explaining differences between poor readers and normal readers in word recognition: Evidence from a naming task

The aim of this study was to investigate whether differences inreading performance between poor readers and normal readers could bebetter explained by phonological recoding deficiences than IQ. A sampleof 132 Spanish children was classified into four groups according to IQ(<80; 81--90; 91--109; 110--140) and into two groups based on readingskills (poor readers vs normal readers). A word naming task was alsoadministered. We manipulated the word parameters (length, positionalsyllable frequency, and word frequency) and nonword parameters (lengthand positional syllable frequency) to find out whether students withreading disabilities would have more difficulties than normal readers innaming words under conditions that require extensive phonologicalcomputation. The results demonstrated that there were differencesbetween Spanish children who were normal readers and those who were poorreaders, independent of their IQs.     

Comprehension and study strategies reported by university freshmen who are good and poor readers

Self-report ratings of the use of fifteen text-learning strategies were obtained from college freshmen who are good and poor readers. The data were factor analyzed, and factor scores of the two groups were compared. A factor which had heavy loadings from certain comprehension strategies was a powerful discriminator. Other factors which had heavy loadings from study strategies, however, failed to discriminate the good readers from the poor readers. The results suggest that poor readers in the present study may rely heavily on study strategies without first having completely understood the text materials to be studied. Based on this difference between the strategy profiles of good and poor readers, it is suggested that an emphasis in remedial reading instruction on study strategies may not apply the correction where it is most needed. Instead, an emphasis on certain comprehension strategies which have in common an active search for meaning-enhancing relationships, and which clearly discriminated the good from the poor readers, is recommended.Preparation of this article was supported by a grant from the Basic Skills Research Program, University of California, Davis. The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Carolyn Turner and Lynn Thomas in the data collection, and of Julius Sassenrath for comments on a draft of this article.     

Performance of good and poor readers at two grade levels on an Auditory Cognitive Style Task

Sixty-four good and poor readers at first and third grades were administered a task measuring cognitive style in the auditory modality. They were also administered the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R) to obtain a measure of IQ. Poor readers committed significantly more errors and exhibited shorter response latencies on the Auditory Cognitive Style Task than did good readers. More importantly, poor readers demonstrated inefficient strategies for successful performance. It was suggested that good reading skills, as well as successful performance on the auditory task, require a certain degree of planfulness and self-monitoring activity on the part of the child which was apparently absent in the poor reader. Furthermore, it was proposed that the cognitive style variable, conceptual tempo, may be better viewed within the framework of the concept of metacognition.     

Longitudinal course of rapid naming in disabled and nondisabled readers

The Rapid Automatized Naming Test (Denckla and Rudel 1974) was studied cross-sectionally in an sample of kindergartners (n=342) at-risk for reading disability (Study 1), and longitudinally in an n=160 epidemiological normal sample of children tested in first, third, fifth, and eighth grades (Study 2). Study 1 showed faster absolute naming speeds for those with near perfect untimed alphabet recitation, but the stronger and more orderly relation (at r=.31, p<.0001) was between three levels of alphabet recitation accuracy and the relative number/letter naming speed advantage (ratio of mean number/letter naming speed minus mean color/object naming speed over mean color/object naming speed). In Study 2, the number/letter advantage was already strongly present by first grade, and did not increase significantly thereafter, but absolute naming times improved steadily across grades in an exponential decay function. In this sample, the relative number/letter advantage was not related to reading level. However, the absolute color/object naming speed was strongly related to reading level and vocabulary across grades. Norms for the Rapid Automatized Naming Test based on the epidemiological normal sample tested in Grades 1, 3, 5, and 8 are presented in the appendix.     

Reading ability and memory span: Long-term memory contributions to span for good and poor readers

A number of studies have shown that childrenwith reading difficulties perform poorly ontests of verbal memory span. The extent towhich differences in memory span for good andpoor readers can be explained by differences ina long-term memory component to span as well asby differences in short-term memory processeswas investigated in this study. Memory spanand rehearsal rate were measured for high andlow frequency words and nonwords. Althoughmemory span performance for high frequencywords was comparable for all reading abilitygroups, good readers had better memory spanperformance for low frequency words. This wasattributable to differences in both short-termand long-term memory contributions to spanperformance. Differences between readingability groups also emerged when memory spanfor nonwords was measured. In this case,differences between groups also appeared to bethe result of difficulties which poor readersencountered in learning newphonologically-based materials (i.e. nonwords). The nature of the inter-relationships betweenmemory span, reading and measures ofphonological awareness are discussed in thelight of these findings.     

Orthographic processing is a key predictor of reading fluency in good and poor readers in a transparent orthography

We used structural equation modeling to investigate sources of individual differences in oral reading fluency in a transparent orthography, Russian. Phonological processing, orthographic processing, and rapid automatized naming were used as independent variables, each derived from a combination of two scores: phonological awareness and pseudoword repetition, spelling and orthographic choice, and rapid serial naming of letters and digits, respectively. The contribution of these to oral text-reading fluency was evaluated as a direct relationship and via two mediators, decoding accuracy and unitized reading, measured with a single-word oral reading test. The participants were “good” and “poor” readers, i.e., those with reading skills above the 90th and below the 10th percentiles (n = 1344, grades 2–6, St. Petersburg, Russia). In both groups, orthographic processing skills significantly contributed to fluency and unitized reading, but not to decoding accuracy. Phonological processing skills did not contribute directly to reading fluency in either group, while contributing to decoding accuracy and, to a lesser extent, to unitized reading. With respect to the roles of decoding accuracy and unitized reading, the results for good and poor readers diverged: in good readers, unitized reading, but not decoding accuracy, was significantly related to reading fluency. For poor readers, decoding accuracy (measured as pseudoword decoding) was related to reading fluency, but unitized reading was not. These results underscore the importance of orthographic skills for reading fluency even in an orthography with consistent phonology-to-orthography correspondences. They also point to a qualitative difference in the reading strategies of good and poor readers.