Automaticity, retrieval processes, and reading: a longitudinal study in average and impaired readers

In this longitudinal investigation, the development of word-retrieval speed and its relationship to reading was studied in 72 average and 11 severely impaired readers in the kindergarten to grade 2 period (5-8 years). Subjects received a battery of 3 reading measures and 4 continuous naming tests with varied stimulus requirements. Results indicated that the relationship of retrieval speed to reading is a function of development and the correspondence between higher- and lower-level processes in the specific retrieval and reading measures. As automaticity in retrieval developed in average readers, naming-speed/reading relationships moved from strong, general predictions to highly differentiated ones. The strongest correlations were between naming speed for graphological stimuli and lower-level reading tasks. Impaired readers performed slower than average readers on all naming measures across all years, particularly on graphological symbols. 3 dyslexic subgroups emerged: the largest was globally impaired across all naming rate and reading tasks; 2 smaller subgroups had early specific, retrieval-rate deficits and dissociated reading deficits.     

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.     

The predictive relations between non‐alphanumeric rapid naming and growth in regular and irregular word decoding in at‐risk readers

We investigated influences of non‐alphanumeric rapid naming on decoding skill growth for regularly and irregularly spelled English words. In a longitudinal study, 52 at‐risk and 69 not‐at‐risk readers were tracked from Grade 1 to Grade 3. Non‐alphanumeric rapid naming ability measured in Grade 1 accounted for unique variance in irregular word decoding in early Grade 2 – strong rapid naming was associated with strong irregular word decoding. An interaction between reading risk status and Grade 1 rapid naming indicated that the influence of Grade 1 rapid naming ability on growth in irregular word decoding was different for at‐risk than not‐at‐risk readers. Non‐alphanumeric rapid naming can have predictive validity as a marker for identifying specific difficulties in learning to read irregular words in at‐risk readers. Results indicate that rapid naming plays a general role in irregular word reading and a specific role in at‐risk readers' growth in irregular word decoding.     

Predicting reading progress in children receiving special help

The main aim of the study was to determine whether performance on reading-related cognitive processing tasks would help predict reading progress in children receiving special help. The 86 subjects were initially aged six to eight years and most were followed up after two years. When variance due to IQ and age was accounted for, an orthographic processing task, phonological awareness (phoneme deletion), and digit- naming speed were significant predictors of later reading skills. A strength in phonological awareness differentiated initial poor readers who later made excellent gains in reading from poor readers who did not improve. Children whose reading deteriorated had serious weaknesses on tasks of naming speed and confrontation naming. Their poor lexical retrieval skills had a more deleterious effect on later reading than on initial. Indications were that for children diagnosed as poor readers at age six or seven years, prognosis is better for boys, and for garden- variety poor readers, than for dyslexics. Caution was urged in applying the term dyslexic to children in the first two school grades because many of them will be slow starters who do not have a persistent reading problem.     

Specific reading difficulties in Chinese, English, or both: longitudinal markers of phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and RAN in Hong Kong Chinese children

What are the longitudinal cognitive profiles of Hong Kong Chinese children with specific reading difficulties in Chinese only, in English only, or both? A total of 16 poor readers each of Chinese (PC) and English (PE) and 8 poor readers of both orthographies (PB) were compared to a control sample (C) of 16 children; all were drawn from a statistically representative sample of 154 Hong Kong Chinese children tested at ages 5 to 9 years. PE and PB children's mothers had lower education levels than did the other groups. With children's ages and mothers' education levels statistically controlled, the PE, PC, and PB groups were significantly lower than the C group on phonological awareness. The PB and PE groups also scored significantly lower than the others on English vocabulary across years, whereas the PC and PB groups were significantly poorer than the C and PE groups on morphological awareness across years. Finally, the PB group was significantly slower than the other groups on speed naming at every age tested, underscoring the potential importance of automaticity in reading across orthographies. Findings highlight the need to consider the issue of how to identify reading difficulties in a second language.     

Predicting word reading ability: a quantile regression study

Predictors of early word reading are well established. However, it is unclear if these predictors hold for readers across a range of word reading abilities. This study used quantile regression to investigate predictive relationships at different points in the distribution of word reading. Quantile regression analyses used preschool and kindergarten measures of letter knowledge, phonological awareness, rapid automatised naming, sentence repetition, vocabulary and mother's education to predict first‐grade word reading. Predictors generally varied in significance across levels of word reading. Notably, rapid automatised naming was a significant unique predictor for average and good readers but not poor readers. Letter knowledge was generally a stronger unique predictor for poor and average readers than good readers. Well‐known word reading predictors varied in significance at different points along the word reading distribution. Results have implications for early identification and statistical analyses of reading‐related outcomes. What is already known about this topic

• Early predictors of word reading are well established, with letter knowledge, phonological awareness and rapid automatised naming identified as key predictors.
• These relationships are primarily investigated in average readers, or in groups of good and poor readers separated by an arbitrary cut‐off score.

What this paper adds

• In this study, we used quantile regression to determine significant predictors of word reading across a range of word reading abilities.
• The quantile regression approach avoids the loss of power that can arise when creating subgroups and has none of the issues associated with the use of a single, arbitrary cut-off score to separate good and poor readers.
• Letter knowledge and phonological awareness were significantly predictive of word reading across the distribution of word reading abilities, whereas rapid automatised naming was significant only for good readers, and sentence recall was significant only for poor readers.

Implications for theory, policy and practice

• Results reinforce the usefulness of measures such as letter knowledge, phonological awareness and sentence repetition in the early identification of children at risk for reading disabilities.
• Results also suggest that measures of rapid naming may add little unique information in differentiating between children who subsequently read in the below‐average range.

     

Word identification and reading disorders in the Spanish language

In this study, a reading-level-match design was used to test the hypothesis that children with reading disability (RD) are characterized by poor phonological skills, and that a developmental lag, as opposed to a specific deficit, will be found in transparent orthographies. Spanish has a transparent orthography and thus children with RD should not show severe difficulties in the use of the phonological route, as in the English language. A sample of 118 participants was selected and organized into three different groups: 40 with RD, 38 normal readers matched in age with the former, and 40 younger normal readers at the same reading level as those with RD. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of lexicality, word frequency, word length, and positional frequency of syllables on lexical decision making and word-naming performance. While the participants were performing the naming task, we recorded what they read to subsequently analyze the form as well as the frequency of naming errors. The present study provides evidence for a deficit in phonological processing in a transparent orthography, particularly in nonword reading, because there were differences between the reading-level-matched groups.     

The role of speed of processing, rapid naming, and phonological awareness in reading achievement

This study investigated the role of speed of processing, rapid naming, and phonological awareness in reading achievement. Measures of response time in motor, visual, lexical, grammatical, and phonological tasks were administered to 279 children in third grade. Measures of rapid object naming, phonological awareness, and reading achievement were given in second and fourth grades. Reading group comparisons indicated that poor readers were proportionally slower than good readers across response time measures and on the rapid object naming task. These results suggest that some poor readers have a general deficit in speed of processing and that their problems in rapid object naming are in part a reflection of this deficit. Hierarchical regression analyses further showed that when considered along with IQ and phonological awareness, speed of processing explained unique variance in reading achievement. This finding suggests that a speed of processing deficit may be an "extraphonological" factor in some reading disabilities.     

An Analysis of the Word Naming Errors of Normal Readers and Reading Disabled Children in Spanish

In the current research the performance of children with and without reading disabilities was compared on a single word naming task. An analysis was carried out of the frequency and form of naming errors produced by the groups when naming real words and nonwords in a transparent orthography such as Spanish. A sample of 132 (45 normal readers, 87 reading disabled) Spanish children aged 9–10 years were selected, and an experiment was carried out to investigate if students with reading disabilities would have particular difficulties in naming words under conditions that require extensive phonological computation. While the children were performing the naming task, we recorded what they read to subsequently analyse the form, as well as the frequency, of naming errors as a function of lexicality, word frequency, word length and positional frequency of syllables. Disabled readers made more errors in nonwords, low frequency words and long nonwords. The findings support the hypothesis that poor phonological skills are a characteristic of reading disabled children.     

Cognitive profiles of poor readers of Kannada

The alphasyllabary of Kannada comprises more than 400 symbols called akshara; each symbol is visuo-spatially complex with a consistent representation at the dual levels of the syllable and the phoneme. We investigated reading difficulties in Kannada among 8–12 year old children by conducting a between-groups followed by a case series analysis. We compared the children with reading difficulties with same age competent readers and younger readers who were similar in language level, matched on measures of vocabulary, syntactic processing, and morphological processing. Reading difficulties were characterized by poor akshara knowledge. Concomitant impairments were in syllable and phoneme level phonological skills, in rapid naming and in oral language skills. The case series analysis highlighted the variability of profiles among poor readers with the most common impairments being in akshara knowledge and phonological processing. Sub-groups of poor readers showed additional deficits in oral language, rapid naming, and visual processing skills. Together our findings indicate that the core deficit associated with reading difficulty in the alphasyllabary of Kannada is in the phonological domain. However, accompanying deficits in related skills, including visual processing, can further inhibit reading attainment. The findings from this study support a multifactorial model of reading development.     

Phonological knowledge and naming ability in children with reading disability

Children who are poor readers have difficulty naming pictured objects. Their naming difficulty could be a result of inadequate representations of the phonology of words, inadequate processing of those representations, or both. In this study, third-grade good and poor readers were tested on object naming, and, in cases of naming failure, forced-choice recognition tasks were used to probe their knowledge of the phonology of the object names. The two reading groups showed no differences in their ability to select the initial phonemes or rhymes of object names they had not produced spontaneously. Moreover, initial phoneme prompts were helpful for both reading groups. The children differed, however, in their ability to produce words after being given rhyme information. The results indicated that, except in the ability to manipulate explicitly phonological information, the poor readers; performance was qualitatively similar to that of the good readers. It is suggested that training in phonological analysis may help poor readers overcome the deficiencies in establishing and processing phonological representations that lead to their quantitative deficit in object naming.     

Tracing symbol naming speed's unique contributions to reading disabilities over time

The contributions of naming speed measured on both serial-list and various discrete-trial formats to several reading subskills were examined longitudinally to determine their impact independent of other reading-related skills on reading disabilities. Tests of symbol naming speed, phonological awareness, vocabulary, memory span and coding speed were given to 38 poor and average readers when they were in Grades 2, 3 and 4. Grade 4 poor readers were discriminated from moderately poor or good readers on serial-list and discrete-trial naming speed tests in all grades. In addition, phonological awareness and vocabulary, but not memory span or coding speed, discriminated groups. These variables in Grade 2 contributed unique variance to reading scores in Grade 4 in differing patterns. Hypotheses about the nature of the reading — naming speed relationship are discussed.     

Individual differences in RAN and reading: a response timing analysis

Thirty 8–11‐year‐old children were administered tests of rapid naming (RAN letters and digits) and reading‐related skills. Consistent with the hypothesis that RAN predicts reading because it assesses the ability to establish arbitrary mappings between visual symbols and verbal labels, RAN accounted for independent variance in exception word reading when phonological skills were controlled. Response timing analysis of different components of RAN digits and letters revealed that neither average item duration nor average pause duration were unique predictors of reading skill. However, the number of pauses on digit naming predicted unique variance in exception word reading. Moreover, better readers paused more strategically than poorer readers (e.g. more often at the ends of lines). We suggest that rapid automatised naming may in part reflect differences in strategic control that are a result of differences in reading practice and experience.     

Phonemic awareness,naming, visual symbol processing,and reading

This study examined differences between adequate and poor readers in phonemic awareness, rapid continuous and confrontation naming, and visual symbol processing. It also investigated which of these skills make independent contributions to word recognition, pseudoword reading, and reading comprehension. Subjects were 170 school referrals of average intelligence, aged 6 to 10 years. The strongest differentiators of adequate and poor readers, with IQ and reading experience controlled, were phonemic awareness, naming speed for letters and pictured objects, and visual symbol processing. Letter naming speed made the largest independent contribution to word recognition, phonemic awareness to pseudoword reading, and object naming speed to reading comprehension. Confrontation picture naming accounted for minimal variance in reading skills, when IQ was controlled. It was concluded that tasks of naming speed, phonemic awareness, and visual symbol processing are valuable components of a diagnostic battery when testing children with possible reading disability.     

Does a visual-orthographic deficit contribute to reading disability?

In this study, visual-orthographic skills were defined as the ability to recognize whether letters and numerals are correctly oriented. Aims were to investigate whether visual-orthographic skills would contribute independent variance to reading, and whether children with a visual-orthographic deficit would be more impaired readers than similar children without this deficit. Participants were 207 children, aged 8 to 10 years, who attended school in a small suburban community. Because of the evidence that phonological awareness and naming speed are strongly related to reading, visual-orthographic skills were entered into hierarchical regression analyses following these variables. With age, verbal IQ, and verbal short-term memory also controlled, visual-orthographic skills accounted for significant independent variance in all reading measures. When children with a visual—orthographic deficit (29% of the sample) were compared with those without this deficit, they were significantly lower on all reading variables. At 8 to 10 years of age, reading progress of some children continues to be hampered by a problem in orthographic memory for the orientation of letters and numerals. Such children will require special attention, but their problems may be overlooked. As recommended by Willows and Terepocki (1993), there is need for further research on the phenomenon of letter reversals when they occur among children beyond first grade.     

Relationships of naming skills to reading,memory, and receptive vocabulary: Evidence for imprecise phonological representations of words by poor readers

The main hypotheses addressed in the research were (1) whether imprecision in the phonological representations of lexical items underlies the impaired expressive naming abilities of disabled readers, and (2) whether weak verbal memory might mediate the relationship between naming and reading skills. From samples of 93 first graders and 67 fourth graders, extreme groups of good and poor readers were identified and compared on measures of receptive vocabulary, expressive naming, acceptability judgments for variants of object names, imitation and correction of naming errors by another speaker, pseudoword repetition, and long-term memory. Performance was generally better by older than younger students and by good than poor readers at each age, with little interaction between grade and reader group. The results indicated that for both good and poor readers, imprecise phonological knowledge, especially about long words, contributed to children’s difficulties on all naming tasks. Memory differences, however, appeared to play only a minor role in explaining the strong association between naming and reading.     

Cognitive processing rates among disabled and normal reading young adults: A nine year follow-up study

Forty adults who had been diagnosed as reading disabled when they were children and 40 adults from a matched control group of normal readers were tested to assess the diagnostic utility of a newly developed set of tests as well at to ascertain whether or not reading disability persists into early adulthood. The new measures, designed to examine cognitive processing rates in disabled and normal adult readers, included expressive verbal fluency, confrontation naming, and perceptual speed. Evidence for significantly slower cognitive processing rates and persistent problems in reading and spelling was apparent among the young adult disabled readers. Spatial and mathematical ability levels were well within the normal range.     

Long-term outcome of the early identification and intervention of reading disabilities

This study examined the longitudinal effects of an early literacy intervention in Kindergarten. A group of children completed reading and cognitive measures between Kindergarten (5–6 years old) and Grade 7 (12–13 years old). Our results showed that 22 % of children were identified as at-risk for reading deficits in Kindergarten, but only 6 % of children had reading difficulties in Grade 7. In Kindergarten, at-risk groups scored lower than not-at-risk groups on measures of word and letter recognition, phonological processing, rapid naming, working memory, and language. We also examined a small group of children who were not-at-risk in Kindergarten, but had a reading disability in Grade 7; these children did not obtain lower scores than average readers on any of our Kindergarten measures. Finally, we illustrated that the trajectory of word reading skills was generally stable, such that most children scored within the average range between Grade 1 and 7. Our results provide evidence for the long-term positive outcomes of early literacy instruction.     

Sublexical and lexical processing of the English orthography among native speakers of Chinese and Korean

Comparisons of the effects of typical and atypical typeface on reading performance among readers of different linguistic backgrounds may yield new insights into the psychology of word recognition. A total of 143 adults (i.e., 50 Chinese, 55 Koreans, 38 native English speakers) participated in the study that involved two computer-based naming tests. The tests presented words with letters that varied in size and shape in Experiment 1 and words containing scrambled letters in Experiment 2. Results from Experiment 1 showed that the interference effect of size and shape on word naming accuracy and latency was robust for all readers. Likewise, results from Experiment 2 showed a broad interference effect of scrambled letters on word naming; however, scrambled letters appeared less disruptive to word naming among Chinese readers compared to their Korean and native English speaking counterparts. Taken together, Chinese speakers were less efficient in recognizing atypical words at the sublexical level, but more efficient at the lexical level.     

Development of Reading Efficiency in First and Second Language

Efficiency in basic reading processes can be discussed in terms of accuracy and speed. In this longitudinal study, the development of accurate and fast reading processes was studied in a group of 66 children learning to read simultaneously in English, their first language (L1), and Hebrew, their second language (L2). Children's speed and accuracy were compared in Grade 1 and Grade 2 on parallel L1 and L2 tasks of letter naming, reading isolated words and the same words in text. Results indicated that corresponding accuracy and speed across the two languages are highly correlated. Despite differences in language familiarity and different orthographies, accuracy and speed rates of isolated word reading in L1 and L2 were highly similar. Yet, in L1, children were more efficient (faster and more accurate) in reading text than isolated words, but in early stages of L2 reading acquisition, text reading was not more efficient than the reading of isolated words. In terms of efficiency components in L2 language, accuracy distinguished good from poor L2 readers, but speed did not. It is concluded that (a) steps associated with the development of L1 reading efficiency (i.e., accuracy attained before speed) are applicable to the development of word recognition skills in L2, but they do not emerge concurrently in both languages and (b) specific linguistic features such as orthographic depth and morphosyntactic complexity may interact with more global L2 proficiency effects in determining the course of L2 reading skills development.