We propose to use reading time as a metric to report progress in language learning applications. As a case study we use a web-based application that enables learners of a foreign language to read texts from the web and practice vocabulary with interactive exercises generated based on their past readings. The application captures generic…

Books designed for beginning readers typically intermix text with illustrations in close proximity. Prior research suggests this standard layout may reduce literacy skills due to increased attentional competition between text and illustrations. The current study extends this work by examining whether manipulations to the book layout can enhance…

First and second graders were taught to recognize a set of written words either more accurately or more rapidly. Both before and after word training, they named pictures printed with and without these words as distractors. Of interest was whether training would enhance or diminish the interference created by these words in the picture naming task.…

The eye movements of two college graduates were monitored in a study of flexible reading, which is defined as the ability to adjust one's rate and approach to reading according to the purpose of reading, the difficulty of the material, and one's knowledge of the subject matter. The subjects were told to read an excerpt from a tenth grade biology…

This study examined the adaptability of reading rate to passage difficulty under different conditions of task-induced processing. Sixteen experimental passages varying in subject matter and ranging from 85 to 171 words were selected from a set of 32 texts rated for comprehensibility. The eight easiest and eight hardest texts were selected. Another…

A study was conducted to evaluate reading strategies by contrasting regression results of 10 fast versus 10 slow readers. At the word level the lag effect was evaluated. At the text level, the few-argument strategy versus the many-argument strategy and the physical and the syntactic strategies were evaluated. The absolute proportion of the lag…

The development of rapid word processing skills was investigated using a visual search task. Visual displays of varying orthographic structure (words, pseudowords, nonwords) were presented to college students and to kindergarten, second-grade, and fourth-grade children. Response latencies were measured as subjects indicated whether a previously…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether awareness of context provides any of the following: information about letters, words, or phrases which reduces the amount of time needed to identify those items during reading; information leading to more accurate hypothesis-formation; more accurate identification of a largest manageable unit; and…

This study measured the increase of heart rate during reading (over a baseline rate when the subject was at rest) caused by anticipation of comprehension questions to follow. It also investigates correlations between heart rate and reading speed and comprehension. Twenty-four college subjects, considered normal readers according to SAT-Verbal…

Subjects within one reading level only were included in this study to determine reflective and impulsive subject groups on the basis of Matching Familiar Figures (MFF) test time and error scores within that reading level rather than over all levels, to use the same reading test passages for all subjects, and then to apply statistical tests of…

This study attempted to assess the relationship between misreading of high-frequency words and utilization of semantic and syntactic cue systems. A 250-word passage from a second-grade basal reader was altered in two ways: in one condition, the sentences were randomly ordered, and, in the other, the words were randomly ordered. Twenty-four fourth…

The word-identification approach has long been the basis for teaching reading in both native and second languages. Recent work has a new approach, particularly that of Frank Smith, who developed a feature analysis model of reading. As we can identify letters in different configurations or before all the strokes are completed, so can we identify…

A study examined how both children and adults process inferences when reading prose. Subjects, 24 third-, fifth-, and eighth-graders, and adults, read stories where a consequence was implied, and then answered questions. The stories differed in the degree to which the inference was necessary for comprehension, and the readers engaged in either…

A study examined oral and silent reading rates at various levels of difficulty to establish criterion rates for fluent reading at the fourth grade level. Subjects, 27 male and 45 female students from 6 classes in 3 public schools in central Oklahoma who read at an average of more than one year above grade placement, had their oral and silent…

A model of cognitive operations that children use in reading and comprehending a sentence was tested by using Sternberg's independent-process analysis on 64 second and fifth graders who were either high- or low-ability readers. Three specific component processes were examined: a decoding process, a word meaning process, and a comprehension…