Reports results from one- and two-year follow-up tests for children with reading problems who had previously received 25 hours of training in one of two computer-based remediation programs. Finds children initially trained in phonological skills made greater gains in phonological awareness, phonological decoding, and untimed word recognition at…

This study with 47 university students having reading disabilities, 15 students with other learning disabilities, and 12 nondisabled readers found that most nondisabled subjects used a phonological rehearsal strategy for words and nonwords, whereas students with reading disabilities consistently used a strategy of visual scanning for these tasks.…

This study investigated the effects of highly decodable text and coordinated phonics instruction on first graders' word recognition strategies. The quantitative study sought to examine the validity of a major claim about highly decodable text--that it enables readers to apply phonics instruction to a greater extent than less decodable text. All…

Leveled books originally selected by or produced for use in Reading Recovery or its regular classroom initiative are now also widely used in regular and special classrooms having no affiliation with Reading Recovery. The frequent use of these leveled books in settings other than Reading Recovery raises an important question: Do books leveled for…

GED (General Educational Development) learners are a diverse group--just like ABE (Adult Basic Education) and ESL (English as a second language) learners. For some, passing the GED tests closes the door on a history of defeat and failure and allows them to move ahead personally. Achieving the goal of passing all five GED tests is not easy for some…

A study investigated the transfer effect of three different word recognition strategies. Subjects were 90 first- through fourth-grade children randomly drawn from an elementary school population to serve in the experimental group and a like number assigned to a non-instructed control group. Strategies taught to subjects were a graphophonic…

A study examined the developmental shifts in the importance of linguistic components of words to single word decoding. Subjects, 1200 children ages 6-7, 8-9, and 10-12.5 years who were the normative sample of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC), were tested using a word recognition test, the Reading Decoding Subtest of the K-ABC.…

A corollary of the principle that reading comprehension depends on language comprehension is that word skill plus language comprehension skill produces reading comprehension skill. This corollary points to word decoding as being the major source of differences in skilled reading. Various data supporting this claim have been collected from…

The purpose of this research was to explore the level of perceptual processing being used by normal and educable mentally retarded beginning readers. The investigation tested the hypothesis that beginning readers show a positive relationship between word length and word recognition latency, implying serial processing. Data on accuracy and latency…

There are basically two different models for the word recognition process. One model postulates that a reader primarily uses sound/symbol cues to recognize a word; a second model states that a reader focuses mainly on whole-word characteristics. To determine which model best fits beginning and adult readers, a multiple regression analysis was…

Existing mathematical models of word recognition are reviewed and a new theory is proposed in this research. The new theory integrates earlier proposals within a single framework, sacrificing none of the predictive power of the earlier proposals, but offering a gain in theoretical economy. The theory holds that word recognition is accomplished by…

In a study designed to investigate whether the meaning of printed words is perceived directly in rapid silent reading or by means of phonetic recoding, subjects named pictures on which words or nonwords were superimposed as distractors. In a Stroop task of this kind, distractor words that are not congruent with the names of the pictures on which…

Describes a study which tested the notion that phonological recoding in important during reading acquisition. Children who had no measurable phonological recoding skills were matched to 28 children who had some skills in this domain and compared on reading performance at the end of grades one and two. Those with phonological recoding skills were…

One of four International Reading Association award-winning dissertations from 1975. (RB)

This paper summarizes some of the most important findings from research that evaluated the hypothesized causes of specific reading disability (dyslexia). It first discusses the immediate causes of reading difficulties in terms of deficiencies in component reading skills that might cause such difficulties and concludes that inadequate facility in…