Two major hypotheses are currently at issue concerning the effects of semantic context on ambiguous word recognition: (1) the selective-retrieval hypothesis (SRH) maintains that a single meaning is retrieved from memory, and (2) the nonselective-retrieval hypothesis maintains that all meanings are retrieved from memory. To help clear up this…

Some of the basic sight word lists which are being used or which might be extensively implemented in the future are described in this paper. The basic criterion used to define a good sight word list is that it contains words which appear with high frequency in children's materials at the beginning reading levels as well as at higher levels. In…

The purpose of this experiment was to replicate and extend previous work which showed substantial differences between good readers (GR) and poor readers (PR) in the time taken to encode single words. The technique used was based on the memory-scanning and visual-scanning procedure first used by Sternberg. The subjects for the study consisted of 30…

This book is designed to provide teachers with the information necessary to help their students to cope successfully and independently with unfamiliar words. Three sources of aid in word identification are discussed, to provide a balance to the current overemphasis on phonics decoding as the only way for children to identify words. The three areas…

Examines the language difficulties of an adult aphasic, particularly in the areas of reading and writing, in an attempt to fill a gap in the study of reading and writing pathology. (AM)

Five examples illustrate how teachers can analyze patterns of oral reading errors informally, effectively, and inexpensively. (RL)

This research investigates the role of speech recoding, particularly its relationship to meaning analysis during reading. Experiment I documents a speech processing conflict; Experiment II analyzes this conflict; and Experiment III demonstrates contributions of speech and meaning processes to reading memory. Results are related to three classes of…

Suggests that automaticity in decoding, a prerequisite for skilled reading, results from direct instruction in decoding skills and extended practice in comfortable reading materials. (ARH)

Claims that even though teaching phonics is an effective method of reading instruction, the skills taught by phonics have little to do with the process of reading acquisition. Offers two methods of resolving the paradoxes generated by this situation. (NH)

Focuses on (1) the acquisition and use of word representations and (2) the acquisition of the alphabetic code. Urges that instruction provide conditions to promote the learning of three types of representation--word forms, letter patterns, and mapping. (RDN)

Reports on experiments designed to explore the way the processing unit depends on the information in the component letters and the information contained in their arrangements in a familiar letter string. Hypotheses were tested by degrading the quality of individual letters and by spacing the letters irregularly. (CLK)

Poor comprehenders from grades five and six were asked to read and rate the comprehensibility of three short passages. Passages with large numbers of modifying words were considered the least comprehensible. Support exists for the hypothesis that poor comprehenders process print in piecemeal fashion. (Author/JN)

To test the effects of selective attention on decoding skills, 23 children (grades 2 through 6) with learning disabilities were studied. Results showed that treatment directly improved the ability of the experimental groups to transfer spelling patterns learned in isolation to unknown words containing those patterns and improved the ability of Ss…

Three experiments were conducted to explore the effect of word training on interference patterns in the picture-word task. Subjects were first and second graders. (MP)

Experiments were conducted to determine the effects of sentence contexts on word recognition and reading. The questions of whether context is predominantly facilitating or inhibiting and how automatic the influence of contexts is on word retrieval were investigated. (SW)