Beginning readers' reading latencies increase as words become longer. This length effect is believed to be a marker of a serial reading process. We examined the effects of visual and phonological skills on the length effect. Participants were 184 second-grade children who read 3- to 5-letter words and nonwords. Results indicated that reading…

We tested the hypothesis that the acquisition of orthographic knowledge of novel words that are presented in an indistinct context, that is a context with many orthographically similar words, would be more difficult for dyslexic than for normal readers. Participants were 19 Dutch dyslexic children (mean age 10;9 years), 20 age-matched and 20…

In this study the effect of repeated reading on the acquisition of orthographic knowledge was examined. Acquisition of orthographic knowledge was assessed by the effect of word length on reading speed. We predicted that the effect of length in a set of words and pseudowords would decrease after the repeated reading of these (pseudo)words. The…

Breznitz (2006) demonstrated that Hebrew-speaking adults with reading disabilities benefited from a training in which reading rate was experimentally manipulated. In the present study, the authors examine whether silent reading training enhances the sentence reading rate and comprehension of children with reading disabilities and whether results…

One explanation for the relationship between serial rapid naming (SRN) and reading is that SRN affects the temporal proximity of the phonological activation of the letters in a word, which, in turn, influences the acquisition of orthographic knowledge. To test this hypothesis, a group of Dutch first grade children was trained in the rapid serial…