Discusses whether the learning of separate subskills is a prerequisite for learning to read and whether the reading process actually is made up of many different skills. (FL)

Confirms previous findings that young children do not have an adequate concept of what constitutes the spoken "word." (RB)

Discusses four areas of reading research in which the results seem to collide with views held by practicing teachers and provides an explanation of the contradictions. (RB)

The cognitive clarity theory may be stated quite simply and briefly: (1) Learning to read involved applying general intellectual abilities to the task. (2) Reading is usually a silent activity, and there are very few outward signs of what the behavior involves. (3) Children do not know the basic concepts involved in thinking about the tasks of…

In learning the skills of reading and writing, it seems most probable that the child has to become aware of certain aspects of spoken language which he has not previously perceived. Although the child is capable of saying and hearing words and can easily tell them apart from other words, to spell them phonically he must understand the concept of…

The cognitive clarity theory focuses on the learning-to-read process rather than on the reading process of the mature reader. The cognitive clarity theory already seems to show some power in explaining some puzzling findings in reading research. Some examples of these paradoxes are: earlier letter-name knowledge is highly correlated with later…

This paper reports on a Comparative Reading project that was conducted in 14 countries. The 14 countries included India, Germany, U.S.S.R., Great Britain, Israel, U.S.A., Finland, Japan, Hong Kong, France, Denmark, Argentina, Norway, and Sweden. The contents include: "The Significance of Culture," which discusses the value which various cultures…

The aim of this study was to test a hypothesis derived from the Cognitive Clarity Theory which compares Indian and non-Indian children in two localities of British Columbia. It was hypothesized that, in comparison with Indian children, the non-Indian children would show significantly superior performance on objective tests of cognitive clarity in…

Reports that readiness tests given to children in bilingual villages in Papua New Guinea showed that children learning to read in an unfamiliar language were more confused than were children who had never had literacy instruction. (FL)