A pilot experiment showed that Arabic speakers tended to confuse words with similar consonantal structures. Findings support the hypothesis that Arabic-speaking learners of English, because of the lexical structure and orthography of their native language, tend to rely heavily on consonants when attempting to recognize English words. (five…

Examined masked-form priming in groups of developing and skilled readers (elementary students and adults). In a lexical decision task, children showed significantly greater priming than adults for high N (neighborhood-size) words. A gradual attenuation across age was not found. The results suggest that the adaptation to lexical density may not…

Analyzes word recognition instruction in four first-grade classrooms. Finds that: differential instruction may be helpful in first grade; children who enter first grade with low literacy benefit from early and heavy exposure to phonics; and a structured phonics curriculum that includes both onsets and rimes and sounding and blending phonemes…

In this study, the author elucidated whether reading experience continues to contribute to word recognition skills in readers with well-internalized reading skills. The participants performed consecutive same or different judgments regarding the identicalness of letters, words, and pseudohomophones. For a more detailed examination of how increased…

During a longitudinal in-depth study of the reading acquisition and cognitive and visual development of four children with cerebral visual impairment, the children's visual acuity improved, but their full-scale IQs declined, mostly because of difficulties in abstract thinking, visual cognitive organization, and extremely low processing speed. The…

In this study we examined the benefits of computer programs designed to supplement regular reading instruction in an urban public school system. The programs provide systematic exercises for mastering word-attack strategies. Our findings indicate that first graders who participated in the programs made significant reading gains over the school…

The purpose of this report is to provide education professors teaching early literacy methods courses with information for beginning teachers to support struggling first-grade readers. This analysis identifies the specific word structures children are expected to know by the end of first grade, and shows the actual learning rates of these…

The interaction hypothesis proposes that valid test accommodations benefit only those with disabilities. To evaluate this hypothesis, Grade 3 students with word decoding difficulties identified with dyslexia and average decoders were randomly assigned to take the same version of the Texas reading accountability assessment under accommodated and…

Of the four language skills, reading is probably tested most often, and it may seem to be the easiest to test. However, testing reading proficiency has its difficulties, and the test constructor must be aware of several issues. Reading involves a number of skills, and the number and complexity of these must be recognized. Choosing the text to test…

A study examined specific reading competencies after participating in Hmong literacy instruction in an after-school setting in the Thermalito, California School District, grades kindergarten through 4. Control and treatment groups were established to compare the English literacy skills of the Hmong students who participated in 40 hours of primary…

Including revisions and updates in all areas, this book functions as a pre-service and in-service teacher self-instructional manual in word recognition skills. The first part of the book discusses the controversy concerning early phonics instruction versus use of the whole language approach, and then discusses consonants, vowels, reading…

Elementary teachers should focus attention on language activities that involve naturally the reciprocal relationships among listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Teachers need to value, use, and make useful the background and language of all students, through a Language Experience Approach (LEA) in which students dictate and write about…

These placement tests are designed to help teachers determine a students' Chinese reading and writing level and to place them in the appropriate grade level book in the Golden Mountain Reading Series. The tests are divided into two parts: (1) word recognition and (2) reading and writing test. (Author/CFM)

A study was conducted to replicate earlier findings regarding the relationships between letter, word, and text reading times and measures of reading achievement and to establish the stability of reading times measures and their relationships over a one-year period. Subjects included 150 children in eight age cohorts between grades one and six. The…

The sensitivity of the cumulative cloze task to the effects of contextual buildup across units of discourse larger than the sentence was investigated, with three experiments focusing on a comparative analysis of proficient and developmental readers. In cumulative cloze, a single target word is deleted from a passage and replaced by the same…