Predictors of reading fluency in Italian orthography: Evidence from a cross-sectional study of primary school students

This study investigates the role of linguistic and visuospatial attentional processes in predicting reading fluency in typical Italian readers attending primary school. Tasks were administered to 651 children with reading fluency z scores > ?1.5 standard deviation to evaluate their phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), verbal short-term memory, vocabulary, visual search skills, verbal-visual recall, and visual-spatial attention. Hybrid models combining confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis were used to evaluate the data obtained from younger (first and second grade) and older (third–fifth grade) children, respectively. The results showed that phonological awareness and RAN played a significant role among younger children, while also vocabulary, verbal short-term memory, and visuospatial attention were significant factors among older children.     

Unsegmented text delays word identification: Evidence from a survival analysis of fixation durations

The present study employed distributional analyses of fixation times to examine the impact of removing spaces between words during reading. Specifically, we presented high and low frequency target words in a normal text condition that contained spaces (e.g., “John decided to sell the table in the garage sale”) and in an unsegmented text condition that contained random numbers instead of spaces (e.g., “John4decided8to5sell9the7table2in3the9garage6sale”). The unsegmented text condition produced larger word frequency effects relative to the normal text condition for the gaze duration and total time measures (for similar findings, see Rayner, Fischer, & Pollatsek, 1998), which indicates that removing spaces can impact the word identification stage of reading. To further examine the effect of spacing on word identification, we used distributional analyses of first-fixation durations to contrast the time course of word frequency effects in the normal versus the unsegmented text conditions. In replication of prior findings (Reingold, Reichle, Glaholt, & Sheridan, 2012; Staub, White, Drieghe, Hollway, & Rayner, 2010), ex-Gaussian fitting revealed that the word frequency variable impacted both the shift and the skew of the distributions, and this pattern of results occurred for both the normal and unsegmented text conditions. In addition, a survival analysis technique revealed a later time course of word frequency effects in the unsegmented relative to the normal condition, such that the earliest discernible influence of word frequency was 112 ms from the start of fixation in the normal text condition, and 152 ms in the unsegmented text condition. This delay in the temporal onset of word frequency effects in the unsegmented text condition strongly suggests that removing spaces delays the word identification stage of reading. Possible underlying mechanisms are discussed, including lateral masking and word segmentation.     

Invariance on a reading comprehension test in European Portuguese: A differential item functioning analysis between students from rural and urban areas

The aim of this study was to determine whether the items from a reading comprehension test in European Portuguese function differently across students from rural and urban areas, which biases the test validity and the equity in assessment. The sample was composed of 653 students from second, third and fourth grades. The presence of differential item functioning (DIF) was analysed using logistic regression and the Mantel–Haenszel procedure. Although 17 items were flagged with DIF, only five items showed non-negligible DIF in all effect-size measures. The evidence of invariance across students with rural or urban backgrounds for most of the items supports the validity of the test though the five identified items should be further investigated.     

Visual experience is not necessary for efficient survey spatial cognition: Evidence from blindness

This study investigated whether the lack of visual experience affects the ability to create spatial inferential representations of the survey type. We compared the performance of persons with congenital blindness and that of blindfolded sighted persons on four survey representation-based tasks (Experiment 1). Results showed that persons with blindness performed better than blindfolded sighted controls. We repeated the same tests introducing a third group of persons with late blindness (Experiment 2). This last group performed better than blindfolded sighted participants, whereas differences between participants with late and congenital blindness were nonsignificant. The present findings are compatible with results of other studies, which found that when visual perception is lacking, skill in gathering environmental spatial information provided by nonvisual modalities may contribute to a proper spatial encoding. It is concluded that, although it cannot be asserted that total lack of visual experience incurs no cost, our findings are further evidence that visual experience is not a necessary condition for the development of spatial inferential complex representations.     

Orthographic facilitation in oral vocabulary acquisition

An experiment investigated whether exposure to orthography facilitates oral vocabulary learning. A total of 58 typically developing children aged 8–9 years were taught 12 nonwords. Children were trained to associate novel phonological forms with pictures of novel objects. Pictures were used as referents to represent novel word meanings. For half of the nonwords children were additionally exposed to orthography, although they were not alerted to its presence, nor were they instructed to use it. After this training phase a nonword–picture matching posttest was used to assess learning of nonword meaning, and a spelling posttest was used to assess learning of nonword orthography. Children showed robust learning for novel spelling patterns after incidental exposure to orthography. Further, we observed stronger learning for nonword–referent pairings trained with orthography. The degree of orthographic facilitation observed in posttests was related to children's reading levels, with more advanced readers showing more benefit from the presence of orthography.     

Learning To Read Words

The ease with which we process the written word belies its complexities and makes it easy to forget that it is a highly skilled behaviour and one that takes time to master. In this paper, I argue that our ability to read words has its roots in our capacity for language. Good progress has been made towards understanding how children discover the systematic relationship between speech sounds and the letters used to represents those sounds, very early in reading development. However, we understand much less about how beginning readers become skilled readers. To understand this, I argue that it is important to view the visual word recognition system within the context of a broader language system, one that incorporates a rich network of semantic and episodic knowledge.     

How preview space/time translates into preview cost/benefit for fixation durations during reading

Eye-movement control during reading depends on foveal and parafoveal information. If the parafoveal preview of the next word is suppressed, reading is less efficient. A linear mixed model (LMM) reanalysis of McDonald (2006) confirmed his observation that preview benefit may be limited to parafoveal words that have been selected as the saccade target. Going beyond the original analyses, in the same LMM, we examined how the preview effect (i.e., the difference in single-fixation duration, SFD, between random-letter and identical preview) depends on the gaze duration on the pretarget word and on the amplitude of the saccade moving the eye onto the target word. There were two key results: (a) The shorter the saccade amplitude (i.e., the larger preview space), the shorter a subsequent SFD with an identical preview; this association was not observed with a random-letter preview. (b) However, the longer the gaze duration on the pretarget word, the longer the subsequent SFD on the target, with the difference between random-letter string and identical previews increasing with preview time. A third pattern—increasing cost of a random-letter string in the parafovea associated with shorter saccade amplitudes—was observed for target gaze durations. Thus, LMMs revealed that preview effects, which are typically summarized under “preview benefit”, are a complex mixture of preview cost and preview benefit and vary with preview space and preview time. The consequence for reading is that parafoveal preview may not only facilitate, but also interfere with lexical access.     

Working memory demands of exact and approximate addition

We compared the working memory requirements of two forms of mental addition: exact calculation (e.g., 63 + 49 = 112) and approximation (e.g., 63 + 49 is about 110). In two experiments, participants solved two-digit addition problems (e.g., 63 + 49) alone and in combination with a working memory task (i.e., remembering four consonants). In Experiment 1, participants chose an answer from two alternatives (e.g., exact: 112 vs. 122; approximate: 110 vs. 140). In Experiment 2, participants responded verbally with exact or approximate answers. In both experiments, the working memory load impaired exact and approximate addition performance, but exact addition was affected more. Load also impaired performance on problems with a carry operation in the units (e.g., 28 + 59 or 76 + 57) more than on problems without a unit carry (e.g., 24 + 53 or 76 + 52). These results identify the carry operation as the source of the working memory demands in multidigit addition.     

The Prevention of Reading Difficulties

The purpose of this article is to provide practical advice about methods to prevent reading failure that is grounded in the new knowledge we have acquired about reading and learning to read over the past 2 decades. Recent research on reading is used to establish a set of facts about reading and reading growth that is relevant to establishing instructional objectives and methods for the prevention of reading difficulties. Within the context of our current understanding of the reasons many children find it difficult to learn to read, the article also identifies the instructional conditions that need to be in place to prevent the development of reading difficulties in all but a very small proportion of children. The article concludes with a discussion of issues and procedures for the early identification of children who are likely to experience difficulties learning to read.     

Difference Scores in the Identification of Children with Learning Disabilities It's Time to Use a Different Method

In this article, we identify ten reasons why discrepancy scores (based on differences between IQ and reading achievement scores) provide an inadequate means for identifying children with reading disabilities. We recommend instead that children be identified simply on the basis of problems in reading skills, regardless of their IQs.