The utilization of intraword structure in poor readers: Experimental evidence and a training program

Summary The paper is concerned with the utilization of linguistic structure in reading-disabled children. Discussing models of word recognition, it is argued that the lexical approach need not necessarily imply holistic processing; intervening stages related to the utilization of intraword structure are also compatible with the basic assumptions of the lexical model. Two experiments using pseudowords as stimuli are reported, showing that poor readers from third grade are inferior to good readers in the utilization of intraword redundancy (Experiment 1) and that poor readers' performance with redundant stimuli can be increased when the stimuli are grouped into syllables (Experiment 2). A reading intervention program is then presented, in which the children are taught how to segment words into syllables. Fifteen poor readers from the third grade were trained for 12 sessions. The success of the program was tested in an oral reading test and in a laboratory experiment investigating changes in the utilization of intraword redundancy after training.