Parallel and serial reading processes in children’s word and nonword reading.

Abstract

Fluent reading is characterized by rapid and accurate identification of words. It is commonly accepted that such identification relies on the availability of orthographic knowledge. However, whether this orthographic knowledge should be seen as an accumulation of word-specific knowledge in a lexicon acquired through decoding or as a well-developed associative network of sublexical units is still under debate. We studied this key issue in reading research by looking at the serial and/or parallel reading processes underlying word and nonword reading. Participants were 314 Dutch 2nd, 3rd, and 5th graders. The children were administered digit, word, and nonword naming tasks. We used latent class analyses to distinguish between readers who processed the letter strings serially or in parallel, based on the correlation patterns of word and nonword reading with serial and discrete digit naming. The 2 classes of readers were distinguished for both word and nonword reading. The validity of these classes was supported by differences in sensitivity to word and nonword length. Interestingly, the different classes seemed to reflect a developmental shift from reading all letter strings serially toward parallel processing of words, and later of nonwords. The results are not fully in line with current theories on the representation of orthographic knowledge. Implications in terms of models of the reading process are discussed.

Using Serial and Discrete Digit Naming to Unravel Word Reading Processes

“…In our study, high-frequency, short and highly familiar words were used, probably limiting the extent to which sequential processing was required for word recognition, even for less advanced readers. This might also explain previous findings in van den Boer and de Jong (2015) showing that serial naming was a better predictor of single word reading compared to discrete naming among Grade 2 readers (see Supplementary Table S4 ): Their use of words varying in length and frequency may have increased the demand for sequential within-word processing among the younger children they studied. Similarly, evidence from Greek (see Supplementary Table S4 ; Protopapas et al, 2018 ) showing that serial naming predicts discrete word reading among the younger Grades 1 and 3 readers might be due to the fact that two-syllable words were used in that study, presumably resulting in at least some sequential within-word processing requirements (see also Altani et al, 2017a , for related discussion).…”

“…86–89). Following de Jong (2011 ; van den Boer and de Jong, 2015 ; as clarified by de Jong, personal communication, August 2017), we fit a two-class mixture model to cluster participants into two unobserved latent classes reflecting the hypothesized two groups of readers, namely, readers with different patterns of correlations among naming and reading tasks, reflecting different word processing strategies. Because we were interested in modeling the performance levels and their interrelations among the four individual tasks, rather than their shared variance as captured by latent factors, the model included four dummy latent factors with variance fixed at one and freely estimated mean.…”

“…Notably, the binary theoretical distinction between a supposedly parallel lexical vs. a supposedly serial sublexical reading route has also been challenged by previous studies using serial and discrete naming to index word processes. Specifically, van den Boer and de Jong (2015) and van den Boer et al (2016) found that naming single digits predicts discrete reading of not only short words but also nonwords among advanced readers, suggesting that reading processes for familiar words and nonwords are similar, in sharp distinction to fundamental dual-route assumptions.…”

“…Evidence from Dutch ( de Jong, 2011 ; van den Boer and de Jong, 2015 ), a relatively transparent orthography, suggests that the pattern of relationships is in favor of a more serial decoding strategy in the early phases of reading development (Grades 1 and 2), in which stronger correlations between discrete word reading and serial naming were observed. In contrast, in later phases of reading development (Grades 4 and 5), or amongst groups of more advanced readers, discrete word reading is more strongly associated with discrete naming, reflecting sight-word reading.…”

“…Expanding on this rationale, van den Boer and de Jong (2015) proposed that readers can be divided into two groups (or classes), namely serial and parallel processors, based on the size of the relationship between discrete word reading and serial vs. discrete naming. In their study, they found that when clustering Grades 2, 3, and 5 readers using factor mixture analysis, two classes emerged, representing beginning and more advanced readers.…”