The Role of Eye Movements in Learning to Read and Reading Disability

Abstract

The role of eye movements in learning to read and reading disability is reviewed. Characteristics of eye movements during reading for skilled, beginning, and disabled readers are discussed. It is argued that eye movements are not a cause of reading problems and that training children with reading problems to make smooth, efficient eye movements will not increase their reading ability. Rather, eye movement characteristics during reading reflect the difficulty that children have understanding written text. R EADING IS A complex skill to acquire. Although children learn to speak with relative ease, mastering reading generally requires a number of years of instruction and practice. There are many component processes involved in learning to read, one of which is gaining cognitive control of eye movements. Prior to reading, children do not have to focus their eyes and attention upon a relatively small region of the visual field. However, reading does require children to focus selectively on words in a left-to-right fashion as they read. In this paper, I will review the role of eye movements in learning to read and in reading disability. I should like to make clear at the outset that eye movements are a rather peripheral component of the reading process. In all but rather extreme cases (where, for example, neurological deficits in or damage to the saccadic eye movement system may make reading difficult), faulty eye movements do not cause reading problems (Rayner, 1985). However, eye movements are a good reflection of cognitive processes associated with the reading process. In that sense, it is important to understand eye movement behavior during reading. This paper first describes some of the basic facts about eye movements in skilled readers. This information is provided for comparison purposes and will be followed by a review of eye movement characteristics of beginning readers. Developmental changes in eye movement patterns and the perceptual span during reading will also be discussed, as will eye movement patterns in disabled readers. Eye Movements in Skilled ReadersSkilled readers move their eyes during reading on the average of every quarter of a second. The purpose of eye movements (which are called saccades) is to bring a given region of a line of text into foveal vision for detailed processing. A line of text can be divided into three regions with respect to the fixation point: foveal, parafoveal, and peripheral. The foveal region represents the area of central vision (approximately two degrees around the fixation point) in which clear detail can be obtained. In parafoveal vision (which extends five degrees in each direction from fixation), acuity is much poorer than in the fovea so that the probability of identifying a letter embedded in the middle of a three-letter string is at the chance level when the string is presented four or five degrees from fixation. The remainder of the line of text represents the peripheral area where acuity is much poorer than in the parafoveal region. For normal sized print held a...

Eye movements in reading and information processing: 20 years of research.

“…Table 4 shows summary data from Buswell (1922), S. E. Taylor (1965), Rayner (1985b), andMcConkie et al (1991) on different measures. Although eye movements were recorded in very different ways, the trends in the data are remarkably consistent.…”

“…If eye movements were a causative factor in reading disability, then the problem could easily be diagnosed with a simple eye movement test, and oculomotor training would result in improved reading. Although there have been some demonstrations that oculomotor training improves reading performance (see Solan, 1985), Tinker (1946Tinker ( , 1958 and Rayner (1985b) argued quite strongly that eye movements were generally not a cause of reading disability but were a reflection of other underlying problems.…”

Individual differences in the perceptual span during reading: Evidence from the moving window technique

“…For example, Griffin et al (1974) demonstrated that individuals with poor reading skills also showed poor oculomotor control in a non-reading eye movement task relative to more skilled readers, suggesting that there might be a tight link between oculomotor processing ability and reading ability. However, others have rejected the notion that non-reading oculomotor differences are an effective predictor of reading ability, noting that these findings have been difficult to replicate (see, e.g., Eskenazi & Diamond, 1983;Olson, Kliegl, & Davidson, 1983;Rayner, 1985;Stanly, Smith, & Howell, 1983). Given this inconsistency, it may be informative to examine whether individual differences in oculomotor processing speed are related to variability in the perceptual span during reading.…”

Spelling ability selectively predicts the magnitude of disruption in unspaced text reading.

“…Some researchers have argued that poor eye movements cause reading deficits, citing evidence that inefficient oculomotor control in poor and disabled readers extends to non-reading tasks (e.g., Kulp & Schmidt, 1996;Powers, Grisham, & Riles, 2008). However, such findings have proved difficult to replicate (e.g., Hutzler, Kronbichler, Jacobs, & Wimmer, 2006;Kirkby, Blythe, Drieghe, & Liversedge, 2011) and there is little evidence to suggest that training eye movements has any effect on reading ability (e.g., Rawstron, Burley, & Elder, 2005;Rayner, 1985;Stanovich, 1986). Nevertheless, this does not rule out the potential for a bi-directional relationship between lexical quality and eye movements during reading.…”