Word Recognition by Second Graders: The Unit of Perception and Interrelationships among Accuracy, Latency, and Comprehension

Abstract

Two issues were investigated: the first examined the relationships among accuracy and latency of word recognition and comprehension by non-fluent readers, and the second examined whether component letter or holistic processing was used in word recognition by these same readers. Speed and accuracy of word recognition were measured on individual words. Literal comprehension was measured for the same words presented in meaningful context. The unit of perception was measured by the relationship between latency of word recognition and word length. If students were using component processing, latency would increase with word length, but if holistic processing were used, there would be no increase in latency with length. Results of this study indicated that accuracy and latency were each significantly related to comprehension for both first- and second-grade words, with evidence for latency influencing comprehension scores to a greater extent on the first-grade words. With regard to the unit of perception, in general there was evidence of component letter processing for all subjects with the highly accurate readers showing a tendency towards more holistic processing.

A Longitudinal Study of the Development of Automatic Recognition Skills in First Graders

“…Interestingly, there was no difference between the two groups in their ability to name letters, indicating that the large differences in word naming were not due to an inability on the part of the less-skilled readers to deal with the visual components of words. The large differences in word naming accuracy and speed were, of course, consistent with much (Biemiller, 1977(Biemiller, -1978McCormick & Samuels, 1979;Perfetti & Hogaboam, 1975;Perfetti, Finger & Hogaboam, 1978;Shankweiler & Liberman, 1972;Stanovich, 1980). It should also be noted that ability differences in word naming speed were apparent even though all words that were not known to the subject or that produced unusually long reaction times were eliminated from the naming time analysis.…”

“…Nevertheless, from the standpoint of the individual difference predictions of automaticity theory, the lack of a statistically significant difference in interference between ability groups is troublesome. Whereas speed of word naming is strongly related to reading ability (e.g., Biemiller, 1977Biemiller, -1978McCormick & Samuels, 1979;Stanovich, 1980Stanovich, , 1981, the relationship between automaticity and reading ability appears to be rather weak. For example, correlational analyses were carried out on some additional data that was collected on the first graders during April, as part of another study.…”

“…Several studies have failed to find an increase in automatic processing after the second-or third-grade reading level has been reached (Golinkoff & Rosinski, 1976;Guttentag & Haith, 1978Pace & Golinkoff, 1976;Posnansky & Rayner, 1977;Rosinsky, Golinkoff & Kukish, 1975;West & Stanovich, 1978). In contrast, marked increases in word recognition speed occur as children progress beyond the second-grade level of reading ability (Biemiller, 1977(Biemiller, -1978McCormick & Samuels, 1979;Perfetti, Finger & Hogaboam, 1978;Perfetti & Hogaboam, 1975;Stanovich, I960;West & Stanovich, 1978). Thus, it is possible that by the end of the first grade the better readers in the present study had fully automatized the recognition of words and their further progress in reading was more dependent on the development of speed rather than automaticity.…”

Fluency Differences by Text Genre in Proficient and Struggling Secondary Students

“…To read and comprehend partitions the reading process along the simple view of reading (Hoover & Gough, 1990) that represents comprehension as the product of decoding plus linguistic comprehension. Reading texts proficiently suggests to us that necessary foundational fluency competencies must be in place that enables readers to focus their cognitive resources on creating meaning from the text (McCormick & Samuels, 1979;Perfetti & Hogaboam, 1975;Samuels & Farstrup, 2006). This suggests that there is a reciprocal relationship between fluency and comprehension while fluency has been repeatedly shown to be a necessary condition for effective comprehension (Paige, 2011a;Fuchs, Fuchs, Hosp, & Jenkins, 2001;Jenkins, Fuchs, Espin, van den Broek, & Deno, 2003a, 2003bKuhn & Stall, 2003;Pinnell, Pikulski, Wixon, Campbell, Gough, & Beatty, 1995;Schatschneider, Buck, Torgesen, Wagner, Hassler, Hecht et al, 2004;Stecker, Roser, & Martinez, 1998;Young, Bowers, & MacKinnon, 1996).…”

Literacy Acquisition in Indian Students: A Descriptive Study of Reading Achievement in One English Medium School

“…The ability to apply decoding principles has been found to be highly predictive of both reading fluency and comprehension (Paige, 2011;Torgesen, Wagner, Rashotte, Burgess, & Hecht, 1997). It has been long established that phonological awareness coupled with reading practice leads to automaticity at the word and phrase level which allows the reader to focus on text comprehension (LaBerge & Samuels, 1974;McCormick & Samuels, 1979;Perfetti & Hogaboam, 1975). While fluency with text is a necessary condition for full comprehension, it is not altogether sufficient for adequate reading comprehension (Rasinski, Reutzel, Chard, & Linan-Thompson, 2011).…”