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Chapter 1. The Oxford Handbook of Reading: Setting the StageThis chapter serves as an introduction and outline for the remainder of the handbook. After first considering the importance of writing and
reading in society, an overview of the history of
reading research is provided. The chapter discusses the impact of the cognitive revolution, which began in
the 1950s, on both basic
reading research and research on the teaching of reading. The conclusion of the chapter summarizes the five sections of the handbook: Introduction, Word Identification, Reading Sentences and Texts, Reading and Spelling Development, and Reading Instruction. Previews are provided of the chapters in each of the sections, and the general themes and issues in the chapter are discussed.
Chapter 2. Writing Systems: Their Properties and Implications for ReadingAn understanding of the nature of writing is an important foundation for studies of how people read and how they learn to read. This chapter discusses the characteristics of modern writing systems with a view toward providing that foundation. It considers both the appearance of writing systems and how they function. All writing represents the
words of a language according to a set of rules. However, important properties of a language often go unrepresented in writing. Change and variation in the spoken language result in complex links to speech. Redundancies in language and writing mean that readers can often get by without taking in all of the visual
information. These redundancies also mean that readers must often supplement the
visual information that they do take in with knowledge about the language and about the world.
Chapter 3. Visual Word RecognitionVisual word recognition is an integral aspect of
reading. Although readers are able to recognize visually presented
words with apparent ease, the processes that map orthography onto phonology and semantics are far from straightforward. The present chapter discusses the cognitive processes that skilled readers use in order to recognize and pronounce individual
words. After a historical overview of the broad theoretical developments in this rich field, the chapter provides a description of methods and a selective review of the empirical literature, with an emphasis on how the recognition of an isolated
word is modulated by its lexical- and semantic-level properties and by its context. The final section of the chapter briefly considers some recent approaches and analytic tools in
visual word recognition research, including megastudy, analysis of response time distributions, and the important role of individual differences.
Chapter 4. The Work of the Eyes During Reading
This chapter discusses the movements of the eyes during
reading: how they support and reveal the
reading process. The chapter starts by describing basic facts about eye movements. It then describes some factors that account for variability in eye movement behaviors and then discusses some important methodological paradigms (namely gaze-contingent display change paradigms) that have contributed to our knowledge about eye movements and cognitive processing in
reading. In particular, these paradigms have been used to study what types of
information readers obtain from a
word before they look directly at it. The chapter reviews what has been learned from experiments using these paradigms. It also discusses the issue of eye movement control in
reading (i.e., what determines where the eyes move and how long they linger on a particular
word) and describes several studies demonstrating that eye movement control in
reading is determined directly by ongoing cognitive process.
Chapter 5. Visual Word Recognition in the Bayesian Reader FrameworkVisual word recognition is traditionally viewed as a process of activating a lexical representation stored in long-term
memory. Although this activation framework has been valuable in guiding research on visual
word recognition and remains the dominant force, an alternative framework has emerged in the last decade. The Bayesian Reader framework, proposed by Norris (2006, 2009; Norris & Kinoshita, 2012a), regards the decision processes involved in a task as integral to explaining
visual word recognition, and its central tenet is that human readers approximate optimal Bayesian decision-makers operating on noisy perceptual input. This chapter focuses on two issues fundamental to
visual word recognition—
the role of
word frequency and the representation of letter order—and describes how the Bayesian Reader framework provides a principled account of the recent findings related to these issues that are challenging to the activation framework.
Chapter 6. Neighborhood Effects in Visual Word Recognition and ReadingThis chapter discusses research on how
words that are orthographically (or phonologically) similar to a printed word influence the speed and accuracy of its encoding. The relevant set of words (the word’s neighbors) was previously defined to be those lexical units differing from the target stimulus by a single letter in a given position. Recent evidence has revealed that a better definition of a word’s neighborhood includes lexical units of different length and lexical units created by transpositions. The study of a word’s neighborhood has revealed that that the activation of neighbors may interfere with the processing of the target
words in word-identification tasks and during sentence
reading, supporting the basic claims of interactive activation models. Some challenges to the current definitions of the sets of
word neighborhoods are also examined, in particular the need to include differences between how consonants and vowels are encoded during
word processing.
Chapter 7. Cross-Linguistic Perspectives on Letter-Order Processing: Empirical Findings and Theoretical ConsiderationsThe processing of letter order has profound implications for understanding how
visually presented words are processed and how they are recognized, given the lexical architecture that characterizes a given language. Research conducted in different writing systems suggests that letter-position effects, such as transposed-letter priming, are not universal. The cognitive system may perform very different types of processing on a sequence of letters depending on factors that are unrelated to peripheral orthographic characteristics but related to the deep structural properties of the printed stimuli. Assuming that identical neurobiological constraints govern
reading performance in any language, these findings suggest that neurobiological constraints interact with the idiosyncratic statistical properties of a given writing system to determine the preciseness or fuzziness of letter-position coding. This chapter reviews the evidence for this interaction and discusses the implications for theories of
reading and for modeling visual
word recognition.
Chapter 8. The Nature of Lexical Representation in Visual Word RecognitionThis chapter explores how
information about words is represented for the purposes of recognizing those
words when reading. A description is first given of the various architectures that have been proposed to frame our understanding of lexical processing, with an emphasis on the way they portray lexical representation. The importance of morphological structure to the nature of lexical representation is highlighted, and attention is directed to specific models that attempt to capture that structure. The model that forms the major focus of the chapter, the AUSTRAL model, is one where identification of a letter string is based on
information associated with an abstract level that mediates between form and function; namely, a lemma level. The incorporation of a lemma level into the lexical processing system provides a locus for morphological structure. It captures a level of lexical representation that not only underlies both
visual and spoken word recognition but also is compatible with models of
word production.
Chapter 9. Are Polymorphemic Words Processed Differently From Other Words During Reading?
Across a variety of languages, many
words comprise more than one meaning unit, or morpheme. In the present chapter,
reading studies employing readers’ eye movement registration are reviewed that examine how such polymorphemic words are identified. The reviewed studies have examined how compound words, derived words, and inflected
words are identified. Studies are also reviewed that have investigated whether the meanings of polymorphemic words are constructed out of the meanings of their components. More generally, it is concluded that polymorphemic words are identified during
reading both using whole-word representations available in the mental lexicon (the holistic route) and accessing the word identity via the component meanings (the decomposition route). Moreover,
word length plays a significant role in modulating the relative dominance of the two access routes, with the decomposition route being more dominant for long polymorphemic
words.
Chapter 10. Individual Differences Among Skilled Readers: The Role of Lexical QualityTheories of
visual word recognition and
reading have been based on averaged data from relatively small samples of skilled readers, reflecting an implicit assumption that all skilled readers read in the same way. This chapter reviews evidence of systematic individual differences in the early stages of lexical retrieval among samples of above-average readers that challenges this assumption. Individual differences in patterns of masked priming and parafoveal processing during sentence
reading provide evidence of variability in the precision and coherence of lexical knowledge that are consistent with Perfetti’s (2007) construct of lexical quality. This evidence is compatible with neuroimaging evidence that literacy drives the development of specialized neural systems for processing written
words. Understanding these dimensions of individual differences among expert readers has important implications for future refinements of theories of
visual word recognition and
reading.
Chapter 11. What Does Acquired Dyslexia Tell Us About Reading in the Mind and Brain?Reading is a fundamental cognitive skill that is often disrupted as a consequence of
brain damage. The study of neurological patients with acquired reading disorders has proven pivotal in development of theoretical accounts of normal reading. This work initially involved a focus on cases of dissociation between reading and other cognitive functions using single-case methodology. This evidence was influential in the formation of dual-route models of
reading aloud, which employ localist representations. More recent work has used simultaneous consideration of multiple cases to reveal associations between
reading and other cognitive functions. This evidence has been captured by connectionist triangle models of reading aloud, which rely on learned distributed representations. Neuroimaging of patients with acquired
dyslexia has provided insights into the mechanisms of dysfunction and the neural basis of normal reading. Consideration of neuropsychological patient data has highlighted the role of more basic perceptual and cognitive processes in skilled
reading.
Chapter 12. Literacy and Literacy Development in Bilinguals
The first part of the chapter reviews the literature on
reading in adult bilinguals, and the second part reviews the literature on reading development. The focus of the review is on how knowledge of one language influences
reading in the other language. In the literature on adult bilinguals, most research on this issue has been on word recognition, with fewer studies on sentence processing and fewer still on text reading. A model of bilingual
word recognition is discussed. In the literature on child bilinguals, the focus has been on predictors of
reading development in the second language. Only a few studies have investigated how bilingual children represent and process their two languages. Several theoretical proposals regarding bilingual language development are discussed.
Chapter 13. The Role of Sound in Silent ReadingThis chapter discusses whether sound is involved in the process of skilled (and apparently silent)
reading of
words and texts, and, if so, how. The term “phonological coding” encompasses a broad variety of phenomena, including inner speech and subvocalization. In the research on
single-word encoding, the focus has largely been on the level of phonemic coding, and the controversies have largely been about whether readers do this encoding with something like a rule-governed process or by
learning correlations between visual and auditory patterns. The chapter also reviews the large literature that examines phonological coding in
reading sentences and text using eye-movement methodology, including display change techniques. Other aspects of phonological coding discussed include its role to mark stress and its role in short-term
memory to facilitate the
reading of text. In addition, the chapter attempts to clarify the relationship between phonological coding and subvocalization.
Chapter 14. Reading Sentences: Syntactic Parsing and Semantic InterpretationUnderstanding what we read requires constructing a representation of each sentence’s syntactic structure and meaning. We are generally not consciously aware of the complex cognitive operations that underlie these processes. However, researchers have been able to learn a great deal about these operations by using methods such as eye tracking during
reading and recording of event-related potentials (ERPs). This chapter provides a broad overview of some of the main theoretical issues and empirical conclusions in this area, focusing on the following questions: How rapidly do we perform syntactic and semantic analysis in the course of
reading? Do we construct more than one syntactic analysis at a time? Does syntactic analysis always precede semantic interpretation? What role does
memory play in sentence processing? Finally, how do these sentence-level processes relate to the process of visual
word recognition itself?
Chapter 15. Models of Discourse ComprehensionAlthough models of discourse comprehension share many local coherence processing assumptions,
the primary distinction that separates these models is how readers gain access to inactive portions
of memory. Strategy-based models contain the assumption that readers actively search the
long-term memory representation of the text for
information relevant to the contents of
working memory. In contrast, in memory-based models, inactive
information that is related to the current input is activated via a passive resonance mechanism. Three topics within the research on
reading comprehension are reviewed in which strategy-based and memory-based models make differing predictions: necessary inferences, elaborative inferences, and the maintenance of global coherence. The chapter demonstrates that the empirical evidence overwhelmingly supports the
memory-based view, and offers new questions in an attempt to spur further research in reading comprehension.
Chapter 16. The Role of Words in Chinese ReadingThe Chinese writing system (and the underlying language) is different from European writing systems (and their underlying languages) in many ways. The most obvious difference is the nonalphabetic form
of the Chinese written language, although there are also differences in representations of lexicality, grammaticality, and phonological form. This chapter focuses on issues associated with the nonalphabetic nature of written Chinese and the fact that
words are not demarcated by spaces. Despite the surface differences in the orthographies between European languages and Chinese, there is considerable evidence that the word is a salient unit for Chinese readers. Properties of words (such as
word frequency) as well as character properties (such as character frequency) affect measures of
reading time and also affect where eye movements are targeted when passages of text are being read for meaning.
Chapter 17. How Is Information Integrated Across Fixations in Reading?This chapter explores the integration of
information acquired over multiple eye fixations during
reading by reviewing studies using the boundary paradigm. This integration process is examined for
information extracted from the end of the fixated
word, the word to the right of the fixated word, and the word two words to the right of the fixated word. The review shows that the amount of
information integrated across fixations varies for these three different types of previewed visual information. A large variety of
information extracted from a parafoveal
word is integrated across fixations, including orthography, phonology, and meaning. The chapter considers how such integration processes operate across several languages to allow understanding of how the way in which linguistic characteristics are orthographically coded in a particular language constrains parafoveal processing. It is concluded that readers preferentially integrate the
information that is most useful for the initiation of lexical access.
Chapter 18. Direct Lexical and Nonlexical Control of Fixation Duration in ReadingThis chapter focuses on the eye-mind link in
reading, or how perceptual and cognitive processes influence when and where the eyes move when people read. The chapter is organized into four parts. First, early theoretical accounts of the eye-mind link are reviewed, and key findings that are problematic for these accounts are discussed. Timing constraints on the eye-mind link that have been derived from behavioral and neurophysiological studies are examined, along with the implications of these constraints for current models of eye movement control in
reading. Next, evidence is provided for the direct control of eye movements during reading from a number of eye-movement experiments that have used distributional analyses and survival analyses to examine the time course over which perceptual and/or lexical variables affect fixation durations during
reading. Finally, the findings of the review are summarized, and possible directions for future research on this topic are presented.
Chapter 19. E-Z Reader: An Overview of the Model and Two Recent Applications
This chapter reviews what is known about eye movements during
reading and describes a computational model that simulates many of the perceptual, cognitive, and motor processes that guide readers’ eye movements—the E-Z Reader model. The chapter discusses how the model is being used to examine two fundamental questions related to reading: (1) What mediates the development of reading skill? (2) What is the time course of lexical processing? Simulations using the model suggest that very rapid lexical processing is necessary for skilled
reading and that this processing must be highly coordinated with other ongoing perceptual, cognitive, and motor processes. Thus a significant portion of the lexical processing of a
word is completed while it is still in the parafovea (prior to the
word being fixated). The implications of these conclusions are discussed, as are future directions in modeling the cognitive processes that control eye movements during
reading.
Chapter 20. How Children Learn to Read WordsA primary goal for beginners when they learn to read
words is to secure spellings of the words to both their pronunciations and meanings in
memory so that they can recognize the words immediately upon seeing them in or out of text. This requires orthographic mapping skill where knowledge of letter–sound units provides the connections for bonding spellings to pronunciations in memory. When readers apply decoding, analogizing, or prediction strategies to read unfamiliar spellings, this activates letter–sound connections and initiates bonding so that the words can be read from
memory. When readers’ mapping skill is activated as they read individual
words in different, semantically rich sentences, spelling–meaning connections accumulate in memory. Development is portrayed by four phases, each characterized by the type of connections used to secure spellings to pronunciations in
memory, ranging from visual/contextual, to partial alphabetic, to full graphophonemic, to consolidated syllabic and morphemic letter–sound spelling patterns.
Chapter 21. Children’s Spelling Development: Theories and Evidence
This chapter reviews empirical findings about children’s spelling development, with a focus on alphabetic writing systems. The chapter describes the extent to which research evidence accords with the predictions made by three prominent models of spelling development: phonological, constructivist, and statistical learning. Within this framework, models are evaluated for their ability both to describe children’s spelling across development and to explain developmental change by specifying underlying mechanisms. The review offers insight into the current state of our knowledge of children’s spelling development, gained through years of empirical research. This work has furthered our understanding of children’s developing sensitivity to spelling regularities based on the phonology, morphology, and orthography of words. Yet the review also highlights a clear need for further research in order to clarify points of disagreement between existing models; this pursuit will benefit from spelling research that covers a greater diversity of writing systems.
Chapter 22. Learning to Read and Spell Words in Different Writing SystemsThere is strong evidence that word
reading and spelling ability in English is founded on three core skills, namely knowledge of letters of the alphabet, awareness of phonemes in spoken
words, and rapid automatized naming (RAN) of visual stimuli. It is suggested here that these abilities represent cognitive constructs that constitute the triple foundation of literacy in all languages. The chapter reviews the research carried out in different writing systems to assess the extent to which this triple foundation provides a good language-general model of early literacy development. The evidence is considered in the context of potentially important moderating, language-specific influences of orthographic variables, especially symbol–sound mapping consistency. It is proposed that the triple foundation model, conceptualized as (1) knowledge of the functional symbol set of the orthography, (2) awareness of the speech units to which orthographic symbols map, and (3) efficient mappings between the representational systems of orthographic symbols and their related speech units, provides a universally valid description of the cognitive architecture underlying early literacy development.
Chapter 23. Children’s Reading Comprehension and Comprehension DifficultiesThis chapter considers the normal development of children’s
reading comprehension, as well as individual differences and specific difficulties related to children’s
reading comprehension. Most of the studies in this area have been carried out with children who are learning to read in an alphabetic orthography, and this chapter reflects that bias. The chapter outlines the development of various processes that are related to reading comprehension in the early school years. The chapter also considers the relationship between these processes and
reading comprehension ability. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the implications for research and practice during the early school years.
Chapter 24. Development of DyslexiaThis chapter explains the reciprocal relation between the biology and
psychology of
reading by reviewing what is known about how
dyslexia develops, beginning with etiology (genes and environment and their interplay) and moving across levels of analysis to reading itself. Current research supports the view that early changes in
brain development lead to reductions in white matter connectivity in the left
hemisphere, which in turn affect the development of cognitive processes necessary for
reading development.
Chapter 25. How Learning to Read Influences Language and CognitionAs illustrated in this handbook, a substantial body of work now exists that examines which factors
and functions affect
reading acquisition and reading proficiency and which
brain areas are involved. The converse relationship—namely, which functions and
brain areas are affected by literacy—has received far less attention, probably because reading acquisition lags speech and vision by several years and because the crucial comparison of illiterate adults with people who learned to read as adults is difficult to undertake. However, this chapter illustrates that
learning to read has profound influences on the processing of spoken language and beyond the domain of language, in particular on visual nonlinguistic perception. The chapter discusses research with literate adults in these areas, including the influence of spelling knowledge on speech perception. It also covers research with illiterate adults and on people who first learned to read as adults.
Chapter 26. Young Children’s Home Literacy ExperiencesThe present chapter focuses on parent–child interactions that foster early literacy and oral language. The first part of the chapter presents an empirically based model of the differential links between two types of home literacy activities and child outcomes. The second part of the chapter is a synthesis of quasi-experimental research testing the impact of parent–child interactions on child early literacy. The converging correlational and quasi-experimental evidence presented is in accord with the proposed Home Literacy Model (Sénéchal, 2006; Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002). In this model, informal literacy activities such as shared
reading are rich language experiences from which children can learn about oral language. Most important, formal literacy experiences, such as parent teaching, seem to be necessary if gains in early literacy are expected from the home environment.
Chapter 27. Primary Grade Reading Instruction in the United StatesThis chapter reviews recent US policy and research on literacy instruction in the primary grades, kindergarten through fifth grade. Four topics are discussed: policy and seminal reports, decoding and multitiered systems of instruction, comprehension, and individualized or differentiated instruction. The research review focuses on typically developing students, students who have or are at risk for
reading disabilities, and English language learners. Research indicates that multitiered systems of instruction show promise although they have focused primarily on decoding and not on comprehension. For comprehension, multicomponent strategies may be more effective than single-strategy interventions. However, mixed results—with various studies on teaching students how to comprehend what they are
reading showing positive, null, and negative effects—indicate that more research is needed. Individualizing the instruction provided to students based on assessment results appears to improve decoding and comprehension outcomes. Future directions for policy and research are also discussed.
Chapter 28. African American English and Its Link to Reading AchievementAfrican American English (AAE) is a major American dialect. Recent research has focused on student patterns of AAE feature usage and found important relationships between AAE and
reading achievement. This chapter provides background
information on the nature of dialects and then focuses on AAE, identifying the major features that characterize child discourse. Intrinsic student factors and extrinsic influences on feature production are discussed as well. An important influence on AAE feature production is style shifting: the changes a speaker makes to his or her speaking patterns in response to differences in the communication context. The chapter discusses recent research that shows an inverse relationship between AAE feature production and
reading achievement, and the mounting evidence that a student’s ability to style shift from AAE to Standard American English in literacy tasks is positively related to reading achievement. A final section of the chapter identifies needed directions for future research.
Chapter 29. Teachers’ Knowledge About Beginning Reading Development and InstructionThis chapter focuses on the body of disciplinary and pedagogical knowledge required to provide high- quality beginning
reading instruction to young children. The chapter examines quality literacy instruction from a historical perspective, reviews scientific evidence on the successful teaching of
reading, explores why teachers are not consistently teaching beginning reading in ways that are aligned with best practices, and provides recommendations for how the field can support teachers in developing the knowledge needed to improve student
reading outcomes. The goal is to provide research-based suggestions for strengthening both the content and delivery of teacher professional development in the area of literacy and to demonstrate that these suggestions have the power to affect child outcomes.
Chapter 30. Adolescent Literacy: Development and InstructionThe demands of literacy tasks change appreciably after students have mastered the basics of
reading words accurately and with reasonable automaticity. At about age 10, reading becomes a tool for acquiring
information, understanding a variety of points of view, critiquing positions, and reasoning. The results of international and US assessments show that many students who succeed at early reading tasks struggle with these new developmental challenges, focusing attention on the instructional needs of adolescent readers. Commonly used approaches to comprehension instruction in the postprimary grades, such as teaching
reading comprehension strategies, do not adequately respond to the multiple challenges adolescent readers face. One such challenge is the need to acquire discipline-specific ways of reading, writing, and thinking, often from teachers who are themselves insufficiently aware of how reading literature differs from
reading science or history. The chapter argues that appropriate attention in instruction to discipline-specific literacy practices, to maintaining an authentic purpose for assigned literacy tasks, and to the role of focused discussion as a central element in teaching comprehension would improve reading outcomes and would revolutionize current theories about the nature of
reading comprehension.
