Week 9- reading

Question 1

what are the two levels of decoding in reading?

Answer 1

Lower level decoding

• Decoding and accessing lexical entries
• Word recognition is highly automatized in skilled readers, reducing demand on working memory

Higher level decoding

• Inferences, background knowledge, interpreting intentions, constructing global meaning
• Requires ‘space’ in the capacity of working memory

Question 2

Sub-lexical vs lexical routes (dual route?)

Answer 2

lexical route- ‘whole’ word processing

sub-lexical route - ‘sounding it out’ processing

Question 3

what is the Stroop test?

Answer 3

• ‘For each word, say the colour of the word, not what the word says, i.e. don’t read!’
• Named after John Ridley Stroop who first published the effect in English in 1935
• Shows decoding processes are automatized
• Processing of words is so automatic that you can’t turn it off without effort
• In early reading, decoding is laborious with heavy demands on attention
• Automatizing decoding frees up working memory (greater memory capacity)

Question 4

what are the two main kinds of eye movement?

Answer 4

Saccades (eye movement)

Fixations (eye rests upon a point)

Question 5

what are fixations?

Answer 5

Fixations

• Usually at the onset of the word
• There is a perceptual span of approx 15 characters
• Both strong and weak readers have fixations
• One of the differences is how many fixations we need

Question 6

what are regressions?

Answer 6

Regressions

• mark the difference in reading skill
• Right to left eye movement
• Fixations going back to material already read
• The more skilled the reader the less regressions
• In unskilled readers, to check accuracy of decoding
• In skilled readers, building higher level meaning

Question 7

what is a miscue?

Answer 7

Miscues - oral reading mistakes

All readers miscue/make mistakes when reading aloud ▫ The difference lies in the type of mistakes that are made

Question 8

what are the three systems of reading errors?

Answer 8

• The grapho/phonic system
• The semantic system
• The syntactic system

Question 9

what is the grapho/phonic system

Answer 9

Words that are exchanged are similar in spelling or sound
High similarity: waist/wrist, straightened/strengthened Partial similarity: present/patient , sedately/sadly • Little/no similarity: present/perched, usual/surface

Question 10

what is the semantic system?

Answer 10

Words that are exchanged have an acceptable degree of meaning similarity
- the content of the message isn’t affected
High semantic acceptability: violent/volcanic
Partial semantic acceptability: pigeons/penguins rewarded/regarded
Poor semantic acceptability: pigeons/pigments, present/parent

Question 11

what is the syntactic system?

Answer 11

Words that are exchanged are grammatical in the context of the sentence.
Grammatically appropriate miscues: (send him as a) present–patient
(he had huge) arms–hands
Grammatically inappropriate miscues: (was quite) devoid (of hair)–devote ▫
(both) sides (of his face) –besides

Question 12

discuss miscues in reading for skilled and unskilled readers.

Answer 12

In skilled readers, miscues tend to be more syntactically and semantically appropriate , they miscue, but the content doesn’t change. Mistakes are mostly of a grapho/phonic nature only
In unskilled readers, miscues are often syntactically and semantically inappropriate, they might not understand the message of the text, e.g. pigments– pigeons, grapho/phonic AND syntactic and semantic mistakes

Question 13

what did Gough & Wren find about reading time?

Answer 13

They found reading times were greater on lines containing errors than error-free lines. ▫ They claim that even if an error isn’t reported, it slows down reading, making meaning construction more difficult.