Effects of association upon masking and reading latency.

Predicted the effects of association upon masking and reading latency from a suggestion that the neural substrates of pairs of associated words contain more common elements than do the substrates of unassociated pairs of words. Stimuli were presented by tachistoscope to 10, 25, 9, and 12 undergraduate Ss, respectively, in 4 experiments. Results are considered from a neuropsychological standpoint: they are consistent with multi-cell theories of neural representation, but they appear not to be consistent with single-cell models. (French summary) (21 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review, recitation, and memory monitoring.

Investigated memory monitoring during the learning of word lists in 110 undergraduates in 2 experiments. Both experiments used a procedure in which the list was presented twice prior to each recall with Ss predicting recall during either the 1st or 2nd presentation. Ss who predicted during the 2nd presentation had the opportunity to review the entire list prior to making their predictions. Results of both experiments suggest that successful monitoring to decide the items that are already encoded (e.g., assessment through covert recall) did not occur during presentation of material but was restricted to recall trials. Reviewing the list had no effect on prediction accuracy when the material was homogeneous (Exp I) but was effective with heterogeneous materials (Exp II). The data from Exp II also show modest learning-to-predict and learning-to-learn effects (i.e., improvement over lists) for Ss predicting recall on the 2nd presentation. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teacher interruption behaviors during primary-grade oral reading.

Examined the verbal behaviors of 20 teachers following oral-reading errors of 267 1st–2nd graders. The incidence and type of verbal interruption behaviors that occurred during classroom reading instruction were contrasted for high- and low-ability readers. Results indicate that teachers are more likely to interrupt poor readers who err when reading aloud than good readers. Further analyses suggest that the types of interruption behaviors of teachers also differ as a function of reading ability level. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accuracy of teacher judgments in predicting oral reading fluency.

The relationship between teachers' judgments versus actual performance on curriculum-based measures in reading was examined. A total of 30 regular education teachers were asked to predict the oral reading fluency score of students along with a rating scale of reading subskills. Correlations between teacher judgment measures and student performance found that teachers were accurate reporters of student performance levels in reading. However, some questions were raised whether teachers were accurate at predicting the actual level of student oral reading fluency when effect sizes were used to compare teacher judgment and actual student performance. Recommendations for continued research in understanding the parameters of the accuracy of teacher judgment are made. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multiple lexical codes in reading: Evidence from eye movements, naming time, and oral reading.

The role of semantic, orthographic, and phonological codes in word recognition and text integration in reading was investigated in 4 experiments. Participants read sentences containing words that had multiple semantic codes (e.g., calf), multiple semantic and orthographic codes (e.g., brake-break), or multiple semantic and phonological codes (e.g., tear). Converging evidence from fixation time, naming time, and oral reading indicated that phonological, semantic, and orthographic information about words are sources of early constraint in word processing. Evidence was also found that indicated that phonological codes play an important role in text integration in reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Facilitating text memory with additional processing opportunities in rapid sequential reading.

Previous research indicates that during conventional reading, readers pause at particular loci within a text, presumably for the purpose of higher level processing and integration. If such pausing is necessary for efficient text comprehension and memory, then providing readers with equivalent processing opportunities with strategically placed pauses in rapid sequential visual presentation (RSVP) text displays should facilitate comprehension and memory. Three experiments are reported in which various time parameters of RSVP displays are manipulated. The results indicate that memory for specific text is facilitated when additional processing time is provided. However, how and where the additional time is distributed within a text, over broad limits, is not important. We use a method of text memory assessment that is not typically used in RSVP research and that is more sensitive to text presentation manipulations than the commonly used multiple-choice questions. The fill-in-the-blank technique also provides evidence that memory representations for texts are structured as meaningful subsentence units. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Progress monitoring in oral reading fluency within the context of RTI.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 24(2) of School Psychology Quarterly (see record 2009-08555-001). The slopes reported in text were incorrect. The correct information is as follows: The average slope across the four measurement occasions for students who had a successful RTI on the familiar passage was 8.98 wc/min per week and on the novel passage was 2.06 wc/min per week. The average slope for students who had an unsuccessful RTI was 4.6 wc/min per week on the familiar passage and -1.5 wc/min per week on the novel passage. These values were correctly depicted in Figure 1.] Selecting appropriate measures to make decisions about child response to intervention is a key concern. The most commonly used assessment tool in response to intervention (RTI) models is curriculum-based measurement (CBM). However, an issue related to the use of CBM is the identification of measures that are of similar difficulty. To the degree that variation in performance across measurement occasions can be attributed to anything other than student learning, errors in judgment about student RTI may be made. The purpose of this study was to examine the accuracy and efficiency of using a single CBM passage for progress monitoring at key intervals during individual reading intervention compared to using several passages that had been individually equated. Results indicated that decisions made based on a standard passage did not differ from decisions made based on scores obtained on the individually equated passages but were much more cost efficient. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prosody of syntactically complex sentences in the oral reading of young children.

Prosodic, or expressive, reading is considered to be one of the essential features of the achievement of reading fluency. The purpose of this study was to determine (a) the degree to which the prosody of syntactically complex sentences varied as a function of reading speed and accuracy and (b) the role that reading prosody might play in mediating individual differences in comprehension. Spectrographic analysis of 80 third graders' and 29 adults' reading of a syntactically complex text was carried out. Oral reading skill was measured through standardized assessments. Pitch changes (changes in fundamental frequency) and pause duration were measured for sentence-final words of basic declarative sentences, basic declarative quotatives, wh questions, and yes-no questions; words preceding commas in complex adjectival phrases; and words preceding phrase-final commas. Children who had quick and accurate oral reading had shorter and more adultlike pause structures, larger pitch declinations at the end of basic declarative sentences, and larger pitch rises at the end of yes-no questions. Furthermore, children who showed larger basic declarative sentence declinations and larger pitch rises following yes-no questions tended to demonstrate greater reading comprehension skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Word frequency effects in oral reading are not merely age-of-acquisition effects in disguise.

Four experiments examined the effects of the rated age of acquisition (AoA) and word frequency on oral reading latencies and word pronunciation durations. In Experiment 1, both AoA and frequency had independent (and noninteracting) effects on naming latencies. Experiment 2 found no effect of either AoA or frequency on delayed naming, indicating that prepared articulation time was not a factor contributing to the naming latencies observed in Experiment 1. Experiment 3 reported 2 replications of the study by C. M. Morrison and A. W. Ellis (1995). Both replications found reliable effects of frequency and AoA, whereas Morrison and Ellis found an effect of AoA but no effect of frequency. Experiment 4 found a strong AoA effect on pronunciation durations, with a smaller and less reliable effect of frequency. It was concluded that frequency affects the visual recognition of words and that AoA affects the production of lexical phonology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of rapid naming ability and language analysis skills to kindergarten and first-grade reading achievement.

34 kindergartners and 34 1st graders completed a series of measures including the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities and the WRAT. Language analysis tasks (segmentation and rhyming) and rapid automatized naming tasks (objects, colors, and letters) were found to tap different components of linguistic processing in both kindergarten and 1st-grade Ss. In kindergarten, rapid naming of colors was significantly related to 5 of 6 reading measures, whereas rapid naming of objects, syllable segmentation, and rhyming were related to at least 3 of the 6. In the 1st grade, rapid naming of letters and phoneme segmentation were significantly related to all 3 measures of 1st-grade reading achievement. Ss who could analyze letter names (as indicated by speed on the letter naming task) were more likely to be among the better readers at the end of the 1st grade. (66 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading ability and text difficulty as influences on second graders' oral reading errors.

Assessed the influence of reading ability and difficulty of material on the types of oral reading errors made by 81 second-grade children. The results show that, overall, the proportion of graphically similar errors increased as material became more difficult, while the proportions of grammatically acceptable and semantically appropriate errors decreased. The interactions between reading ability and difficulty level were also significant, however, indicating that poor readers showed less change in all types of errors than good or normal readers. These results may be attributable to a greater flexibility in the reading strategies used by more skilled readers. Methodological implications of these findings for the reinterpretation of past research and for the design of future studies are discussed. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social factors and the psychobiology of depression: Relations between life stress and rapid eye movement sleep latency.

Examined psychosocial factors (i.e., life stress) and biological factors (i.e., REM sleep latency) that are hypothesized to be of complementary importance for defining depressive subtypes in a sample of 61 nonpsychotic, endogenous major depressives. Ss were evaluated on several diagnostic scales for life stress, on EEG sleep data, and on 2 symptom measures for depression. As predicted, persons with severe stress that occurred shortly before depression onset had essentially normal REM latency values; patients without such stress had reduced REM latency values. Both stress and REM latency were also associated with greater severity of self-reported depressive symptoms. Alternative explanations of these findings are discussed, with particular emphasis on different roles of preonset and postonset stressors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Forced-choice preferences and response latency.

24 males made 66 paired comparisons of 12 stimuli, indicating their preferences on a keyboard and basing their judgments on esthetic considerations. Results indicate a systematic relationship between overt expressions of preference and the time required to indicate this choice on the keyboard. The most preferred stimuli yielded the shortest latencies, while the least preferred stimuli yielded the longest latencies. The present procedure tended to yield a somewhat more linear relationship than did the previous studies employing different conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

International opportunities for advanced training and research in psychology: The La Napoule planning conference.

"The general purpose of the project is to gather and to disseminate information on advanced training and research opportunities in psychology in the various countries of the world." A 1st phase meeting was convened "in the South of France at the Chateau de la Napoule from July 23 to August 1, 1962." Problems of international exchange of scientists and students in psychology and the development of plans for collecting and distributing information on psychological activities in all countries of the world were discussed. Invitations were extended to psychologists from 24 nations. The conference was informal in nature; the meeting language was English. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modeling oral reading fluency development in Latino students: A longitudinal study across second and third grade.

This study examines growth in oral reading fluency across 2nd and 3rd grade for Latino students grouped in 3 English proficiency levels: students receiving English as a second language (ESL) services (n = 2,182), students exited from ESL services (n = 965), and students never designated as needing services (n = 1,857). An important focus was to learn whether, within these 3 groups, proficiency levels and growth were reliably related to special education status. Using hierarchical linear modeling, the authors compared proficiency levels and growth in oral reading fluency in English between and within groups and then to state reading benchmarks. Findings indicate that oral reading fluency scores reliably distinguished between students with learning disabilities and typically developing students within each group (effect sizes ranging from 0.96 to 1.51). The growth trajectory included a significant quadratic trend (generally slowing over time). These findings support the effectiveness of using oral reading fluency in English to screen and monitor reading progress under Response to Intervention models, but also suggest caution in interpreting oral reading fluency data as part of the process in identifying students with learning disabilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting reading comprehension in early elementary school: The independent contributions of oral language and decoding skills.

The authors examined the development of oral language and decoding skills from preschool to early elementary school and their relation to beginning reading comprehension using a cross-sequential design. Four- and 6-year-old children were tested on oral language and decoding skills and were retested 2 years later. In all age groups, oral language and decoding skills formed distinct clusters. The 2 clusters were related to each other in preschool, but this relation became weaker in kindergarten and 2nd grade. Structural equation modeling showed that both sets of skills in 2nd grade independently predicted a child’s reading comprehension. These findings confirm and extend the view that the 2 clusters of skills develop early in a child’s life and contribute to reading comprehension activities in early elementary school, with each cluster making a considerable, unique contribution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)