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Patterns of word and nonword processing in skilled and less-skilled readers

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Abstract

Sixty-eight third graders who were less-skilled readers performed more poorly than younger reading-level control children on tests of pseudoword reading and phonological sensitivity. These findings add to the growing consensus that the proximal cause of reading difficulties are spelling-sound coding problems that result from deficient underlying phonological processes and structures. Analyses of their word and pseudoword reading performance provided some suggestive evidence that less-skilled readers are less sensitive than their younger reading-level matched counterparts to all subword-size orthographic units, perhaps especially to grapheme-sized units.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Grand Valley State University, USA

    Alexandra Gottardo

  2. University of British Columbia, Canada

    Penny Chiappe & Linda S. Siegel

  3. University of Toronto, Canada

    Keith E. Stanovich

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  1. Alexandra Gottardo
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  2. Penny Chiappe
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Gottardo, A., Chiappe, P., Siegel, L.S. et al. Patterns of word and nonword processing in skilled and less-skilled readers. Reading and Writing 11, 465–487 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008034802088

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