Children's reading processes revealed by pronunciation latencies and errors

Abstract

Conducted an experiment with 30 8-yr-olds to discover under what circumstances, if any, children use whole words, syllables, letter clusters, or letters as units during reading. Using I. Firth's (1972) list of familiar words and syllables, 3 classes of stimulus words were constructed: familiar words, pseudowords consisting of familiar syllables, and pseudowords consisting of unfamiliar syllables. The number of syllables, letter clusters, and letters in these words was systematically varied. Familiar words were found to be easier to process than pseudowords; pseudowords consisting of familiar syllables were easier to process than those consisting of unfamiliar syllables. Results indicate that..