Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy.
01 Jan 1986-Reading Research Quarterly (International Reading Association)-Vol. 21, Iss: 4, pp 360-407
TL;DR: A framework for conceptualizing the development of individual differences in reading ability is presented in this paper that synthesizes a great deal of the research literature and places special emphasis on reading ability.
Abstract: A framework for conceptualizing the development of individual differences in reading ability is presented that synthesizes a great deal of the research literature. The framework places special emph...
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TL;DR: A parallel distributed processing model of visual word recognition and pronunciation is described, which consists of sets of orthographic and phonological units and an interlevel of hidden units and which early in the learning phase corresponds to that of children acquiring word recognition skills.
Abstract: A parallel distributed processing model of visual word recognition and pronunciation is described. The model consists of sets of orthographic and phonological units and an interlevel of hidden units. Weights on connections between units were modified during a training phase using the back-propagation learning algorithm. The model simulates many aspects of human performance, including (a) differences between words in terms of processing difficulty, (b) pronunciation of novel items, (c) differences between readers in terms of word recognition skill, (d) transitions from beginning to skilled reading, and (e) differences in performance on lexical decision and naming tasks. The model's behavior early in the learning phase corresponds to that of children acquiring word recognition skills. Training with a smaller number of hidden units produces output characteristic of many dyslexic readers. Naming is simulated without pronunciation rules, and lexical decisions are simulated without accessing word-level representations. The performance of the model is largely determined by three factors: the nature of the input, a significant fragment of written English; the learning rule, which encodes the implicit structure of the orthography in the weights on connections; and the architecture of the system, which influences the scope of what can be learned.
3,642 citations
TL;DR: It is proposed that emergent literacy consists of at least two distinct domains: inside-out skills and outside-in skills, which appear to be influential at different points in time during reading acquisition.
Abstract: Emergent literacy consists of the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that are developmental precursors to reading and writing. This article offers a preliminary typology of children's emergent literacy skills, a review of the evidence that relates emergent literacy to reading, and a review of the evidence for linkage between children's emergent literacy environments and the development of emergent literacy skills. We propose that emergent literacy consists of at least two distinct domains: inside-out skills (e.g., phonological awareness, letter knowledge) and outside-in skills (e.g., language, conceptual knowledge). These different domains are not the product of the same experiences and appear to be influential at different points in time during reading acquisition. Whereas outside-in skills are associated with those aspects of children's literacy environments typically measured, little is known about the origins of inside-out skills. Evidence from interventions to enhance emergent literacy suggests that relatively intensive and multifaceted interventions are needed to improve reading achievement maximally. A number of successful preschool interventions for outside-in skills exist, and computer-based tasks designed to teach children inside-out skills seem promising. Future research directions include more sophisticated multidimensional examination of emergent literacy skills and environments, better integration with reading research, and longer-term evaluation of preschool interventions. Policy implications for emergent literacy intervention and reading education are discussed.
2,383 citations
TL;DR: Evidence is presented in support of the idea that many poor readers are impaired because of inadequate instruction or other experiential factors, and Hypothesized deficits in general learning abilities and low-level sensory deficits have weak validity as causal factors in specific reading disability.
Abstract: We summarize some of the most important findings from research evaluating the hypothesized causes of specific reading disability (dyslexia) over the past four decades. After outlining components of reading ability, we discuss manifest causes of reading difficulties, in terms of deficiencies in component reading skills that might lead to such difficulties. The evidence suggests that inadequate facility in word identification due, in most cases, to more basic deficits in alphabetic coding is the basic cause of difficulties in learning to read. We next discuss hypothesized deficiencies in readingrelated cognitive abilities as underlying causes of deficiencies in component reading skills. The evidence in these areas suggests that, in most cases, phonological skills deficiencies associated with phonological coding deficits are the probable causes of the disorder rather than visual, semantic, or syntactic deficits, although reading difficulties in some children may be associated with general language deficits. Hypothesized deficits in general learning abilities (e.g., attention, association learning, cross-modal transfer etc.) and low-level sensory deficits have weak validity as causal factors in specific reading disability. These inferences are, by and large, supported by research evaluating the biological foundations of dyslexia. Finally, evidence is presented in support of the idea that many poor readers are impaired because of inadequate instruction or other experiential factors. This does not mean that biological factors are not relevant, because the brain and environment interact to produce the neural networks that support reading acquisition. We conclude with a discussion of the clinical implications of the research findings, focusing on the need for enhanced instruction.
2,275 citations
Cites background from "Matthew effects in reading: Some co..."
...As a consequence, intelligence in children having long-standing reading difficulties may be underestimated, particularly as they grow older (Ackerman, Weir, Holloway, & Dykman, 1995; Shaywitz et al., 1995; Stanovich, 1986; Vellutino et al., 1988, 1995b)....
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...…and normally achieving readers, except in contrasts involving older children characterized by long-standing reading disorder (e.g., Fletcher, Satz, & Scholes, 1981; Shankweiler et al., 1999; Snowling, 2000a; Stanovich, 1986; Vellutino, Scanlon, & Tanzman, 1988; Vellutino et al., 1995b, 1996)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, a simple view of reading was outlined that consisted of two components, decoding and linguistic comprehension, both held to be necessary for skilled reading, and three predictions drawn from the simple view were assessed in a longitudinal sample of English-Spanish bilingual children in first through fourth grade.
Abstract: A simple view of reading was outlined that consisted of two components, decoding and linguistic comprehension, both held to be necessary for skilled reading. Three predictions drawn from the simple view were assessed in a longitudinal sample of English-Spanish bilingual children in first through fourth grade. The results supported each prediction: (a) The linear combination of decoding and listening comprehension made substantial contributions toward explaining variation in reading comprehension, but the estimates were significantly improved by inclusion of the product of the two components; (b) the correlations between decoding and listening comprehension tended to become negative as samples were successively restricted to less skilled readers; and (c) the pattern of linear relationships between listening and reading comprehension for increasing levels of decoding skill revealed constant intercept values of zero and positive slope values increasing in magnitude. These results support the view that skill in reading can be simply characterized as the product of skill in decoding and linguistic comprehension. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the simple view for the practice of reading instruction, the definition of reading disability, and the notion of literacy.
2,274 citations
Cites background from "Matthew effects in reading: Some co..."
...Such would be expected given the reciprocal relationships (Stanovich 1986) between these skills (i....
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...While language is naturally acquired by the normal child through exposure in the context of human interaction, the acquisition of decoding is not, formal instruction generally being required (Calfee and Drum 1986; Gough and Hillinger 1980; Stanovich 1986)....
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TL;DR: This paper elaborates the self-teaching hypothesis, reviews relevant evidence, and notes that current models of word recognition fail to address the quintessential problem of reading acquisition-independent generation of target pronunciations for novel orthographic strings.
2,139 citations
Cites background from "Matthew effects in reading: Some co..."
...…for developing an orthographic lexicon, that words are not normally learned in isolation but in coherent text, and textual constraints may play a significant role in resolving decoding ambiguity (Goswami, 1990; Nicholson, 1991; Nicholson & Hill, 1985; Pring & Snowling, 1986; Stanovich, 1980, 1986)....
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...This is analogous to the role of context effects in individual differences in word recognition (Stanovich, 1980, 1986)....
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...…make use of contextual information to supplement low-level decoding comes from the well-established finding of greater reliance on contextual information among D.L. Share / Cognition 55 (1995) 151-218 163 readers with relatively weak word recognition skill (Nicholson, 1991; Stanovich, 1980, 1986)....
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References
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TL;DR: The psychosocial conditions and mechanisms underlying the Matthew effect are examined and a correlation between the redundancy function of multiple discoveries and the focalizing function of eminent men of science is found—a function which is reinforced by the great value these men place upon finding basic problems and by their self-assurance.
Abstract: This account of the Matthew effect is another small exercise in the psychosociological analysis of the workings of science as a social institution. The initial problem is transformed by a shift in theoretical perspective. As originally identified, the Matthew effect was construed in terms of enhancement of the position of already eminent scientists who are given disproportionate credit in cases of collaboration or of independent multiple discoveries. Its significance was thus confined to its implications for the reward system of science. By shifting the angle of vision, we note other possible kinds of consequences, this time for the communication system of science. The Matthew effect may serve to heighten the visibility of contributions to science by scientists of acknowledged standing and to reduce the visibility of contributions by authors who are less well known. We examine the psychosocial conditions and mechanisms underlying this effect and find a correlation between the redundancy function of multiple discoveries and the focalizing function of eminent men of science—a function which is reinforced by the great value these men place upon finding basic problems and by their self-assurance. This self-assurance, which is partly inherent, partly the result of experiences and associations in creative scientific environments, and partly a result of later social validation of their position, encourages them to search out risky but important problems and to highlight the results of their inquiry. A macrosocial version of the Matthew principle is apparently involved in those processes of social selection that currently lead to the concentration of scientific resources and talent ( 50 ).
5,689 citations
TL;DR: A model of information processing in reading is described in which visual information is transformed through a series of processing stages involving visual, phonological and episodic memory systems until it is finally comprehended in the semantic system.
3,825 citations
TL;DR: A model of reading comprehension that accounts for the allocation of eye fixations of college students reading scientific passages is presented, embedded in a theoretical framework capable of accommodating the flexibility of reading.
Abstract: This article presents a model of reading comprehension that accounts for the allocation of eye fixations of college students reading scientific passages. The model deals with processing at the level of words, clauses, and text units. Readers make longer pauses at points where processing loads are greater. Greater loads occur while readers are accessing infrequent words, integrating information from important clauses, and making inferences at the ends of sentences. The model accounts forthe gaze duration on each word of text as a function of the involvement of the various levels of processing. The model is embedded in a theoretical framework capable of accommodating the flexibility of reading.
3,444 citations
TL;DR: The causal role of phonological abilities in the acquisition of reading skills was explored in this article, where it was shown that phonological recoding in lexical access and phonetic receding in working memory are causally related to the ability to read.
Abstract: Three bodies of research that have developed in relative isolation center on each of three kinds of phonological processing: phonological awareness, awareness of the sound structure of language; phonological receding in lexical access, receding written symbols into a sound-based representational system to get from the written word to its lexical referent; and phonetic receding in working memory, recoding written symbols into a sound-based representational system to maintain them efficiently in working memory. In this review we integrate these bodies of research and address the interdependent issues of the nature of phonological abilities and their causal roles in the acquisition of reading skills. Phonological ability seems to be general across tasks that purport to measure the three kinds of phonological processing, and this generality apparently is independent of general cognitive ability. However, the generality of phonological ability is not complete, and there is an empirical basis for distinguishing phonological awareness and phonetic recoding in working memory. Our review supports a causal role for phonological awareness in learning to read, and suggests the possibility of similar causal roles for phonological recoding in lexical access and phonetic recoding in working memory. Most researchers have neglected the probable causal role of learning to read in the development of phonological skills. It is no longer enough to ask whether phonological skills play a causal role in the acquisition of reading skills. The question now is which aspects of phonological processing (e.g., awareness, recoding in lexical access, recoding in working memory) are causally related to which aspects of reading (e.g., word recognition, word analysis, sentence comprehension), at which point in their codevelopment, and what are the directions of these causal relations?
3,235 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a simple model of reading is proposed, which holds that reading equals the product of decoding and comprehension, and it is argued that there must be three types of reading disability, resulting from an inability to decode or inability to comprehend, or both.
Abstract: To clarify the role of decoding in reading and reading disability, a simple model of reading is proposed, which holds that reading equals the product of decoding and comprehension. It follows that there must be three types of reading disability, resulting from an inability to decode, an inability to comprehend, or both. It is argued that the first is dyslexia, the second hyperlexia, and the third common, or garden variety, reading disability.
3,112 citations