•Reading speed has been overestimated.•For English silent reading it is 238 words per minute.•For reading aloud it is 183 words per minute.•There is no evidence for reading gears except for reading ...versus text scanning.
Based on the analysis of 190 studies (18,573 participants), we estimate that the average silent reading rate for adults in English is 238 words per minute (wpm) for non-fiction and 260 wpm for fiction. The difference can be predicted by taking into account the length of the words, with longer words in non-fiction than in fiction. The estimates are lower than the numbers often cited in scientific and popular writings. The reasons for the overestimates are reviewed. The average oral reading rate (based on 77 studies and 5965 participants) is 183 wpm. Reading rates are lower for children, old adults, and readers with English as second language. The reading rates are in line with maximum listening speed and do not require the assumption of reading-specific language processing. Within each group/task there are reliable individual differences, which are not yet fully understood. For silent reading of English non-fiction most adults fall in the range of 175–300 wpm; for fiction the range is 200–320 wpm. Reading rates in other languages can be predicted reasonably well by taking into account the number of words these languages require to convey the same message as in English.
Based on a wealth of compelling arguments,Silent Reading and the Birth of the Narratoris an important addition to literary studies, eighteenth-century history, and book and print culture.
Skilled reading involves processing the upcoming word in parafoveal vision before it is fixated, leading to shorter fixations on that word. This phenomenon, parafoveal preview benefit, is a key ...component of theoretical models of reading; it is measured using the invisible boundary paradigm, in which reading times on a target word are compared for instances when preview is accurate and when the target word is masked while in the parafovea. However, parafoveal masks have been shown to induce unintentional processing costs, thereby inflating measures of preview benefit. The degraded mask has been explored as a potential solution to this problem, leading to mixed results. While previous work has analyzed the preview effect by comparing mean reading times on the target word, the present study provides a more comprehensive analysis by examining the distribution of the preview effect across target word fixation times for unrelated and degraded masks. Participants read sentences containing target words whose preview was either identical, unrelated, or degraded, and their eye movements were recorded. Analyses revealed that although there were no mean differences between reading times for the unrelated and degraded conditions, the pattern of the effects varied as a function of target word fixation times. Unrelated masks resulted in positively sloped generally linear delta plots, while degraded masks resulted in relatively flat delta plots for fixations longer than 200 ms. These differences suggest that different cognitive mechanisms are involved in the processing of the two mask types. Implications for understanding and measuring preview benefit are discussed.
This exploratory study was designed to evaluate the interplay of students’ rate and comprehension in independent silent reading of accessible text, within the frameworks of the Simple View of Reading ...and the RAND Reading Study Group. In the first phase, 61 sixth graders were given a reading test (GRADE), a motivation questionnaire, and an on-screen measure of comprehension-based silent reading rate (SRF-O, adapted from aimswebPlus SRF) with on-grade and below-grade text. Two-thirds of students had perfect or near-perfect SRF-O comprehension, but the other one-third had moderate to poor comprehension. These weaker SRF-O comprehenders had relatively low GRADE scores, but others with comparable GRADE scores comprehended well on SRF-O. The poorest SRF-O comprehenders read with increasing rate and decreasing comprehension across the SRF-O texts. In the second phase, the 21 students with weaker SRF-O comprehension took an oral reading fluency (ORF) test and a paper form of the silent reading rate measure (SRF-P) in a one-on-one setting. All students comprehended well on SRF-P and their SRF-P rates correlated highly with GRADE and ORF. Results support the view that poor comprehension in independent silent reading of accessible text may be due to factors other than reading ability (such as assessment context) and that, when students read with comprehension, their rate is a good indicator of their reading ability.
Audiobooks allow language learners to read and listen to the same text simultaneously; yet the effects of this bimodal input (written and spoken) on learners’ comprehension have been inconsistent, ...suggesting that the conditions under which audiobooks can help comprehension are not well understood. As such, I explored silent reading speed and text complexity as two potential variables that moderate reading‐while‐listening (RWL) comprehension. In a within‐participant design, 46 English learners in an American university read, listened to, and simultaneously read and listened to two complexity versions of a fictional text. Mixed‐effects regression modeling revealed that participants comprehended better in the RWL conditions than in the listening‐only conditions, echoing findings from the captions literature. This effect was moderated by neither silent reading speed nor text complexity. There were also no main effects between RWL and reading‐only conditions, indicating limitations in the use of audiobooks in language classrooms to promote written text comprehension.
There has been considerable variability within the literature concerning the extent to which deaf/hard of hearing individuals are able to process phonological codes during reading. Two experiments ...are reported in which participants’ eye movements were recorded as they read sentences containing correctly spelled words (e.g., church), pseudohomophones (e.g., cherch), and spelling controls (e.g., charch). We examined both foveal processing and parafoveal pre‐processing of phonology for three participant groups—teenagers with permanent childhood hearing loss (PCHL), chronological age‐matched controls, and reading age‐matched controls. The teenagers with PCHL showed a pseudohomophone advantage from both directly fixated words and parafoveal preview, similar to their hearing peers. These data provide strong evidence for phonological recoding during silent reading in teenagers with PCHL.
We used eye movement recordings to examine phonological processing during reading in deaf teenagers compared to reading age‐matched and chronological age‐matched control groups. These data provide strong evidence for phonological recoding during reading in deaf teenagers, despite their broader reading difficulties
Experiences of silent reading Barbero, Carola; Calzavarini, Fabrizio
Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences,
03/2024
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Abstract In The Performance of Reading , Peter Kivy introduces, on a purely phenomenological basis, an interesting and potentially fruitful analogy between the experience of silently reading literary ...texts and the experience of silently reading musical scores. In Kivy’s view, both mental experiences involve a critical element of auditory mental imagery, consisting in having a performance “in the head” or the mind’s ear. This analogy might have significant implications for the ontological status of literary works, as well as for the theoretical relations between music and language. Nevertheless, Kivy’s hypothesis has never been investigated and discussed in its empirical merits. In the present paper, we shall claim that neuroscience data support, at least in part, Kivy’s phenomenological observations about the relation between reading musical scores and reading texts. Despite being functionally and anatomically dissociated at the cognitive level, the two reading experiences both involve an auditory simulation of the content, which seems to be functionally critical for a deep and rich experience of literary texts and musical scores.
The connections between music and language are still to be clarified in educational terms; despite the great deal of literature on the common mechanisms underlying their working in learning, memory, ...and some other related factors, there is not robust research on their combined potential. Educational bilingualism and musical instruction have been shown to facilitate reading in a foreign language. Our study intends to throw light on their potential for reading in a second language and the relationship they keep to self-efficacy, a key factor in such a complex realm as learning a foreign language. The silent reading of 252 Spanish secondary school students was examined to show if bilingual instruction, music training, and self-efficacy influenced second language silent reading fluency (L2 SRF). Our ANOVA analysis shows bilingual instruction having the strongest influence of the three groups analysed, followed by the music training and the standard group. Self-efficacy was also included in the MANOVA model as a covariate and was shown to have an influence on L2 SRF. The study also revealed a significant influence of bilingual and musical instruction on self-efficacy, which may partially account for their effect on L2 SRF.
Rapid automatized naming (RAN) powerfully predicts word-level reading fluency in the first 2 years of school as well as further reading development. Here, we analyze various RAN stimuli (objects and ...digits) and oral/silent word reading (OWR/SWR) modalities to find feasible measures for predicting early reading development. The RAN performances of 127 children starting first grade were assessed. The children’s oral and silent word reading skills were then reassessed in the second grade. Linear regression models and relative weight analysis were used to compare reading and screening modalities and further precursors of reading such as phonological awareness and nonverbal IQ were controlled. Scores from the first grade RAN assessment did not differentially predict second grade OWR versus SWR levels. RAN digits predicted word reading development more strongly than RAN objects, which contributed uniquely when predictions used only RAN variables. However, when different precursors of reading were controlled, only RAN digits helped to predict early reading performance.
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