![]() ![]() The three aspects of automaticity (speed, autonomy, and resource use) are thought to develop concomitantly with one another, but how closely their development coincides is uncertain ( Logan, 1985 Paap & Ogden, 1981). This means that children who have efficient word-recognition skills should be able to read connected text fluently and better understand what they read. Thus, children move from relying on the slow letter-by-letter (or unit-by-unit) decoding to painlessly retrieving cued words from long-term memory ( Logan, 1997). For reading, as automaticity develops for skills like word recognition, attentional resources become available for comprehension. ![]() Thus, a child who is an automatic reader will be slowed in the naming a picture of an apple with the word doll written on it compared with naming a picture without the distracting print.įinally, automaticity allows cognitive resources to be used to benefit larger goals. Autonomy is indicated by the interference that the distracting print causes to the picture or color naming. In the Stroop task, the reader is typically asked to name a picture or color without reading distracting words that are embedded. ![]() Experimentally, the autonomous nature of automatic word reading has been measured through the use of the Stroop task ( Stroop, 1935) and its variants. Occasionally, as noted above, this can get in the way of our goals. However, the automatic nature of skilled word recognition is usually helpful because it orients our attention to the reading. Skilled readers find themselves reading the conflicting “crawl” at the bottom of a television news story, even when they try to pay attention to the main story ( Bergen, Grimes, & Potter, 2005). The automatic reader cannot help but process print, even when he or she may intend to avoid doing so. Practice strengthens connections between word and letter patterns in long-term memory (e.g., LaBerge & Samuels, 1974), unitizes these letter patterns in memory so that they can be processed as whole units ( Anderson, 1987), and proliferates the availability of instances of these word and letter unit representations in long-term memory with every encounter of them during reading ( Logan, 1997).Īnother characteristic of automatic skill is autonomy, or the ability to initiate a task without actively attending to it. The first of these are speed and accuracy, which seem to emerge simultaneously with practice ( Logan, 1988). Whether considered in terms of reading or any other skill, automaticity is identified by a number of characteristics, some of which concern us here. Dysfluent beginning readers, by contrast, are identified by their excessively slow, laborious reading, which, in turn, impairs comprehension.Īutomaticity is an important component of skilled reading. According to the model, fluent readers are characterized by the ability to read quickly and without conscious effort ( Logan, 1997). LaBerge and Samuels’s (1974) now-classic article presenting an automaticity theory of reading argued that proficient word-recognition skills underlie fluent reading and adequate comprehension of text. The development of reading fluency is viewed as important because of its relationship with improved comprehension ( Fuchs, Fuchs, Hosp, & Jenkins, 2001). Reading fluency, as measured either by quick and accurate word reading or by text-reading rate, continues to develop beyond this period ( Hasbrouck & Tindal, 1992 Horn & Manis, 1987). In general, fluent reading emerges in most children between first and third grade, when decoding skills are confirmed through practice ( Kuhn & Stahl, 2003). In fact, a recent study indicates that second- and third-grade children who read quickly and accurately also tend to read with expression, suggesting that this definition of reading fluency is quite appropriate ( Schwanenflugel, Hamilton, Kuhn, Wisenbaker, & Stahl, 2004). Although there is no single definition of reading fluency, there is general agreement that fluent reading incorporates the ability to read quickly, accurately, and, when oral reading is considered, with expression ( National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000). The development of fluent and automatic reading skills is considered a primary educational goal for elementary school–age children. ![]()
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