So Much to Read, So Little Time: How Do We Read, and Can Speed Reading Help?

Ending the Reading Wars: Reading Acquisition From Novice to Expert

There is intense public interest in questions surrounding how children learn to read and how they can best be taught. Research in psychological science has provided answers to many of these questions but, somewhat surprisingly, this research has been slow to make inroads into educational policy and practice. Instead, the field has been plagued by decades of "reading wars." Even now, there remains a wide gap between the state of research knowledge about learning to read and the state of public understanding. The aim of this article is to fill this gap. We present a comprehensive tutorial review of the science of learning to read, spanning from children's earliest alphabetic skills through to the fluent word recognition and skilled text comprehension characteristic of expert readers. We explain why phonics instruction is so central to learning in a writing system such as English. But we also move beyond phonics, reviewing research on what else children need to learn to become expert readers and considering how this might be translated into effective classroom practice. We call for an end to the reading wars and recommend an agenda for instruction and research in reading acquisition that is balanced, developmentally informed, and based on a deep understanding of how language and writing systems work.

Impact of cognitive flexibility on rapid reading skills training outcomes for primary school students in China

This study used a quasi-experimental design to investigate the impact of Rapid Reading Skills Training (RRST) on some reading outcomes for primary school students in central China and also examined the influence of cognitive flexibility on intervention outcomes. A sample of 108 students (mean age = 11.75 years) were recruited. Students' cognitive flexibility was measured with the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task. Cluster randomization was used to assign students at the whole class level to either an experimental or control condition. A 12-session RRST intervention was completed with the experimental class ( N = 54). Silent reading speed and passage comprehension were measured before and after training for all students. Independent samples t-tests and two-factor repeated measures ANOVA revealed that students in the experimental class displayed higher scores for reading speed and effective reading rate post-intervention than those in the control class. Students who had scored higher on cognitive flexibility showed significantly larger increases post-intervention than those scored lower. Results provide preliminary support for using RRST to increase rapid silent reading speed among Chinese primary school students, though replication and more rigorous experimental designs are needed. Cognitive flexibility may enhance gains associated with this type of intervention. Implications for school psychologists are discussed.

Longer Fixation Times During Reading Are Correlated With Decreased Connectivity in Cognitive-Control Brain Regions During Rest in Children

Dyslexia, or reading difficulty (RD), is characterized by slow, inaccurate reading and accompanied by deficit in executive functions (EF) and altered functional connectivity (FC) in the related networks (i.e., cingulo-opercular). Individuals with RD also present with altered oculomotor gaze patterns that include longer fixation times. The researchers examined the relationship between fixation times and FC of neural circuits related to EF during rest in children with RD and typical readers. Nineteen children participated in a 10-min resting-state scan. FC analysis was performed with the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), related to cognitive control, chosen as a seed. Fixation time during word reading was used as a covariate of interest. Results demonstrated that FC between the ACC and the left inferior frontal cortex pars triangularis and left inferior prefrontal cortex during rest were negatively correlated with fixation times during word reading. These exploratory results support the critical role for the cingulo-opercular network, which is related to cognitive control, in the reading process, and likely also in reading impairment.

One page of text: Eye movements during regular and thorough reading, skimming, and spell checking

Eye movements during regular reading, thorough reading, skimming, and spell checking of single pages of text were measured, to investigate how high-level reading tasks elicited by instructions affect reading behavior. Word frequency and word length effects were found. All results were compared to regular reading. Thorough reading involved longer total reading times and more rereading, and resulted in higher comprehension scores. Skimming involved longer saccades, shorter average fixation durations, more word skipping, shorter total reading times evenly distributed across the page, and resulted in lower comprehension scores. Spell checking involved shorter saccades, longer average fixation durations, less word skipping, longer total reading times evenly distributed across the entire page, and resulted in lower comprehension scores. Replicating local effects shows that paragraphs maintain sufficient experimental rigor, while also enabling reading analyses from a global perspective. Compared to regular reading, thorough reading was more elaborate and less uniform, skimming was faster and more uniform, and spell checking was slower and more uniform.

Modern Speed-Reading Apps Do Not Foster Reading Comprehension

New computer apps are gaining popularity by suggesting that reading speeds can be drastically increased when eye movements that normally occur during reading are eliminated. This is done using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), where words are presented 1 at a time, thus preventing natural eye movements such as saccades, fixations, and regressions from occurring. Al- though the companies producing these apps suggest that RSVP reading does not yield comprehension deficits, research investigating the role of eye movements in reading documents shows the necessity of natural eye movements for accurate comprehension. The current study explored variables that may affect reading comprehension during RSVP reading, including text difficulty (6th grade and 12th grade), text presentation speed (static, 700 wpm, and 1,000 wpm), and working memory capacity (WMC). Consistent with recent work showing a tenuous relationship between comprehension and WMC, participants' WMC did not predict comprehension scores. Instead, comprehension was most affected by reading speed: Static text was associated with superior performance, relative to either RSVP reading condition. Furthermore, slower RSVP speeds yielded better verbatim comprehension, and faster speeds benefited inferential comprehension.

Optimizing Learning in College: Tips From Cognitive Psychology

Every fall, thousands of college students begin their first college courses, often in large lecture settings. Many students, even those who work hard, flounder. What should students be doing differently? Drawing on research in cognitive psychology and our experience as educators, we provide suggestions about how students should approach taking a course in college. We discuss time management techniques, identify the ineffective study strategies students often use, and suggest more effective strategies based on research in the lab and the classroom. In particular, we advise students to space their study sessions on a topic and to quiz themselves, as well as using other active learning strategies while reading. Our goal was to provide a framework for students to succeed in college classes.

Reading comprehension and its relationship with working memory capacity when reading horizontally scrolling text

The horizontally scrolling format, where text is presented in a single line drifting right to left, is relatively commonly used to display text on digital screens. This format presents a potentially challenging reading situation as the text must be followed smoothly to the left (to track individual words) while rightward eye movements are made as usual to progress through the text. This conflict may reduce attention allocated to upcoming text. Returning to previously encountered text is also more difficult with this format. Here, a sustained reading comprehension task was used to compare performance with horizontally scrolling and multi-line static text formats. Results showed that literal comprehension can be reasonably well maintained with scrolling text, although small decrements are seen at faster scrolling rates. However, they indicated that this format makes it more difficult to answer questions requiring an inference to be made. The contribution of working memory capacity and the impact of display speed on these effects were considered. These findings have implications for the application of this format in digital media and also more widely for the conditions required for successful in-depth reading comprehension with any text format.

The Flipped Classroom - From Theory to Practice in Health Professional Education

The flipped classroom is growing in popularity in health professional education. As such, instructors are experiencing various growing pains in functionalizing this model, from justifying the approach to managing time inside and outside of class to assessing impact on learning. This review focuses on some key theories that support the flipped model and translates those key theories into practice across core aspects of the flipped classroom: pre-class preparation, in-class activities, after-class activities and assessment of student learning.

Perceptual and Cognitive Factors Imposing "Speed Limits" on Reading Rate: A Study with the Rapid Serial Visual Presentation

Adults read at high speed, but estimates of their reading rate vary greatly, i.e., from 100 to 1500 words per minute (wpm). This discrepancy is likely due to different recording methods and to the different perceptual and cognitive processes involved in specific test conditions. The present study investigated the origins of these notable differences in RSVP reading rate (RR). In six experiments we investigated the role of many different perceptual and cognitive variables. The presence of a mask caused a steep decline in reading rate, with an estimated masking cost of about 200 wpm. When the decoding process was isolated, RR approached values of 1200 wpm. When the number of stimuli exceeded the short-term memory span, RR decreased to 800 wpm. The semantic context contributed to reading speed only by a factor of 1.4. Finally, eye movements imposed an upper limit on RR (around 300 wpm). Overall, data indicate a speed limit of 300 wpm, which corresponds to the time needed for eye movement execution, i.e., the most time consuming mechanism. Results reconcile differences in reading rates reported by different laboratories and thus provide suggestions for targeting different components of reading rate.