Abstract
Breznitz (J Educ Psychol 89:289–297, 1987a; Fluency in reading: synchronization of processes. Erlbaum, Mahwah, 2006) demonstrated that a fading manipulation, which continuously erases text based on the individual reading rate, results in improved reading performance. Several studies using this fading procedure showed that children as well as adults with different reading proficiency levels and in different languages were able to increase their reading rate and reading comprehension in a fading condition, characterizing the Acceleration Phenomenon. Considering the close interconnection of reading fluency and reading comprehension, a fact retrieval account for achievement enhancements induced by the fading manipulation is presented in this chapter. It is hypothesized, that if information can be processed at a high level of automaticity and available lexical entries can be accessed rapidly, reading performance can be improved by means of imposing a time limitation. Hence, the nature of the fading manipulation may induce a shift to faster and more elaborated strategies, such as direct fact retrieval, resulting in improved performance. Different empirical outcomes from the reading and the arithmetic domain are demonstrated and the generalizability of the Acceleration Phenomenon across academic domains is discussed.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Baddeley, A. D., Thomson, N., & Buchanan, M. (1975). Word length and the structure of short-term memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 14, 575–589.
Balota, D. A., & Chumbley, J. I. (1984). Are lexical decisions a good measure of lexical access? The role of word frequency in the neglected decision stage. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 10, 340–357.
Berg, D. H. (2008). Working memory and arithmetic calculation in children: The contributory roles of processing speed, short-term memory, and reading. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 99, 288–308.
Binder, C. (1996). Behavioral fluency: Evolution of a new paradigm. The Behavior Analyst, 19, 163–197.
Breznitz, Z. (1987a). Increasing first graders’ reading accuracy and comprehension by accelerating their reading rates. Journal of Educational Psychology, 79, 236–242.
Breznitz, Z. (1987b). Reducing the gap in reading performance between Israeli lower- and middle-class first-grade pupils. The Journal of Psychology, 121, 491–501.
Breznitz, Z. (1988). Reading performance of first graders: The effects of pictorial distractors. Journal of Educational Research, 82, 47–52.
Breznitz, Z. (1997a). Effects of accelerated reading rate on memory for text among dyslexic readers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 289–297.
Breznitz, Z. (1997b). Enhancing the reading of dyslexic children by reading acceleration and auditory masking. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 103–113.
Breznitz, Z. (2006). Fluency in reading: Synchronization of processes. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Breznitz, Z., & Berman, L. (2003). The underlying factors of word reading rate. Educational Psychology Review, 15, 247–266.
Breznitz, Z., & Leikin, M. (2001). Effects of accelerated reading rate on processing words’ syntactic functions by normal and dyslexic readers: Event related potentials evidence. The Journal of Genetic Psychology: Research and Theory on Human Development, 162, 276–296.
Breznitz, Z., & Share, D. L. (1992). Effects on accelerated reading rate on memory for text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84, 193–199.
Bull, R., & Johnston, R. S. (1997). Children’s arithmetical difficulties: Contributions from processing speed, item identification, and short-term memory. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 24, 1–24.
Campbell, J. I. D., & Xue, Q. (2001). Cognitive arithmetic across cultures. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 299–315.
Carver, R. P. (1991). Using letter-naming speed to diagnose reading disability. Remedial and Special Education, 12, 33–43.
Carver, R. P. (1997). Reading for one second, one minute, or one year from the perspective of rauding theory. Scientific Studies of Reading, 1, 3–43.
Compton, D. L., Olinghouse, N. G., Elleman, A., Vining, J., Appleton, A. C., Vail, J., et al. (2005). Putting transfer back on trial: Modeling individual differences in the transfer of decoding-skill gains to other aspects of reading acquisition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97, 55–69.
Corcos, E., & Willows, D. M. (1993). The processing of orthographic information. In D. N. Willows, R. S. Kruk, & E. Corcos (Eds.), Visual processing in reading and reading disabilities (pp. 163–190). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
De Smedt, B., Holloway, I. D., & Ansari, D. (2011). Effects of problem size and arithmetic operation on brain activation during calculation in children with varying levels of arithmetical fluency. NeuroImage, 57, 771–781.
Dehaene, S. (1992). Varieties of numerical abilities. Cognition, 44, 1–42.
Dehaene, S., & Cohen, L. (1995). Towards an anatomical and functional model of number processing. Mathematical Cognition, 1, 83–120.
Dehaene, S., Piazza, M., Pinel, P., & Cohen, L. (2003). Three parietal circuits for number processing. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 20, 487–506.
Durand, M., Hulme, C., Larkin, R., & Snowling, M. (2005). The cognitive foundations of reading and arithmetic skills in 7- to 10-year-olds. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 91, 113–136.
Dürrwächter, U., Sokolov, A. N., Reinhard, J., Klosinski, G., & Trauzettel-Klosinski, S. (2010). Word length and word frequency affect eye movements in dyslexic children reading in a regular (German) orthography. Annals of Dyslexia, 60, 86–101.
Ehri, L. C., & Wilce, L. S. (1983). Development of word identification speed in skilled and less skilled beginning readers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 75, 3–18.
Farrington-Flint, L., Coyne, E., Stiller, J., & Heath, E. (2008). Variability in children’s early reading strategies. Educational Psychology, 28, 643–661.
Forster, K. I. (1976). Accessing the mental lexicon. In E. W. Walker (Ed.), Explorations in the biology of language (pp. 139–174). Montgomery, VT: Bradford Books.
Fuchs, L. S., Fuchs, D., Compton, D. L., Powell, S. R., Seethaler, P. M., Capizzi, A. M., et al. (2006). The cognitive correlates of third-grade skill in arithmetic, algorithmic computation, and arithmetic word problems. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98, 29–43.
Gathercole, S. E., Alloway, T. P., Willis, C., & Adams, A.-M. (2006). Working memory in children with reading disabilities. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 93, 265–281.
Geary, D. C. (1993). Mathematical disabilities: Cognitive, neuropsychological, and genetic components. Psychological Bulletin, 114, 345–362.
Geary, D. C., Hoard, M. K., Byrd-Craven, J., & DeSoto, M. C. (2004). Strategy choices in simple and complex addition: Contributions of working memory and counting knowledge for children with mathematical disability. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 88, 121–151.
Goldman, S. R., Hogaboam, T. W., Bell, L. C., & Perfetti, C. A. (1980). Short-term retention of discourse during reading. Journal of Educational Psychology, 72, 647–655.
Gollan, T. H., Slattery, T. J., Van Assche, E., Duyck, W., & Rayner, K. (2011). Frequency drives lexical access in reading but not in speaking: The frequency-lag hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 140, 186–209.
Gough, P. B., Hoover, W., & Peterson, C. L. (1996). Some observations on the simple view of reading. In C. Cornoldi & J. Oakhill (Eds.), Reading comprehension difficulties (pp. 1–13). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Grabner, R. H., Ansari, D., Koschutnig, K., Reishofer, G., Ebner, F., & Neuper, C. (2009). To retrieve or to calculate? Left angular gyrus mediates the retrieval of arithmetic facts during problem solving. Neuropsychologia, 47, 604–608.
Hauk, O., & Pulvermüller, F. (2004). Effects of word length and frequency on the human event-related potential. Clinical Neurophysiology, 115, 1090–1103.
Hiebert, E. H., & Fisher, C. W. (2010). Critical word factor in texts for beginning readers. The Journal of Educational Research, 101, 3–11.
Hoover, W. A., & Gough, P. B. (1990). The simple view of reading. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2, 127–160.
Huemer, S., Landerl, K., Aro, M., & Lyytinen, H. (2008). Training reading fluency among poor readers of German: Many ways to the goal. Annals of Dyslexia, 58, 115–137.
Hutzler, F., & Wimmer, H. (2004). Eye movements of dyslexic children when reading in a regular orthography. Brain and Language, 89, 235–242.
Hyönä, J., & Olson, R. K. (1995). Eye fixation patterns among dyslexic and normal readers: Effects of word length and word frequency. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 1430–1440.
Klauda, S. L., & Guthrie, J. T. (2008). Relationships of three components of reading fluency to reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100, 310–321.
Kronbichler, M., Hutzler, F., Wimmer, H., Mair, A., Staffen, W., & Ladurner, G. (2004). The visual word form area and the frequency with which words are encountered: Evidence from a parametric fMRI study. NeuroImage, 21, 946–953.
Kuhn, M. R., & Stahl, S. A. (2003). Fluency: A review of developmental and remedial practices. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 3–21.
LaBerge, D., & Samuels, S. J. (1974). Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 6, 293–323.
LeFevre, J.-A., Sadesky, G. S., & Bisanz, J. (1996). Selection of procedures in mental addition: Reassessing the problem size effect in adults. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 22, 216–230.
Leinonen, S., Müller, K., Leppänen, P. H. T., Aro, M., Ahonen, T., & Lyytinen, H. (2001). Heterogeneity in adult dyslexic readers: Relating processing skills to the speed and accuracy of oral text reading. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 14, 265–296.
Lindberg, S., Linkersdörfer, J., Lehmann, M., Hasselhorn, M., & Lonnemann, J. (2013). Individual differences in children’s early strategy behavior in arithmetic tasks. Journal of Educational and Developmental Psychology, 3, 192–200.
Lindberg, S., Lonnemann, J., Linkersdörfer, J., Biermeyer, E., Mähler, C., Hasselhorn, M., et al. (2011). Early strategies of elementary school children’s single word reading. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 24, 556–570.
Lindberg, S., & Nagler, T. (2011, August). Acceleration of elementary school children’s arithmetic skills. Poster presented at the 15th European conference on developmental Psychology (ECDP), Bergen, Norway.
Lundberg, I., & Sterner, G. (2006). Reading, arithmetic, and task orientation – how are they related? Annals of Dyslexia, 56, 361–377.
McNerney, M. W., Goodwin, K. A., & Radvansky, G. A. (2011). A novel study: A situation model analysis of reading times. Discourse Processes, 48, 453–474.
Meyer, B. J. F., Talbot, A. P., & Florencio, D. (1999). Reading rate and prose retrieval. Scientific Studies of Reading, 3, 303–329.
Nagler, T. (2012). The acceleration phenomenon. Investigating factors influencing its effectiveness. Doctoral dissertation, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Nagler, T., Linkersdörfer, J., Lonnemann, J., Hasselhorn, M., & Lindberg, S. (2016). The impact of text fading on reading in children with reading difficulties. Journal of Educational Research Online, 8, 26–41.
Nagler, T., Lonnemann, J., Linkersdörfer, J., Hasselhorn, M., & Lindberg, S. (2014). The impact of reading material’s lexical accessibility on text fading effects in children’s reading performance. Reading and Writing, 27, 841–853.
Perfetti, C. (1985). Reading ability. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Pugh, K. R., Mencl, W. E., Jenner, A. R., Katz, L., Frost, S. J., Lee, J. R., et al. (2001). Neurobiological studies of reading and reading disability. Journal of Communication Disorders, 34, 479–492.
Rabovsky, M., Álvarez, C. J., Hohlfeld, A., & Sommer, W. (2008). Is lexical access autonomous? Evidence from combining overlapping tasks with recording event-related brain potentials. Brain Research, 1222, 156–165.
Ramos-Christian, V., Schleser, R., & Varn, M. E. (2008). Math fluency: Accuracy versus speed in preoperational and concrete operational first and second grade children. Early Childhood Education Journal, 35, 543–549.
Rittle-Johnson, B., & Siegler, R. S. (1999). Learning to spell: Variability, choice, and change in children’s strategy use. Child Development, 70, 332–349.
Rost, D. H., & Schilling, S. R. (2006). Handwörterbuch Pädagogische Psychologie [Concise Dictionary for Pedagogical Psychology]. Weinheim, Germany: Psychologie Verlags Union.
Seidenberg, M. S., & McClelland, J. L. (1989). A distributed, developmental model of word recognition and naming. Psychological Review, 96, 523–568.
Share, D. L. (1995). Phonological recording and self-teaching: Sine qua non of reading acquisition. Cognition, 55, 151–218.
Shaywitz, S. E., & Shaywitz, B. A. (2005). Dyslexia (Specific reading disability). Biological Psychiatry, 57, 1301–1309.
Siegler, R. S. (1986). Unities across domains in children’s strategy choices. In M. Perlmutter (Ed.), Perspectives on intellectual development: The Minnesota symposia on child psychology (19th ed., pp. 1–46). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Siegler, R. S. (1991). Strategy choice and strategy discovery. Learning and Instruction, 1, 89–102.
Siegler, R. S. (1996). Emerging minds. The process of change in children’s thinking. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Siegler, R. S. (2005). Children’s learning. American Psychologist, 60, 769–778.
Stanovich, K. E. (1991). Word recognition: Changing perspectives. In R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (pp. 418–452). New York, NY: Langman.
Thaler, V., Ebner, E. M., Wimmer, H., & Landerl, K. (2004). Training reading fluency in dysfluent readers with high reading accuracy: Word specific effects but low transfer to untrained words. Annals of Dyslexia, 54, 89–113.
Therrien, W. J. (2004). Fluency and comprehension gains as a result of repeated reading: A meta-analysis. Remedial and Special Education, 25, 252–261.
Walczyk, J. J., Kelly, K. E., Meche, S. D., & Braud, H. (1999). Time limitations enhance reading comprehension. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 24, 156–165.
Walczyk, J. J., Wei, M., Grifith-Ross, D. A., Goubert, S. E., Cooper, A. L., & Zha, P. (2007). Development of the interplay between automatic processes and cognitive resources in reading. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99, 867–887.
Wolf, M., & Katzir-Cohen, T. (2001). Reading fluency and its intervention. Scientific Studies of Reading, 5, 211–239.
Woltz, D. J., & Was, C. A. (2006). Availability of related long-term memory during and after attention focus in working memory. Memory & Cognition, 34, 668–684.
Woltz, D. J., & Was, C. A. (2007). Available but unattended conceptual information in working memory: Temporarily active semantic content or persistent memory for prior operations? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33, 155–168.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Nagler, T., Lindberg, S., Hasselhorn, M. (2016). A Fact Retrieval Account of the Acceleration Phenomenon. In: Khateb, A., Bar-Kochva, I. (eds) Reading Fluency. Literacy Studies, vol 12. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30478-6_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30478-6_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-30476-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-30478-6
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)