| Abstract: | The aim of this study was two-fold. First to find out whether the prelexical phonological route develops prior to the visual route or whether the direct visual route develops first in the process of learning to read Greek. Second, to see whether the subjects' chronological age deviation affects decisively the overall reading accuracy and the processes employed in word reading. For this an investigation was conducted involving two age groups of Primary-one class children regarded as normal readers and differing between them by 10 months. The subjects were tested in three word (and nonword) reading tasks in which psycholinguistic properties of words (such as grammatical class, imagery level, semantic content, regularity and frequency) had been manipulated. The main findings were: first that reading accuracy was not significantly affected by the main psycholinguistic properties of words. Second, that the chronological age factor is unlikely to influence decisively and consistently reading acquisition in the long term. Third, that Primary-one children although tending to use mainly phonological information in reading, nevertheless seem to have started making the transition towards the use of the direct visual route as well.Requests for reprints should be sent to Dr. C. D. Porpodas, Section of Psychology, Department of Education, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Patras, 26110 Patras, Greece. |
