Using E-Z Reader to examine the concurrent development of eye-movement control and reading skill

Reichle, E. D., Liversedge, S. P., Drieghe, D., Blythe, H. I., Joseph, H. S. S. L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4325-4628, White, S. J. and Rayner, K. (2013) Using E-Z Reader to examine the concurrent development of eye-movement control and reading skill. Developmental Review, 33 (2). pp. 110-149. ISSN 0273-2297 doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2013.03.001

Abstract/Summary

Compared to skilled adult readers, children typically make more fixations that are longer in duration, shorter saccades, and more regressions, thus reading more slowly (Blythe & Joseph, 2011). Recent attempts to understand the reasons for these differences have discovered some similarities (e.g., children and adults target their saccades similarly; Joseph, Liversedge, Blythe, White, & Rayner, 2009) and some differences (e.g., children’s fixation durations are more affected by lexical variables; Blythe, Liversedge, Joseph, White, & Rayner, 2009) that have yet to be explained. In this article, the E-Z Reader model of eye-movement control in reading (Reichle, 2011; Reichle, Pollatsek, Fisher, & Rayner, 1998) is used to simulate various eye-movement phenomena in adults versus children in order to evaluate hypotheses about the concurrent development of reading skill and eye-movement behavior. These simulations suggest that the primary difference between children and adults is their rate of lexical processing, and that different rates of (post-lexical) language processing may also contribute to some phenomena (e.g., children’s slower detection of semantic anomalies; Joseph et al., 2008). The theoretical implications of this hypothesis are discussed, including possible alternative accounts of these developmental changes, how reading skill and eye movements change across the entire lifespan (e.g., college-aged vs. elderly readers), and individual differences in reading ability.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/43401
Identification Number/DOI	10.1016/j.dr.2013.03.001
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Interdisciplinary Research Centres (IDRCs) > Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism (CeLM) Arts, Humanities and Social Science > Institute of Education > Language and Literacy in Education
Publisher	Elsevier
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