The ‘automatic’ use of context in children's reading

✍ Scribed by Linda Pring; Maggie Snowling

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1989
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 536 KB
• Volume: 1
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0922-4777
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00178837

✦ Synopsis

The present investigation examined developmental changes in the "automatic" use of context in single word recognition. A modified Stroop procedure was used in which children were asked to name the color of the ink of target words. The target was preceded either by a semantically related or by an unrelated word. Results suggested that, in contrast to "attentional" context effects (Pring and Snowling 1986), the older readers showed significantly more influence from the semantic context than the younger, lessproficient readers. The results are discussed with reference to the connections between a novice reading system and a child's rapidly growing semantic memory system.