A Theoretical Analysis of the Effects of Writing System Characteristics on Learning to Read 1

Abstract

This paper summarizes the work of those seeking to analyze English orthography as well as the data which bear on the behavioral effects of writing system characteristics. English writing is shown to involve at least two levels of representation. One level is sound-related (phonographic representation) but another, deeper level of representation is meaning-related (orthographic representation). The results of this analysis are combined with verbal learning models in order to explain the experimental data.

Reading is viewed as involving mediation processes which depend, in part, on reading experience. Hence, the effects of increased reading experience involve not only changes in the functional stimuli for reading as Gibson has proposed but also changes in the nature of the responses to those stimuli. The implications of this notion are discussed briefly.

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