ABSTRACT
The ultimate purpose of reading is to ascertain the meaning of the text being read. Some research by Guthrie suggests that retarded readers generally do have an additional comprehension deficit of this sort. The ultimate purpose of reading is to ascertain the meaning of the text being read. In skilled reading, the direct path using the visual code is faster and will be first to reach the entry in the mental lexicon. Even when retarded readers can correctly work out the pronunciation of a nonsense word, they tend to be much slower at doing so than normal readers. Other research, by Snowling, has shown that retarded readers have problems in reading nonsense words even when they do not have to pronounce them out loud. The compensatory hypothesis is important not only because it gives a description of the reading strategies used by retarded readers, but also because it suggests possible ways of improving the reading of these children.
