ABSTRACT
We also invoke developmental data on reading, but these apply primarily to children. From these data we can estimate such reading characteristics as oral and silent reading rates, degree of subvocalization, average eye fixation span, and types of oral reading errors for learners at different points in their reading development (e.g., Taylor, 1937; Hardyck & Petrinovich, 1970; Judd & BusweIl, 1922; BiemiIler, 1970; Barr, 1975). One of the challenges in the historical analysis of literacy is to relate such conclusions from the modern psychological study of reading to the estimation of reading ability in earlier times. For example, what oral reading rate might we expect of a 6-yearold child in 16th-century Paris after 20 to 30 hours of tutoring with a Latin Psalter as the only reading text? How weIl would the average accountant in late 15th-century Milan, trained in reading black-Ietter Gothic script, read documents written in roman script or printed in the then em erging roman italic font (Febvre & Martin, 1958, pp. 80 ff.)?
