ABSTRACT
It’s daunting to be asked to write a chapter based on your lack of expertise. My primary expertise is in SWR – but spoken word recognition rather than single word reading. I was asked to read the chapters collected in this book, and comment from the perspective of a distinct, though closely related, field. Within this volume, rather stunning breadth and depth are represented. Consider the list:
Two chapters focus on developmental theories of literacy (Seymour) and spelling (Pollo, Treiman, & Kessler). Five chapters – two on orthographic-phonological consistency (Grainger & Ziegler; Kessler, Treiman, & Mullennix), and one each on developmental interactions between phonological and orthographic representations (Goswami), the role of semantics at the single word level (Keenan & Betjemann), and a new index of semantic richness that appears to moderate morphological effects (Feldman & Basnight-Brown) – provide landmarks for how deep and complex the questions have become in behavioral studies of single word reading. One chapter focuses on a powerful new paradigm of using artificial language materials to provide manipulations that would be virtually impossible with natural materials, and simultaneously provide a glimpse into acquisition processes (Hart & Perfetti; see also Mauer & McCandliss). Two focus on identification and remediation of dyslexia and reading disability (Piasta & Wagner; Royer & Walles). Four chapters review the remarkable progress over the past few years in mapping the brain regions and circuits that are crucial for reading (Frost, Sandak, Mencl, Landi, Moore, Della Porta,
Rueckl, Katz & Pugh; Mauer & McCandliss; Nazir & Husckauf; Simos, BillingsleyMarshall, Sarkari, & Papanicolaou). Finally, three chapters (Barr & Couto; Grigorenko; Olson) review how tantalizingly close the field is to identifying genetic and environmental influences on reading development (though Grigorenko provides some cautions about interpreting this work).
