Orthographic learning at a glance: On the time course and developmental onset of self-teaching

Experiment I examined the time course of orthographic learning among Grade 3 children. A single encounter with a novel orthographic string was sufficient to produce reliable recall of orthographic detail. Moreover, newly acquired orthographic information was retained I month later. These data support the logistic learning functions featured in contemporary connectionist models of reading rather than a threshold model of orthographic learning. Experiments 2 and 3 examined self-teaching among novice readers. In contrast to the findings from less regular orthographies such as English and Dutch, beginning readers of a highly regular orthography (Hebrew) appear to be relatively insensitive to word-specific orthographic detail, reading in a nonlexical surface fashion. These results suggest fundamental differences between shallow and deep orthographies in the development of orthographic sensitivity. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.