Journal of Educational Psychology Copyright 1997 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

1997, Vol. 89, No. 2, 289-297 0022-0653/97/S3.00

Effects of Accelerated Reading Rate on Memory for Text Among

Dyslexic Readers
Zvia Breznitz
University of Haifa

The author tested the hypothesis that gains in reading performance occurring among dyslexic
children during individually paced accelerated reading are partially attributable to changes in
short-term memory (STM) processing. Dyslexic children's performance on a series of
standard STM-sensitive tasks administered during both self- and fast-paced reading condi-
tions confirmed this hypothesis. Trie findings provided strong support for a causal role of
STM functioning in text processing but indicated that reading acceleration enhanced STM
only when dyslexic children were able to rely on contextual cues.

Individually paced reading rate acceleration has been
found to increase reading effectiveness in various groups of
readers and across two languages, English and Hebrew.
This effect is particularly pronounced when reading skills
are less proficient (see Breznitz, 1993, for a review). Ex-
perimental data indicate that in normal novice readers, the
benefits of fast-paced reading are at least partially attribut-
able to lowered vulnerability to visual distraction (Breznitz,
1988, 1997), enhanced word recognition due to increased
similarity between vocal output of oral reading and stored
pronunciations of words (Breznitz, 1990), and improved
short-term memory (STM) functioning (Breznitz & Share,
1992). On the basis of findings that reading performance
improves substantially among dyslexic children during
reading acceleration (Breznitz, 1993, 1997), I sought to
explore the extent to which these effects can be ascribed to
changes in STM processes in this population. To achieve
this aim, I replicated the experimental paradigm used in the
Breznitz and Share study on a reading-level matched sample
of dyslexic children.
Considerable evidence has demonstrated a robust, posi-
tive relationship between reading ability and performance
on STM tasks (Wagner & Torgesen, 1987). STM refers to a
temporary storage system that holds information during
cognitive processing. This system is characterized by lim-
ited capacity and rapid, spontaneous decay. These limita-
tions pose constraints on the execution of information pro-
cessing tasks such as reading (Baddeley, 1986).
Verbal or phonological STM is thought to play a signif-
icant part in the acquisition of decoding skills, the mastery
of which is critical to learning to read. Among the roles
attributed to verbal STM in reading are (a) provision of
buffer storage during the process in which unfamiliar words
are decoded through the application of grapheme-to-
phoneme conversion rules and sound blending (Baddeley,
1986; Jorm, 1983); (b) integration of postlexical contextual
information with word identification processes, as in the
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Zvia Breznitz, School of Education, University of Haifa, Mt.
Carmel, Haifa 31095, Israel. Electronic mail may be sent via
Internet to redc401@uvm.haifa.ac.il.
case of partial decoding (i.e., where an unfamiliar item is
incompletely decoded or when multiple pronunciations are
possible; Share, 1995); and (c) integration of information
within and between sentences using syntactic organization
processes. According to this view, STM may be used to
temporarily retain words and phrases being decoded so that
they can be arranged and encoded into meaningful sen-
tences or propositions (Carpenter & Just, 1989; Just &
Carpenter, 1987; Perfetti & Lesgold, 1977).
In current models of reading, a differentiation is made
between STM, which is held to be related to short-term,
passive storage functions, and working memory (WM),
which is held to be responsible for active, temporary pro-
cessing functions. Hence, investigators generally associate
the first of the above-mentioned roles with STM, and the
latter two with WM (Swanson, 1994). As in the Breznitz
and Share (1992) investigation, I sought to assess short-term
capacity rather than active processing. Hence, the term STM
is used here.
Readers use a variety of strategies to minimize the func-
tional limitations of STM. Among these are rehearsal, or-
ganization of informational units into chunks, and parsing
(Cohen & Heath, 1990; Shankweiler & Crain, 1986). These
WM strategies operate by maintaining incoming material in
short-term storage or by restructuring it so that the amount
of information retained is increased.
STM constraints may also be overcome through external
manipulations. One method that has been shown to be
effective in this respect is increasing stimulus presentation
rate (Cohen, 1982; Dempster, 1981; Torgesen & Houck,
1980). This finding has served as the basis for the earlier
study examining the effects of reading-rate acceleration on
STM functioning among normal novice readers (Breznitz &
Share, 1992). That study used an experimental paradigm
that has been used extensively to investigate the effects of
reading rate acceleration on reading performance in indi-
viduals at a wide range of reading levels (Breznitz, 1987a,
1987b, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1993; Breznitz, DeMarco, &
Hakerem, 1993; Breznitz, DeMarco, Shammi, & Hakerem,
1994). In this paradigm, individuals are prompted to accel-
erate their reading rates in a computer-controlled reading
situation. The individual acceleration rate is determined on

289
290 BREZNITZ
the basis of the fastest rate displayed by the reader over a
series of items read at his or her normal self-paced reading
rate. Hence, the rate of acceleration remains within the
reader's own range of demonstrated ability.
Data obtained through this research paradigm consistently
indicate that reading rate can function as an independent
variable that influences the quality of reading performance.
Decoding accuracy and comprehension scores increase sig-
nificantly when readers are prompted to read faster than
their normal rate (Breznitz, 1987a, 1988,1991). Supporting
the idea that reading rate can act independently are studies
showing that visual word identification speed is both a
powerful discriminator of reading ability (Perfetti, 1985)
and a strong predictor of later reading proficiency (Lesgold
& Resnick, 1982; and review by Compton & Carlisle,
1994). The above findings suggest that reading rate may be
essential to the establishment of early reading skills and
might serve as a reliable diagnostic measure.
An alternative position views reading rate as a dependent
variable, which is an outcome of the effectiveness of text
decoding and comprehension (Carver, 1990; Gough & Tun-
mer, 1986). In most developmental models of reading ac-
quisition, more efficient decoding is presumed to lead to
improved comprehension, and greater integration of these
two skills is held to result in more rapid, automatic word
identification (Coltheart, 1987; Ehri & Wilce, 1983; Frith,
1986; Morrison, 1991; Perfetti, 1985).
Supporting this position are direct investigations of read-
ing acceleration (e.g., Carver, 1990). In Carver's systematic
studies on reading acceleration among adult readers, nega-
tive correlations between rate and comprehension were ob-
tained. In these studies, reading was accelerated at set rates
across participants. It was found that the average optimal
rate for college students consists of about 300 words per
minute, with a range of 13%, depending on the difficulty of
the reading material.
It must be clarified here that the findings obtained through
Breznitz's paradigm are not incompatible with these results.
Breznitz's method of inducing individuals to read at the
fastest rate demonstrated during normal self-paced reading
invariably uses the individual's own rate, hence the manip-
ulation that was found effective operated within the range of
13% reported by Carver (1990, p. 146). In fact, the average
speed increase of college students turned out to be about
10% (Breznitz et al., 1993; Breznitz et al, 1994).
In sum, reading rate may operate both as an independent
and a dependent variable. In the present study, as in earlier
research using the Breznitz acceleration paradigm, reading
rate acts independently.
The data obtained to date using this procedure clearly
indicate that the reading performance of poor novice
(Breznitz, 1987a) and dyslexic readers (Breznitz, 1993,
1997) improves substantially during reading acceleration in
terms of increased decoding accuracy and comprehension.
The results of the Breznitz and Share (1992) study revealed
large gains in STM task performance at a fast-paced as
compared with a self-paced reading rate among normal
second-grade readers. Results further revealed a negative
correlation between STM and gain in reading comprehen-
sion during reading acceleration.
One explanation proposed to account for these findings is
that acceleration may enable readers to partially overcome
STM limitations of rapid decay and limited capacity, which
impede successful information processing. Fast-pacing may
operate on STM functioning by increasing the units (either
in number or size) concurrently available in storage, thereby
enlarging the context in which the reading process takes
place. Yet although it has been empirically demonstrated
that the gains in reading performance during this manipu-
lation are at least partially attributable to improved STM
functioning among normal beginning readers, it remains to
be established whether these results can be extended to
dyslexic readers.
To clarify this issue, I sought to assess the impact of the
fast-paced reading phenomenon on STM processing among
dyslexic children. As in the Breznitz and Share (1992)
experiments, a number of tasks were administered that have
been shown to be particularly sensitive to STM functioning
(Baddeley, 1986; Jorm, 1983; Perfetti & Lesgold, 1977;
Simon, 1974). These tasks assessed recall and recognition
of exact content and word order, recency versus primacy
effects, and detection of wording changes as opposed to
semantic changes. I hypothesized that, like normal novice
readers, dyslexic readers engaged in fast-paced reading rel-
ative to self-paced reading would show significant perfor-
mance gains on tasks sensitive to STM function.
General Method
Participants
Twenty-three dyslexic children (18 boys and 5 girls) partici-
pated in all four experiments reported in this study. The definition
of developmental dyslexia accepted in Israel is based on the
revised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(3rd ed.; DSM-III-R American Psychiatric Association, 1987)
diagnostic criteria. Accordingly, the dyslexic participants were
characterized by selective impairment of reading despite normal
intelligence, visual acuity, motivation, lack of educational oppor-
tunities, and instruction. Furthermore, they were free of "hard"
neurological signs and did not suffer from primary or severe
behavioral or psychiatric disturbances. All of the 23 dyslexic
children were retarded in reading by at least 1 year and 8 months,
as stipulated by Israeli criteria for dyslexia (Nitzan Center for
Learning Disabilities, 1988).
Dyslexic participants were recruited from two learning disabil-
ity clinics of the Department of Education in Haifa. The dyslexic
readers were referred to the clinics by teachers or school psychol-
ogists. At the time of their referral, all children were diagnosed by
an intake battery, which included an evaluative test of their reading
decoding and comprehension skills (Reading Skills Test; Nitzan
Center for Learning Disabilities, 1988). The average number of
years of reading retardation of the children was 1 year and 11
months {SD - 0.5) and ranged from 1 year and 8 months to 2 years
and 2 months. The mean age of the sample was 9 years 3 months
(SD — 0.3). All children were of middle-class background and
attended public elementary schools in an urban area of northern
Israel; Hebrew was their primary language. All children were
right-handed. On the basis of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for
 EFFECTS OF READING ACCELERATION AMONG DYSLEXICS 291

Children—Revised (WISC-R; Wechsler, 1977), mean IQ in the test contained six items of increasing difficulty. Items consisted of
sample was 110 (SD = 0.5; see data in Table 1). two to four declarative sentences (in Hebrew). Immediately after
the reading of each item, the passage was removed from the screen
and the child was asked to recount what he or she had just read.
Instrumen ta tion
The responses to this open-ended question, designed to assess
The research tasks were identical to those used in the Breznitz recall of factual content, were assessed by propositional analysis
and Share (1992) study. Because Israeli norms are available only (Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978). Following this, the child was given a
for the WISC-R, raw scores are reported for the remaining tests. short multiple-choice inferential question. Finally, recall and rec-
As in Breznitz and Share, all tasks in all the experiments were ognition of content were tested using three questions each. Two
administered to the same children to facilitate between-task com- sample items are the following:
parisons. The stability of the reading rates across tasks indicated 1. Easy item. "A child came home in the afternoon and asked
that reactive effects associated with repeated testing were not a his mother for food." This statement was followed by a
problem. multiple-choice inferential question: "What did the child
A number of verbal and nonverbal STM tests were adminis- ask for? (a) salt, (b) a plate, (c) a cup of water, (d) a piece
tered. Verbal memory was assessed using the Hebrew version of of bread." Then three recall questions were asked: "(a)
the Digit Span Test (both backward and forward) and Sentences Who came? (b) What did he do? (c) What did he ask for?"
Memory from the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale Memory Three recognition questions concluded the focus on the
subtests (Thorndike, Hagen, & Sattler, 1986). Additional tests of statement: "(a) Who came home? A boy or a mother? (b)
verbal memory function (both backward and forward) were ad- When did he come home? In the morning or afternoon? (c)
ministered according to Simon's (1974) procedures. These in- Whom did he ask? Father or mother?"
cluded tests of letter span and nonsense syllable span, with strings 2. Difficult item. "All Jacob's friends have watches. Only
of letters and syllables ranging in length from two to nine items. Jacob has no watch, Jacob went out to play with his friends.
Nonverbal memory was assessed using the Stanford-Binet Intel- His mother told him to come home at seven o'clock."
ligence Scale Object Memory and Bead Memory subscales. Means Multiple-choice inferential question: "How did Jacob
and standard deviations for memory measures are presented in know when to come home? (a) he asked his mother, (b) he
Table 1. asked his friends, (c) he listened to the news on the radio,
(d) he looked at his watch." Recall questions: "(a) Who did
not have a watch? (b) With whom did Jacob go out to play?
Experiment 1
(c) At what time did Jacob have to be home?" Recognition
Experiment 1 was designed to assess recognition and recall for question: "(a) What was the name of the boy, Jacob or
semantic (propositional) content and for exact wording of text read Gad? (b) What did Jacob's friends have? A football or a
in both self-paced and fast-paced conditions. This first experiment watch? (c) Who told Jacob to come home at seven o'clock,
was designed to replicate the basic fast-paced effect with standard his friends or his mother?"
measures of reading performance. A second objective was to In each manipulation (fast paced or self-paced) scores were
assess the influence of the fast-paced manipulation on measures computed as follows: For each item, the factual content recall was
more closely associated with STM functions. I predicted that the analyzed by propositional analysis and the number of correct
accelerated reading rate would result in significant gains among responses was computed. The maximum possible scores were 6 for
the dyslexic readers in both semantic memory and in memory for the multiple-choice inferential questions, and 18 (6 X 3) each for
exact wording. factual content recognition and recall questions. Test forms were
randomly distributed among conditions in a fully counterbalanced
design. The order of conditions was fixed: self-paced, fast paced,
Method and again self-paced.
Three parallel forms of the Comprehension Test for Grades 1 The children read three forms of the test. In the first condition,
and 2 (Ortar & Segev, 1980) were administered. Each form of the the children read items at their own natural reading pace (self-
paced). In the second condition (fast paced), the children were
prompted to read at a faster rate. To control for a possible warm-up
Table 1 effect, I administered a third condition of self-paced reading.
Means and Standard Deviations of General Ability, All printed materials were presented on an IBM personal com-
Reading Achievement, and Short-Term Memory (TV = 23) puter (IBM-PC). To monitor reading errors, I required the children
Measure M SD to read all items aloud as accurately as possible. Reading protocols
were recorded on audio cassette.
WISC-R Blocks (scaled score, In the self-paced reading condition, children were requested to
max. = 19) 11.9 2.82 read all items at their own natural pace. Each item was presented
WISC-R Vocabulary (scaled score, individually on the screen, and the children were asked to com-
max. — 19) 9.5 4.21
39.2 9.92 mence reading immediately. Several training trials were given
Reading ability (%, max. = 100)
S-B Digit Span (max. = 9) 4.2 0.21 prior to each set of six items. To eliminate the possible confound-
S-B Sentence Memory (max. = 22) 14.1 3.82 ing of regressive eye movements, I erased each item immediately
Letter span (max. = 9) 4.1 0.36 after reading was completed. Times for each item were recorded
Syllable span (max. = 5) 0.7 0.20 by a computer that was activated when the child commenced and
S-B Object Memory (max. = 9) 4.6 0.52 deactivated when pronunciation of the last item was completed.
S-B Bead Memory (max. = 20) 11.1 1.21 Per letter reading rates were calculated for each item, yielding six
Note. WISC-R = Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children- separate per letter reading rates.
Revised; max. = maximum score; S-B = Stanford-Binet Intelli- In the fast-paced reading condition, the presentation rate was
gence Scale. calculated for each child according to the highest per letter reading
292 BREZNITZ

rate achieved on the six items in the self-paced condition. Thus,
material was presented at the highest rate of demonstrated capa-
bility for each child. To minimize disruption of natural eye move-
ments, I adopted the following procedure: The entire item ap-
peared on the screen and the child was requested to begin reading
aloud immediately. As soon as reading commenced, material was
erased letter by letter at the maximum per letter rate as above.
Oral reading errors, reading rate, comprehension, and recall and
recognition of content were recorded in all three conditions.
Results
As in previous work (Breznitz & Share, 1992), there was
no suggestion of a warm-up effect. No significant differ-
ences were found witfiin the dyslexic children between the
first and second self-paced conditions, F < 1.00 (see Table
2). Therefore, in all the subsequent analyses the results of
the fast-paced reading condition were compared with the
results of the first self-paced condition. Results for Exper-
iment 1 appear in Table 2.
A within-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) was
conducted to determine differences between self-paced and
fast-paced conditions on reading rate, accuracy, and com-
prehension. In the fast-paced condition, reading rates sig-
nificantly increased by 19%, and decoding accuracy signif-
icantly increased by 28%. The four measures of
comprehension revealed that during fast-paced reading, in-
ferential comprehension increased significantly by 26% and
factual content recall by 6%. No significant gain was found
in recall and recognition for exact wordings.
This first experiment reveals that in contrast to normal
readers (Breznitz & Share, 1992), dyslexic children did not
improve in memory for exact wording in the fast-paced
condition. The data were not clear as to whether the positive
effects of the fast-paced manipulation occurred through
STM. Hence, in the second experiment more explicit evi-
dence was sought. This experiment was designed to exam-
ine memory for wording and word order in sentences read in
a fast-paced condition compared with a self-paced condi-
tion. Primacy and recency effects were also examined.
Experiment 2
Method
Each child read aloud three parallel sets of material using the
pacing order of Experiment 1. Each set of items consisted of six
meaningful declarative sentences ordered in increasing length
from 5 to 10 words (total of 45 words). In both conditions, the
children were asked to repeat each sentence in backward order and
then in forward order according to the principle of "last in, first
out." Factual recall was then tested with an open-ended question,
as described in Experiment 1. Examples of 5-word and 10-word
items are the following: "Gad went home in the rain" (5 Hebrew
words), and "Ruth recovered from a serious illness and returned to
school. The doctor forbade her to exercise" (10 Hebrew words).
Oral reading errors and reading rates for each item were re-
corded. Three measures of recall were taken: recall of exact
wording (the correct order backward and forward), correct recall of
words regardless of whether these were in the correct order (item
recall), and recall of content as assessed by a propositional
analysis.
Results
The results for propositional recall and backward and
forward item and order recall of exact wording are shown in
Table 3. A similar pattern of results emerged for the first
and second self-paced conditions as compared with fast-
paced reading, hence data from the first self-paced condition
was used for comparison.
As in Experiment 1, scores for speed, accuracy, and
comprehension measured by propositional analysis of con-
tent recall revealed significant gains in the fast-paced con-
dition. Measures of item and order recall for the exact
wording of material read in the fast-paced conditions

Table 2
Experiment 1; Means and Standard Deviations for Reading Rate, Decoding Accuracy,
and Comprehension in Self-Paced and Fast-Paced Conditions
Self-paced 1 Fast-paced Self-paced 2
Measure M SD M SD F{\, 21) M SD
Per letter reading
rate (s) 0.32 o.so 0.27 0.10 13.10** 0.33 0.70
Accuracy (No. of
errors) 29.00 15.01 22.70 5.36 6.31** 27.60 14.80
Inferential
comprehension
(range = 0-6) 3.11 0.92 3.93 0.86 7 22** 3.12 0.85
Propositional
recall (%) 27.70 10.20 33.30 9.70 11.20** 28.20 10.50
Exact wording
recall (%) 14.10 2.70 15.30 3.20 ns 13.90 2.90
Wording
recognition (%) 19.70 4.20 20.10 3.90 ns 19.20 4.50
Note. F tests analyze the differences between participants in the self-paced 1 and the fast-paced
conditions.
**p< .001.
 EFFECTS OF READING ACCELERATION AMONG DYSLEXICS 293

Table 3
Experiment 2: Means and Standard Deviations for Propositional Recall and Backward
and Forward Item and Order Recall in Self-Paced and Fast-Paced Reading Conditions
Self-paced 1 Fast-paced Self-paced 2
Measure M SD M SD F{\, 21) M SD
Propositional recall (No.) 26.9 11.1 32.2 10.6 3.96** 26.5 9.7
Backward item recall (%) 11.2 5.6 10.9 3.5 1.01 10.8 3.9
Backward order recall (%) 6.3 1.7 6.6 2.1 1.44 5.9 1.9
Forward item recall (%) 33.1 12.2 44.2 13.5 9.57** 32.6 10.1
Forward order recall (%) 29.2 10.6 37.1 9.7 7.37** 30.1 11.6
Accuracy (No. of errors) 24.1 11.8 17.2 8.3 5.36** 23.9 9.7
Per letter reading rate (s) 0.3 0.7 0.2 0.6 3.22** 0.2 0.9
Note. F tests analyze the differences between participants in the Self-paced 1 and the fast-paced
conditions.
**p < .001.

showed significant gains only in forward order recall. No
gains were found in the backward order recall. In general,
these results support the view that among dyslexic children,
improvements in comprehension obtained with fast-paced
reading can result from an increase in the number of ele-
ments being held in STM. However, the finding that unlike
normal readers, dyslexic children increased performance
only for forward order recall, may indicate a reliance on
contextual information by dyslexic readers.
An examination of primacy and recency effects in self-
paced and fast-paced conditions was also conducted. I hy-
pothesized that if the fast-paced manipulation operates pri-
marily through STM, then recall of the last (most recent)
parts of the items would show a greater fast-paced advan-
tage than recall of the earlier parts of the items, as recency
effects are more dependent on STM (Brooks, 1975). Data
indicated that as opposed to normal readers (Breznitz &
Share, 1992), dyslexic children recalled more primacy parts
of the items (i.e., the beginnings of sentences) than recent
parts (ends of sentences) during both self- and fast-paced
trials.
In a 2 X 2 repeated measures ANOVA, there was a
significant main effect for item position (primacy vs. re-
cency), with recall of the primacy higher than recall of
recency, F(l, 21) = 5.03, p < .002. A significant main
effect was also obtained for pacing condition (first self-
paced vs. fast paced), with the fast-paced reading rate recall
being higher, F(l, 21) = 7.21, p < .001. (Descriptive
statistics are presented in Table 4.) A significant Pace X
Condition interaction indicated that primacy recall in-
Table 4
Experiment 2: Primacy and Recency Recall Effects in
Self-Paced and Fast-Paced Reading Conditions
Self-paced Self-paced
1 Fast-paced 2 sages were characterized by increasing length and difficulty, con-
Item M SD M SD M SD
Last (No.) 1.9 0.5 2.1 0.7 1.7 0.8
First (No.) 3.2 0.8 5.6 0.4 3.3 0.5
creased more in the fast-paced condition than recency recall
did, F(l,21) = 8.33, p < .001.
To the extent that recall of the most recent item is rela-
tively more dependent on STM processes than recall of the
primacy item, the data of Experiment 2 failed to support the
view that the fast-paced manipulation for the dyslexic op-
erates directly only through STM processing. The data in
Experiments 1 and 2 indicated that there was a tendency for
the effects of the fast-paced manipulation to be stronger for
memory for context (semantics) than for exact wording in
the items being rated. However, a direct comparison of the
magnitude of these two effects was not possible because
wording and semantic processing in both studies were as-
sessed with different measures.
Experiment 3 was designed to directly compare memory
for wording with memory for semantic information. It was
expected that if the fast-paced manipulation was operating
through STM among the dyslexic children, an interaction
would occur between memory condition (semantic vs.
wording) and pacing condition, with fast-paced reading
producing relatively more accurate detection (i.e., fewer
false alarms) of wording than semantic changes. However,
if the fast-paced manipulation was not operating through
STM, an interaction would be expected between memory
condition (semantic vs. wording) and pacing condition, with
fast-paced reading producing relatively more accurate de-
tection of semantic than of wording changes.
Experiment 3
Method
Experiment 3 was a 3 X 2 within-subjects design consisting of
the three reading-rate manipulations used in Experiments 1 and 2,
and two memory conditions (wording vs. semantic). Each memory
condition contained three parallel reading forms, with each of four
passages ranging in length from two to four sentences. The pas-
taining 20, 25, 30, and 35 words. Following the presentation of the
target passage, two test passages appeared simultaneously on the
computer screen: The original unaltered version and a second
version in which either a semantic or wording change had been
294 BREZNTTZ

made to a single word. The children were requested to identify the
correct version. In the semantic condition, a nonsynonymous con-
tent word was substituted, as indicated by brackets in this example:
"On Saturday, there were many people at the beach. A boat was
sailing on the sea. Suddenly, a strong wind began to blow. The
wind pushed the boat towards the sea [beach]." In the wording
condition, a synonym was substituted, as indicated by brackets in
the following example: "During her vacation, Ruth went to a
summer camp in the Jerusalem hills. She spent three days there.
On Tuesday afternoon, she came back [returned] home." The
location of the altered item was either 4,5, or 7 words from the end
of the passage. (The location of the change in the latter example
has been altered in the translation from Hebrew to English.) Both
semantic and wording forms were read first in self-paced condi-
tions, then in fast-paced conditions, as in Experiments 1 and 2.
Semantic and wording forms were counterbalanced. The order of
the two test versions of the passage (altered and unaltered) was
also counterbalanced across test items. I also assessed free recall
for each item with a proposition^ analysis, as in Experiment 1. All
materials were read aloud, and oral reading errors were recorded.
version of the passage was superior in the wording condi-
tions than in the semantic wording conditions; F(l, 21) =
4.05,p < .05 in the self-paced manipulation, and F(l, 21) =
7.45, p < .05 in the fast-paced. That is, the dyslexic children
were more often fooled by meaning-altering changes than
by words that preserved meaning. A significant Pace X
Condition interaction was found, F(l, 21) = 12.11, p <
.001. These results are the reverse of those found among
normal novice readers.
Experiment 4 further investigated the effects of reading
acceleration on STM functioning. In this experiment, the
children were given a target item from the text they had just
read aloud and asked to recall the item immediately preced-
ing the probe and the item immediately following the probe.
It was predicted that the fast-paced manipulation would
produce significant improvements in recall relative to self-
paced reading.

Results
Scores for correct detection, together with basic reading
performance measures, are presented in Table 5. As in
Experiments 1 and 2, both self-paced conditions produced
an identical pattern of results as compared with the fast-
paced condition. As in the previous experiments, it is clear
that differences between fast-paced and self-paced condi-
tions are not attributable to task order.
The data in Table 5 indicate gains on basic measures of
reading performance. Reading time, accuracy, and compre-
hension significantly increased in the fast-paced as com-
pared with the self-paced condition. In both self- and fast-
paced conditions, correct identification of the unaltered
Experiment 4
Method
Bach child read two parallel sets of material, each consisting of
six items. Each item was a declarative sentence ordered in increas-
ing length from 5 to 10 words. Sample items included the follow-
ing: "Gad went home in the rain" (5 Hebrew words) and "The
water in the kettle boiled, and mother poured tea into a cup for her
6-year-old son, Yossie" (10 Hebrew words). Immediately after the
child completed reading an item, the experimenter repeated a
single word (the probe). The child was asked to recall the word that
had appeared immediately before the probe and the word that had
appeared immediately after the probe (in that order). The probe
word was located in consecutively different positions from Posi-
tion 2 (in Sentence 1) through Position 7 (in Sentence 6). For each

Table 5
Experiment 3: Means and Standard Deviations for Detection of Wording and Semantic
Changes in Self-Paced and Fast-Paced Reading Conditions
Self-paced 1 Fast-paced Self-paced 2
Measure M SD M SD F(l, 21) M SD
Wording charLges
Detection 8 (No.) 2.0 0.6 2.1 0.8 ns 2.1 0.9
Recall (%) 30.2 9.7 38.1 11.9 7.6** 29.2 10.1
Accuracy (No. of
errors) 24.2 6.7 16.3 7.2 8.2** 25.3 9.1
Per letter reading
rate (s) 0.3 0.7 0.2 0.1 12.1** 0.3 0.9

Semantic changes
Detection 3 (No.) 2.4 0.8 3.2 0.7 11.2** 2.2 0.8
Recall (%) 35.3 7.7 47,5 9.1 8.2** 33.4 10.7
Accuracy (No. of
errors) 22.3 11.7 15.4 7.2 9.3** 23.7 11.6
Per letter reading
rate (s) 0.3 0.6 0.2 0.8 12.8** 0.3 0.7
Note. F tests analyze the differences between participants in first self-placed 1 and fast-paced
conditions.
a
Maximum score = 4.
**p < .001.
 EFFECTS OF READING ACCELERATION AMONG DYSLEXICS 295
manipulation, a child could score a maximum of 6 on prior items account for the fast-paced reading phenomenon among this
and 6 on subsequent items, As in the other experiments, items were population. To achieve this end, I replicated the task format
read in both self-paced and fast-paced manipulations, with parallel of an earlier study on novice readers (Breznitz & Share,
sets of sentences counterbalanced. Because all prior experiments
demonstrated that task order is irrelevant, the second self-paced
1992) on a sample of dyslexic children.
condition was not used in the Experiment 4. Free recall was also Consistent with the findings of Breznitz (1993), I found
tested following probed recall. that reading acceleration significantly enhances reading per-
formance in specifically disabled readers. Dyslexic children
can read faster than they normally do, and by doing so,
Results increase decoding accuracy and comprehension. However,
The results for Experiment 4 are presented in Table 6. the extent to which this gain may be ascribed to improved
Consistent with previous results, reading rates and accuracy STM operation is debatable.
were significantly higher in the fast-paced reading condition Fast-paced reading produced a markedly different pattern
as compared with the self-paced condition. The dyslexic of effects on STM among this population as compared with
children recalled more prior words than subsequent words normal beginning readers. Because the dyslexic children in
during self- and fast-paced reading. This pattern of results is this study were reading-level matched to the normal novice
similar to the results of the primacy and recency effects readers in the Breznitz and Share (1992) study, the differ-
observed in Experiment 2, which indicated that the recall of ences between the two groups in performance on the STM
items among dyslexic readers is related to context. tasks used in both studies were statistically assessed. A
repeated measure multivariate analysis of variance revealed
a significant Group X Condition interaction in forward
General Discussion versus backward item recall, F(2, 42) = 73.0, p < .001,
recency versus primacy item recall, F(2, 42) = 46.7, p <
Earlier research has revealed that individually paced read-
.001, and wording versus semantic detection, F(2, 42) =
ing acceleration significantly improves reading performance
11.3, p < .001. During reading acceleration, the dyslexic
among readers at all levels of ability. Investigations of the
children improved on forward item recall (M = 11.2) but
etiology of this phenomenon among normal novice and
more advanced readers have shown that the gains in reading not backward item recall (M — 0.3), increased their recall of
performance during fast-paced reading are attributed, at primacy items (M = 2.4) but not recency items (M — 0.2),
least in part, to lower distracribility (Breznitz, 1988), in- and improved their performance on semantic detection
creased similarity between the vocal output and stored pro- (M = 0.8) but not wording detection (M = 0.1). In contrast,
nunciations (Breznitz, 1990), increased phonological pro- normal beginning readers improved backward item recall
cessing (Breznitz, 1997), and improved STM functioning more significantly than forward item recall (M — 27.1 and
(Breznitz & Share, 1992). M = 26.1, respectively), increased recency item recall more
significantly than primacy item recall (M — 2.2 and M —
The effects of acceleration are pronounced among dys-
0.3, respectively), and improved their performance on
lexic readers (Breznitz, 1993, 1997). Gains in decoding
wording detection but not semantic detection (M = 0.8 and
accuracy and comprehension are substantial during this
manipulation. Many researchers have demonstrated that M - 0.1, respectively).
deficits in STM are characteristic of the reading disabled This pattern of results indicates that unlike normal begin-
(Wagner & Torgesen, 1987). In light of the importance of ning readers, dyslexic children were more often fooled by
STM to decoding and comprehension processes, I sought to synonomous word substitutions than by substitutions in
assess the extent to which changes in STM functioning which words' meanings were changed. In addition, they
recalled more prior items (i.e., earlier words) in sentences
than subsequent (later) words during fast-paced (as well as
self-paced) reading.
Table 6
Experiment 4: Reading Rate, Accuracy, and Probed These findings suggest that STM functioning among dys-
Recall Scores in Self-Paced and Fast-Paced lexic children was facilitated only when reliance on context
Reading Conditions was feasible. Conversely, the normal novice readers in the
Breznitz and Share (1992) study showed sizable gains on
Self-paced 1 Fast-paced STM tasks that were free from context effects. These read-
Measure l, 21) ers appeared to operate according to the principle of "last in,
last out," whereas the opposite was true of dyslexic
Prior words
recalled (No.) 3.1 1.5 4.2 1.3 5.73* children.
Subsequent Further supporting the idea that dyslexic readers may
words recalled depend on context during processing in STM is the finding
(No.) 1.9 0.7 2.1 1.0 ns that among dyslexic children, memory for factual content
Accuracy (No. of
errors) 14.1 2.3 9.2 3.1 7.21 (as measured by prepositional analysis) correlated signifi-
Per letter reading cantly with primacy recall (r = .52) but not with recency
rate (s) 0.3 0.6 0.2 0.5 9.23 recall (r = .14). Experiment 3 revealed that in both self- and
.05. fast-paced reading conditions, content recall correlated sig-
296 BREZNITZ
nificantly with semantic detection (r = .66) but not with
wording detection (r - .17).
These results suggest that STM resources may be used in
a different manner among dyslexic readers than among
novice readers. Dyslexic readers may depend more on sen-
tential content to deduce meaning. This interpretation is
consistent with StanovicrTs (1980) interactive-
compensatory model of reading, which posits that context
usage compensates for poor decoding ability. Experimental
data is consistent with this view. Beginning and less skilled
readers use a context-bound strategy more extensively for
word identification (Goldsmith-Phillips, 1989; Leu, De-
Groff, & Simons 1986; Stanovich, 1984; Stanovich, West,
& Feeman, 1981). This holds true even at the college level
(Ben-Dror, Pollatsek, & Scarpati, 1991). Although this
strategy is not cognitively economic in terms of engagement
of limited resources, it may offer a means of lexical access
that is inefficiently achieved through phonological or ortho-
graphic codes.
Researchers have demonstrated, with abundant empirical
evidence, that the main difficulty dyslexic readers encounter
lies in accessing the lexicon, particularly when this must
occur through use of the phonological code (Olson, Wise,
Conners, & Rack, 1990; Snowling, 1980). The results ob-
tained in the self-paced condition in the present study sup-
port this position. Decoding accuracy was clearly impaired
among dyslexic children. Compared with the second-grade
readers in the earlier (Breznitz & Share, 1992) study, the
fourth-grade dyslexic children in the current investigation
had significantly lower word recognition scores.
Reading acceleration may serve to increase available con-
textual information in STM. As dyslexic readers may be
strongly context-dependent, it is conceivable that for them,
acceleration induces postlexical text integration processes,
whereas for normal novice readers fast-pacing may enhance
prelexical word identification processes. The former effect
may be related to improvement in what is currently defined
as the WM system, although the latter may be associated
with increased efficiency in the STM system. In current
models, WM is held to be responsible for short-term pro-
cessing functions of the system (such as rehearsal), whereas
STM is thought to be responsible for the passive storage
functions (Swanson, 1994). Hence, for dyslexic children the
effects of reading acceleration may enhance processing op-
erations, whereas for normal readers acceleration may in-
crease capacity.
Swanson (1994) has suggested that among other roles,
WM may act as a coordinator for different verbal memory
processes. In the present study, the dyslexic children re-
duced decoding errors and increased comprehension and
context-based memory during reading acceleration. One
interpretation of this result is that for these children, fast
pacing may improve reading effectiveness by facilitating
the interaction between short- and long-term memory stor-
age functions through increased WM activity. As a result,
better integration between top-down and bottom-up pro-
cesses may occur.
On the basis of connectionist models of reading that
portray the reading process as involving parallel activation
of phonological, orthographic, and semantic subsystems
(Seidenberg, 1990), an additional possibility is that WM
may act as a coordinating mechanism for information arriv-
ing from each of the three subsystems. Fast-paced reading
may improve this coordination by forcing information to
arrive in WM at a faster rate, such that it is more likely that
corresponding information from the three subsystems will
present simultaneously.
Whether the above speculations are indeed the case is a
question that remains to be further explored. Additional
research using independent measures of both STM and WM
would contribute to our understanding of the effects of
fast-pacing on these factors in dyslexic and normal reader
populations.
It is important to note that alongside the clear evidence of
improved STM or WM functioning, or both, during fast-
paced reading among dyslexic children, this appears not to
be the sole explanatory context for the fast-paced phenom-
enon in this group of readers. Research has revealed that
reading acceleration may promote more efficient operation
of other cognitive abilities: Fast-pacing appears to focus
attention (Breznitz, 1988; Ronen & Breznitz, 1997) and to
overcome some of the phonological processing limitations
characteristic of the specifically reading disabled (Breznitz,
1990, 1997). These results suggest that fast pacing may
compel dyslexic children to engage other available cogni-
tive resources more extensively to meet the demands of
time-limited reading.
The current experiments point to the possibility that read-
ing acceleration might be of value as both a diagnostic and
a remedial tool that can be used in combination with estab-
lished phonology-based techniques.
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Received February 29, 1996
Revision received July 15, 1996
Accepted August 21, 1996 •