[Reading-hall-of-fame] Speed of processing in reading

[tsticht at znet.com]

Hi Folks! Years ago in a 1974 book entitled Auding and Reading: A
Developmental Model I considered speed of processing during reading. You
can download the book for free by Googling Sticht Auding and Reading and
get it from the NALD in Canada. Following is some thoughts in chapter 5
that looks at four hypotheses from the developmental model and this one
deals with processing speed in reading and auding. The general idea is that
one cannot read faster than one can think and that language-based thinking
requires a process called languaging.

Speculation on the Rate of Languaging. It is of interest to note that the
rates of 250-300 wpm, indicated by the foregoing as more- or-less "maximal"
rates for auding and silent reading, correspond closely to the fastest rates
at which trained readers can read aloud. This suggests that the same factors
which limit rates of reading aloud may limit rates of auding and reading.
One factor limiting oral reading is the rate at which articulatory
movements can be made. Lenneberg
(1967, pp.88-124) discusses various aspects of speech production, including
the rate at which articulatory movements (syllables) can be made. He
reports that ". . .subjects between the ages of eight to about thirty could
speed up production to eight and occasionally even nine syllables per second
for the duration of a few seconds; the rate slowed down to about six per
second if the alternating movements were to be sustained over more than
three or four seconds." (p. 115)
Taking six syllables per second as an efficient level of production gives
360 syllables per minute. Then, assuming 1.42 syllables per word (the
average for 33 of the 36 passages scaled for complexity by Miller and
Coleman, 1967; Carroll, 1967 describes six passages with an average of 1.44
syllables per word), we obtain a rate of 254 wpm-a rate comparable to the
average silent reading rate of high school students (Taylor, 1964). A rate
of 300 wpm corresponds to a syllable per
second rate of 7.1, midway between Lenneberg's rates of six syllables per
second for sustained production, and nine syllables per second for brief
durations of production.

There appears, then, to be a close relationship between the rate at which
syllables can be produced, and maximal auding and silent reading rates. It
is as though, typically, auders and' readers utilize the same mechanisms
for decoding spoken or printed language into conceptualizations, as are
used in signaling conceptualizations to others via speech.

Just a little food for thought! But not too fast!!

Tom Sticht