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Vocabulary knowledge is one of the most important elements of reading comprehension. Text coverage is the proportion of known words in a given text. We hypothesize that text comprehension increases exponentially with text coverage due to network effects and activation of prior knowledge. In addition, the lexical threshold hypothesis states that text comprehension increases faster above a certain amount of text coverage. The exponential relationship between text coverage and text comprehension, as well as the lexical threshold, are at the heart of text comprehension theory and are of great interest for optimizing language instruction. In this study, we first used vocabulary knowledge to estimate text coverage based on test scores from N = 924 German fourth graders. Second, we compared linear with non-linear models of text coverage and vocabulary knowledge to explain text comprehension. Third, we used a broken-line regression to estimate a lexical threshold. The results showed an exponential relationship between text coverage and text comprehension. Moreover, text coverage explained text comprehension better than vocabulary knowledge, and text comprehension increased more quickly above 56% text coverage. From an instructional perspective, the results suggest that reading activities with text coverage below 56% are too difficult for readers and likely inappropriate for instructional purposes. Further applications of the results, such as for standard setting and readability analyses, are discussed.

Research into second language (L2) reading is an exponentially growing field. Yet, it still has a relatively short supply of comparable, ecologically valid data from readers representing a variety of first languages (L1). This article addresses this need by presenting a new data resource called "MECO L2" (Multilingual Eye Movements Corpus), a rich behavioral eye-tracking record of text reading in English as an L2 among 543 university student speakers of 12 different L1s. MECO L2 includes a test battery of component skills of reading and allows for a comparison of the participants' reading performance in their L1 and L2. This data resource enables innovative large-scale cross-sample analyses of predictors of L2 reading fluency and comprehension. We first introduce the design and structure of the MECO L2 resource, along with reliability estimates and basic descriptive analyses. Then, we illustrate the utility of MECO L2 by quantifying contributions of four sources to variability in L2 reading proficiency proposed in prior literature: reading fluency and comprehension in L1, proficiency in L2 component skills of reading, extralinguistic factors, and the L1 of the readers. Major findings included (a) a fundamental contrast between the determinants of L2 reading fluency versus comprehension accuracy, and (b) high within-participant consistency in the real-time strategy of reading in L1 and L2. We conclude by reviewing the implications of these findings to theories of L2 acquisition and outline further directions in which the new data resource may support L2 reading research.

Successful reading comprehension--especially in a second language (L2)--relies on the ability to monitor one's comprehension, that is, to notice comprehension breaks and make repairs. Comprehension monitoring may be limited given effortful word processing but may also be supported through active reading. The current study addresses to what extent word processing difficulty reduces adolescents' ability to monitor their comprehension in their L2, and whether readers can compensate limitations given sufficient executive control. We conducted an eye-tracking experiment in which 34 adolescent L2 learners (aged 13-17 years) read short expository texts containing two within-subject manipulations. First, comprehension monitoring was tested through inconsistencies, for example, when the topic changed from "Spanish" to "Russian" vis-à-vis consistent controls. Second, word processing difficulty was altered by inserting either shorter and higher-frequency words such as "want," or longer and lower-frequency words such as "prefer." We additionally measured participants' executive control. Outcome variables were reading times on the whole texts and the words manipulated for inconsistency and word processing difficulty. We found evidence of successful moment-to-moment monitoring, as visible in adolescents' increased rereading of inconsistent compared to consistent information. We also found that adolescents adapted their monitoring differently to word processing difficulty, depending on their executive control: while adolescents with weaker control reduced their monitoring given higher word processing difficulty, adolescents with stronger control monitored their comprehension more (instead of less) on difficult texts. These findings provide insights into how L2 comprehension monitoring arises in the interplay of lower-level processing load and active reading processes.

In this study, we investigated developmental aspects of eye movements during reading of three languages (English, German, and Finnish) that vary widely in their orthographic complexity and predictability. Grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules are rather complex in English and German but relatively simple in Finnish. Despite their differences in complexity, the rules in German and Finnish are highly predictable, whereas English has many exceptions. Comparing eye movement development in these three languages allows us to investigate whether orthographic complexity and predictability have separate effects on eye movement development. Three groups of children, matched on years of reading instruction, along with a group of proficient adult readers in each language were tested. All participants read stimulus materials that were carefully translated and back-translated across all three languages. The length and frequency of 48 target words were manipulated experimentally within the stimulus set. For children, word length effects were stronger in Finnish and German than in English. In addition, in English effects of word frequency were weaker and only present for short words. Generally, English children showed a qualitatively different reading pattern, while German and Finnish children's reading behavior was rather similar. These results indicate that the predictability of an orthographic system is more important than its complexity for children's reading development. Adults' reading behavior, in contrast, was remarkably similar across languages. Our results demonstrate that eye movements are sensitive to language-specific features in children's reading, but become more homogenous as reading skill matures.

Reading a word requires several component processes. The dual route cascaded (DRC) model provides a characterization of these component processes and their involvement in different reading routes. We tested how relevant precursor skills associated with these component processes predict the use of the sublexical and lexical route in beginning readers of a transparent orthography. More than 100 German first graders performed a battery of tasks tapping into precursor skills associated with the DRC components. Using factor analysis, we first verified that the tasks can be attributed to three sets of skills, capturing visual, sublexical, and lexico-semantic components, as the DRC suggests. We then used these sets of skills to predict differences in the reliance on sublexical and lexical reading in second grade as indicated by length and frequency effects. Results show that the set of sublexical skills in first grade especially predicts differences in the recognition of long frequent words at the end of second grade, whereas the set of lexico-semantic skills predicts differences in the reading of long infrequent words. The findings corroborate the attribution of specific precursor skills to the sublexical and lexical route and reveal their distinct impact on sublexical and lexical reading in beginning readers. The work thus empirically informs the developmental version of the DRC, especially regarding variability in trajectories of reading acquisition.

Reading development involves several changes in orthographic processing. A key question is, "how does the coding of letters develops in children learning to read?" Masked priming effects of transposition and substitution primes have been taken to index the importance of letter position and identity coding. Somewhat contradicting results for developing readers have led to opposing theories. Here, we present new evidence from a large longitudinal study with over 100 children from grade 2 to 4. We investigate three different issues concerning transposition and substitution priming: (a) comparing priming both against an all-different and an identity baseline, (b) testing priming effects for nonword targets, and (c) taking into account interindividual differences in orthographic knowledge. The analyses of the longitudinal data show, respectively, (a) an increase of priming effects over development in comparison to both baselines, (b) identity priming for nonword targets in the elementary school years, and (c) an additional impact of orthographic knowledge on priming effects for word, but not nonword, targets that is similar to the effect of grade. Taken together, our examination suggests that letter identity is coded relatively strictly, whereas letter position is coded relatively flexibly already early in reading development for words, but not for nonwords. We discuss how this pattern fits with different developmental models of orthographic processing.

In this study, we investigated effects of morphological processing on handwriting production in beginning writers of German. Children from Grades 3 and 4 were asked to copy words from a computer screen onto a pen tablet, while we recorded their handwriting with high spatiotemporal resolution. Words involved a syllable-congruent visual disruption (e.g., "Golfer"), a morpheme-congruent visual disruption (e.g., "Golfer"), or had no disruption (e.g., "Golfer"). We analyzed productions in terms of Writing Onset Duration and Letter Duration at the onset of the second syllable ("f" in "Gol.fer") and the onset of the suffix ("e" in "Golf_er"). Results showed that durations were longer at word-writing onset only for words with a morpheme-congruent visual disruption. Also, letter durations were longer at the onset of the second syllable (i.e., "-fer") and shorter at the onset of the suffix (i.e., "-er") only for words with a syllable-congruent visual disruption. We interpret these findings within extant theories of handwriting production and offer an explanation for the observed effects before and during trajectory formation.

The present study investigated whether morphological processing in reading is influenced by the orthographic consistency of a language or its morphological complexity. Developing readers in Grade 3 and skilled adult readers participated in a reading aloud task in four alphabetic orthographies (English, French, German, Italian), which differ in terms of both orthographic consistency and morphological complexity. English is the least consistent, in terms of its spelling-to-sound relationships, as well as the most morphologically sparse, compared to the other three. Two opposing hypotheses were formulated. If orthographic consistency modulated the use of morphology in reading, readers of English should show more robust morphological processing than readers of the other three languages, because morphological units increase the reliability of spelling-to-sound mappings in the English language. In contrast, if the use of morphology in reading depended on the morphological complexity of a language, readers of French, German, and Italian should process morphological units in printed letter strings more efficiently than readers of English. Both developing and skilled readers of English showed greater morphological processing than readers of the other three languages. These results support the idea that the orthographic consistency of a language, rather than its morphological complexity, influences the extent to which morphology is used during reading. We explain our findings within the remit of extant theories of reading acquisition and outline their theoretical and educational implications.

Words are seldom read in isolation. Predicting or anticipating upcoming words in a text, based on the context in which they are read, is an important aspect of efficient language processing. In sentence reading, words with congruent preceding context have been shown to be processed faster than words read in neutral or incongruous contexts. The onset of contextual facilitation effects is found very early in the first-pass-reading eye-movement and electroencephalogram (EEG) measures of skilled adult readers. However, the effect of contextual facilitation on children's eye movements during reading remains largely unexplored. To fill this gap, we tracked children's and adults' eye movements while reading stories with embedded words that were either strongly or weakly related to a clear narrative theme. Our central finding is that children showed late contextual facilitation effects during text reading as opposed to both early and late facilitation effects found in skilled adult readers. Contextual constraint had a similar effect on children's and adults' initiation of regressive saccades, whereas children invested more time in rereading relative to adults after encountering weakly contextually constrained words. Quantile regression analyses revealed that contextual facilitation effects had an early onset in adults' first-pass reading, whereas they only had a late onset in children's gaze durations.

Leisure reading is a main contributor to print exposure, which is in turn related to individual differences in reading and language skills. The Author Recognition Test (ART) is a brief and objective measure of print exposure that has been used in reading research since the 1990s. Life span studies have reported contradicting results concerning age differences in print exposure, possibly due to the use of ART versions that differed regarding authors' mean publication year. We investigated effects of participant age and authors' mean publication year, literary level, and circulation frequency on author recognition probability between adolescence and old age (N = 339; age 13-77 years). An explanatory item response analysis showed that participant age and circulation frequency were positively related to recognition probability. Mean publication year was negatively related to recognition probability, indicating that recent authors who have been widely read for only a few years were less often recognized than classic authors who have been widely read for several decades. The relation between participant age and recognition probability was moderated by author variables. For classic authors, the recognition probability increased between adolescence and old age. By contrast, for recent authors, the recognition probability increased only between adolescence and middle age. Our results suggest that the mean publication year is a key author variable for the detection of print exposure differences between young, middle-aged and older adults. We discuss implications for author selection when updating the ART and for measuring print exposure in age-diverse samples.

This experiment investigated interactions between lower- and higher-level processing when reading in a second language (L2). We conducted an eye-tracking experiment with the within-subject manipulation inconsistency (to tap higher-level coherence-building) crossed with a within-subject manipulation of word-processing difficulty (to alter the ease of lower-level processing), both manipulated on the text level. Sixty-three L2 learners read 48 short expository texts containing inconsistencies created through mismatches between pretargets such as "soya" and targets such as "corn," or consistent controls. Word-processing difficulty was manipulated by inserting either shorter and higher-frequency words such as "often" or longer and lower-frequency words such as "increasingly." We found evidence of interactions between lower-level word-processing difficulty and higher-level coherence building, as revealed by reduced a inconsistency effect showing in go-past durations and rereading in the difficult condition. This effect did not, however, extend to targeted regressions into inconsistent information. Our findings provide the first experimental evidence for online interactions between lower-level word processing and higher-level coherence building.

Masked priming studies have shown that readers decompose morphologically complex words ("read+er"). Interindividual differences have been suggested to affect this phenomenon. However, its development is poorly understood. We addressed this issue by taking a longitudinal approach that allows greater rigor in establishing the relationship between grade, reading skill, and morphological priming. A masked priming lexical decision task with suffixed words ("kleidchen-KLEID"), suffixed nonwords ("kleidtum-KLEID"), non-suffixed nonwords ("kleidekt-KLEID") and unrelated primes ("träumerei-KLEID") was administered to 98 children in grade 2, and again in grade 3 and 4 of elementary school. Reading skill was measured at each testing point. Grade and reading skill were associated with distinct patterns of priming: all priming effects increased with reading skill, whereas priming from non-suffixed nonwords decreased with grade. This suggests that the ability to identify stems can be associated with reading skills, while sensitivity to affixes is acquired over grades.

The present study examined cross-linguistic differences in morphological processing in the visual and auditory modality. French and German adults performed a visual and auditory lexical decision task that involved the same translation-equivalent items. The focus of the study was on nonwords, which were constructed in a way that made it possible to independently investigate the role of stems and suffixes in the visual and auditory domain. Results revealed a stem-by-modality and a suffix-by-modality interaction, indicating that morphology plays a more prominent role in the visual than in the auditory domain. Moreover, a significant language-by-stem interaction indicated more robust morphological processing in German than in French. The latter result supports the idea that morphological processing is influenced by the morphological productivity of a language.

The development of preschoolers' language skills is influenced by literacy environments and individual differences in storybook exposure. Extant research is limited as most studies (a) investigate the effects on lower level language (LLL; e.g., vocabulary, grammar), but not the effects on higher level language (HLL; e.g., comprehension monitoring, narrative comprehension), and (b) focus on shared reading in the home literacy environment (HLE), but not on the child care literacy environment (CCLE) and the child as active literacy agent. We addressed these two gaps. First, we investigated the contributions of the HLE and the CCLE to the storybook exposure of 201 German preschoolers (MAge = 5; 5 years). A multilevel model showed that parents' storybook exposure was the most important predictor of children's storybook exposure. By contrast, child care workers' storybook exposure was not a significant predictor. Second, we explored the unique contributions of HLE, CCLE, and preschoolers' storybook exposure to LLL and HLL skills. Multilevel models showed that children's storybook exposure explained unique variance not only in LLL skills, but also in HLL skills. Literacy environments explained additional variance in LLL skills. In sum, our results suggest that literacy environments are differentially related to children's storybook exposure and language skills. Our finding that children's storybook exposure was a unique predictor of vocabulary, grammar, comprehension monitoring, and narrative comprehension indicates that shared book reading has the potential to foster a range of early literacy skills which predict reading comprehension.

Children struggle with the resolution of pronouns during reading, but little is known about the sources of their difficulties. We conducted a longitudinal eye tracking experiment with 70 children in the final years of primary school. The children read sentences with a contextual resolution preference in which gender was either an informative resolution cue for the pronoun or not. We were interested in children's processing of the pronoun and their resolution preferences, as well as the effects of individual differences of Grade level and reading skill. Children's resolution ability improved with age, and good readers were more accurate than poor readers. In the eye-tracking measures, we found strong individual differences related to reading skill: Children with good reading skill took more time to read the pronoun region when pronoun gender was informative, suggesting that good readers make better use of the available information at the pronoun than poor readers.

Background: German children do not formally learn letter-sounds before school entry. In this study, we evaluated kindergarten children's sensitivity to the frequency of letters and visually similar symbols in child-directed texts, how it develops and whether it predicts early reading abilities. Method: In a longitudinal study from kindergarten to primary school, children were asked to judge whether a presented alphabetic (e.g., A) or non-alphabetic symbol (e.g., #) was a letter. High and low frequency was varied for both types of symbols. Furthermore, we analysed whether later reading abilities were predicted by this letter judgement ability. Results: Before school entry, children had difficulties in distinguishing frequent non-alphabetic symbols from letters. Furthermore, letter judgement in kindergarten predicted reading abilities in first grade. Conclusions: Children derive some knowledge about letters from the frequency of co-occurrence of letters and symbols in texts. The ability to distinguish letters from non-alphabetic symbols predicts early reading.

Reading comprehension is the product of constructing a coherent mental model of a text. Although some of the processes that are necessary to construct such a mental model are executed incrementally, others are deferred to the end of the clause or sentence, where integration processing is wrapped up before the reader progresses further in the text. In this longitudinal study of 65 German-speaking children across Grades 2, 3, and 4, we investigated the development of wrap-up processes at clause and sentence boundaries by tracking the children's eye movements while they read age-appropriate texts. Our central finding was that children in Grade 2 showed strong wrap-up effects that then slowly decreased across school grades. Children in Grades 3 and 4 also increasingly used clause and sentence boundaries to initiate regressions and rereading. Finally, children in Grade 2 were shown to be significantly disrupted in their reading at line breaks, which are inherent in continuous text. This disruption decreased as the children progressed to Grades 3 and 4. Overall, our results show that children exhibit an adultlike pattern of wrap-up effects by the time they reach Grade 4. We discuss this developmental trajectory in relation to models of text processing and mechanisms of eye-movement control.

Background: In Germany, there is a substantial gap in reading literacy between monolingual children and their L2-speaking peers. Nevertheless, it is still unclear where these performance differences are rooted. Methods: We investigated children of grades 5, 6 and 7 with comparable socio-economic status, who completed a battery of tests assessing their linguistic and executive functioning skills as well as their reading performance on the letter, word, sentence and text level. Results: Whereas L1 speakers showed better linguistic skills, there was no difference between groups in executive functioning. After controlling for individual differences on each level of reading, groups only differed in text comprehension. This effect, however, disappeared when participants' linguistic skills were additionally controlled. Conclusions: In sum, results show that reading problems in L2 speakers cannot be attributed to deficits on specific component processes of reading, but to a lack of linguistic skills, which negatively affects reading comprehension.

The developmental trajectory of the use of morphemes is still unclear. We investigated the emergence of morphological effects on visual word recognition in German in a large sample across the complete course of reading acquisition in elementary school. To this end, we analyzed lexical decision data on a total of 1,152 words and pseudowords from a large cross-sectional sample of German children from the beginning of Grade 2 through 6, and a group of adults. We expand earlier evidence by (a) explicitly investigating processing differences between compounds, prefixes and suffixes, (b) taking into account vocabulary knowledge as an indicator for interindividual differences. Results imply that readers of German are sensitive to morphology in very early stages of reading acquisition with trajectories depending on morphological type and vocabulary knowledge. Facilitation from compound structure comes early in development, followed by facilitation from suffixes and prefixes later on in development. This indicates that stems and different types of affixes involve distinct processing mechanisms in beginning readers. Furthermore, children with higher vocabulary knowledge benefit earlier in development and to a greater extent from morphology. Our results specify the development and functional role of morphemes as reading units.

In this article we present a new method for estimating children's total vocabulary size based on a language corpus in German. We drew a virtual sample of different lexicon sizes from a corpus and let the virtual sample "take" a vocabulary test by comparing whether the items were included in the virtual lexicons or not. This enabled us to identify the relation between test performance and total lexicon size. We then applied this relation to the test results of a real sample of children (grades 1-8, aged 6 to 14) and young adults (aged 18 to 25) and estimated their total vocabulary sizes. Average absolute vocabulary sizes ranged from 5,900 lemmas in first grade to 73,000 for adults, with significant increases between adjacent grade levels except from first to second grade. Our analyses also allowed us to observe parts of speech and morphological development. Results thus shed light on the course of vocabulary development during primary school.

Investigating the impact of linguistic characteristics on visual word recognition in children, we studied whether differences in native (L1) and second language (L2) processing already emerge at the beginning of reading development. German elementary school students in grades 2 to 6 completed a battery of standardized tests and a lexical decision task (LDT). Though L1 speakers outperformed L2 speakers on German skills, groups did not differ in their overall performance on the LDT. However, results from mixed effect models revealed greater effects for word frequency and length in L2 over L1 speakers, indicating qualitative differences in the sensitivity to linguistic information between groups. This distinction persisted across all grades and after controlling for differences in vocabulary size and reading fluency. Findings extend evidence provided for adult L2 processing, suggesting that varying language exposure shapes the development of the word-recognition system already in the early stages of reading development.

We conducted two masked priming experiments to examine how the orthographic system processes words with mirrored letters. In both experiments, four different primes were used: an identity prime, an unrelated control prime, and two mirror-primes in which letters were either mirrored at their vertical or horizontal axis. Task was varied between experiments: In Experiment 1, we used a lexical decision task, and in Experiment 2, we used a cross-case same–different match task. We expected to see priming effects in both mirror-conditions with stronger effects in the vertically than in the horizontally mirrored letters. In the lexical decision task, we observed only vertical priming effects for words, whereas in the same–different task, priming effects were present in both mirror-conditions and for both words and non-words. We discuss the implications of our findings for extant models of orthographic processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many low-skill readers have problems with visual word recognition. In particular, low-skill readers show a substantial nonword reading deficit that is attributed to deficits in sub-lexical processing. In this study, I examined whether the nonword deficits of German 14-year-old low-skill readers were associated with inefficient use of multi-letter information. In a lexical-decision experiment, words and nonwords were presented in standard format and in MiXeD cAsE format which has been shown to be especially disrupting for sub-lexical processing. When the stimuli were presented in standard format, low-skill readers showed a substantial nonword reading deficit, that is they were generally slower than high-skill readers, but had special problems with decoding nonwords. However, when stimuli were presented in MiXeD cAsE, low- and high-skill readers showed equal impairments in nonword processing. This finding indicates that low-skill readers do not use context-sensitive multi-letter rules during phonological assembly in normal reading. (Contains 2 tables.)