Abstract Words
Researchers in word recognition have documented what is called the “concreteness effect”—that is, readers learn to recognize concrete words more quickly than they learn to recognize abstract words. They also read concrete words faster and more accurately in isolation than they read abstract words in isolation. The same finding shows up in comprehension studies at the sentence level—more concrete words = faster comprehension. I can add documentation upon request1.
[NOTE: The link below takes you to an ILA publication written by Duke, Ward, and Pearson (2021) titled “The Science of Reading Comprehension.” Since reading comprehension is the result the smooth coordination of many complex cognitive processes, teaching it should enable readers to use all processes simultaneously. Does it make sense to begin reading comprehension instruction by sending the message to beginners that one loop (grapho-phonics) takes priority over all other loops?]
Assuming that this scientific phenomenon aligns with an ontological noumenon, what does it say about the SoR’s attacks on semantics as a cueing resource useful in achieving automaticity? Could we agree on two cueing systems?2
[NOTE: The link below takes you to a theoretical model of reading processes the takes cognizance of the full complement of sensory perception, cognitive, and storage elements in human memory which must be deployed to make sense of printed text, including imagery and haptics. It was published by Sadoski and Paivio (2013).]
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https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/trtr.1993
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319879528_A_Dual_Coding_Theoretical_Model_of_Reading