Sight Reading
Sight reading is the recognition of whole words as opposed to the recognition and subsequent assembly of individual characters or syllables (phonic decoding). Sight reading is often the product of the flash-card system in both its original and computerized forms. The flash-card method is a widely recognized learning tool for the instant recognition of symbols, words and concepts. It is used in the teaching of languages (Kunst, 1987; Centre for Applied Linguistics & Centre for Language Education and Research, 1989a, 1989b, 1989c), phonic decoding (Wentink et. Al., 1997), arithmetic (Hawkes, 1983), reducing reversals (Heydorn, 1984), and for the effective education of moderately mentally retarded students (Cuvo & Klatt, 1992), and of reading disabled students (Cohen et. Al., 1988). The strength of the widespread and extensive acceptance of the sight-reading/flash-card method is very convincing.
Ehri & Roberts (1979) found that the use of flash cards increased reading speed. This is due to the progression from character and diphthong recognition and assembly, to whole word recognition (Tan & Nicholson, 1997). The idea of “Basic units of Information Processing” or BIP is discussed by Roberts et. Al. (1996) who suggest that the BIP is a marker for reading speed. Successful speed reading programs and training utilities such as FieldCraft's Speed Reading Trainer, Stretch, are aimed at increasing the size and complexity of the BIP by increasing the number of words that can be absorbed in a glance. This replaces the need to focus on every word with the tendency to attenuate over whole phrases or clauses according to what is instantly recognised. Hill (1981) found that by decreasing the tendency to concentrate on every word, significant improvement in reading speed could be made.
Of interest, Didden et. Al. (2000) found that the use of pictorial prompts hindered rather than helped the acquisition of sight words. Hence training programs that employ pictorial prompts are known to hamper speed reading training. The sight-reading method provides extensive improvements in overall reading skills (Monroe & Staunton, 2000; Henning & Pickett, 2000).
