Competent Reader, Disabled Reader: Research and Application

In the past frustration with experimental reports had caused educators to dismiss the entire reading research enterprise. Originally published in 1982, this book attempts to abstract those experimental results relevant to developing effective reading programs. The book concentrates on the more mechanical aspects of reading skill such as visual discrimination ability, visual and auditory memory, visual-to-phonetic translation skills, and attentional strategies. These skills it is argued, account for the major proportion of variance in reading ability. The research on both competent and incompetent reading indicates the special importance of such skills to reading.

The book contains three sections. Section I reviews the experimental evidence on competent reading. The review highlights consistent threads of evidence and provides a description of the competent reader’s strategies for analyzing text. Section II reviews research on poor reading. This section evaluates the concept of dyslexia and stresses that reading problems are not uniform. Section III maintains that the information about competent reading strategies and the impediments to acquiring those strategies should guide educators in evaluating instructional materials and facilitate the diagnosis of reading failure. Today it can be read in its historical context.

Martin H. Singer