When Slower is Faster: Time Spent Decoding Novel Words Predicts Better Decoding and Faster Growth

ABSTRACT

We compare poor-performing and normal-performing decoders’ processing times on real words, pseudo-homophones, and nonwords (Study 1), and evaluate how a processing time difference is associated with rates of decoding development (Study 2). Over 800 sixth and seventh graders took an online reading component battery, which included a decoding test, four times in three consecutive years. Study 1 indicates that poor decoders were generally slower than their peers in processing real words and pseudo-homophones, but they spent shorter time than their peers when decoding nonwords that were novel to them, resulting in a significant interaction. In Study 2, longitudinal modeling reveals that the time students spent decoding novel words positively predicted decoding development. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that poor decoders may be trapped in a vicious cycle: poor decoding skill combined with less time spent attempting to decode novel words interferes with decoding development.

Acknowledgments

The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305F100005 to the Educational Testing Service as part of the Reading for Understanding Research (RFU) Initiative, and Grant R305G040065. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education. We are extremely grateful to the Institute of Education Sciences and Educational Testing Service, including the Center for Research on Human Capital and Education, for sponsoring and supporting this research. We would like to thank three anonymous reviewers, Michael Kieffer (the editor),Don Powers, Lili Yao, Beata Beigman Klebanov, and Jon Weeks for their feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript. We thank Jonathan Steinberg and Szu-Fu Chao for data preparation. We would like to also like to thank Strategic Educational Research Partnership, Suzanne Donovan and Catherine Snow for their partnership and support in this project. The study was based on de-identified data collected from students' school curriculum activities thus exempt from IRB regulation.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare there is no conflict of interest