Reading strategies in orthographies of intermediate depth are flexible: Modulation of length effects in Portuguese

Abstract

This paper examines the role of grapheme–phoneme conversion for skilled reading in an orthography of intermediate depth, Portuguese. The effects of word length in number of letters were determined in two studies. Mixed lists of five- and six-letter words and nonwords were presented to young adults in lexical decision and reading aloud tasks in the first study; in the second one, the length range was increased from four to six letters and an extra condition was added where words and nonwords were presented in separate, or blocked, lists. Reaction times were larger for longer words and nonwords in lexical decision, and in reading aloud mixed lists, but no effect of length was observed when reading words in blocked lists. The effect of word length is thus modulated by list composition. This is evidence that grapheme–phoneme conversion is not as predominant for phonological recoding in intermediate orthographies as it is in shallow ones, and suggests that skilled reading in those orthographies is highly responsive to tasks conditions because readers may switch from smaller segment-by-segment decoding to larger unit or lexicon-related processing.

Keywords:

• Grapheme–phoneme conversion
• Length effect
• Orthography
• Portuguese
• Skilled reading

Acknowledgements

The support from the University of Porto through the grant “Programa de Investigação Científica na Pré-Graduação 2006 UP/CGD” is gratefully acknowledged. César Lima holds a doctoral fellowship from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (SFRH/BD/39306/2007). We thank Francesca Peressotti for helpful discussions, and also Kathleen Rastle and one anonymous reviewer for their comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

Notes

¹Because longer length is associated with increased occurrence of digraphs and with less mute final <e>s in the stimuli, we performed post hoc analyses to etermine whether the pattern of length effects would persist if these two variables were controlled for. We repeated the item analyses considering digraphs and the existence of final <e> as covariates, and we generally replicated the same pattern of results: Length influenced word latencies in reading aloud, ANCOVA, F ₂(1, 94)=2.98, p=.08, but not in lexical decision, ANCOVA, F ₂<1.

²As for Study 1, we conducted item analyses considering digraphs and final <e> as covariates, and the same pattern of results was obtained: length determined latencies in reading aloud words in mixed lists, ANCOVA, F ₂(2, 142)=2.85, p<.05, and in lexical decision, ANCOVA, F ₂ (2, 142)=3.3, p<.04, but not when the lists were blocked, ANCOVA, F ₂ <1.