Is accuracy enough? The cognitive implications of speed of response in adult reading ability

The importance of phonological processes and rapid, automatized word recognition in skilled reading adults has been established, as well as the importance of these processes to the acquisition and development of skilled reading in children. However, few studies have examined the role of these cognitive processes in low literate adults. In this study, 101 adults with reading abilities ranging from elementary to college level were tested with a battery of computerized, cognitive assessments consisting of decoding, word recognition, and sentence-level processing tasks, and with tests of overall word recognition ability (WRAT) and reading comprehension (WIAT). Each of the component skill tasks included an accuracy and a response rate measure.;The findings support previous results with children, demonstrating the strong contribution of phonological processes to word recognition (both decoding and sight word recognition skills) and reading comprehension ability. The results also support and extend previous results that show a strong correlation between accuracy and speed of response, that is, as ability levels increase, mean response rates also become more rapid. In addition, the results reveal a significant independent contribution of response rate after controlling for accuracy in decoding and sight word recognition tasks. That is, the mean speed of response to decoding and sight word recognition items accounts for a significant amount of variance after controlling for accuracy in regression models predicting word recognition ability.;In secondary analyses, patterns of accuracy and speed of response among subgroups were explored. Four subgroups were formed based on levels of word recognition ability. Although the results were complex, a pattern did emerge. The lowest ability group showed both low accuracy on component measures and disproportionately slower response speeds relative to higher level groups. The pattern of differences between the intermediate and higher level groups also revealed a small, consistent difference in speed of response but fewer significant differences in accuracy. In concluding, a research agenda on how one might study the skill acquisition processes of adult learners in the future, with the results reported here as baseline data, was put forward.