title: Offline improvement in learning to read a novel orthography depends on direct letter instruction.
abstract: Improvement in performance after the end of the training session, termed "Offline improvement," has been shown in procedural learning tasks. We examined whether Offline improvement in learning a novel orthography depends on the type of reading instruction. Forty-eight adults received multisession training in reading nonsense words, written in an artificial script. Participants were trained in one of three conditions: alphabetical words preceded by direct letter instruction (Letter-Alph); alphabetical words with whole-word instruction (Word-Alph); and nonalphabetical (arbitrary) words with whole-word instruction (Word-Arb). Offline improvement was found only for the Letter-Alph group. Moreover, correlation with a standardized measure of word reading ability showed that good readers trained in the Letter-Alph group exhibit greater Offline improvement, whereas good readers trained in the Word-Arb group showed greater Within-session improvement during training. These results suggest that different consolidation processes and learning mechanisms were involved in each group. We argue that providing a short block of direct letter instruction prior to training resulted in increased involvement of procedural learning mechanisms during training.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Haifa, Mt. Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel. tbitan@research.haifa.ac.il
authors.forename: Tali
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bitan
authors.forename: James R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Booth
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D014163:Transfer, Psychology