Phonological and lexical processing in normal primary school readers

Phonological and lexical decoding abilities are essential for word recognition, though its importance changes with reading development. However, a specific point in development that represents transition from phonological abilities to direct word recognition remains elusive. The aim of this study was to analyse to what extent phonological and lexical factors participate in visual word processing in subjects with different levels of reading skills. A phonological decision task with lexical interference and a lexical decision task with phonological interference were designed. The study was carried out with 164 children (7-13 years), in 2nd, 4th, and 6th grade of primary education in Mexico City. There was evidence of lexical and phonological interference in the 2nd graders group, in the 4th graders there was less phonological interference, and there was no interference in the 6th graders in both tasks. This could be interpreted as lack of automation in their recognition skills and this automation seems to start in 4th grade.