Reading as functional coordination: not recycling but a novel synthesis

Abstract

The Functional Coordination approach describes the processes involved in learning to read as a form of procedural learning in which pre-existing skills, mainly from the visual, and auditory domain, are (1) recruited, (2) modified, and (3) coordinated to create the procedures for reading text, which form the basis of subsequent (4) automatization. In this context, we discuss evidence relating to the emerging prevalence of analytic processing in letter perception. We argue that the process of learning to read does not have to lead to a loss of perceptual skill as consequence of a "cultural recycling"; learning to read just leads to a novel synthesis of functions, which are coordinated for reading and then automatized as a package over several years. Developmental dyslexia is explained within this framework as a Functional Coordination Deficit (Lachmann, 2002), since the coordination level is assumed to be most liable to manifest deficiencies. This is because, at this level, the greatest degree of fine tuning of complex functions is required. Thus, developmental dyslexia is not seen as a consequence of a deficient automatization per se, but of automatization of abnormally developed functional coordination.

Keywords: analytic vs. holistic processing; child development; congruence effect; developmental dyslexia; literacy; reading acquisition; visual processing.

FIGURE 1

Children in a very early stage of learning to read do not care about letter orientation, letter order or the fact that single letters represent certain phonemes. Instead, reading and writing is based on graphic features. Word: “MAMA, Artist: Anton Lachmann (4; 6).

FIGURE 2

Examples of symmetrical and asymmetrical dot-pattern (first used by Garner and Clement, 1963) and letter stimuli used in Lachmann and van Leeuwen (2007).

FIGURE 3

Letters (top) and pseudo-letters (bottom) in congruent (left) and incongruent (right) surroundings, as used in our flanker studies. See also Fernandes et al. (2014) for similar stimuli.

FIGURE 4

Illustration of the hierarchical stimuli presented in a study by Lachmann et al. (2014) using the Navon paradigm (Kinchla, 1974; Navon, 1977). Left side: examples for letters, right side: examples for non-letters. First stimulus example: the local and the global level consists of the same letter F (congruent letter stimulus). Second stimulus example: the global-level letter (F) differs from the local level one (C). Third stimulus example: congruent non-letter stimulus; fourth stimulus example: incongruent non-letter stimulus.

FIGURE 5

Functional Coordination Framework for describing the processes involved in learning to read. Learning to read is described as a form of procedural learning in which, as a consequence of instruction, pre-existing functions and skills, principally from the visual and auditory domain, are recruited, modified and coordinated, leading to cross-modal codes of letters and procedures. After training these get automatized, after which experienced readers are biased against processing strategies for letter perception that do not form part of the procedure. The coordination stage is the most critical one, it stabilizes the modifications. A failure of coordination will result in automatization of an abnormal procedure, leading to reading and writing problems (Lachmann, 2002, 2008). The whole process, including the structural and functional changes related to it, takes several years (Lachmann and van Leeuwen, 2008b; Froyen et al., 2009).