Flashcards revisited: Training poor readers to read words faster improves their comprehension of text.

Abstract

Forty-two below-average readers, between 7 and 10 years of age, were given single-word training, phrase training, or no training. Trained children learned to decode target words quickly and accurately, using flashcards; untrained children only discussed the target words and read them once. Trained and untrained children read aloud passages containing target words and were tested on their comprehension. Trained children had better comprehension than did the untrained children when questioned about passages and asked to retell them. Results suggest that an emphasis on rapid word recognition benefits poor readers.