Research Views: The Oldest ResearchAuthor(s): John T. GuthrieSource: The Reading Teacher, Vol. 36, No. 9 (May, 1983), pp. 956-957Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20198370 .

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Research

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The oldest research John T. Guthrie Far from the view of most, tunneling through stacks of manuscripts like marathon runners through the backwoods, reading researchers are quietly competing to find the earliest research on reading.

One exercise in recording the history of reading research was done by Dick Venezky of the University of Delaware. In a 1977 American

Psychologist article, he identified James Cattell as the leading figure from the first phase of reading research. CattelPs classic study (1886) was entitled "The Time It Takes to See and Name Objects." He showed that a

single letter was more rapidly identified in the presence of other letters than in isolation, suggesting that context facilitates word perception.

Jerry Johns of Northern Illinois University proclaimed in 1982 that first place should rightfully be given to George Johns Romanes. Johns

pointed out that the oldest investigation contained in the William S. Gray Research Collection in Reading was published by Romanes in 1884 in his book Mental Evolution in Animals. Under the guise of perception, Romanes reported an experiment to compare rate and comprehension in

reading. He gave each of several individuals 20 seconds to read a

paragraph of 10 lines containing statements of simple facts. Immediately following reading, each person wrote down everything he or she could remember from the passage. From several such experiments, Romanes concluded that the differences in speed of reading varied about 400%, and that comprehension improved with speed.

When all the efforts are directed to assimilating as much as possible in a given

time, the rapid readers usually give a better account of the portions of the

paragraph which have been compassed by the slow readers than the latter are

able to give; and the most rapid reader whom I have found is also the best at

assimilating.

956 The Reading Teacher May 1983

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Not to be outdated, Harry Singer took the occasion of his Presidential Address to the National Reading Conference to announce that Javal's

1879 eye movement study [as reported in the Journal of Reading (January 1983)] was the earliest. Singer declared that Javal "initiated the scientific study of reading" when he

Showed that in reading, the eyes move across the printed page in jumps, which he called saccades. These are very rapid, ballistic-like movements that last

about 20 milliseconds and bring the print into visual area of greatest discriminating power, the fovea centralis.

Into this company I am privileged to introduce Socrates, who

expressed his view to Glaucon in about 380 BC. Discoursing on the need to be possessed of harmony, Socrates said,

In learning to read,.. .we were satisfied when we knew the letters of the

alphabet, which are very few, in all their recurring sizes and combinations; not

slighting them as unimportant whether they occupy a space large or small, but

everywhere eager to make them out; and not thinking ourselves perfect in the

art of reading until we recognize them wherever they are found.

Socrates continued by illustrating that reading is a metaphor for all

learning since

[We are not educated] until we.. .know the essential forms in all their

combinations and can recognize them and their images wherever they are

found, not slighting them either in small things or great, but believing them all to be within the sphere of one art and study.

Purists may object to placing Socrates alongside 19th century

experimental psychologists in a race for the oldest reading research.

Certainly it must be conceded that Socrates was not best known as a

behavioral scientist. His reputation as a philosopher, however, should not

obscure the fact that in his study of reading (reported in the previous

passage), he classified stimuli pertinent to the phenomenon (differentiated letters from words and ideas), devised measurements related to the classifications (mastery of letter perception regardless of letter size), conducted observations (admittedly of himself but replicated by assent from members of the group to which he was speaking), and submitted inferences (that he had mastered reading) based on his data.

In conclusion, does Socrate's study, although it may not be optimal in its methodological rigor, contain the ingredients which make it impossible to dismiss as the earliest recorded example of Western scientific thought on reading?

Cooperative tasks improve multiethnic interaction

A study of fourth graders has shown that cooperative learning experiences

(rather than individualistic ones) promote the children's interaction with

class members from different ethnic groups. The cross-ethnic interactions

took place not only during instruction but also in free-time activities. For

details, see David W. Johnson and Roger T. Johnson, "Effects of

Cooperative and Individualistic Learning Experiences on Interethnic

Interaction," Journal of Education Psychology, vol. 73 (August 1981), pp. 444-49.

Research Views 957

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