Understanding Reading and Reading Difficulties Through Naming Speed Tasks

Abstract

Although reading is an important and generative skill, it remains controversial how reading skills and reading difficulties develop. Currently, the fields of neuroscience, cognition, and education each have complex models to describe reading and elucidate where in the reading process deficits occur. We suggest that integrating the neural, cognitive, and educational accounts of reading offers the promise of transformative change in understanding reading development and reading difficulties. As a starting point for bridging the gaps among these fields, we used naming speed tasks as the basis for this review because they provide a “microcosm” of the processes involved during reading. We use naming speed tasks to investigate how incorporating cognitive psychology with neuroimaging techniques, under the guidance of educational theories, can further the understanding of learning and instruction, and may lead to the identification of the neural signatures of reading difficulties that might be hidden from view earlier in development.