How a reader with limited skills reads
A reader with limited reading skills is likely to hold fewer items in short-term memory than a skilled reader and often reads slowly, word by word. Such a reader has trouble joining new information to what they already know, and most people read health instructions only once and act on what they remember.
How many items a reader holds at once
Memory may be considered to have three main processing systems: sensory information processing, short-term memory and long-term memory. Reading uses mainly long-term and short-term memory, and short-term memory is the most active in the immediate reading process. Short-term memory lasts only a few seconds to several minutes and is limited at any instant to about seven independent items, such as a word, a name, an item on a list or a sentence, a limit that has been called "the magical number seven". So long lists and complex sentences will not be remembered or understood by many readers.
Highly skilled readers may be able to hold as many as seven independent items in short-term memory, but less skilled readers are likely to hold fewer, perhaps three. Skilled readers grasp whole groups of words and can retain a group or a sentence as a single item, and each of their items can contain many more words than a less skilled reader can retain. As a result, skilled readers can understand the meaning of a sentence or paragraph quickly. Readers with low skills who read word by word tend to store each word as an item in memory and may forget some of the words that came before, especially in long sentences. These readers may still manage longer sentences if the information is in common words they can easily read and chunk as groups rather than as single words, as in an easy-to-read story or a quotation in a testimonial.
It might seem that the limits of short-term memory do not matter for written materials, because the reader could go back to the text as often as needed. However, evidence shows that most people read health-related instructions only once and act on what they remember, though more research is needed on this.
Joining new information to what the reader knows
Reading is a process in which information from the text and the knowledge the reader already has act together to produce meaning. Skilled readers quickly integrate the information in the text into meaning and associate it with what they already know. They are constantly aware of where they are in a document and can often anticipate what may follow. They can also use the new information to solve problems.
Readers with limited skills face major obstacles: it is hard for them to integrate new information into their existing knowledge, to know that they need help and to know how to get that help. Drawing inferences and using them to solve problems are reading-related skills that go beyond decoding words and understanding the text. According to one research team, errors that persist after patient education seem to stem from patients' poor integration of the information.
How high- and low-skill readers differ
For good readers, it is hard to imagine reading slowly, word by word. Trying to read a sentence for its meaning when each of its words is spelled backwards demonstrates the experience: cilohoclA noitsegni desopmirepus nopu etauqedani yrateid ekatni nac etatipicerp etuca aimecylgopyh.
Besides reading speed and fluency, readers with high and low reading skills differ in many other ways.
| High skill | Low skill |
|---|---|
| Reads rapidly | Reads slowly, word by word, and may miss the meaning |
| Grasps the context | Misses the context |
| Copes with difficult vocabulary | Skips over difficult vocabulary |
| Highly integrates information, interprets meaning | Takes words literally, may not integrate information |
| Persists, is motivated | Tires quickly, quits |