Does Environmental Print Identification Lead Children into Word Reading?

The question under study was whether context-free word reading skill evolves out of extensive experience with environmental print. Selected for the study were preschoolers aged three to five years who could identify at least 8 out of 10 samples of environmental print, such as a McDonald's sign in a photograph of the restaurant, and hence were environmental print “experts.” Their ability to read various types of print samples was examined. They were shown signs and labels printed either with full context cues or only with logos or without any context cues or logos. These stimuli were printed with and without color cues. Also, letters in the print were altered to assess subjects' awareness of specific graphic cues in the labels and signs (e.g., OcDonald's for McDonald's). Results revealed that subjects' ability to read print declined somewhat when full contexts were removed and only logos remained. Performance dropped dramatically when logos were removed and only stylized print remained. Color cues made no contribution to identification. Letter alterations were not detected, even when subjects were prompted to look for errors. Assessment of word reading ability revealed not a continuous distribution of scores but rather a bimodal distribution indicating two distinct groups of subjects: 96 who could read few if any words, and 6 who could read most of the words. The pattern of failure on the print samples characterized only the prereaders. The readers identified print correctly regardless of context, and they detected letter errors easily. Since most subjects exhibited little awareness of graphic cues and little word reading skill, it is concluded that environmental print experience does not by itself lead subjects into word reading.