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Symbol Imagery: A Sensory-Cognitive Factor Underlying Phonological & Orthographic Processing and Fluency

Nanci Bell and Paul Worthington

Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes nbell@lblp.com

Abstract

Current research has been conducted on over two thousand individuals of all ages and individual differences in their literacy skills show that symbol imagery is more highly connected to word attack, word recognition, spelling, and contextual reading (combining rate and accuracy) than phonemic awareness. Correlations for phonological awareness (as measured on the LAC Test) are in the negligible to moderate range for standardized measures of decoding, and correlations for symbol imagery (as measured on the SI Test) all fall in the strong range. The data confirm that the role of imaging the identity, the number and significance of letters in single and multi-syllable words is a primary sensory-cognitive function requiring attention and development. The sensory-cognitive function of symbol imagery requires the attention of researchers and educators as a basic function for phonological and orthographic processing-all leading to reading fluency.

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