Eye Movements During Reading and Reading Assessment in Swedish School Children - A New Window on Reading Difficulties

Research during the last decades has demonstrated that eye tracking methodology is an advantageous tool to study reading. A substantial amount of eye movement research has resulted in improved understanding of the reading process in skilled adult readers. Considerably fewer eye tracking studies have examined reading and its development in children. In this doctoral project, eye movements during reading and reading skill are investigated in a population based sample of Swedish elementary school children. The aims are to provide evidence from a large scale study and to explore the concurrent development of reading eye movements and reading skill. In the first study, we describe the eye movement variables across the grades and their connection to assessment on phonemic awareness, decoding strategies and processing speed. During the remainder of the current project, we will focus on longitudinal aspects, as the participants were recorded twice with a one-year-interval. Further, we will examine possible predictors of later reading skill among the eye movement variables and reading assessment outcomes.