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The present study investigated second language (L2) learners' acquisition of automatic word recognition and the development of L2 orthographic representation in the mental lexicon. Participants in the study were Japanese university students enrolled in a compulsory course involving a weekly 30-minute sustained silent reading (SSR) activity with graded readers for 12 weeks. They completed the masked form-priming lexical decision task (LDT) before and after the in-class SSR activity. Results showed that participants exhibited signs of increasing automaticity of L2 word recognition (analyzed with the coefficient of variation), but could not develop their L2 orthographic representation (analyzed with the pattern of priming effects in the masked form-priming LDT). These findings suggest that automatization does not necessarily entail the development of orthographic representation, that is, the acquisition of automatic word recognition and the development of orthographic representation do not occur simultaneously. Instead, their development is asymmetrical.

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert