Procedural Learning of an Artificial Script Greater with Explicit Letter Instruction

Introduction Previous studies have shown that procedural learning is characterized by delayed learning gains after training, termed procedural consolidation (Robertson, Pascual-Leone & Maill, 2004; Stickgold, Hobson, Fosse & Fosse, 2001). This improvement in performance when training is followed by a rest period has been found in both motor and perceptual learning tasks. The current study examined whether procedural consolidation occurs in complex cognitive tasks such as reading acquisition, and whether the reliance on procedural learning depends on the method of reading instruction. The efficiency of letter-instruction versus whole-word instruction has been an ongoing debate in the reading acquisition literature.