As it is a cognitive process, it was perhaps inevitable that psychologists would investigate reading. Perhaps starting with the work of Huey and his landmark book, “The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading” in 1908, a lot of research was been carried out during and since the late 19th century. Huey’s book refers to research on eye movements, inner speech, perceptual span, reading comprehension and reading speed among other topics, all of which are still studied today.

By the 70s, the research into the recognition of the printed word changed, and evolved into something that may be compared to the work of the 19th century ‘diagram makers’ such as Lichtheim (1885).

Publications by Morton in 1969 inspired thinking about the processes involved during reading. By 1973, Marshall and Newcombe offered a model of reading in flow chart format that was used to interpret reading deficits in terms of deficits within specific components of the model.

By 1978 Coltheart proposed that in order to account for the reading deficits of skilled and poor readers, that we must utilise at least two distinct routes to recognise the printed word. As technology improved, computer simulations evolved and the dual route theory was quickly challenged by the single route model that proposed that only one procedure was necessary (see for example Seidenberg & McClelland, 1989). However, still others later came up with hybrid models that incorporated features from both approaches. If only things were that simple! There are other models of reading, but these are mostly based on the above.

Much controversy exists in psychological literature about how printed words are processed, but most theories can be accommodated within a single versus dual route dichotomy. Basically, single route theorists suggest that a single process is required to convert all letter strings from print to sound whereas dual route theorists argue that two processes are required. In addition to the number of processes required, the primary differences between models are whether 1) a sequential process exists, 2) whether there is a store of whole word representations, and 3) whether a system of stored grapheme to phoneme rules exists to decode printed words.

Those with reading deficits may exhibit problems that can be more easily explained within one model or the other, but neither model to date can adequately explain everything. However, this author’s personal opinion on studying the literature leans towards the dual route models that most easily explain the individual reading patterns of most readers.

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