Visual Discrimination: Lower Case Letter Confusion.

The purpose of this Title VI study was to determine which pairs of lowercase alphabet letters were most frequently confused by prereading children and therefore most likely to cause difficulty in initial reading. Two sample groups were used: 50 lower-middle-class kindergarten children with a median age of 6 years and 25 upper-middle-class nursery school children with a median age of 4 years 4 months. The subjects were required to match a stimulus letter with one of two choice stimuli. A one-way analysis of variance was used for error scores. The most frequent confusions were reversal and rotation transformations. While the types of letter errors have remained approximately the same for over 40 years, the frequency of errors appears to have drastically reduced. Previous research is discussed. Tables, diagrams, and references are included. (Author/RT)