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To further assess the importance of phonology for silent reading, we can look at groups of individuals who have suboptimal access to phonological information, such as people born deaf. The logic here is that if phonology is important for reading, then deaf people should be at a disadvantage when reading. Many people born deaf struggle to learn to read and do not reach a high level (Antia et al., 2020; Adlof et al., this volume). For those who do, and notwithstanding the hearing loss, phonology appears to be implicated. For instance, Blythe et al. (2018) monitored eye movements as participants read sentences silently. Some of the sentences contained misspellings. Deaf readers, just like those in the control group, were sensitive to whether the erroneous spellings were homophonic errors. Reading was less disrupted for a sentence such as “When mum cooks pasta I like grated cheeze on top of it” than for “When mum cooks pasta I like grated cheene on top of it.” This finding suggests that phonology is activated and that the orthographic code alone may not be enough for fluent reading, even for people with hearing impairments (but see Costello et al., 2021, for a different view). Further evidence in line with this view is that phonological knowledge and exposure to speechreading predict reading in primary school children with hearing impairments (e.g., Antia et al., 2020). A remaining question is whether the phonology‐based effects in deaf people come from spoken language (e.g., via speechreading) or can be based on sign language (e.g., Keck & Wolgemuth, 2020).

Another group for whom the phonological code might be less salient are those learning to read in a second language. Learning to read in native language draws on years of experience with spoken language, but this familiarity with the phonological structure of the language is lessened in additional languages. If phonological effects on silent reading can be bypassed, one might expect this to be seen when reading a nonnative language. Still, this is not what has been observed. There is evidence for phonological effects in second language reading, much as in first language reading (Chitiri & Willows, 1997; Friesen & Jared, 2012; Jouravlev & Jared, 2018).

A final line of evidence comes from people with dyslexia. Problems with phonological processing and phonological awareness appear to be the core deficit in dyslexia (Snowling & Hulme, 2020; Wagner, this volume). To the extent that dyslexia is associated with phonological problems, this provides further evidence that phonology is implicated in silent reading.

Taken together, the preceding findings provide strong evidence that phonology is involved in fluent silent reading. Although a few individuals may be able to reach high levels of reading skill without access to phonology (as defended by Costello et al., 2021), for most people, phonology appears central to both learning to read, and skilled reading.