Abstract: Studies about the role of space in reading were reviewed in this paper. Firstly, the eliminating or replacing of interword space in space-language would cause significant disruption effect. Secondly, adding interword spacing into the language which had no space would faciliate reading. Furthermore, the role of space in Chinese reading was affected by following factors, such as reading experience, reading pattern (oral reading, silent reading), space size and so on. Thirdly, the role of space during the second language reading would be differently affected by the written forms of the first language and the second language. Finally, the future studies about space should consider more details in the guide of eye movement control theories. Moreover, the factors such as landing position and the familiarity of space should be focused, too.

Key words: space, text reading, lexical recognition, eye movement