The development of the relation between letter-naming speed and reading ability

Abstract

A discrete-trial reaction time methodology was employed in order to measure the speed with which two groups of first-grade children (one tested twice during the school year) named letters. The relation of letter-naming speed to reading ability, although statistically significant, was much smaller than that observed in previous research in which a continuous-list procedure was employed. It was suggested that this procedure inflates the correlation because it involves many other psychological processes in addition to name retrieval speed. A third-grade group also displayed a weak correlation, but the relationship was reasonably strong in a fifth-grade group. The presence of a strong relationship in groups as advanced in reading as fifth-graders is probably more indicative of differential experience with text than it is of a causal role for name retrieval speed in determining reading ability. © 1983, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.