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.
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Biemiller, A. J. Relationships between reading time for letters, words, simple text, and word identification skill: A 1-year longitudinal study. University of Toronto, unpublished manuscript, 1981.
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The authors would like to thank Karla M. Drayton for assistance in data collection. The authors wish to express appreciation to Cecilia Wiar, principal, and the teachers and students of Clarkston Elementary School, Clarkston, Michigan.
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Stanovich, K.E., Feeman, D.J. & Cunningham, A.E. The development of the relation between letter-naming speed and reading ability. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 21, 199–202 (1983). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334686
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03334686