Specific relations between alphanumeric-naming speed and reading speeds of monosyllabic and multisyllabic words

The goals of this study are to investigate, at three elementary school grade levels, how word reading speed is related to rapidly naming series of numbers, letters, colors, and pictures, and to general processing speed (measured by nonnaming or visual matching tasks), and also to determine how these relationships vary with the reading task employed. The results indicate that, compared to color- and picture-naming speeds and nonnaming or visual matching speed, letter- and number-naming speeds are superior predictors of word reading speed. Furthermore, throughout the grade levels, associations between alphanumeric naming and monosyllabic word reading speeds are considerably stronger than for a widely used Dutch single-word reading test combining monosyllabic and multisyllabic words. It is suggested that, unlike multisyllabic words but similar to letters and numbers, monosyllabic words act as relatively holistic stimuli, which are recognized as sight words.

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