Relationship of reading achievement to verbal processing abilities.

Examined the relationship between reading achievement and ability to process verbal information in 67 achieving and 67 nonachieving readers drawn from 4th-grade classes. Verbal processing abilities were evaluated with 10 instruments, which included measures of memory span, associative learning, semantic association, automatic word processing, and time taken to name pictures, read words, and recode (pronounce) pseudowords. Achieving readers performed better on all measures except automatic word processing. Factor analysis yielded 3 factors, labeled Verbal Coding Speed, Memory Span, and Verbal Operations. Reading comprehension had high loadings on the 1st and 3rd factors but had a low loading on Memory Span. Results suggest that 1 primary component of the reading achievement of 4th-grade children is the ability to perform operations or manipulations on verbal material. (43 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)