Developmental and reading ability differences in accessing information from semantic memory.

A categorical judgment task was utilized to investigate the relationships between word recognition skills and reading achievement at several grade levels. In the first experiment skilled and unskilled readers from Grades 2, 4, and 6 made cognitive decisions about pairs of words using either graphemic, lexical, or semantic information. In Experiment 2 skilled, average, and unskilled readers from Grades 1, 3, and 5 made semantic decisions about word or picture pairs. The speed and accuracy of word encoding, lexical access, and semantic memory access processes varied as a function of reading ability. These results suggest that inefficient word recognition skills can contribute to reading deficiencies as can deficiencies in semantic memory organization.