WORD-ASSOCIATION STRENGTH AND LEARNING TO READ

Investigated the effect of associative strength between adjective-noun word pairs on learning to read the 2nd word of the pair. 36 1st graders took all 4 treatments in a 4 * 4 repeated-measures Greco-Latin square design. The word pairs in the control treatment had no associative connections, whereas in the other 3 treatments increasing amounts of associative strength between adjective and noun were conditioned. Following word-association training, reading training was given on the same word pairs learned during word-association training, followed by a word-recognition test on the 2nd word of each pair. Word pairs having low-strength associations and also word pairs having high-strength associations facilitated reading when compared to word pairs with zero-strength associations (p < .001). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1969 American Psychological Association.