| Abstract | Conducted 2 experiments using spoken nonsense materials to determine whether effective use of phonetic representation would distinguish between good and poor readers among 100 Japanese 2nd graders. Ss' memory for Kana and Kanji was compared with that for 2 types of nonlinguistic visual material, abstract designs, and faces. Results reveal that, like successful readers of the alphabet, good beginning readers of Japanese excelled in memory for linguistic material. Significant associations were documented between Ss' reading ability, memory for Hiragana, Kanji, and spoken nonsense words but not between these measures and memory for photographs of faces. However, unlike good readers of the alphabet, good readers of Japanese may further excel in 1 form of nonlinguistic memory. Japanese Ss' reading ability and their memory for Kanji both associate with their memory for visual nonsense designs. The implication is that linguistic memory skills may contribute to successful acquisition of all orthographies, whereas the importance of nonlinguistic memory skills can vary. |
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