Serial recall of poor readers in two presentation modalities: combined effects of phonological similarity and word length.

Immediate ordered memory for words in poor readers was compared with that of two control groups of normal readers, matched on chronological age and reading age, respectively. The groups were equated for basal memory capacity. Phonological similarity and word length were simultaneously manipulated. Items were presented either auditorily (spoken words) or visually (their corresponding drawings). The results suggest that when having to recall a restricted set of items and when verbal output is eliminated, phonological coding and rehearsal occur to the same extent in poor and normal readers, with auditory as well as visual presentation. However, irrespective of presentation modality, absolute performance of the poor readers was still worse than that of their chronological age controls.